How to Make the Most of Main Lesson Books

Before Rudolf Steiner’s curriculum, pupils were always made to learn from written texts. This historic tradition began with clay tablets and papyrus scrolls, moved to illuminated parchments and continues to this day with printed books. The Waldorf School’s Main Lesson Books break with this tradition, as with so many others.

Instead of learning from books with government-approved teaching content, Waldorf pupils receive books whose pages are completely blank. These unique Main Lesson Books are an essential part of our education.

CREATE YOUR OWN BOOKS

In the course of a Main Lesson block, the children fill these blank pages with written summaries. They add drawings, dictations, illustrated essays, carefully shaded maps and the occasional poem.

In effect, the Main Lesson Books’ pages chart the children’s learning journey. And they record how the teacher chose to present each topic to the class. No two Main Lesson Books on the same topic in different classes will be exactly alike.

Why? Because Waldorf teachers compose lesson plans with unparalleled freedom. This freedom is essential and wonderful, but it does have its downside, as outlined in Main Lesson Myths that Need Debunking.

In any lesson, factually accurate content is of the utmost importance. The same holds true for its appealing and artistic presentation.

Beauty is Key

Creating page after page with focus and care, the pupils gain a sense of space, develop layout skills, improve their handwriting and learn to express themselves artistically.

Daily Main Lesson bookwork instils a lifelong habit of creating beauty. And as this regular training strengthens creativity, self-reliance and initiative, it helps to prepare the class for the needs of the future.

Lovingly illustrated summaries in fluent handwriting deepen the children’s connection with each topic in turn and support their learning process. Current neurological studies underpin a hundred years of Waldorf bookwork with proof that this is indeed the most effective way of acquiring knowledge.

A century after Steiner’s impulse, cognitive science shows that the Waldorf School’s DIY approach beats rote and digital learning hands down in desirable outcomes.

“With writing, you’re getting a stronger representation in your mind that lets you scaffold toward these other types of tasks that don’t in any way involve handwriting,” says Robert Wiley, professor at the University of North Carolina, who conducted a relevant study.

MAIN LESSON BOOK PARTICULARS

Most schools have a regular supplier of blank books in several formats, and teachers normally use those.

In the course of the first year, I noticed that the smooth, thin pages of our school’s blank books were not really suited to wax crayons. This made me replace them with sheets of proper drawing paper.

Their higher cost was balanced by the fact that all our loose-leaf books had exactly as many pages as were needed. No second book was ever begun of which only a couple of pages were used.

Of course a few children produced large numbers of pages, whereas the slowest workers had slim books. But each one was beautiful – and complete.

LOOSE-LEAF MAIN LESSON BOOKS

We found that doing Main Lesson bookwork on loose sheets has considerable advantages:

Firstly, it takes away the stress of ‘getting it right’ the first time. Eliminating this strain means a lot to children who don’t find bookwork easy. No page is ever torn out of their book. After consultation with the teacher, they can simply start over.

Secondly, the teacher can mount the day’s work in a wall display after the class has left. Upon returning next morning, the children are met with a stunning visual recall that excites their interest.

Studying this display and discussing observations, naturally they compare their own outcome to everyone else’s. And when that same task is repeated, as is often the case in the first year, they eagerly take the chance to improve on their first attempt.

These improvements are made according to what they observed: What had been too small is made larger; what had been too faint is given strength; what didn’t fit the format is repositioned; what had been wobbly is now better balanced, and so on …

And the teacher doesn’t have to say a word.

OTHER ADVANTAGES

At the same time that the class was busy with the day’s bookwork, I could mark and assess their previously completed pages. Not having to take books home was great!

Whenever pupils returned after an absence and needed a guideline for catching up on missed work, they could borrow the relevant page from a classmate. Simultaneously, the owners of those pages were able to continue their bookwork of the moment.

Binding Main Lesson Books at a later date also allowed us to add artwork and photocopies.

My Class 4, for example, made collages of Giant Ymir, born of fire and ice. Our building’s original site plan was coloured and labelled for Local Geography. In Class 5, a painting of seaweeds was included in the Botany Main Lesson Book:

Note: Wet-on-wet painting paper by Mercurius is a little bit larger than A3, so I used our paper trimmer to cut the dried paintings, one by one, to the right size. Eliminating messy rims generally improved their look. But of course the teacher could also do the cutting before the painting.

In the Middle School, photocopies of maps, historic texts, poems and book excerpts were added to supplement the written work. The Main Lesson Book now became a compendium of interesting study material.

MAIN LESSON BOOK Sizes

As a Waldorf pupil, I had found our wide variety of Main Lesson Book formats annoying. As a parent, I found them impractical for storage.

Note: Main Lesson Books have special value for parents, because they show their children’s learning progress directly. These books may be stored for decades, and revisiting them as adults is a moving experience for Waldorf alumni.

As a teacher, I wanted our Main Lesson Books to be of one size and chose A3 in landscape format.

Consortium’s A3 Aristo Cartridge Paper of 130gsm in packs of 250 sheets is easy on the budget. Its surface has the right grip for wax crayons and coloured pencils but is not too rough for the ink pen.

FROM HEART TO HEAD

In the Lower School years, A3’s generous heart format supports the children’s artistic development in their daily bookwork.

In the Upper School, A4’s condensed head format suits bookwork with an increasingly intellectual perspective.

Note: The paper sizes of the A Series are standardised as ISO 216 and used in at least ninety countries.

VERSATILE MAIN LESSON BOOKS

Having discovered the loose-leaf Main Lesson Books’ many advantages, it was impossible to return to the bound version.

Our school’s bursar agreed to let me pursue this innovation, provided that my class parents would not have to be charged more than others. That’s why I bought the necessary extras from my annual class budget:

• half-card for book covers in a range of colours
• a heavy-duty stapler for up to 60 pages
• boxes of matching staples
• multi-packs of black A4 spine bars in different widths

A FAVOURITE RITUAL

Completed pages were displayed on the wall, or stacked on my desk for marking, or stored on a shelf. On the last day before a holiday, all pages were handed out in a ritual that doubled as an exercise in teamwork:

The class lined up, and the first child took the page at the top of the stack. After reading the initials, they went to place the page on its owner’s desk with care. Then they returned to the back of the queue.

Introduced and rehearsed in Class 1, this handing-out process worked like a well-oiled machine. The children often did not need to check initials, for they were intimately familiar with each other’s work. They also shared generous praise and encouraging feedback.

Example: “Do you remember your bookwork when you joined our class last year? There was, shall we say, room for improvement … But look at it now!”

Coming from a Class 6 peer, such praise means much more than anything a teacher or parent could say.

When all pages had been handed out, everyone returned to their desk to check their pile for strays. Then a prepared index on the blackboard helped to put these pages in the right order.

If the Main Lesson Book was to have more pages added later, in a second block on the same topic, the loose pages were stored in a personal folder in the cupboard. Otherwise, the books were bound.

COMPLETING THE BOOKS

Everyone got to choose their book cover from the range of coloured half-card. While they were busy with their front cover, lettering name, Main Lesson title and class year, I went from desk to desk and, after a final check, stapled the stack of loose pages to a book.

Then the covers were stapled on, and an elegant black spine bar was added to hide these staples. Within the space of one morning’s Main Lesson time, the class set of around 20 books was neatly completed.

Of course the children enjoyed looking through their book, recalling the experience of creating each page and re-living the learning content. (A standard test just cannot compare!)

They couldn’t wait to take the book home to show their family. All were proud of their work. Irrespective of talent, level of ability and skill, everyone had made progress.

They could see that each Main Lesson Book was an improvement on their previous one. In this way, every new blank page became a silent invitation to continue this pleasing progress.

AN UNFAMILIAR CHALLENGE

All pupils who joined my class from a mainstream school struggled with bookwork at first. Whether they came from the local comprehensive or a private girls’ school – all were used to worksheets with graphs and cartoons.

Creating a beautiful page was daunting. Cursive handwriting was a problem; so was using a fountain pen. The guide sheet was unfamiliar. Lettering a title had never been tried. Drawing without contour lines had to be learnt.

Seeing the class handle all of this confidently knocked their self-esteem a bit. But with patient guidance and encouragement, each one adapted quickly and developed previously unsuspected skills.

Time and again, this process reminded me of tiny crumpled Asian paper balls which, when dropped in water, soak up the liquid to unfurl beautiful flower petals:

Despite all initial difficulties, it was understood that the creation of appealing pages made more sense of the learning content and helped to remember it.

Summary: In its best sense, Main Lesson bookwork is not only educational but also therapeutic. Waldorf pedagogy knows that an artistic approach meets a deep need and feeds the children’s soul.

Comments are welcome, so don’t hesitate to share experiences, questions and feedback below.

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