Julian Saez, Deirdre Morris
Plans for Waldorf school in Malta
Contact with nature is core to Waldorf pedagogy.
Following the publication of the article ‘An alternative school model’ (The Sunday Times, January 29), a large number of parents and education professionals contacted us expressing interest in participating in, or supporting our initiative to create an alternative kindergarten and school in Malta.
We would like to share some of the comments we received from people living in Malta who are looking for an alternative to the mainstream educational model for their children. The names have been omitted to preserve privacy.
One parent wrote to us saying: “We have been having a difficult time with our six-year-old, who clearly feels a little lost and demotivated within the school’s system.
“We are also worried that our two-year-old, who is currently benefiting from a generally healthier approach at… playschool… is going to get a bit of a shock when entering the much less flexible routine of a large institution.”
A number of families who contacted us are considering leaving Malta because at the moment they can’t find an educational option that matches their vision for their children.
For example, one parent wrote saying: “Such an initiative is worth a try. Shame it wasn’t happening when my son was very young.
“I am not sure the UK has excellent schooling, but certainly there are far more opportunities there for him in senior school than here, so I will probably have to head back there for eight years while he does secondary school. Then, I doubt I’ll ever come back to Malta.”
Another parent wrote: “My son will be five years old this year, so I will need to enroll him into some school. As I do not want to enroll him into any state school, we have decided to move from Malta… and enroll our son into the Waldorf school (elsewhere).”
These comments clearly indicate that there are people in Malta who would love something different. Thanks to the internet, we have been contacted also by a few families throughout Europe who said they would move to Malta if only there was an alternative option to schooling in Malta for their children.
Our three-year-old daughters have already experienced one term in a Waldorf kindergarten and it has been a magical experience for us all.
It is our clear intention that our three-year-olds will have the confidence to follow their dreams and passions and to always take forward steps, however small they may seem.
Martin Luther King Jr once said: “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step”.
We are following his advice and taking the first step in faith. We are trusting that the path will emerge as we step forward, that we will meet the people with whom this idea resonates and attract the support that will allow it to flourish.
As Malcolm Forbes says, “Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful.”
While we are not at all attached to a purely Waldorf approach, there are many components of Waldorf that we would love to use as the foundation for the alternative schooling option we are proposing to create in Malta.
We hope to hear from other people who are interested in helping this initiative to be a success story for our children, the education system and, of course,for Malta.
Needless to say, we have received many questions from those who have contacted us so far. The following are our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:
Q. When will the school start?
A. Our aim is to start the kindergarten in April this year and the primary school in September. We know that some time is needed to get all required permits and prepare proper installations to comply with the law.
To begin with, for the kindergarten, we are open to start with a small, informal group like a pilot project or a kind of home schooling experience and let it evolve from there.
Q. What are the fees the parents will have to pay?
A. Since we are still in the very early stages, connecting with parents, teachers, looking for proper place, and so forth, fees have not been determined. Our aim is that the fees would be affordable. We intend to explore initiatives such as investors, foundations, funding from philanthropic organisations, and so forth.
Q. Where will the school be located?
A. We haven’t decided on the location yet, but we are considering places easily accessible from all the island, so any parent can bring children to the school. A place close to the countryside is a must for us. Contact with nature is core to Waldorf pedagogy but, more importantly, this is what we would love for our children.
For more information or to be involved in the new school, e-mail Julián Sáez at waldorfmalta@gmail.com.
In Waldorf pedagogy, child’s play is work
Soft cloth dolls with a minimum of facial features allow for open-ended imaginative play.• In Waldorf pedagogy, play is core to the learning experience and the healthy, positive development of the child.
As Joseph Chilton Pearce wrote in his book Magical Child, “The great rule is: play on the surface and the work takes place beneath”.
So, for example, letters, reading and writing don’t feature at all in kindergarten. Nor do copybooks, pencils or books make an appearance until after age of six.
Storytelling and fantasy are core to the practice of ‘teaching’ and facilitating a child’s development. Toys are used to help children recreate experiences as they really happen in life. They are not concluded so as to facilitate the imagination.
The toys are made from natural materials and include rounds of wood cut from birch logs, seashells, lengths of colored silks for dressing-up or building, and soft cloth dolls with a minimum of facial features so as to allow for open-ended imaginative play.
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Duncan Micallef
Feb 24th, 13:31
Although from first hand experience I can Say that our schooling system is flawed from top to bottom, I have two main concerns.
Firstly if this new private school is opened will we not be increasing the divide between public and private schools with parents doing anything to send their children to this "better school" as is already rampant in our society further decreasing the value of children attending public kindergarten and primary schools.
Secondly What will happen after these children leave this proposed system and enter into real life, with people (other students) better equipped to handle the "new reality and hardships of the wider educational system.
All this is from experience of growing up in both a public kindergarten and primary school, were most were already deemed of a lower standard than children of private schools.
The problems of our educational system should be in question rather than the opening of new private schools.
Julian Saez
Mar 11th, 00:43
Hi Duncan!
My name is Julián Sáez and I'm one of the promoters of the project to open a Waldorf School in Malta.
First of all I wanted to thank you for the interest in this article, and for taking the time to comment about it.
With regards to your first concern:
- It is not our intention to increase division between public and private schools, we respect all options.
- The reason why we will open this new school is the following:
We live half of the year in Spain and half of the year in Malta
Our two twin daughters (3-year old) are enjoying this type of education in Spain
This type of education doesn't exist in Malta now.
We want our girls to benefit of this type of education when we are in Malta too.
So we looked for parents interested in having this type of education for their kids and the response has been overwhelming (more than 50 families in just two months since we started asking)
- We believe in freedom of the parents to choose the type of education that they want to have for their children (we don't believe in "the same type of education for everybody whatever your preferences are").
- Waldorf School exists everywhere (more than 2000 kinder garden and more than 1000 Waldorf Schools worldwide, just talking about Europe they are present in 26 countries) so we think that Malta has the right of having this option too.
- This is a type of education that is not offered today by any existing school in Malta (public or private).
With regards to your second question I can also clarify with a few statistical data (they are taken from a survey in America but are similar everywhere):
• After graduating from Waldorf, attends college (94%)
• Majors in arts/humanities (47%)
or sciences/math (42%) as an undergrad
• Graduates or is about to graduate from college (88%)
• Practices and values “life-long learning” (91%)
• Is self-reliant and highly values self confidence (94%)
• Highly values verbal expression (93%) and critical thinking (92%)
• Expresses a high level of consciousness in making relationships work—both at home and at work
- So Waldorf students are more than prepared to handle the "new reality and hardships of the wider educational system.
- Waldorf education is rooted in real life. It is a different approach to mainstream education, but this doesn't mean at all that it is not completely in "real life".
The fact that we open a new school is not in contradiction with the interest of many people living in Malta to enhance the existing educational system. Indeed we strongly believe that bringing these ideas to Malta will help to the debate and will be a good example of where the cutting-edge research in education is focusing today. Our aim is to help the evolution of educational systems (in Malta and in the rest of the world).
So, we want this model of education for our girls and we prefer not to wait twenty years until these methods (already succeeding in countries like Finland, rated for many years nº1 in Pisa report) are incorporated to public educational system with a big innercy to change, because for that time it will be too late and our girls will be in University.
Not everybody agrees with the model of education promoted in Waldorf School, so because there are many options, public model is very suitable for some people, church school models for others, other private school models for others...etc.
We think that the key is to have enough options to choose what is right for you.
And of course to help to enhance the level of education in all models.
Anybody interested in understanding more about Waldorf pedagogy can visit this website:
http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/
Whatch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uyQej7jjeY
Or visit our facebok page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Waldorf-Malta/106148612842138
If you are interested in knowing more about our initiative, you can also send me an email to waldorfmalta@gmail.com and I can send you more information about our project
Pule' Carmel
Feb 12th, 15:57
This is very interesting . All the children at Cottonera (circa 1940 t0 1950) that I know of had such a "School"
Because of the lack of materials,
books, letters, reading and writing did not exist, Nor did copybooks, pencils or pens. We played outside with our own toys, we even made our own balls and xixu and carts with ball bearing.
Storytelling and fantasy were core of a child’s development, and we made our own films with candles to project images on a screen/wall. Toys were used to help children recreate experiences as they really happen in life as most of the time we lived on the street at Quarter front street Vittoriosa. To facilitate our imagination we went to fortini and il foss il kbir and climbed trees and fished at Kalkara with home made hooks mad efrom " labar tar-Ras that we stole from our mothers!!
The toys were made from natural materials and include rounds of wood cut from flotson at Kalrara, seashells, lengths bamboo and searched Bajtar tax-xewk with heavy colouring to dye our clothes!!!, The mothers made soft cloth dolls with a minimum of facial features as during the war there was nothing except what we could scavenge from the military arouund us. We made use of ball bearings to make toys and carts and we had a nice little toy consisting of wrapping a single ball bearing in a cylindrical silver wrappings of a packet od cigarettes and then putting it in a matchbox which we shook so that the ball bearing moved in the silver cylinder rather losely and the cylindrical silver case moved rather funny.
The funy thing about all this , that such " Self made Private schools by the children themselves" at Cottonera were regarded as making us into a lot of bratts which the central education system did not approve of as we hated to sit in a class reading a nd writing what Dun Karm and the Priest told us. We liked adventure and so that is what we sought. NOw I am so glad that other children are begining to tase the fun we had at our Cottonera Private schools, which were so sritised back then. I tell you many teachers still have a lot to learn about teaching children, it is very simple really let them play , let them free to be ingenious and let them live in the natural surroundings note , not the city type, the Cottonera type where land sea nad sky seem to meet in such a beautiful area of Malta, now beginning to be recognised for its beauty and where children, youth and married couples and old people can still live together without being separated like some area including Porto Maso were children cannot really play in natural surroundings and have to be taken and booked in " artificaial schools" We were so lucky in my days, we had all the humble beginnings to make us MEN and WOMEN who followed success in doing what we wanted to do.
Pule' Carmel
Feb 14th, 15:16
*There is no better schooling than what Mark Twain describes in his books about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn experimenting with nature around them, with the proviso that as children grow up they must be informed of all the possibilities that exist in the artificial world, unlike the children of Cottonera circa 1940 to 1960 where all the local Politicians who attended Universities, came to the local squares to preach their politics, but never once they ever told us, that there was a University available and waiting for us, as it was available for them and their families! Those of us who later found out what was available for us, we followed as best as we could, but we lost a lot of opportunities which were available because of lack of information at an early stage from our adults, especially politicians, priests and teachers and parents who gave us a protected artificial environment and too much internal security, and little outside information.
I remember a few of the occasions that we the spirited children at Cottonera got together and made our own “private adventure schools” after the official school time. We hurriedly made our homework and went to seek for adventures. I belonged to the group who took to climbing one tree and when reaching the highest branches, to carefully cross over to meet the branches of nearby trees and come down the other trees, six distances away, and making canvas canoes to catch crabs all along the shore form Ricasoli to Senglea point. Jumping into the sea from bastions was not my style of adventures, but my brothers did, and there were Indian Children who even ventured to jump into the water form three storey buildings placed above the bastion adjoining the “toqba il-qadima and il-gdida!!” There were other groups at Senglea who made more thrilling adventures than what we did as they had more facilities. I know of children (Vitale) who knew how to fill balloons with oxyaceteline mixtures and on a few occasions they even included this in a short steel pipe closed at one end and filled with ball bearings to shoot at a frigate anchored near Fort St Angelo. The officers quickly reported these shots and both the army and military police were at Senglea in seconds but the “Private School Mission team” knew the Senglea War Shelters in the Bastions, much better than any police and army officials.
Our skate boards and scooters were better and faster than the modern plastic ones, what is more, we built them ourselves as we made the small boats to explore all the creeks around the peninsulas of Ricasoli and Senglea. We made Rockets out of “ trikki trakki” that were not exploded during the local festas and drawing of “ films on “Karti Strazzi” to be projected from holed a cardboard shoe box by candle light on to the walls, was good training in creativity leading to Producers and film Directors and Mechanical wizards who could make “firdiferru” arrangements to roll the film. Kolla tat- tqieq for making kites and joining lengths of comics, make our “Talkies”. Science came in it too, as forming the scientific ends of ix–xixu in the right shape made the xixu travel at a greater distances. We had so many variations of il- Passju when we played with the girls and we had mixed boy/girl classes much before the official schools decided to come out with this new idea for Maltese education. Iz-zibeg w il- bocci w il – gellewz ta sam Martin were a common toy to engage boys and girl to play together. We bought from Nonina, “ Red kite Paper” which the girls dipped in water so that the girls made their blushers and rouge on their faces, and also with “helu tal mastka” for girls to make their red pungent lipstick for Drama Parts projected on the doors with three steps, in the local square or in Carnival. The boys burnt tap tal Imbid to make mustaches on their faces.We were certainly developing in all directions.
Religion to us was not a verbal indoctrination but more of a scientific artistic venture as my uncles who were master carpenters hewed our the best mohagonay and teak pulpits with primitive tools while in Naru and l-induratur is–sur Farrugia adorned the locally made statues in shiny gold brading. We had, and we toured the workshops of Cobblers and Boat Builders and Rope Makers and Haddieda and Knife and Scissors Grinders and Tailors and Silg producers and Landiera and Lady Lampuki Sellers with cavetti on their heads calling “Ara Hajjin”, u tal Karawett w ic- Cicri u tal Habba ziez, u tal- bigilla bil –Felfel, u Neriku tal Gelati bil-hmara , nixtru bis-sitta u sold gelat jew il- kbir tat – tlett soldi, and Flower Sellers, and Bizzilla Makers and in Naru making classic furniture and Beer or Wine Barrel makers and Coffin Makers, and Master Masons, and we even milked the goats that provided fresh milk for the Cottonera residents, also ninzlu ir razzett ta Ganni w Karmni, naraw il bodbod jiggieledm fejn Karmni tibghatni nigbor il bajd frisk tat- tigieg, fejn Karmni twissini biex ma nithammieg , “ Ghax ommok toqtoln!”. Tellara and Mechanics played an active role in providing us with the inner working s of cars and trucks and powered boats. This is where I first knew of wet oil clutch rather than dry clutches. The Tarra Maxka was a marvellous Musical Mechanincal Instrument which I adored and was fascinated by the strong relation between Musical instruments, Science and Religion at such an early age, where mathematical combinations were to be found in all that existed around me. Here I must mention how we made the Bedbud from bamboo sticks where measurements and skills provided the tools to make the right notes.
If we wanted to venture in arts we joined in at the Diana Cinema where they held and staged Kummidiji or we would go to Cospicua/Bormla and watch Charles Clews and Johnny Catania and Johnny Navarro and Guza Caruana and l-ahwa Bellizzi, and Nossi Ghirlando . The M.U.S.E.U.M. and the Catholic Action fraternity provided us with artistic and public speaking opportunities with the added advantages of learning Ethical manners and how we were to live together in peace. Sea shells ta’ l-Imhar w Gandoffli placed on the side of a putty/stock column or on the side of jam jars were formed into vases for flowers
There is so much more as we learned about the reproductive system by calling on the animal farms below De La Salle College where I often saw car, rabbits, cows and sheep and horses, mating and giving birth, but this in a nutshell was our “ Private Schools at Cottonera” circa 1940 to 1960. If ever any modern private school enclosed in between four walls can ever claim to equal all this for our modern children’s childhood learning, please do not believe them. Such private schools always existed and still exist and it was the Parents, the Politicians, and the Teachers, and the Priests who were always afraid to join in such natural schools for our children. In those days the children who ventured to build their own private adventure schools as I described, to investigate silk worms and , tadpoles in water streams from Marsa and Chadwick lakes, and also “ Jghaddi xi Karrozzin jew Xarretta u nirkbu wara!” they were regarded as brats, naughty boys and girls who did not want to “ learn at school” as the other children learning the repeated numbers and the alphabeth or some religious ritual, but now these schools recently invented, they call them Leadership Schools . Well in our days we did call a room on top of a house “ A Wash Room” now they call it , “a Penthouse”. If I had to pick up a subject that was not stressed enough in our “ Private Cottonera Schools” was how to project efficiently, what we are not, and to take up those professions where you fool people ( not nature) to earn a living!!!
I must say that is a powerful subject( showing what you are not) to learn these modern days, watching what goes on in many of our highest institutions.
Julian Saez
Mar 11th, 00:56
Hi Pule!
I think that the description of your Cottonera school is beautiful, and quite in line with Waldorf pedagogy. If you want more information about your project, please send me an email to waldorfmalta@gmail.com and I will be very glad to explain you