31 dezembro 2010

As três faces da Lua- Mulheres e muito mais



Queridos amigos/as,

O que começou por ser um conjunto de ideias e de tentativas, ganhou agora forma :)

Um projecto sólido, positivo.
Criado por mulheres e especialmente para mulheres.
Um renascer. Um novo querer. Uma nova forma de Ser.

As 3 Faces da Lua, trazem com muito AMOR e ALEGRIA este novo projecto.

Boas-Vindas ao Novo ANO!

As Três Faces da Lua
Dina Fonseca, Teresa Pinto & Bárbara Rodhner

www.as3facesdalua.blogspot.com

Divulguem! O Universo Feminino agradece.

23 dezembro 2010









Sou Mulher, Sou Mãe, Sou a Maria que a 2010 atrás pariu Yeshua como todas as outras Mulheres/Mães que até hoje pariram os seus Yeshiuas que trazem ao Mundo sempre  Esperança renovada no Amanhã que nunca tarda.
Aqui assumimos o compromisso de sê-lo plenamente, temos em nossas mãos a tarefa trabalhosa de educar no Seio de Amor, Compreensão e Aceitação. Temos nas nossas mãos o futuro, a mudança e a Certeza que pisando a Terra firme conseguiremos a Unidade Cósmica.
Aproveitando esta época onde a bondade vagueia pelo mundo cristão, em que a maravilha da criação Divina é reconhecida e Exaltada mais uma vez, reflictamos sobre a nossa Vida, o propósito que nos trouxe cá. Renasçamos hoje tal como Yule todos os anos vence a batalha sobre as trevas alcançando o dia Claro!
Agora é a hora de nutrirmos a nossa criança interior, de a Amarmos profunda e sabiamente para que ele brilhe intensamente como já brilhou um dia, para que traga a sua Força, Determinação e Coragem, para o maravilhoso agora que é o nosso Presente.
Sejamos canais de Amor Divino, Sejamos Divinos e Perfeitos tal como somos.

Os sentidos da Paz



Em tempos de festas, comemorações, confraternizações, uma palavra se faz obrigatória comandando os abraços, os apertos de mão, telefonemas, etc.: A Paz! 
Ela traduz um desejo que já ocupa o primeiro lugar nas intenções das pessoas em celebrações individuais ou sociais, até mesmo antes de: “Felicidades”.
A paz é hoje o bem mais precioso e o maestro que rege todos os outros acontecimentos que habitam o nosso mundo interno, o mundo da alma, que nos governa e impulsiona nossas realizações.
Na ausência dela, convivemos com uma revolução interna que nos rouba o bem-estar, induzindo pensamentos pessimistas, alterando a percepção da realidade, confundindo sentimentos e paralisando ações. O que se impõe é a sensação de incapacidade, gerando angustia que pode culminar com a queda da auto-estima e da própria vontade, impossibilitando o crescimento dos indivíduos intelectual e espiritualmente.
Pode-se imaginar um antídoto para isso?
Em verdade todos os nossos sentimentos e sensações têm profunda ligação com os órgãos dos sentidos e o mundo sensorial. Tudo que vemos, ouvimos, tocamos, experimentamos com o paladar, etc, têm um reflexo físico – constituição e vitalidade dos órgãos internos e também um reflexo anímico – produção de sensações e sentimentos de simpatia ou antipatia. Portanto os sentidos são as “antenas” que informam e, em certa medida, transformam, o nosso mundo interno – tudo que acontece dentro de nós: nosso modo de pensar, a qualidade daquilo que sentimos e a força para impulsionar nosso querer – nossa vontade de agir.
Se, desde pequenos, em nosso ambiente, no convívio diário com as pessoas, somos apresentados à coisas e atitudes belas e dignas, como cuidado e respeito pela natureza, animais e seres humanos, estaremos aprendendo essa relação pacificamente, o que será provavelmente internalizado como boa prática marcando valores e princípios, impregnando nossas atitudes ao longo de toda vida, desde a mais tenra infância. 
Sabemos que somos nós adultos os responsáveis diretos pelo que é apresentado às crianças. Elas sugam como uma esponja, todas as informações que lhes são oferecidas via sentidos – as boas e as ruins: ambientes, cheiros, sons, gestos...
Modernamente, algumas áreas do conhecimento vão além dos cinco sentidos conhecidos – alguns já classificam vinte sentidos. Gostaríamos de apresentar a divisão proposta por Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) que é de doze sentidos: quatro básicos, quatro intermediários e quatro superiores, já presentes desde o nascimento, porém ganhando desenvolvimento ao longo da vida, até culminar sua completude aos 21 anos.
Os quatro sentidos básicos se desenvolvem nos primeiros sete anos de vida – são diretamente influenciados pelos estímulos sensoriais oferecidos nessa época e podem marcar a alma positiva ou negativamente, fixando tendências potencialmente portadoras de paz ou de violência – por isso, precisam ser conhecidos e trabalhados em casa, na escola, de forma a constituir pilares firmes visando uma cultura abrangente para a paz, que primeiro, se configura internamente e, depois, orienta as atitudes externas – portanto, de dentro para fora.
Em nossos próximos encontros vamos clarear o que são os 12 sentidos, iniciando pelos quatro básicos: tato, vital, movimento e equilíbrio.
Por ora devemos ter em mente que crianças são a nossa relíquia; são os depositários do futuro da humanidade. Precisamos nos ocupar em cuidar da preservação da infância e da qualidade desta; sermos exemplo e aspirarmos a um mundo pacífico, concretizado em todas as nossas ações e relações, para que isso seja captado e reproduzido por elas.
Aproveitemos essa época de festas, potencialmente povoada pelo espírito da paz, para rever o que estamos oferecendo para os nossos filhos verem, ouvirem, tocarem, comerem, brincarem...
Revisitemos nossos próprios princípios – o que é genuíno em nós e o que é fruto de imposição da mídia ou da sociedade – exageros e complexidades em detrimento da simplicidade.
Cultivemos em nossos lares, em nosso trabalho, especialmente em nosso coração, um forte e irresistível desejo pela paz e esperemos que, como a pedrinha atirada num lago tranqüilo, esse desejo se amplie e cresça até os confins de todo o planeta.
Que 2010 seja prenhe de paz!
Refletir é preciso!
Dra. Elaine Marasca Garcia da Costa – Médica, Mestre em Educação – Autora do livro: “Saúde se Aprende, Educação é que Cura” - emarasca@splicenet.com.br (...) "

ANDAR, FALAR, PENSAR OS TRÊS MAIORES APRENDIZADOS DA INFÂNCIA




Inúmeros são os aprendizados que fazemos vida afora voluntária ou involuntariamente. Porém existe uma tríade que, independente da nossa vontade, temos todos que aprender: trata-se da aquisição das faculdades do ANDAR do FALAR e do PENSAR que se sucedem invariavelmente nessa direção e têm uma interdependência entre si revelando como a atividade motora tem influência formativa sobre o corpo e cria as bases para as faculdades cognitivas.
Como podemos entender isso?
A Teoria da Metamorfose reza que: “cada estágio do desenvolvimento, contém em si, todos os seus estágios precedentes”.Goethe (1749-1832).
Nesse sistema teríamos uma dependência real e progressiva dessas três etapas onde a qualidade PENSAR seria um produto do desenvolvimento do FALAR, que se atrelaria diretamente à conquista do ANDAR, R. Steiner (1861 – 1925).
O ser humano não nasce pronto como os animais; um bezerro, pouco tempo após nascido, já caminha. O homem carece de amadurecimento para conquistar essa façanha.
Ao observarmos o esforço da criança para ficar em pé e depois ANDAR, não imaginamos (ou esquecemos) o quão difícil é fazer todas aquelas repetições, cair e levantar milhares de vezes. É tanto esforço que esse processo é comparado a se tocar um instrumento musical com perfeição!
Sendo a criança pequena uma grande imitadora, ela só se ergue se houver um ser ereto por perto – ereto pelo movimento, pela atitude e também pela retidão tanto externa quanto interna.
Na busca pelo ANDAR, esse pequeno ser já pode mostrar sinais de sua personalidade, mas há que se considerar a influência marcante do meio e dos responsáveis por ele. Nesse período não se deveria colocar a criança em nenhuma posição que ela ainda não tivesse conquistado (bebê conforto, andador, etc.) É preciso respeitar o tempo dessas aquisições. A criança não deveria usar calçados até o completo desenvolvimento do ANDAR. Ela por si, deverá explorar todo o espaço físico em todas as dimensões – frente/trás/dentro/fora/direita/esquerda/cima/baixo – só assim conseguirá ir “tomando posse” de seu espaço e de seu próprio corpo.
Conforme o ANDAR vai se completando, o que acontece primeiro de lado e só depois de frente, começa um novo movimento no espaço interno, movimento este vinculado diretamente à respiração - ela vai como que deixando o seu “mundinho” próprio, sendo impulsionada a “trocar”, se relacionar com outro ser humano.
Nasce o FALAR que é diretamente proporcional à qualidade do desenvolvimento anterior – o ANDAR. Crianças que pularam etapas do andar como engatinhar, por exemplo, ou foram “escoradas” por quaisquer métodos, invariavelmente, terão dificuldades nessa fase (um exemplo comum é a gagueira).
A palavra é um poderoso formador e pode plasmar inclusive a estrutura física, por isso desde a mais tenra idade a criança deverá ouvir palavras bem pronunciadas, com concordâncias corretas, evitando todo tipo de fala infantil estereotipada tão comum e prazerosa quando nos deparamos com um lindo bebê!
A tonalidade e a modulação da voz deverão ser muito bem cuidadas ou poderemos impingir uma verdadeira “surra sonora” para a criança.
A fala da criança começa sempre pelo som das consoantes: mãmãmã, papapa, e assim vai evoluindo para formar palavras, depois as primeiras frases que já traduzem os primeiros movimentos de representações mentais que vão culminar com a terceira característica dessa tríade: o PENSAR. De inicio, esta é uma atividade simples, num espaço individual não obedecendo a nenhuma lógica. Nesse momento, essa criança deverá estar por volta do seu terceiro ano de vida e pela primeira vez, vai se auto- denominar – EU – o brinquedo é meu; eu quero isso, eu quero aquilo, demonstrando a aquisição de um amadurecimento anímico – espiritual mais avançado, sem o qual nenhuma criança conquista essa faculdade. É típico dessa fase uma atitude de oposição e negação ao mundo na tentativa de se fortalecer e desenvolver autoconsciência e auto-percepção.
Nesse momento a criança precisa de resistência e limites, o que deve ser feito de maneira sensata. Pedagogicamente pode-se vestir a criança com roupas mais justas; o que ajuda a contê-las; ou fazê-las inverter a situação que provocaram por “birra”, por exemplo – limpar o que sujou, refazer o que desfez – sempre amorosa, mas firmemente. Caso não se consiga fazer isso, essa criança poderá vir a ser um adulto que não perceberá a si mesmo - ou será “o espaçoso”, ou “o encolhido”.
O desenvolvimento do PENSAR continua em verdade pela vida toda. Nas Escolas Waldorf (método pedagógico desenvolvido por Rudolf Steiner e colaboradores em 1919) só se alfabetiza criança com seis a sete anos, obedecendo a um sinal físico dessa prontidão: a queda dos dentes; antes disso o PENSAR lógico roubaria forças que estariam à disposição da elaboração dos órgãos e sistemas.
Como propõe Piaget, o PENSAR lógico (fase cognitiva) estará pronto por volta dos doze anos. É nesse e somente nesse período que deveriam ser oferecidos os conteúdos de cunho mais abstrato e que exigem raciocínio lógico, comprovação, experiência prática como a Física e a Química. Para um bom desenvolvimento do PENSAR, especialmente pais e professores deverão apresentar os fenômenos como processos coerentes e vivos com começo, meio e fim. A criança poderá participar dos afazeres domésticos – bater um bolo, por exemplo, (importante saber que a criança não é da facilidade – ela irá preferir bater o bolo com as mãos a usar a batedeira) – ou ajudar a fazer um canteiro com ervas aromáticas, por exemplo.
São atividades simples, estimulantes e que ensinam como as coisas são feitas passo a passo e ajudam a ordenar logicamente os pensamentos. Será bem diferente se essa criança consumir somente bolos ou outros alimentos já prontos!
Podemos afirmar então que nos três primeiros anos de vida, a criança passa por uma evolução progressiva de importância vital para todo seu desenvolvimento humano posterior.
Estas seriam talvez as tarefas mais arquetípicas de todo aprendizado humano.
O ANDAR nos move, nos aproxima das pessoas, dos lugares, da natureza. O FALAR expressa, integra e socializa. O PENSAR nos liberta, e em liberdade reconhecemos nossa missão no mundo, nos dedicamos a um ideal e nos colocamos a serviço da humanidade.
Dra. Elaine Marasca Garcia da Costa é médica Pneumologista com formação em Antroposofia/Biografia Humana. Mestre em Ciências da Educação. Docente/ coordenadora do curso de pós-graduação - Antroposofia na Saúde na UNISO.





O BRINCAR E OD BRINQUEDOS

" (...) Entende-se que o brincar seja a principal atividade da criança pré-escolar. Ao contrário do adulto, não seria uma atividade de lazer, mas um processo de muita seriedade, como se fora o trabalho para este. No brincar, a criança usaria e desenvolveria todos os seus impulsos advindos do corpo físico e da imaginação, dando liberdade à sua fantasia numa entrega profunda a si mesma.
O brincar, uma atividade essencial nos primeiros sete anos de vida, tem uma força modeladora na estrutura física e na vitalidade da criança e, em especial, para o seu cérebro.
A escolha das atividades e dos brinquedos é fundamental para que isso ocorra de maneira harmônica. Ela deve guiar-se, em primeiro lugar, pela idade da criança; deve ter um caráter de incentivo, não sendo aconselhável, portanto, brinquedos já totalmente acabados, a fim de que se possa estimular a possibilidade de participação da criança na sua complementação.
Segundo aquilo que viveria na alma da criança do primeiro setênio, ou seja, a imitação de tudo e de todos, um simples amontoado de blocos de madeira poderia se transformar em vários objetos de sua vida cotidiana: uma casa, um carro, um móvel, uma lojinha cheia de mercadorias etc.
Observa-se, por exemplo, que as bonecas prontas, feitas de material sintético, levam, muitas vezes, a um rápido desinteresse da criança, por mais bonitas e perfeitas que sejam. Ao contrário, é muito comum encontrarmos crianças que não largam de sua boneca de pano, apenas com traços sugerindo o rosto, o qual poderá ser, inclusive, completado pela própria criança.
Os pequenos animais, trens, caminhões, fazem a alegria da criança, desde que elas mesmas os conduzam. Os brinquedos com automação, saídos de histórias grotescas e monstruosas da tevê poderiam funcionar como uma espécie de droga que nada teriam de autêntico, podendo embrutecer e causar um vício que cresce em necessidade de maiores estímulos, ou mesmo uma perigosa atrofia psíquica. (LANZ, 2000).
Os brinquedos considerados pedagógicos devem exigir da criança, um treinamento da habilidade manual, do equilíbrio e do domínio de seu próprio corpo como um todo. São interessantes e extremamente educativos aqueles que lembrem trabalhos caseiros ou profissões como, por exemplo, os utensílios domésticos, as ferramentas de lavoura, jardinagem e tantos outros.
Os materiais utilizados na confecção dos brinquedos devem estimular o desenvolvimento especialmente dos sentidos; devem ser de matéria verdadeira, natural e robusta (madeira, pano, pedra, metal), pois, através do brincar e dos brinquedos, a criança adquire confiança no mundo dos adultos.
Tudo que não fosse natural deveria ser mantido afastado do mundo infantil, especialmente os brinquedos plásticos, que de várias maneiras podem dar sensações falsas, como por exemplo:
• Tamanho desproporcional ao peso;
• Cores antinaturais;
• Desenho grotesco, antiestético;
• Fragilidade, fazendo com que se quebrem facilmente.
Além disso, o toque de um brinquedo plástico seria considerado totalmente artificial e não auxiliaria no desenvolvimento do sentido do tato, tão importante nesse período. Por fim, poderíamos dizer, ainda, que são produtos desenvolvidos em série, em máquinas, quase sem a presença do homem, o que traria uma imagem de massificação, não colaborando com um desenvolvimento sadio do caráter individual.
Dra. Elaine Marasca Garcia da Costa é médica Pneumologista com formação em Antroposofia/Biografia Humana. Mestre em Ciências da Educação. Docente/ coordenadora do curso de pós-graduação - Antroposofia na Saúde na UNISO. Presidente da Liga dos Usuários da Medicina e Terapias Antroposóficas.
Diretora Clínica do Lucas Terapeuticum Desenvolvimento Humano


MARAVILHAR-SE: um bálsamo para o coração!





" (...) Pense numa lua linda, enorme, alaranjada surgindo lá no horizonte; ou naquele por do sol e seus reflexos dourados no mar; ou naquele buquê de rosas colombianas vermelho – carmim recebidas do ser amado; naquele despertar ouvindo somente o vento e o canto de um bem-te-vi; naquele cheiro de café e de bolo assando que lhe serão brindados pela manhã; naquele sabor inigualável de fruta madura ou daquele jantar à luz de velas; daquela idéia magnífica que desencadeou um bom negócio; aquele encontro há tanto tempo esperado; aquela viagem passando por lugares inesquecíveis; aquele dia da formatura; a passagem pelo vestibular; a comunicação de ter sido aprovado para aquela vaga; ou sua promoção tão esperada; o nascimento do 1° filho....; ou uma música, um filme, uma paisagem, ou simplesmente um gesto gentil, um sorriso, um abraço, ah! Que delícia, que bom, que lindo, dizemos suspirando... 
Muitas outras coisas poderiam ser elencadas nesse rol de belezas, atos e delícias, que têm o poder de nos maravilhar! É um estado de encantamento que noz faz vibrar internamente e permeia nosso corpo todo com a mais genuína alegria! 
Mas, como isso acontece? O que seria acionado em nosso ser mais íntimo que parece derramar um bálsamo quente a preencher todo nosso coração?!
O ser humano é o único com essa capacidade: MARAVILHAR-SE! 
Isso acontece bem dentro do peito e aponta para onde o ser humano é realmente humano: a região do MEIO, onde estão o coração e os pulmões. É o habitat da condição humana por excelência – O SENTIR . Portanto esses dois órgãos (coração e pulmões) são os verdadeiros responsáveis pela nossa qualidade mais elevada – a faculdade do Sentir. É bem verdade que o Pensar também é exclusivamente humano e é ele quem recebe as impressões do mundo externo e as organiza através dos sentidos e suas conexões neurológicas; porém quem dá o “sentido” e “identifica” essas impressões como simpáticas ou antipáticas, impulsionando nosso AGIR, é nosso SENTIR. Esse espaço é a morada do nosso EU - o responsável pela maneira singular de cada um ver e viver o mundo.É para lá que levamos nossa mão para nos designarmos quando nos apontamos – EU? É comigo?
Perceba-se a qualidade que esses dois órgãos carregam, ou seja, pulmões e coração são os responsáveis pelos nossos sentimentos, ou melhor, por discerní-los e identificá-los. Não por acaso, temos hoje um grande número de doenças cardíacas no mundo todo, sendo o coração, o campeão de mortes (por doença).
Esse processo provavelmente está ligado à dificuldade atual do homem em deixar-se invadir e aprender a compreender seus sentimentos naturalmente, como o faz com o PENSAR.
O privilégio cultural do Pensar e da razão, encobre até mesmo o aprendizado do sentir. Sim, sentir também se aprende, se organiza através de experiências bem conduzidas desde a infância. É nosso dever oferecer esse suporte às crianças e jovens no sentido de dar-lhes segurança para um sentir sadio. 
Por outro lado, sabemos que o 1° e primordial sentimento que nasce na criança, é a gratidão – a partir dessa qualidade se assentam os outros sentimentos. Para isso, a infância precisa ser um período onde se vivencia que o mundo é bom e confiável (especialmente nos primeiros 7 anos). Amor, carinho, compreensão são fundamentais para esse despertar. A ausência desses parâmetros talvez aponte para um caminho que desembocará, mais tarde, em violência e/ou apatia.
Cuidemos de apresentar maravilhas aos nossos filhos – não somente as físicas, mas também aquelas derivadas de pequenos gestos, cuidados, estímulos... Assim estaremos alimentando sua condição humana, oferecendo-lhes a possibilidade para desenvolverem a solidariedade, a compaixão, a coragem, o que deve ser feito através de nosso exemplo.
Em tese, também estaremos construindo bons corações e pulmões saudáveis.
Quando alguém “suspira” : Oh! que maravilha, é como se recebesse um sopro quente, acalantado pelo próprio criador, quase num sussurro particular, exclusivo, instilando dentro de cada alma, um pouco mais de calor, humano! 
Maravilhar-se é saber-se divino.
Maravilhar-se é preciso!
Refletir é preciso!
Dra. Elaine Marasca Garcia da Costa é médica Pneumologista com formação em Antroposofia/Biografia Humana. Mestre em Ciências da Educação. Docente/coordenadora do curso de pós-graduação - Antroposofia na Saúde. Presidente da Liga dos Usuários da Medicina e Terapias Antroposóficas.Diretora Clínica do Lucas Terapeuticum Desenvolvimento Humano.
emarasca@splicenet.com.br
 (...)"


RESPIRAÇÃO – VELOCÍMETRO DA ALMA







Não há quem duvide da grandeza e da magnitude do processo de respirar para a sobrevivência do ser humano.
A respiração vai muito além das meras trocas gasosas de oxigênio por gás carbônico – esta é apenas uma das etapas que constituem esse meticuloso estado responsável pela preservação da vida – sim, ela “instala” a vida no ser humano – ao nascimento com a 1ª inspiração e “recolhe” a vida, no momento da morte, com a última expiração. Pela respiração entramos e saímos do mundo terreno! Se observarmos as três etapas do processo respiratório: inspiração (o2) – troca (sangue) – expiração (Co2), podemos imaginar que o processo de vida e morte se repetem continuamente indicando que a nossa vida também teria o caráter de uma grande respiração: começa com inspiração e termina com expiração e tudo que acontece entre o 1º e o último movimento são as “trocas”! A respiração é a maneira que o homem tem de manter o contato do seu mundo interno com o mundo externo – e é isso que o mantém vivo! O fato de ele poder se relacionar (trocar) com a natureza e os outros seres vivos é condição sinequanon para a vida e para um desenvolvimento caracteristicamente humano!
Explico: todos nós temos um mundo interno, ou seja, uma alma que nos dá a capacidade de Pensar, de Sentir e de Agir – só nós conhecemos e dominamos este mundo que é singular, único para cada um. Porém ele só tem razão de ser e de evoluir se encontrar-se, confrontar-se, relacionar-se com o mundo que está fora de nós – os outros seres, a natureza, os acontecimentos, o clima etc. É nesse processo que todos nós nos desenvolvemos e elevamos a nossa própria condição humana! É daquilo que entra em nós do mundo externo que podemos elaborar “diálogos internos”, que depois se exteriorizam novamente para compor o mundo externo, impregnado de uma parte de cada um.
Podemos supor então que o ar, representante do mundo externo, se compõe de um pouco de cada um de nós e um pouco de tudo que existe na natureza, desde os elementos visíveis, ponderáveis até os mais imponderáveis demandados pelas esferas cósmicas. Isso tudo a que chamamos Mundo Externo, penetra no ser humano de maneira mais ou menos profunda, segundo um consentimento e uma preparação de cada um, e está traduzido claramente no modo como cada pessoa respira!
Se tivermos abertura, liberdade e coragem para receber o mundo externo, nossa inspiração é grande, ampla, profunda; se tivermos insegurança, ansiedade, medo de contato,essa inspiração se encurta, fica superficial não conseguindo preencher 100% dos pulmões. Essa condição obriga a pessoa a respirar mais vezes para compensar as necessidades gasosas e, portanto essa respiração se torna mais rápida. Isso dificulta fisicamente uma boa oxigenação e, ao mesmo tempo, impede uma verdadeira percepção desse mundo externo, o que produz uma sensação anímica desagradável como uma incapacidade de lidar com as coisas práticas, reais, levando esses indivíduos a viverem num mundo fictício, com muita dificuldade de viver no presente – com tendência a idéias fixas, repetições – característica dos ansiosos. Algo semelhante, porém de modo inverso, pode acontecer com a expiração. Alguns indivíduos recebem o ar de maneira razoavelmente normal, mas são incapazes de soltar completamente aquela porção de si que está injetada obrigatoriamente no ar expirado. São pessoas com dificuldades de doar-se em todos os sentidos; guardam muitas coisas, tem muitas dificuldades para mudanças tendendo ao conservadorismo – é característico esse comportamento nos asmáticos, onde a dificuldade é a saída do ar (expiração) facilmente observada numa crise asmática, onde o indivíduo parece ter que “soprar”, ou seja, fazer força para soltar o ar que deveria seguir um caminho passivo. Nesse ponto o leitor já terá condições de perceber que a respiração saudável em repouso, deverá reger um movimento de entrada e saída de ar num ritmo oscilante e harmônico apenas semiconsciente, e sem esforço algum.
Será capaz de intuir que quando o ritmo respiratório acelerar, assim também se encontrará o nosso mundo interno (alma) num susto ou medo extremo, por exemplo, e que quando dormimos esse ritmo, deverá ser mais lento.
A respiração evidencia uma parte da alma e participa como causa ou conseqüência em muitas patologias, especialmente aquelas onde está dificultado o contato com o presente.
A cura desses processos deverá incluir obrigatoriamente um trabalho com a própria respiração para que esta alcance uma maior profundidade, um ritmo mais harmonioso, trazendo novamente a sensação de pertencimento ao mundo terreno e a re-conexão com o tempo real e com o presente.
Fica implícito então, o vinculo que a respiração tem diretamente com o nosso mundo interno, aquele que nos guia que nos anima e que, em última análise, detém o controle que regulamenta a velocidade – ora acelerando, ora desacelerando todo processo respiratório. Dizemos que através da respiração temos idéia do que acontece no mundo interior, ou na alma de uma pessoa podendo mesmo assumir uma característica como se fora o seu próprio velocímetro. Essa é uma poderosa ferramenta para médicos e terapeutas que ao observarem atentamente as características respiratórias, certamente terão boas informações sobre o funcionamento do mundo interno e de seus pacientes.
Dra. Elaine Marasca Garcia da Costa é médica Pneumologista com formação em Antroposofia/Biografia Humana. Mestre em Ciências da Educação. Docente/ coordenadora do curso de pós-graduação - Antroposofia na Saúde na UNISO.


Festivals














"(...)Festivals are a celebration of the seasons of the year and connect us to the world around us. They fall in an annual rhythm that can be strengthening to the physical body of the young child. For me, a festival celebrates the coming together of earthly and cosmic forces. Festivals create communities of human beings by celebrating the harmony of earth and cosmos, of matter and spirit. 

These seasonal celebrations mark the changing of light, the relation of the earth to the sun, and the connection to what is universal in the cycle of the year. Festivals can be the bearers of the spirit within the earthly seasons. They are points where earth–spirit and world/cosmic–spirit meet.

I find certain ideas from Rudolf Steiner helpful in considering how to create a festival in the classroom. These ideas guide my thinking about the greater cosmic forces at work in the four seasons.  They form the groundwork for the manifestation of a given festival. 
 Steiner, in Lecture 5 of The Cycle of the Year as a Breathing Process of the Earth, described cosmic tendencies that pull the human being in certain directions at different times of the year. He spoke of the activities that then can help bring the human being into balance.  Through this struggle for balance and self–develpment, the human being can receive guidance from the cosmos.
In the summer, the human soul tends to give itself up passively to world–happenings. The tendency is to dream out beyond the human being. To balance that tendency, the human is called upon to “Receive the Light,” to consciously receive the light that is streaming toward us from the cosmos. The divine spiritual world reveals itself as moral impulses, which the human receives as enlightenment. The light is streaming spiritual wisdom down into the “I.” The intellect evaporates and this wisdom-filled, moral element from outside streams in.
In the autumn, as the earth is going to sleep, the urge of the soul is to return to its inner life, to go inward. The call to the human soul is to “Look Around Thee,” to be awake and attentive to what is happening in the world. At this time we must strive for the knowledge to perceive the world of nature and the spiritual activity that lies behind it. We need soul courage for this striving.
In the winter, the Earth has completed her in–breathing, and the human soul is thrown back to itself and threatened with inner contraction and paralysis. The tendency is for the human being to sink into itself, to dream within one’s own being. “Beware of Evil,” calls the cosmos. Be aware and behold the evil; contemplate evil and the temptation of evil. Perhaps we could say that we draw back from the earth’s darkness, or “beware of darkness.” This mood is a polarity to “Receive the Light” of summertime. One experiences a consolidation of the intellect that had evaporated in summer At this time, one needs temperance to guard oneself against evil, to guard against a deviation from cosmic moral impulses. Can we find a balance, the middle way? Steiner described this as “Besonnenheit,” as ruling one’s impulses through reflective thinking, feeling and perceiving, through consciousness. This is the human being’s winter task.
In the spring, the human soul’s tendency is to sink into the flood of uprising nature forces. The call to the human being is to “Know Thyself,” to stay connected with yourself in this spring fevering.
 We can strive for knowledge of true human nature and a reconnection to our own higher nature—a connection with true morality. The call is to truly look at oneself, to hold up the mirror, and see one’s weaknesses and limitations and where one has fallen away from one’s highest intentions. 

With these thoughts in mind, I take into consideration the needs of the young child. One aspect to consider in creating a festival for kindergarten is to keep it simple.
 So much can be done with gesture and mood that speaks more powerfully than elaborate choreographed events. It seems important to avoid festival indigestion, especially for young child.
 Not only do we support the child, but one finds it creates less stress in the adults’ lives as well.For all festivals, a mood of anticipation can be created through the planning and preparations. 
Including the children in the preparation allows them to experience and participate in the process of life, of the yearly cycle. Though it can also be special for the children to arrive to the magic of an already created festival day, I mostly include the children in the room set up and other aspects of preparation. Preparing the food and making 
decorations is a warming and enlivening activity for all involved. And food usually plays a part of any celebration, especially for the children. Traditions can be created that live and thrive over years especially if we have children who are in our groups for more than one year. This also creates a sense of true anticipation in the children.
I focus on celebrating the divine spark that lives in each of us. A powerful guiding image for me is the light that streams toward us from the sun and stars, and the warmth and love into which we can transform that light. Perhaps that is the central theme around which the variations of individual festivals revolve. To me it is so important that our celebrations are so universal that no one feels excluded. I want all the families to inwardly experience that “ this festival speaks to us.”  I want to celebrate what is universally human and universally cosmic/ spiritual. The spiritual is celebrated, but not the specifically religious.
For me, kindergarten festivals celebrate divinities. Festivals for the older children often celebrate developed human beings such as saints. I leave saints for the grade school years. I celebrate only a few major festivals in my kindergarten. They include Michaelmas, Lantern Walk (not St. Martinmas), Advent Garden and an end-of- year Bridge Festival. I also celebrate each child’s birthday. These are the festivals to which I invite the parents, but of course, in a sense, every day is a festival in kindergarten.
 
Thoughts about an Advent Festival 
As winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, there is a growing mood of the outer sleepiness of the world.Through the stories, poems and songs we bring, and their own observation of nature, the children can experience a settling down, a feeling of being blanketed for a winter’s nap. The fallen leaves, the animals in hibernation, the shorter daylight hours which bring us inside much earlier (even in California) than at other times of the year all contribute to this experience. Advent balances the darkness and sleepiness with expectation and anticipation. It is a time of moving through the darkness toward the yearly rebirth of the light, when the days begin to grow longer.
Advent is really a four–week festival, the four weeks leading up to Christmas and Solstice, starting on a Sunday evening. Many religions celebrate festivals of the returning of the light. Among those festivals are Solstice, Chanukah, Christmas and Divali. The mood of Advent reminds me of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—so much preparation for the choral climax that reminds me of the light beginning to grow stronger again.
During Advent, we can deepen our relationship to the world around us through recognizing the strength and beauty in all the four kingdoms of the natural world.  The first week is related to the mineral kingdom, the physical foundation for life. The mineral world gives us a fixed stage, a basis for our ever-changing existence. Without the mineral world we would have no ground to stand on. The second week focuses on the plant kingdom from which we receive nourishment from living forces. Earth, rain, light and warmth create a balance of growth and decay. The plant world has life that distinguishes it from the mineral world. It is life itself which human beings share with the plants.  The third week focuses on the kingdom of beasts.  We share our capacity for movement and feelings with the animal kingdom. In this week of Advent we are reminded of our relationship with the birds, beasts and other members of the animal kingdom and how they reflect our most basic soul states. The fourth week of Advent speaks of the human being. All the kingdoms of nature contribute to our existence. We all have mineral, plant and animal aspects surrounding and supporting the flame of our individual human spirit, this flame that is the essence of what it is to be human.
Advent can move us toward a deeper understanding of our place in the universe, of all that supports us and all that we aspire to, as well as all that needs our protection and support. There are so many levels that one could consider. The weeks can also be connected with the four bodies of the human being, with the four major organs, and so on.In kindergarten, Advent can be celebrated very simply. On the first day, I put one gold star above the nature table on the wall. And each successive day I add another star. Additionally, I set four candles on the nature table. The first week, I light just one of them for a verse at the end of Ring Time. The second week, two candles and so on. The verse I use follows:
The gift of light we thankfully take 
But not shall it be alone for our sake 
The more we give light 
The one to the other 
It shines and it spreads and it glows still further 
Until every spark by friends set aflame 
Until every heart with joy to proclaim 
In the depths of our souls a shining sun glows.
I also add something of the particular kingdom of nature addressed to the advent nature table. Perhaps a crystal or shell is added each day of that week, then the next week, a rose bud each day, then a small wooden animal or feather. There are so many possibilities. On a Sunday evening in December (determined by various calendar considerations) the kindergarten families come to celebrate the Advent Garden which brings the mood of Advent and the experience of moving from darkness to light to the children in a simple way. This is one festival I set up (with adult helpers) without the children. They arrive to a fully prepared festival space. They walk to the center of 
the spiral path of evergreens, a path not lighted. One needs to determine which direction the spiral curves, counter– or clock–wise. There are reasons one could have for either. The important thing is to consciously choose the direction. The children bring with them a red apple with a candle in that they light from the burning candle in the center of the spiral. They then place their candle 
carefully down on the path as they walk back out.
The festival begins in darkness and ends brightly lit by the many candles. We have a moment to sit in silence together before the children are taken home to bed with their apple candle. 
For our celebration, someone enters the dark spiral bearing a candle. He or she is clad in flowing veils, and is not named nor referred to nor spoken about. We try to get someone not generally recognized by the children. It is left to each to imagine for oneself what sort of being it is. I invite siblings, both younger and older to take on this role. Younger or less confident children are accompanied by their parents. We have always had this spiral path indoors. This year I have been thinking a lot about doing it in a redwood grove on our school property, under the twinkling stars.
The garden of evergreens is a symbol of life everlasting. Arranged in a spiral, the path represents the path to birth and the process of incarnating. The apple is a picture of the body, the house that we live in. The red symbolizes our blood and our forces of will. The flame of the candle is the flame of our individual human spirit. The Advent Garden is an imaginative experience of our individual spirit light incarnating into life on Earth, and how it is able to dispel the darkness around us. In community, our spirits shining together shed a mighty light.
The Bridge Festival 
Picture this: a garden with flowers all around. It is a warm morning, the sun is shining and the sky is blue. Birds are singing. A stream flows down a gentle hill and there is a small bridge across it. There are many parents, grandparents and friends sitting in a large circle, all looking on with smiles and tears. In the center of the circle sit all the kindergarten children and teachers. Across the stream is the new first grade teacher. The children sing and then a story is told. The story tells of an oldest  child who begins to wonder what lies outside the palace walls. The wise king and queen suggest that several important items be gathered for the journey, and that a guide would be waiting outside the gate to lead the way into the world.
Then, one by one, each child ready for first grade is called by name, stands up, bids goodbye to her teacher and steps across the bridge to be welcomed by her new teacher. The kindergarten teacher has shepherded her for her life in the garden of paradise, within the world of home and garden. Now she is ready for a guide to help her explore the wider world. The new first graders are led off for a short time alone with their new teacher, and the younger children who will remain in kindergarten are acknowledged as they will now be the older and experienced kindergartners in the fall.Sometimes the new first grade teacher is unable to attend the ceremony so a symbolic stand–in participates. 
And some children will move on to other schools, yet they also are part of our ceremony.
This is our kindergarten end–of–year festival. It is a rite of passage from one phase of development to the next. Perhaps it can be called the Bridge Ceremony, but please do not name it “Kindergarten Graduation” especially since all participate yet not all move on to first grade. Rituals celebrating transition between phases of development are not well attended to in our culture. At the Santa Cruz Waldorf School, the transition from kindergarten to the grade school is made into a ritual rite of passage. It signifies the transition from a sort of Garden of Eden to an exploration of the world around. It signifies the transition from a group soul experience to a more self-conscious individual. The children for the first time are called on to stand up and be named in front of all present as part of the ceremony. The new first graders are “handed over” by their kindergarten teacher to the teacher who will guide them through the next phase of life.
This beautiful and heartwarming festival is the culmination of the kindergarten year. In a simple yet profound way, all present witness this crossing of the bridge out of early childhood. This is a special rite of passage for all participants. Special thanks must be given to the Acorn Hill Center for a short description of a similar ceremony that I read many years ago. We have taken an idea and made it our own. It is a part of our festival traditions.
Steven Spitalny is a kindergarten teacher at the Santa Cruz Waldorf School in California, USA. 
Reprinted from Gateways, the newsletter of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America. (...)"


 Retirado de www.iaswece.org

The Vital Role of Play in Childhood



"(...) Joan Almon 

“The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health.” 
Ashley Montagu
Over thirty years of working with children, families, and teachers in Waldorf kindergartens all over the world, I have observed one overwhelming similarity: creative play is a central activity in the lives of healthy young children. It helps children weave together all the elements of life as they experience it. It allows them to digest life and make it their own. It is an outlet for the fullness of their creativity, and it is an absolutely critical part of their childhood. With creative play, children blossom and flourish; without it, they suffer a serious decline.
I am hardly the first to note this fact. The central importance of creative play in children’s healthy development is well supported by decades of research. And yet children’s play, in the creative, open-ended sense in which I use the term, is now seriously endangered. School children no longer have the freedom to explore woods and fields and find their own special places. Physical education and recess are being eliminated; new schools are built without playgrounds. Informal neighborhood ball 
games are a thing of the past, as children are herded into athletic leagues from age five on.
From all sides—parents, teachers, psychologists, and psychiatrists—one hears tales of young children who do not play. Some seem blocked and unable to play. Others long to play, but busy schedules outside school or an overemphasis on focused learning in school have driven play out of their lives. Add to this mixture the hours spent sitting still in front of screens—television, video game, and computer—while children absorb other people’s stories and imaginations but can’t act out their own, and the result is a steady decline in children’s play. This decline will certainly have serious consequences for children and for the future of childhood itself.
In this article I will focus on the play of children before first grade, especially from three to seven. During these years, when play should be flourishing, its development has been thwarted. We may not intend to drive play out of children’s lives, but our policies and practices in schools and at home discourage children from pursuing their own open-ended, self-directed play.
The Nature of Play 
If we are to save play we must first understand its nature. Creative play is like a spring that bubbles up from deep within a child. It is refreshing and enlivening and is a natural part of the make-up of every healthy child. It is so fundamental to the make-up of the child that it is often hard to separate play from learning. Whether children are working on new physical skills, social relations, or cognitive content, they approach life with a playful spirit. As a friend said of her eight- month-old recently, “It just seems that she’s working all the time.” But is it work or play?  In childhood there is no distinction.
Adults are convinced that we need to “teach” young children. It is certainly true that we need to set an example in all kinds of activities. We also need to create appropriate spaces where children can play and learn, and we need to lend a helping hand—and at times even intervene when things are going wrong. But mostly we need to honor the innate capacity for learning that moves the limbs and fills the souls of every healthy young child. The child’s love of learning is intimately linked with a zest for play.
Nathan at one year came with his parents to the summer house we share as a family. He was delighted to find several staircases in this house, for in his own home there was only one step, and he had long since mastered it. Now he gave full vent to the young child’s wish to climb stairs. Over and over he would climb up and down. We took turnsstanding guard, but he rarely needed our help. He was focused and concentrated and did not like to be taken away from this activity. He gave every sign of being a happy, playful child while climbing, yet he was also clearly exploring 
and mastering a new skill and one that was important for his long-term development. Most important, it was a task he set for himself. No one could have told this one-year-old to devote hours to climbing. And no one needed to. He did it himself, as will every healthy child whose sense of movement has not been disturbed.
Another example: Ivana at age four came to kindergarten one Monday morning and proudly announced that she could tie shoes. I must have looked skeptical, since most children at four can’t tie a real bow. Ivana was determined to show me, and she sat down on the floor and untied her shoes. She then retied them into perfect bows, looked at my astonished face, and beamed. Later in the day I asked her mother how Ivana had learned to do this. Her mother laughed and described how over the weekend Ivana had pretended that she was going to a birthday party. She used all the scrap paper she could find and folded it into little birthday packages. She raided her mother’s yarn basket and used scraps of yarn to tie the packages with bows. She probably tied 60 or 70 packages during the weekend until she had at last mastered the art of tying bows.
Again, no one could have assigned Ivana such a task. She clearly felt ready, and what was important was that she did her work in the spirit of play, pretending to go to a birthday party. Learning to tie was not a tedious task but something she enjoyed doing.
The simple truth is that young children are born with a most wonderful urge to grow and learn. They continually develop new skills and capacities, and if they are allowed to set the pace with a bit of help from the adult world they will work at all this in a playful and tireless way. Rather than respecting this innate drive to learn, however, we treat children as if they can learn only what we adults can teach them. We strip them of their innate confidence in directing their own learning, hurry them along, and often wear them out. It is no wonder that so many teachers complain that by age nine or ten children seem burned out and uninterested in learning. This is a great tragedy, for 
the love of learning that Nathan and Ivana displayed is meant to last a whole lifetime. Furthermore, it is intimately bound to our capacity to be creative and purposeful.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi speaks about the creative state in adults he calls “flow.” Referrring to Csikszentmihalyi’s work, Daniel Goleman and his co-authors in Creative Spirit describe flow as the time “when people are at their peak. Flow can happen in any domain or activity—while painting, playing chess, making love, anything. The one requirement is that your skills so perfectly match the demands of the moment that all self- consciousness disappears.” (Goleman et al., p. 46)  In just the same way, children’s play is characterized by an absence of self-consciousness.
The depth of concentration that children display when they are immersed in play is astounding. I think of five-year- old Peter watching intently as two girls in the kindergarten were creating an especially beautiful play scene on a tabletop. They were deeply engrossed and so was he. It happened that on that day the fire department descended on us, for one of the teachers had called them after noticing an electrical smell in her room. Three fire engines roared up our driveway. Peter’s friend Benjamin ran up to him, crying, “Peter, Peter, the fire engines are here!” But Peter was so 
intent on watching the play scene that he did not respond. Benjamin tried again with the same result. He shrugged and rushed back to the window to watch the firemen arrive. Finally, Peter emerged from his concentration, saw the fire engines, and hurried to the window.
Peter’s state of mind seems very close to that of a neurosurgeon described by Csikszentmihalyi. He was engrossed in a difficult operation. When the procedure was finished, the surgeon asked about a pile of debris in the corner of the operating room. He had not noticed it before. He then was told that part of the ceiling had caved in during the operation. He had been so engaged in the flow of his work that he had not heard a thing.  (Goleman et al., pp. 46– 47)
This state of flow experienced by scientists, physicians, artists, and others may seem a bit scary or intimidating to us. Do we want to enter so wholeheartedly into life and learning?  It does not fit the contemporary picture of multi- tasking where one is doing many things at once, but usually none of them very deeply. Yet it is an important state of being if we want to flex our inner capacities to the fullest and offer our greatest gifts to the world. These are the skills children are prepared to develop, and even long to develop. In their education, however, children increasingly find classrooms filled with scripted teaching, computerized learning, and assessment through standardized testing. All of 
this trivializes children’s real capacities for life and learning and leaves many with a deep sense of disappointment and frustration.
The Development of Play 
The secret to helping young children thrive is to keep the spirit of creativity and of playful learning alive and active. An important ingredient in this is our own work as adults, for children naturally imitate grown-ups. This inspires their play. Their learning is a combination of their own deep inner drive to grow and learn coupled with their imitation of the adults in their environment. These two elements interweave all through early childhood. They provide the underlying basis for play, yet their outer expression changes year by year as children develop.
One of the milestones in play is the development of make-believe play, also known as fantasy play, around age 2 1/2 or 3. Before that, children are more oriented to the real world: their own bodies, simple household objects like pots, pans, and wooden spoons, and simple toys like dolls, trucks, and balls. In their play, toddlers imitate what they see around them; common play themes include cooking, caring for baby, driving cars or trucks, and other everyday events. These themes continue and expand after age three but now children are less dependent on real objects and create what they need from anything that is at hand. Their ability to enter into make-believe allows them to transform 
a simple object into a play prop. A bowl becomes a ship, a stick becomes a fishing pole, a rock becomes a baby, and much, much more.
It is fascinating to watch the force of fantasy enter the lives of children. The three-year-old becomes so engaged in make-believe play that objects seem to be in a constant state of transformation. No play episode is ever finished; it is always in the process of becoming something else. The playful three-year-old often leaves a trail of objects as her play evolves from one theme to the next. In contrast, four-year-olds are generally more stationary and thematic in their play. They like to have a “house” to play in, which might also be a ship or a shop, and many enter the “pack-rat” stage where they fill their houses with objects so that it seems they cannot freely move around. This does not bother 
them at all, however. Like three-year-olds, they are inspired in the moment by the objects before them. They are quite spontaneous in their ideas for play.
It is always exciting to watch the change in play in the five-year-olds as they enter the kindergarten and announce what they want to play. Their mothers sometimes report that the children wake up in the morning with an idea for play in mind. Sometimes they play out the same theme for days or even weeks on end, developing it differently each time.  One can see them gain focus as they come in touch with their own ideas and have the will to carry them out in playful detail.
There is one more important aspect to the development of make-believe play that usually does not occur until children are six. At this age they still love fantasy play but often will play out a situation without the use of props. They may build a house or castle but leave it unfurnished, then sit inside it and talk through their play, for now they are able to see the images clearly in their minds’ eyes. This stage can be described as imaginative play, for the children now have the capacity to form an inner image. It is around this time that a child will say something like “I can see Grandma whenever I want. I just have to close my eyes.” Or she may set up a play scene with her toys but close her 
eyes and play it out “inside.”
Dorothy and Jerome Singer, both psychologists at Yale University, have devoted their lives to the subject of children’s play. They summarize their experiences in this way: Over many years of observing children in free play, we have found that those who engage in make-believe, what 
Piaget calls symbolic play, are more joyful, and smile and laugh more often than those who seem to be at odds with themselves—the children who wander aimlessly around the nursery school or daycare center looking for something to do, who play in a preservative way with a few blocks, or who annoy their peers by teasing them or interrupting their games. (Singer and Singer, p. 64)
The Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Benefits of Play 
When children are happily at play in a kindergarten there is a wonderful hum in the room.  A deep sense of well being emanates from the children. This should be reason enough to foster and protect play, but research also points to a number of important gains linked to a child’s ability to engage in healthy, creative play. Sara Smilansky, an Israeli researcher, studied children at play in Israel and the United States. She defines dramatic play as taking place when a child pretends to be someone else and sociodramatic play as those times when two or more children cooperate in such role–playing. She summarizes her research as follows: “The results point to dramatic and sociodramatic play as a strong medium for the development of cognitive and socioemotional skills.”
Here is summary of the gains she found directly linked to a child’s ability to engage in dramatic and sociodramatic play: 
Gains in Cognitive-Creative Activities 
Better verbalization 
Richer vocabulary 
Higher language comprehension 
Higher language level 
Better problem-solving strategies 
More curiosity 
Better ability to take on the perspective of another 
Higher intellectual competence 
Gains in Socioemotional Activities 
More playing with peers 
More group activity 
Better peer cooperation 
Reduced aggression 
Better ability to take on the perspective of others 
More empathy 
Better control of impulsive actions 
Better prediction of others’ preferences and desires 
Better emotional and social adjustment 
More innovation 
More imaginativeness 
Longer attention span 
Greater attention ability 
Performance of more conservation tasks 
(Smilansky, p. 35)
Smilansky concludes, “Sociodramatic play activates resources that stimulate emotional, social, and intellectual growth in the child, which in turn affects the child’s success in school.  We saw many similarities between patterns of behavior bringing about successful sociodramatic play experiences and patterns of behavior required for successfulintegration into the school situation.  For example, problem solving in most school subjects requires a great deal of make-believe: visualizing how the Eskimos live, reading stories, imagining a story and writing it down, solving arithmetic problems, and determining what will come next.  History, geography, and literature are all make-believe. All of these are conceptual constructions that are never directly experienced by the child.” (Smilansky,  p. 25)
For the elementary-school child imagination is as important a medium for learning as make-believe play is for the pre-schooler. Through imagination and the art of storytelling every subject in the world can be taught, and elementary- school children become enthralled with learning. Without imagination learning is a dull affair for children. If a child has been allowed to engage in make-believe play during the nursery-school and kindergarten years and to develop inner imagination before entering first grade, she is then ripe and ready to learn. While one or another may have a learning difficulty, their enthusiasm for learning—and for overcoming difficulties—is enormous.
How do we help children enter into learning with imagination and enthusiasm? My own experience has been that the children who were the most active players in the kindergarten were also the most active learners in elementary school. This experience is supported by a study done in the 1970s in Germany, at a time when many kindergartens werebeing transformed into academic rather than play-oriented environments. The study compared 50 kindergartens where children played with 50 where the children focused on early academics. The children were followed until fourth grade, and at that point the children from the play-oriented kindergartens excelled over the others in every 
area measured—physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development. The results were especially striking among lower-income children, who clearly benefited from the play-oriented approach. The overall results were so compelling that Germany switched all its kindergartens back to being play-oriented. (Der Spiegel) They have continued in this mode until the present time, although during recent visits to Germany I hear more of the rhetoric one hears in this country: that to prepare children for a globalized economy they must get a head start on literacy, numeracy, and other subjects.
The benefits of play-oriented programs were also documented in the research of the High/Scope early childhood programs based in Ypsilanti, Michigan. In one study, 69 low-income three- and four-year-old children, who were at high risk of school failure, were randomly assigned to one of three types of programs: the High/Scope program and a traditional nursery school both included child-initiated activities, while the Direct Instruction approach did not. I.Q. scores rose in all three programs, but various social indicators showed a large difference between children in the more academic, direct instruction program and those in the programs encouraging self-initiated activity, including play.  The children were followed until age 23, and the following results were noted:
Initially, all three curriculum approaches improved young children’s intellectual performance substantially, with the average IQs of children in all three groups rising 27 points. By age 15, however, students in the High/Scope group and the Nursery School group Öreported only half as much delinquent activity as the students in the Direct Instruction groupÖ Findings at age 23 continue to support the conclusion that the High/Scope and Nursery School groups are better off than the Direct Instruction group in a variety of ways. Either the High/Scope group, the Nursery School group, or both, show statistically significant advantages over the Direct Instruction group on 17 variables. Most important, compared with the Direct Instruction Group, the High/Scope and Nursery School groups have had significantly fewer felony arrests of various kinds and fewer years of special education for emotional impairment. In addition, compared with the Direct Instruction 
group, the High/Scope group aspires to complete a higher level of schooling, and has more members living with their spouses. It thus appears that preschool programs that promote child-initiated activities (such as the High/Scope and Nursery School programs) seem to contribute to the development of an individual’s sense of personal and social responsibility. (High/Scope, 2002)
What Is Happening to Children’s Play 
Given the strong evidence of the importance of self-initiated creative play, it is alarming that play has lost so much ground in young children’s lives during the past thirty years. Since the 1970s it has become common for publickindergartens in the United States to focus so strongly on academic achievement that there is little or no time devoted to self-directed play. Kindergarten teachers in Pennsylvania told me that in their school district the kindergarten curriculum had been 
prescribed by the state legislature. Each morning children were to spend 20 minutes each on reading, writing, arithmetic, social studies, science, and so on. One teacher looked nervously over her shoulder and whispered, “I break the law every day and let my children play for fifteen minutes.” The other kindergarten teacher sadly admitted that she only managed to bring in play twice a week for short periods.
That was in the mid-1980s.  Since then the situation has become more grim. The first-grade curriculum has become entrenched in the kindergarten. With standardized testing starting ever earlier—for five-year-olds in some districts— an atmosphere of hurry and pressure pervades the kindergarten. To ease the pressure a bit many states have raised the entrance age for kindergarten so that the youngest children are usually five when they enter rather than four years and nine months, as was the case when I was a child. On the other hand, there is such concern about five-year-olds 
learning enough that many school districts are switching to full-day kindergartens. One might hope that half the day would be devoted to play and the arts, but I have not heard any reports of that being the case.
In 'What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten'?  Susan Ohanian takes a hard look at what is happening to young children in school today. She mentions New York’s Public School 9 where kindergarten children have at least some recess: “In a seven-hour day, they get 25 minutes free from academics.” (Ohanian, p. 11) Anyone who knows five-year-olds will know that this will not work.
Ohanian also describes the situation in Chicago’s public schools, referring to a report in the New York Times by Jacques Steinberg:
The teacher knows it’s the 53d day because ”Day:053” is printed at the top of the recommended lesson plan open on her desk, a thick white binder crammed with goals for each day and step-by-step questions given to her and the city’s 26,000 other teachers by the school system’s administrators at the start of the school year.  The page also identifies the section of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills to which that day’s entry corresponds.  Every teacher in Chicago gets this day-by-day outline of what should be taught in language arts, mathematics, science and social studies.  
The New York Times reporter notes that some see this as the logical outcome of the standards movement, providing ”an almost ironclad guarantee that all students will be exposed to the same material and that all teachers, regardless of qualification, will know exactly how to present it.” (Steinberg 2000; also in Ohanian, p. 11–12)
In the face of such demands on five-year-olds and their teachers, to speak of play seems almost frivolous. Yet five- year-olds are young children. Where did we ever get the idea that they should be on the fast track to high scores and global careers? We are on a slippery slope heading downhill, and the pace is accelerating.  Must we find our children broken on the rocks of our fears and ambitions before we call a halt?
We’re not at the bottom yet. In the name of early literacy, plans are being developed to refocus nursery school children away from play and toward early reading.  There are aspects of early literacy that young children need: a rich experience of language spoken by caring adults, nursery rhymes and verses, storytelling and puppetry, and books read aloud.  All these lay a vital foundation for a lifetime love of language and reading. But the term “early literacy” is coming to imply something much narrower than that.
As this is being written in the fall of 2002, Head Start is scheduled for reauthorization by Congress next year. Many Head Start teachers are already feeling considerable pressure to give up play time and focus on early literacy. Ohanian describes the current situation:
With all good intentions the current Bush administration is advocating a rigorous skill model for Head Start preschool programs across the country.  Three- and four-year olds are drilled about letters, dividing words into syllables and spelling.  The plan is that this will prepare poor children to learn to read when they go to kindergarten. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, is developing a curriculum that every Head Start teacher will be expected to follow. (Ohanian, p. 10)
Head Start serves about one million children, but there are millions more whose programs are unfunded by the federal government. This will change if federal legislation that is currently in Congress passes.  It will provide much- needed funding for states to support early childhood programs for children from birth to five. On one hand it will emphasize physical, social, and emotional development.  But with the other it will stress early literacy.  What might 
well tip the scale toward the latter is a plan to give bonuses to states that can show gains in children’s school preparedness as measured in kindergarten. In practice, this will mean a sharpened focus on early literacy activities for three- and four-year-olds.  Much more time will be spent on learning the alphabet, breaking words into parts, basic reading skills, and the like. We have seen this pattern before: soon there will be no time left for play.
Children are not machines.  You cannot simply add more fuel and speed them up. They are governed by internal processes that are sometimes called the laws of child development. These processes cannot be sped up without doing serious harm to children. This harm touches many areas of their lives—physical, emotional, social, and mental.
The Alliance for Childhood, of which I am the U.S. coordinator, submitted a position statement to the Senate committee that was drafting the new birth-to-five legislation. The statement was endorsed by some of the leading experts on child development in the U.S., including Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, David Elkind, Jane Healy, Dr. Stanley Greenspan, and Dr. Alvin Poussaint. It read, in part:
The key to developing literacy—and all other skills—is to pace the learning so that it is consistent with the child’s development, enabling him or her to succeed at the early stages. Ensure this initial success and the child’s natural love of learning blooms. Doom him to failure in the beginning by making inappropriate demands and he may well be unable to overcome the resulting sense of inadequacy. This is especially true of children whose families are already under social and economic stress. (Alliance for Childhood)
There are many individuals and organizations committed to restoring play to young children’s lives.  One reason it is difficult to make progress, however, is that many parents misguidedly prefer that their children focus on early academics. Their concern about their children’s future easily turns to fear. They then place considerable pressure on teachers.
When parents and kindergarten teachers were asked what five-year-olds should know when they enter kindergarten, the parents had very different expectations than did the teachers. An October 1995 report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) entitled Readiness for  Kindergarten: Parent and Teacher Beliefs.
Parents of a majority of preschoolers believe that knowing the letters of the alphabet, being able to count to 20 or more, and using pencils and paint brushes are very important or essential for a child to be ready for kindergarten, while few kindergarten teachers share these beliefs. Compared with teachers, parents place greater importance on academic skills (e.g., counting, writing, and reading) and prefer classroom practices that are more academically oriented.  One reason for this may be that parents perceive that there are specific activities they can do to teach their children school-related basic skills, whereas ways of changing the social maturity or temperamental characteristics of their children are less apparent. (NCES)
If there is one piece of advice I would offer parents regarding play and early academics, it would be to relax and stop hurrying their children. Children have such deep resources for growth and learning that with good nurture and reasonable help most will succeed wonderfully. Some will need special help and can be given it. This is a hard message to convey, however, especially in America, where we are committed to growing our children faster and better than anyone else.
There is a story that Piaget, the great Swiss psychologist, did not like to speak to American audiences. After he had described the natural pattern of children’s development, Americans would invariably ask, “Yes, but how can we get them to do things faster?”
An important quality of being human is that it takes quite a long time for children to grow up and develop all the capacities that are part of human nature.  Compared to the young of other mammals, our children take much longer to mature. Our children deserve the right to grow and ripen at a human pace. A major part of this is allowing time for play.
Bibliography 
Alliance for Childhood. Children from Birth to Five: A statement of first principles on early education for educators and policymakers. Retrieved October 29, 2002 from http://www.allianceforchildhood.com/projects/play/index.html.
Der Spiegel (German news magazine, No. 20, 1977). p. 89-90.
Goleman, D., Kaufman, P. & Ray, M. The Creative Spirit. Dutton Books. 1992
High/Scope Summary. Different Effects from Different Preschool Models: High/Scope preschool curriculum comparison study. Drawn from works by Schweinhart, L. J., & Weikart, D. P., et. al.  Retrieved October 29, 2002 from http:// www.highscope.org/Research/curriccomp.html).
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Report entitled Readiness for Kindergarten: Parent and Teacher Beliefs, 1995. Citation retrieved October 29, 2002 from http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr027.html.
Ohanian, Susan. What Happened to Recess and Why are our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? New York: McGraw- Hill, 2002.
Singer, Dorothy and Singer, Jerome, The House of Make-Believe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Smilansky, Sara. “Sociodramatic play: Its relevance to behavior and achievement in school.” In E. Klugman & S. Smilansky (Eds.), Children’s Play and Learning.  New York: Teacher’s College. 1990.
Steinberg, Jacques. “Student failure causes states to retool testing.” New York Times, December 22, 2000.

Joan’s article is an excerpt from her chapter in an anthology called 'A Crisis in Early Childhood Education: The Rise of Technologies and the Demise of Play' published in 2003 by Greenwood (a division of Praeger)as part of their Child Psychology and Mental Health series.  Other contributors include Frank Wilson, Jeff Kane, Stanley Greenspan, Jane Healy and Christopher Clouder. (...)"



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