The eight-year-old Acacia Tree nursery school runs on a survival budget budget of R9000 a month to pay a teacher and two assistants, but their dedication to the Waldorf educational philosophy is breaking new ground for the 20 children from Chintsa East township across the river below.
Tom Muller, 43, a teacher steeped in the tradition initially through his Waldorf teacher mom, Barbara, is the founder of the upscaled shack school he built on the property. Barbara, in her 70s, is still there, weekly mentoring the staff of three.
He and his doctor wife, Madeleine – who runs a network of Aids workers for the NGO Beyond Zero – have put their own children, Coral and Rowyn, through the nursery school, and now Tom is homeschooling them in the magnificent low-cost house he also built for the family nearby.
Muller is a never-still man of many interests, one of them being the owner and operator of Tom’s Circus, where among his skills he dons a clown costume and puts on a show for children in Frere and Cecilia Makiwane hospitals. The gig is sponsored by Reach for a Dream.
He can often be found soon after dawn surfing off Chintsa beach, and yesterday he ran a yoga class for campers at Buccaneers Backpackers.
He said many of the children at Acacia Tree Nursery come from tough backgrounds.
“Poverty is the main challenge, as are alcoholism and abusive relationships at home.
“It takes a toll on young minds and hearts,” he said.
“The children come through our big gate at the entrance and run towards the school.”
In Waldorf thought, children aged three to six are not formally taught academic “subjects” like the alphabet or numbers, although there are plenty of books in the nearby library.
There are also no break times or “naughty corners”, no system of punishment and reward, and definitely no smacking or violence of any kind.
Instead there is a “rhythmical” programme which emphasises creative play where all manner of games are encouraged, followed by “circle time” coordinated by the teacher, Veliswa Xanti.
Circle time is filled with singing, clapping, rhymes, poems and storytelling, always themed around nature’s seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.
Then, after a teatime including a nutritional porridge, comes the highlight of the day – activity!
There is painting, drawing, gardening, weaving, sewing, finger-knitting, needlework, baking…
“It is a wonderment, to see the children working at their craft or activity. From chaos comes form. Not through sitting at an academic desk, but through the self-educating properties of purposeful work, of baking a loaf of bread, or sewing your own dolly.”
Waldorf schools are anti-hierarchical. There is no principal.
The school is run by a group of teachers and parents. Its financial entity is a trust, and as an NPO, it is audited and receives clean results, he said.
Adults who were raised to battle it out in a hard-core, capitalist society, struggle to understand that in a world of safety, harmony and joy, children have no need for disciplinary issues, Muller said.
“We look for the reasons a child is not able to do something and try and find an activity that is appropriate and something they want to do. When this happens, when they are submerged in it, they go quiet. From the noise and chaos outside, we provide a sanctuary of peacefulness and beauty.”
Teachers are the antennae of these values, and it is essential that they approach the classroom with “joyfulness”.
“Every day they need to experience the deep-seated wonderment that we are alive and able to live together. They have to find that joy every day, no matter what is happening around them. We try hard to make our school a place of natural beauty. We try to only use natural materials. Creative play is an essential educational tool. Teachers only act as shepherds who ensure that the child feels safe.”
Progress is forged through adventure and exploration.
“Human beings should be able to decide what they want to do in life out of loving something, rather than having to scheme how to come out on top in a place where only the fittest survive.”
Muller said natural self-education, using the “tool” of creative thinking, is the opposite of too much “screen exposure where digital technology provides the information, rendering the brain pretty much dead”.
“Children need to create play out of their own imagination which they bring into the world.”
He says the people who “really get it”, are Xhosa mothers, who look on as their children work in creative quietude.
But outside the gate of this little school, the big bad world is knocking noisily.
Teachers need to be paid, and there must be food, materials and a functional space.
Parents are mostly only able to pay R150 per child per month.
Transport costs R340 a month for a taxi to ferry the children on the round route from over the river.
How to do it all and raise the money has been on Muller’s mind for some time. “We regularly face closure from a lack of sufficient funds. Yet we have managed to survive for almost nine years.
He is in talks with another inspiring independent school nearby, African Angels, and the hope is that education pioneer Lou Billet will take Acacia Tree under her wing when she raises money professionally. Until then, any financial help is welcomed. Muller’s e-mail is tomcircus7@gmail.com or use the banking details Acacia Tree Nursery School, Absa Bank savings account number 9237943555, branch number 632005. — Mikel@dispatch.co.za
Shepherding young ones through play
Tom Muller, 43, a teacher steeped in the tradition initially through his Waldorf teacher mom, Barbara, is the founder of the upscaled shack school he built on the property. Barbara, in her 70s, is still there, weekly mentoring the staff of three.
He and his doctor wife, Madeleine – who runs a network of Aids workers for the NGO Beyond Zero – have put their own children, Coral and Rowyn, through the nursery school, and now Tom is homeschooling them in the magnificent low-cost house he also built for the family nearby.
Muller is a never-still man of many interests, one of them being the owner and operator of Tom’s Circus, where among his skills he dons a clown costume and puts on a show for children in Frere and Cecilia Makiwane hospitals. The gig is sponsored by Reach for a Dream.
He can often be found soon after dawn surfing off Chintsa beach, and yesterday he ran a yoga class for campers at Buccaneers Backpackers.
He said many of the children at Acacia Tree Nursery come from tough backgrounds.
“Poverty is the main challenge, as are alcoholism and abusive relationships at home.
“It takes a toll on young minds and hearts,” he said.
“The children come through our big gate at the entrance and run towards the school.”
In Waldorf thought, children aged three to six are not formally taught academic “subjects” like the alphabet or numbers, although there are plenty of books in the nearby library.
There are also no break times or “naughty corners”, no system of punishment and reward, and definitely no smacking or violence of any kind.
Instead there is a “rhythmical” programme which emphasises creative play where all manner of games are encouraged, followed by “circle time” coordinated by the teacher, Veliswa Xanti.
Circle time is filled with singing, clapping, rhymes, poems and storytelling, always themed around nature’s seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.
Then, after a teatime including a nutritional porridge, comes the highlight of the day – activity!
There is painting, drawing, gardening, weaving, sewing, finger-knitting, needlework, baking…
“It is a wonderment, to see the children working at their craft or activity. From chaos comes form. Not through sitting at an academic desk, but through the self-educating properties of purposeful work, of baking a loaf of bread, or sewing your own dolly.”
Waldorf schools are anti-hierarchical. There is no principal.
The school is run by a group of teachers and parents. Its financial entity is a trust, and as an NPO, it is audited and receives clean results, he said.
Adults who were raised to battle it out in a hard-core, capitalist society, struggle to understand that in a world of safety, harmony and joy, children have no need for disciplinary issues, Muller said.
“We look for the reasons a child is not able to do something and try and find an activity that is appropriate and something they want to do. When this happens, when they are submerged in it, they go quiet. From the noise and chaos outside, we provide a sanctuary of peacefulness and beauty.”
Teachers are the antennae of these values, and it is essential that they approach the classroom with “joyfulness”.
“Every day they need to experience the deep-seated wonderment that we are alive and able to live together. They have to find that joy every day, no matter what is happening around them. We try hard to make our school a place of natural beauty. We try to only use natural materials. Creative play is an essential educational tool. Teachers only act as shepherds who ensure that the child feels safe.”
Progress is forged through adventure and exploration.
“Human beings should be able to decide what they want to do in life out of loving something, rather than having to scheme how to come out on top in a place where only the fittest survive.”
Muller said natural self-education, using the “tool” of creative thinking, is the opposite of too much “screen exposure where digital technology provides the information, rendering the brain pretty much dead”.
“Children need to create play out of their own imagination which they bring into the world.”
He says the people who “really get it”, are Xhosa mothers, who look on as their children work in creative quietude.
But outside the gate of this little school, the big bad world is knocking noisily.
Teachers need to be paid, and there must be food, materials and a functional space.
Parents are mostly only able to pay R150 per child per month.
Transport costs R340 a month for a taxi to ferry the children on the round route from over the river.
How to do it all and raise the money has been on Muller’s mind for some time. “We regularly face closure from a lack of sufficient funds. Yet we have managed to survive for almost nine years.
He is in talks with another inspiring independent school nearby, African Angels, and the hope is that education pioneer Lou Billet will take Acacia Tree under her wing when she raises money professionally. Until then, any financial help is welcomed. Muller’s e-mail is tomcircus7@gmail.com or use the banking details Acacia Tree Nursery School, Absa Bank savings account number 9237943555, branch number 632005. — Mikel@dispatch.co.za
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