Waldorf Matters … Ember, Trust and the Woodland School

Ms Madeline Hale performs a variety roles at Elmfield, from teaching dance and painting to supporting learning across several Classes in the Lower School . In our weekly blog series about key aspects of Steiner Waldorf education, Madeline shares a significant aspect of her role here: leading our Woodland School.

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."- W.B. Yeats

This is what the younger classes are told upon first crossing the gates of Woodland School….

“Once there lived a dragon; he was very old. He was in fact the last dragon that survived from the ancient time of dragons: a dragon with scales and teeth and fire in his belly. Unusually for a dragon, he found himself a home, and a job, delivering matches at a school. Even more unusually for someone who never leaves school grounds, the dragon was terrified of children. 

All dragons are frightened of children, but Ember (for that is his name) was the most afraid of the lot! He wasn’t exactly frightened of children, no, he was sure some of them could be quite nice. He was frightened of the wiggling, squiggling, un-hearing creatures children often became. He was frightened that if they acted that way around him he might accidentally burn them with his fire and that was one thing that Ember could never allow. So, he made his home in a woodland clearing as far away from the school and the school children as he could be. 

In the morning, way before the children arrived, he would place matches in a box next to every candle that was to be lit in the morning; so the children could start their day with light and warmth. However, one morning, like many of us do, Ember woke up late. So he rushed to get all the matches delivered before the children arrived. He would have made it too! If one little girl hadn’t arrived early with her mother.  

Shocked, as she had never seen a dragon before, the little girl watched as he squeezed himself out of a window and flew off to his woodland clearing home. That break time she crept down to the gate that led to the woodland and whispered: “We’d love to see you up at the school.” And crept away again so Ember wasn’t even sure that she had appeared then in the first place. But soon he was sure she had. Willow crept down every day. Always listened, never came further into the forest than Ember asked her too. And slowly, day by day, meeting by meeting, Ember began to trust Willow: to gain a dragon’s trust is a very special thing. 

Soon, Ember began to let little Willow sit next to him and he began to tell her stories. All of the stories he could remember from the ancient time of dragons up until that very moment and, seeing as he was very old, that’s a lot of stories. 

One cold, murky, winter's day when the frost was thick and the fog even thicker. Ember decided that he trusted Willow. So when she crept down to the woods that afternoon, Ember showed her something no child had ever seen before. He took a deep breath and in the centre of his clearing sprung a fire.

This time as he began to tell the ancient tales, animals, humans and, yes, even dragons sprang up and danced in the flames.”

So now you know the secret: the secret that thirty-nine lucky children already know: that there is a dragon round these parts! Who kindly, lets me use his woodland home to run the woodland school! The Woodland School is based on the bond of trust between Ember, the children and me.

The children learn that I need to trust them or the trust that is on offer can’t be given. The children thrive on this responsibility. They listen, they work hard and they strive to be trusted by me and by Ember thus, they are completely engaged. 

They stand tall within the bounds of Woodlands School; they grow within it returning to familiar places to see if they have grown along with them. 

The highlight, of course, is the safe exploration of fire! Which Ember gifts the children himself. Be assured the glow on the children’s faces is not just that of the flames.