Press Release - Waldorf Teacher Passes the Shovel
14-Year Veteran Assumes Third Grade Curriculum Focus on Agriculture

David Florence, a 14-year veteran, has accepted the traditional farming shovel from the outgoing grade 3 teacher at The Waldorf School of Atlanta, located in Decatur. The shovel is symbolic of the Grade 3 curricular focus upon farming, agriculture, animal husbandry, and gardening. Through practical activities such as composting, tending the school garden, and caring for the school chickens, the grade 3 students at WSA experience for themselves how the farmer and gardener learn to work with the forces of nature. The third graders also study the process of building, using their understanding of fabrics, wood, and other building materials, as well as employing their basic understandings of geometry and the laws of structural integrity.

"The Grade 3 curriculum is a very hands-on one for the students," Florence explained. "In addition to studying about what constitutes arable land and its need for both sunlight and moisture, our students have the opportunity to put what they learn into practice, to get their hands dirty, and to accept the responsibility for managing the school's vegetable garden."

Stacey Alston, Director of Admissions at The Waldorf School of Atlanta, explains the academic curriculum, "There's a great deal more to our Third grade curriculum than the farming and building components. The language arts program is supported through small reading groups, instruction in phonics, mastery of weekly spelling lists, the study of English grammar, and regular free reading time. Printing is practiced and cursive writing is introduced as an extension of the children's form drawing classes. The length and complexity of their writing increases, while grammar and punctuation are focused upon. The study of Mathematics continues to emphasize the rhythmical memorization of the multiplication tables as well as mental math facts. Students are introduced to all four of the basic operations in math, manipulating triple digit numbers in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Measurement of time, weight, length and money are also woven into the curriculum and put to practical use when it is time to construct the third grade building project."

David Florence, who will be working with his second third grade class at WSA, comments on the breadth of the curriculum, " When I saw my class use what they had learned in the classroom during our building project, that was great affirmation for me as a Waldorf teacher. Where else but a Waldorf school can you find a curriculum that teaches the children in the classroom about weights, measures, geometrical drawings, and structural integrity, and then gives them the opportunity to put all of that practical understanding to work?"

There are over 1,200 Waldorf Schools around the world, all subscribing to the same curriculum but all equally independent of one another. Committed to play-based learning in the early childhood program, Waldorf schools believe that children at this age learn best through imitation, with the teacher providing wholesome living arts such as snack preparation, sewing, cleaning, toy making, and plant care - with the children following along with consistent daily, weekly and seasonal routines. "Until I came to WSA 8 years ago, I had been a mainstream educator," Florence explained. "But then I came here, became Waldorf trained, and wouldn't consider teaching in anything but a Waldorf school now. Our kids love to come to school everyday, and they do exceptionally well in high school wherever they may go after graduating from our 8 th grade. Many attend Academe of the Oaks High School, also a Waldorf School.

An ordained Presbyterian minister in addition to being a seasoned Waldorf educator, Florence points out that WSA is a non-sectarian, highly diverse learning community. "We have quite a collection of nationalities in our school. Waldorf education is much better known in Europe than it is here in the U.S"

The Waldorf School of Atlanta is a pre-K-8 independent day school entering its 22 nd year of operation. Fully accredited by SACS, SAIS, GAC and AWSNA, WSA still has space available in second, third, fifth, and sixth grades for the 2007-2008 school year. Interested inquirers should contact Stacey Alston, at 404-377-1315 or salston@waldorfatlanta.org.

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