As it gets cold we are often invited into greater consciousness about what supports our sense of wellness? What do we need to feel well?
The sense of wellness is something we often take for granted because we usually feel it, we feel well. We learn to recognize the signs when our wellness sense is reminding us to slow down and soften, and we can see them in our children as well. Are they energized? or floppy? Is the color of their skin pale or different than usual? Is their gaze shining and ready to meet the day? Or are they looking for a place to curl up and hide away?
This sense of wellness is one of twelve senses described by Rudolf Steiner that we consciously endeavor to cultivate in our learning environment.
The first four foundational senses we seek to develop in early childhood from birth to 7 years.
Sense of Touch
The skin is the organ of the sense of touch and what is happening is that the children are learning to recognize the boundary of their body and to care for it. We nourish this with providing support for self initiated care and attention to dressing and undressing including attention to the fabrics and effectiveness of the clothes we recommend. In addition, we create a safe and welcoming space where exploration of touch is welcome and consciously cultivated with a wide array of sensory experiences in and outdoors with attention to the source of the things we provide in the environment preferring natural items grown from life itself, wood, wool, sand, grass, stone.
Sense of Life or Wellness
The autonomic nervous system is the organ of our sense of wellness and we support this sense by providing a routine that breathes, meaning that can adapt to the mood and energy of the group and the weather and the world. We also support the sense of life with effective clothing that supports a child in staying adequately warm for their safety and nourishment of their interest in engagement with teachers and students.
Sense of Balance
The inner ear is the organ of our sense of balance. The sense of balance is overall providing the child the freedom and time to explore up and down, sensing one's body in relation to gravity or the cosmos you could say. We can observe in the Morning Garden children as they become confident with walking the work they are taking up with the forces of gravity, work that only they can do. We provide them the time to really allow them to freely come to stand on their own, to run, gallop, wander and relish all the discoveries along the way.
Sense of Movement
The sense of proprioception or the sense of one's body and its parts in relationship to one another in space is becoming more and more well understood as foundational to neurological development. Even speech, which we don't think of as a form of movement, is really dependent upon the harmonious movement of many small muscles, bones, neurons and body chemistry that is influenced by the social and emotional environment. We live in times that more and more often confine children to limited physical positions and exploration. To support movement we provide a wide array of surfaces, we engage in play that explores movement. When we engage the children to move heartily, we strengthen their bodies, welcome flexibility, joy and imagination which will later be reflected in their thinking. Movement in gross and fine motor abilities, becomes confidence in landing on the earth.
The next four senses are often referred to as the middle senses. The foundational senses of touch, life, movement and balance are largely taking place within us. The middle senses are still very important to the young child, but they come into greater enjoyment in the Grades school aged child.
Sense of Smell
The sense of smell is the only sense that is fully formed at birth and guides the infant to the breast for the first time. The sense of smell can impact our children all the time, the scent of various cleaning products can be a kind of sensory clutter. We tend the sense of smell in early childhood by removing unneeded scents from our home so that our child can explore undisturbed. Some scents can be supportive: Often our classrooms use aromatherapy oils like lavender in a bowl of warm water to wipe down and freshen the environment. The smell of freshly cooked food fills the rooms, awakening the child's interest in food and surrounding them with natural scents of life. As our children grow older they express the qualities of their soul in their favorite smells.
Sense of Taste
The sense of taste is another great doorway to the world. We provide an array of foods that reflect different tastes and textures, everything offered but never required. Seasonal and festival foods draw our children toward the intimate experience of bringing the world into one's body as we eat. Preparing food together in a spirited kitchen. Picking berries and making jam or freezing them on trays for the winter. These are wonderful ways that food brings our children into a greater relationship with the world around them, subtly anticipates the changes in seasons, and affirms for them that the world is good. They need to know that in their bodies and bones.
Sense of Sight
The sense of sight is something we take for granted so often. We can observe for ourselves how the visual environment can heighten our spirits, encourage us and also go to sleep as the leaves fall and the colors of life become more subtle. Beauty is very important in the Waldorf classroom because sight immediately projects the things around us onto our inner life. What images do we want to fill the inner life of our children? I encourage you to consider this question for your family.
Sense of Warmth
The sense of warmth is the last of the middle senses and it provides a bridge to the spiritual senses. The sense of warmth has two meanings. We cannot sense warmth and express warmth if we are not well acquainted with the experience of being warm. This has a physical part to it that we attend to with great care, dressing our children well, feeding them warm foods, and preparing them to face and embrace the elements. And it also has a social part. When we are physically cold, it is uncommon to feel motivated to engage with others in loving ways. Yet when we are warm, our physical needs met, we can begin to feel curious and interested in the discovery of others and the world. We warm the social environment by anticipating and preparing for the physical needs of the children thoroughly and well. Then, our children shine their inner sun's that have been nourished by loving care toward new friends and the world around them.
The middle senses begin to express the qualities of our soul. As children grow to have a favorite color, a favorite fruit or food, a best friend. These are all the ways that their sensory development becomes a foundation for social wellness which is an essential foundation for learning overall.
The final four senses are sometimes referred to as the spiritual senses. For instance, the quickening that we feel within us as we behold a tree in full bloom is for me a kind of uplifting aha that brings me beyond the knowledge of the trunk, the function of the leaves, the smell of the blossoms and even the taste of the fruit. There is a glimpse of something whole, something in communion with others around it, the birds, bees, the cosmic forces. We behold it.
Sense of Hearing
The sense of hearing is not simply the auditory function of the inner ear, but the capacity to make sense of what is grasped through the ear. We can hear another person utter words, but how often do we completely misunderstand what is spoken? How wondrous and magical when we are understood.
Sense of thought
Thought sense is an extension of this, the ability to share a thought with another, to understand a thought and to coexist together in thought. We recognize when someone shares an understanding with us, there is a capacity to know and be known and we all know the feeling that arises when we are known.
Word Sense
is to be able to hear what is meant by words shared, which is not the same thing as understanding the meaning of vocabulary although the development of language is a foundation for this sense. How often were we able to convey something to someone when we don't have the exact words but we are interested enough in another to endeavor to be understood with word, gesture, facial expression. And they are interested enough to grasp what we have shared. This is the word sense, not simply to understand the meaning of words, but to integrate all of what is offered by another and to know what they mean.
"I" sense
is the culmination in some ways of all sensory activity. Our I sense is really our "I am" sense which is the foundation of the I-Thou relationship. Beyond each one of us is the higher self we strive to become. When we are able to make a home in ourselves for our higher self, we are endowed with gifts of love for others. Children from their earliest moments may recognize and embody glimpses of this spirited self. Often the three year old receives their first glimpse of this. While three year olds can sometimes be characterized as defiant, there is a way of beholding their acts of independence as already knowing something about their future self. What if we cared for our children with the understanding that they already know what they have to bring to the world?
The spiritual senses arise inwardly as an integrated awareness, a gradually developing awareness of others around us. Our sense of who we are and how we contribute to the whole. Every human beings needs to feel competent, capable and able to contribute. These are the spiritual senses unseen but not without signs.
