Sample chapter and lesson plans for grade two.  Remember that for the lesson plans, the stories are included in the book so it can be a very good resource for your grade one teaching year and the rest of the information contained in the book can be a source of refueling for any Waldorf parent.

Saints.  

“Just as the content of the fairy tales told in Grade One gave the children “spiritual” nourishment, so too do the saint stories, for here we meet with the manifestation of human spiritual striving.  By aspiring for a higher level of spiritual development, the individual gains mastery over his/her lower (animal) instincts.”
Eric Fairman, A Path of Discovery, Volume Two: Grade Two

 There are a few basics of the Waldorf method that make some people uncomfortable, sadly, the saintly stories in grade two is one of them.  We live in a time when everyone is determined to be politically correct, to a fault.  We have become so politically correct that we have begun to swing entirely in the opposite direction, forgetting where the balance is.  The idea behind telling saintly stories is not to further the agenda of any church organization, it is to impart simple spiritual nourishment to the children, and may I submit to their parents!  When I taught this block to my oldest son, we were practicing Pagans, the idea of the block made me a bit uneasy but I meditated on it and realized that I trusted the rest of the Waldorf method, this too I would trust.  I presented the stories as a heroic tale of the devotion of others to their god and left religion out of it completely.  My son was so nourished by the stories of these good men and women.  Some of them died horrible deaths because of their devotion, but they also had extraordinary lives.  When I first taught it, we stayed only with the saint stories and that is an entirely okay way to approach these two lesson blocks, however, feel free to pull in some stories of other faiths as well.  Each faith has some heroic tales of founders, early pioneers, those who shaped the way we believe.  For Pagans attending a Unitarian church, there are always those founders and those in history that were believed to be Unitarian Universalist at heart, for Mormons, there are pioneers and prophets both past and present, for Lutherans there is certainly Martin Luther, and so on.  Find ways to make this part of second grade come alive for your children in whatever faith you practice. 

I will out of convenience and tradition only use stories of saints in my lesson plan later in the book, but these can easily be replaced with some of the ideas from above.  I only submit that if you are planning to replace them entirely with your own heroes that you keep in mind the saints presented here for inclusion in festivals as there are some wonderful lessons to be learned.  What I have found most fascinating is that you can again look at your child’s temperament and pull saintly stories that will speak to that temperament.  For instance, I am currently laying out a plan to teach St. Francis to my eight year old, he is my wonderful melancholic child that I completely adore and also attribute every gray hair that has sprung forth from my head to.  He is loving and sweet and also spiteful and self loathing… he and Francis will become fast friends!  For Francis was so very devoted and conquered so many fears in his life, including one of lepers which in that time was no small fear.  We will be spending easily two weeks on his life, pouring over stories and talking about how he was able to over come his fears and become one with nature, ceasing even to have enmity between him and wildlife.  You can do this with any saint or hero that you want to spend a great deal of time on with your child, I suggest doing as I have laid out in the lesson plans: begin a block with a one to two week in depth study of someone you really want your child to get to know and then spend the remainder of the block on the others.  I have given you enough lesson work to do two four week blocks on various saints.  I have listed below the backgrounds of several to choose from and all that is required is for you to choose what suits you and find suitable stories from the library or other sources for your introductions.  I have chosen not only ones canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, but also ones that may be of some interest to others, some with more Pagan roots and story tie ins to broaden the study.  I suggest the book Stories of the Saints by Siegwart Knijpenga for it is a wonderful collection of stories and one that I will refer to often during these lesson blocks.  I like this book because there are several stories for many of the saints which would easily lend itself to utilizing it for an entire saint study over a one week or two week period of time.  I also like the book by Jakob Streit called Saint Nicholas, it is full of great stories of Saint Nicholas (we did one of our larger saint studies on him.)  Another book that Pagans especially might enjoy is Tarot of the Saints by Robert Place, it gives some alternate stories of the saints.

Author’s side note: I often recommend books not because I think others have no merit but because these are ones that I have personally connected with.  I do believe there are other wonderful authors out there.  I also want to give you, my readers an easy concise way of putting your days together, especially in the beginning of your journey.  There are so many books to sort through and so many resources, it can be very overwhelming to decide what to use.  Then, you think you have made a choice and BOOM, you read another Waldorf parent chose this other book instead, well now what do you do?  Do you get frustrated thinking that maybe you have an okay book but that other book sounds good too, maybe you should have chosen that one instead… it goes on and on.  I am trying to keep things simple so I have chosen well known and well read books for my recommendations.  I do suggest that you experiment and find what works for you, but not to the point that you are frustrated and overwhelmed, keep things simple and if you have the chance to attend a conference where they are selling Waldorf books or you happen to get them in at a local book store, then browse… but here is the trick… meditate or pray before you go.  Get clear in your mind what you are looking for and ask for your spiritual guides to help you find just that, then go with faith that if you are to use something else that it will be attracted to you and found easily.  If you are meant to keep what you have that you will have peace in your heart about it.  Then let it go.  Blessings.

The Saints I have chosen for these lessons (again feel free to not use them or to use them in combination with what you prefer, the plans themselves won’t change, only the content that you put to them.)

** I wanted to add that when I started this lesson with my first son, we pulled in a few things on time as well but looking at the feast days for each saint and putting them on our calendar, recognizing the season, etc.  We had a poster that was divided into seasons and then the months and we listed them each out that way.

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