Some decades ago, in another millennium, I learned how to teach German language at the Cincinnati Waldorf School — by learning to flow smoothly.
Waldorf pedagogic method follows the thought and moment of Rudolf Steiner.
We’re still here, Bill. And we have a question. Is there a difference between pedagogic and pedantic? By the bye, we are bored.
Yes, there is a difference. My apologies for the tedium that now threatens tedia.
Each student had this blank book and a set of block crayons.
A fine point between a pointed crayon and a block crayon. Boundaries are the literal point of a more muffling model. Art, dance, theater and connection to the Earth. Veganism was the norm, as it should be.
You have a gift for wandering off task. Do you know that?
The German for poison is das Gift. Snow White (Schneewittchen) bit into a gift from a person of some political moment. The gift was Gift. On a side note — where I prefer to spend my time — you can frequent souvenir shops all over the place called: Das Gift Haus. Caveat emptor!
Bilingual puns are the death of wit, an affront.
Some few years ago, between 1989 and 2013, I enjoyed another singular privilege: teaching at the TriState German-American School. It’s a local institution that arose from a large number of emigrees to Cincinnati, arriving from German-speaking countries.
Pedantry alert. Pedantry alert.
The TGAS principal did not impose a curriculum on my class “Getting Around in German.” If the students were happy she was happy. My students were happy. This happy happenstance allowed me room (did you know that the name Zimmerman arises from the German ‘Room Man’ for carpenter. A Ziegler lays tile. The first mayor of Cincinnati was David Ziegler.
My green italic critics shift nervously on respective chairs.
You stray like a thief in the night, Herr Ziegler. These Pults are a horror.
God save us from the prison that the Prussian system of student control imposes. Just my 7 1/2 cents.
From Fawlty Towers: “I want a Waldorf Salad.” Fawlty: “I think we’re just out of Waldorfs.”
It’s quite a comfort to holiday at the Fawlty Towers. Let’s listen in on a few fellow guests recently arrived from Deutschland.
“We didn’t start it. Yes you did, you invaded Poland.”
But to return to something completely different, I developed a number of techniques in my Saturday German class that offered a more gentle way in my lesson un-plan. I introduced concrete objects without recourse to the succor of English.
Point at the sun, define a circle with your fingertips. The sun is big. She is yellow. She is big, round, yellow and hot. How can you remember that something is round — leave the round part “o” out, and so rund.
Two favorite verses did I glean from Waldorf and refresh in my class:
Hutsch He! Hutsch He! Der Ackermann sät.
The classroom floor became a plot of land to sow in Spring. In Autumn (Herbst/harvest) that same floor became a field of wheat that flowed with the wind and became ready for harvest.
Hutsch He! Hutsch He! Der Ackermann mäht.
Use the same arm movement used for sowing the seeds, but then suggest a scythe that cuts the grain and readies it for baking bread.
Spring to Fall —sät to mäht.
Thanks for reading.
billziegler1947 