On Friday 19 September we celebrated the second Read-a-thon at Gaia and it indeed was a true celebration of reading! The children found great joy in stepping into the shoes of their book characters, buying books, reading to each other, listening to authors and watching a wonderful play. Much gratitude goes out to the South African Theatre for the Youth for their very special performance of Charlotte’s web. The story about friendship and the deeper meaning of life was brought in such a moving way that there were many moments of laughter and even tears. I saw how the children imagined the different scene’s or empathised and related to the characters in the play. The event highlighted just how important books and reading are.
Why is it important for our children to read books? ( I mean them either reading themselves or the books being read to them, these are both equally important!) When I think back about my childhood I still have intense, vivid memories of the books I read. I can picture the landscapes, the characters and feelings of these characters clearly. I became the characters while I was reading. That is why even to this day I keep some of the books I read when I was young because of what they meant to me at that time in my life: these books have become part of my personal story. So we see that the images and emotions you experience when reading a book are uniquely yours. Reading a book can take you places where you never dreamed of going, it can transform you into someone you relate to or into someone who is on a very different journey from yours. Reading good, meaningful books, especially when we are young, is important because of the life experience we gain and it equips us for the real life challenges we will face in the future.
Why not just watch a movie, it is also a story? Yes, a movie also depicts a story and can be beautiful, moving and entertaining to watch. Watching a movie is easy as well: even when you are tired you can manage it because you don’t have to do anything. And that is exactly where it differs from reading a book; when you watch a movie the images and emotions are given to you without you having to create them yourself. When we do this every now and then it is not a problem but when we watch too many movies we become lazy and lose the ability to create our own images. On the other hand reading a book gives you the ultimate gift of creating and it becoming your own story which is a powerful resource for your life.
Waldorf education is all about making stories, lesson content and subjects our own so that we can carry them within ourselves for the rest of our lives and have easy access to their wisdom and put them into practice. The ability to read or do maths for that matter is important but of greater importance is what the child can independently do with it in his or her life and this can only happen when it has become part of his or her own story.
Reading equips our children to better face and resolve the challenges of life that will come their way independently. This is especially interesting in the Michaelmas time of challenges we are currently in, to strive within ourselves and to consciously decide how we want to live our lives and to stand by it.
The words of one of the songs we sang during our Michaelmas festival last Friday:
Michaelmas, Michaelmas the time to show both courage and form
Look well around, inside you must wake
Trees may shake, I shall stand the storm.
Blessings on your holiday and use this time to enjoy lots and lots of reading!
Kristal Cox-Willemse
Class 4 Teacher