Waldorf News

Taking an Interest: The bridge between parents and teachers

By Christof Wiechert

When many years ago the doctor and special needs teacher Bernard Lievegoed was asked what constructive collaboration between parents and teachers might look like, he described for his colleagues the “golden triangle”. At the top are the pupils, at the bottom right the teachers and left the parents. Only if the three legs of this triangle work properly can educationally constructive work be done. If even just one is faulty the whole educational process is disrupted.

Everyone who has anything to do with school and education will immediately see how correct this image is. So what are the conditions for the positive collaboration between parents and teachers? It is clear that parents obtain their knowledge about what happens in school and in lessons always at second hand.

That is why it is important to practice open door education. Parents and colleagues can come into the classroom at any time unannounced and attend part of the lessons. Some of our Dutch schools literally had open doors. The parents who looked in obtained an impression of the living pulse of the lesson, of the many processes which have to be managed at the same time. These experiences had a strong effect. Parents saw what was really going on.

But why should colleagues not also visit one another in lessons? Why not use this simple form of intervision and invite colleagues to sit in on a class? And afterwards go for a coffee together to discuss the question: why do you do it in this way?

The old image of the class teacher as the solitary, unapproachable ruler who is always right in his or here kingdom behind closed doors is no longer valid. The king is dead, long live the king! The “new” queen is open, transparent, comprehensible in her actions, accessible; she understands that she cannot do and know everything but she knows where to find help for what she does not know. He or she keeps one-and-a-half hours at the end of a weekday free each week. Parents can then drop in as in a kind of informal surgery. Low level, no advance notice. If no one turns up he can prepare lessons or correct lesson books. It is marvelous for the teach to be accessible for parents in this way to discuss things…

Read the rest of the article at erziehungskunst.de, the web portal of the Association of German Waldorf Schools. This article is a summary of a lecture at the 2014 national congress in Dresden, Germany.

Christof Wiechert is a former leader of the Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. He was a Waldorf class teacher for some thirty years in the Netherlands.