This is a personal recollection of a Rudolph Steiner School specifically for children with disabilities.
In the eighties both my daughter and son attended a Rudolph Steiner School in Sydney. At that time my son was was enveloped in his own world - non responsive, non verbal, unaware of the outside world, was extremely sound-sensitive and exhibited obsessive self stimulating behaviours with constant flapping, rocking and spinning. The ages of the children attending this school ranged from five to sixteen and all had an intellectual disability, some with quite severe self-harming and violent behaviours. I was somewhat sceptical of the school as it was so very different to anything I had experienced before, so I sat back and observed the interactions. Two words spring to mind when thinking of this school - peace and gentleness. Music was the core to their teaching methods - very gentle, sweet music. I came to class one day and found the teacher surrounded by spellbound children as she played the harp for them. Gross motor activities of eye- hand coordination were undertaken with balloons - watching this take place I realised that the slower descent of a ballon enabled the children the time to coordinate hands to catch - thus setting up an achievement as opposed to failure. This was reflected in the rest of their curriculum where gentle encouragement provide confidence in tasks assigned and the confidence gained enabled children to progress to more difficult areas. There was no stridor or discord at the school - challenging behaviours were handled by soothing and gentle reassurance - very successfully I might add. Six months after starting at the school my son's self stimulating behaviour had significantly diminished, he was showing interest in his surrounds, was beginning to speak and for the very first time in his life he spontaneously hugged me back and told me he loved me. I cried. My daughter also progressed well gaining in confidence and self esteem which enabled her to challenge herself in learning. It was pure circumstance and chance that we came to the Steiner school but I will always be grateful for the time my children had there. It opened them up to learning.
Regards
Felicity
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