Night Before Night Before

Getting ready to start teaching third grade. We will start on Monday. I know, Monday is Labor Day, but we have had such a relaxing summer I don't see why we need to wait one more day before beginning. Short weeks are always awkward, I like to begin on a Monday.

Following the Waldorf curriculum, I thought I would begin with Creation. This is third grade and that is what the guides all say to start with. Then I started really reading the first few Old Testament stories. Now I find I cannot get a handle on how to present any of it in a way that resonates within myself. I have taught fourth, fifth and sixth grade at home and never had any trouble with creation mythologies before. Somehow there was always a deep archetypal feeling in the stories, a sense of divine light filling the darkness within. But the Old Testament presents the story in such a way that I feel God as this guy playing with a felt story board, sticking the sun in the sky. And how is it that everyone came from Adam and Eve? And then there is the flood and only two of each creature was saved? We all know that incest does not produce the strongest of stock. I cannot yet get a handle on how to bring the image of God as the divinity in us all through these stories.

We will also start with farming and gardening, because we live in a great place for a fall garden. This is a subject I can truly get a handle on. This way we can do science with weather and soil and grains and bees. I have wanted to keep bees in the garden for years and it seems that the time is right, for me, for our curriculum and for our environment. The county fair will be here next week and we will visit farms to pick fruit and go to harvest festivals to listen to music and eat roasted corn and pick pumpkins.

So, the cursive letters are up, the main lesson books are prepared and now we have Sunday to polish the furniture and floors and then we will have the first day of school. I just need to reconcile my relationship to the Bible and I will be truly ready.