Guest Post by Rebecca Coleman: Childhood Perfected?

 A New Yorker by birth, Rebecca Coleman grew up in the close suburbs of Washington, D.C., in an academic family. A year spent in Germany, at the age of eight, would later provide the basis for the protagonist's background in "The Kingdom of Childhood." She first learned about the Waldorf School movement at age 14 and quickly developed a fascination with its culture and philosophies. After studying elementary education for several years at the University of Maryland, she graduated with a degree in English, awarded with honors, and speaks to writers' groups on the subjects of creative writing and publishing. She lives in suburban Maryland with her husband and their four young children.

 

Her debut novel, "The Kingdom of Childhood", while in manuscript form, was a semifinalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition.

Today, Rebecca is talking about her own personal experience with The Waldorf School.Thank you Rebecca for stopping bu today.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I was a 14-year-old public school kid when I got my first glimpse of a Waldorf school, walking through its doors as a guest of my mother's co-worker, whose son was a student there. From the street it looked perfectly ordinary, but inside, it was a revelation. Breathtakingly beautiful drawings and paper cutouts, all made by the children, decorated its corridors; the classrooms for its youngest students were filled with handmade dolls, carved wooden figurines, baskets of wool yarn and colorful hooded capes for games of imagination. It made me think of the Three Bears' cottage, something out of a folk tale sprung to life. That day the school community gathered in the multipurpose room for a candlelit carol sing-- it was nearly Christmas. My starkest memory of that day is the rising panic I felt at being surrounded by all those wiggly children who each held a lit candle, and, at the same time, an overwhelming awe of the beauty around me.

Much like Judy, the main character in my novel, the school reminded me instantly of my classrooms in Germany, where I had lived for a year in the mid-1980s. In the years that followed, as I learned more and more about the Waldorf philosophy-- invented, as it was, by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the early 1900s-- I identified strongly with its notions that children do well to be immersed in the rhythms of the seasons, working with materials made by nature. I believed, too, in the wisdom to be found in the subtext of the oldest fairy tales, and in setting a high value on the beauty of a child's environment. Waldorf school, to me, seemed like childhood perfected.

My oldest son, James, began Waldorf preschool just before he turned 4. I was a very young mother, and it felt like a true victory to have won him a spot at the school. I didn't think it mattered that James was obsessed with all things soldier-related, because that's common with boys that age, and knights are a common motif in Waldorf stories and toys. I couldn't have been more wrong.

            
 We lasted one semester there. Nearly every day, his teacher greeted me at the door with a negative report about his behavior. It seemed the kid couldn't do anything right; even when he painted, he painted wrong, because he wanted to use multiple colors and paint objects, which was not allowed. When the teacher set out wooden planks for creative play, James encouraged his classmates to build ramps to climb the bookshelves; when she gave them a basket of rocks (indoors!), he threw them. Bewildered by his teacher's constant criticism, I told her the always-effective method for correcting James: tell him to stop. But that was not the Waldorf way; the method is to redirect the child. That didn't work with James, and so she kept tearing her hair out, and he, blissfully ignorant that he was doing anything wrong, kept returning to his own great ideas. 

The breaking point came when she told me the other children were ostracizing him because of his behavior. This put me into a complete panic. The next day I came in to observe him on the playground, hoping to discern the reason why my child was an outcast. Instead, I watched as he appointed himself the construction manager of an epic project in the sand pit; one child after another came up to him asking to be assigned their role. He wasn't an outcast at all-- he was a leader. He was popular. I knew then that we needed to leave. I loved the philosophy with all my heart, but I couldn't leave my exuberant, free-spirited boy in a place where he was the sticky nail that needed to be hammered down.

James is 13 now, and now and then I look at him and wonder what his first teacher would think if she could see him today-- my incredibly funny son, smart and friendly and very well-behaved, whose favorite place in the world is the Shakespeare drama camp he attends every summer. His personality hasn't changed a bit since he was four years old-- but luckily, he has been surrounded by wonderful teachers who value him for who he is. I still keep one of his Waldorf preschool paintings on the wall-- a reminder of my hope to give him a happy childhood, and how that precious wish was granted to us after all, just not in the way I expected.  

I don't assume that all Waldorf classrooms are like my son's-- not at all. I still have great affection for the philosophy. In The Kingdom of Childhood, Zach finds wisdom and strength in what he has learned as a Waldorf student, even as the entire ideal of protected innocence has broken down for him in the most egregious ways. Truly, it's the rare institution that won't, at some point, let us down-- but it doesn't mean we have to discard what beauty and truth we found within it. Life is a process of gathering

           

Giveaway & Review of "The Kingdom of Childhood" by Rebecca Coleman

Publisher: Mira

Release Date: September 10, 2011

Buying Links:  Amazon     The Book Depository

Book Blurb (from goodreads):

The Kingdom of Childhood is the story of a boy and a woman; sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struggling to reconcile his knowledge of his mother's sextramarital affair, and Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher watching her family unravel before her eyes. Thrown together to organize a fundraiser for their failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they begin an affair that at first thrills, then corrupts each of them. Judy sees in Zachthe elements of a young man she loved as a child, but what Zach does not realize is that their relationship is, for Judy, only the latest in a lifetime of disturbing secrets.

Rebecca Coleman's manuscript for The Kingdom of Childhood was a semifinalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition. An emotionally tense, increasingly chilling work of fiction set in the controversial Waldorf school community, it is equal parts enchanting and unsettling and is sure to be a much discussed and much-debated novel.

Teaser: Dreams had this effect on me: I knew where they ended  and reality began, but they tended to bring ideas into an area where the circles overlapped, making the absurd seem more feasible.

My Thoughts:




When I first heard about this book, I was intrigued by the Waldorf school setting and appalled at the topic. Appalled because it's not an easy topic to think about or discuss, and because as a teacher, I take it personally when one abuses their power and their children's trust in such a manner, not because I thought it was inappropriate.  An adult female who has sex with a teenage boy is sometimes looked on as something to brag about, as somehow ok, even adult males who have sex with teenage girls is sometimes considered ok. But people overlook the fact that there's an inherent imbalance of power in such a relationship and if the adult is an authority figure, like Judy in the book, then the situation is worse. There are reasons for the legal concept of statuatory rape. I was intrigued by the setting because I teach pre-school. I had heard a little bit about our local Waldorf school but really knew nothing. Reading the book was a good opportunity to learn more. The school I teach at draws from Reggio Emilia, constructivism, emergent curriculum and Piaget for it's educational philosophy and curriculum.

So I approached this book with both curiousity for it's setting and trepidation for it's uncomfortable topic. It's a topic that is potentially explosive, and certainly controversial, and I hoped that Coleman would handle it with care and sensitivity. Happily, she tackles it realistically and in an unflinching manner; there's no sentimentalizing, and the book is a compulsive read. The characters are well-drawn, with both Judy and  Zach coming across as real and authentic. The characters aren't black and white, but realistic shades of gray. Each one is flawed in some way, each one has both dreams and baggage that simultaneously lead them forward and cripples them. Coleman explores complex ethical issues with a clear and unflinching eye. The reader is forced to look beyond their assumptions and biases and examine what is happening and how it happened. It's dark, intense, and makes you think.

The story is told in alternating viewpoints, shifting between Judy and Zach. There are also flashbacks to the year that Judy lived in Germany as a child, a year that had a dramatic and lasting impact on both her and her family. We also get flashbacks into Zach's life in New Hampshire, where they just recently moved from. Coleman takes the past and present and shows us how the events of the past lead to current events in our lives. We are shaped by our past, even when we don't realize it. There are quite a few layers to this story, and Coleman deftly manages them all.

Reading the book was similar to slowing down to watch a car crash - you have some idea of what you'll see, you know it's likely to be horrible or gruesome but you can't turn away, it's a compulsion that you can't resist. With all of the events that happen, especially towards the end of the book, the story could easily have veered into soap opera or talk show territory but Coleman avoids those traps and we get a hard hitting, painful, but exquisite look at the disintegration of a family, of a grown woman, of innocence and trust, and what it means to be a child.
One of Coleman's strengths in this story is her language and her way with words. Alternately dark, lyrical, intense, and stark, she paints vivid pictures in your mind:

Since my husband had exchanged his libido for entrance into his Ph.D. program three years before.....

I needed this weekend with Russ, if only to refocus my mind from the ever-growing list of men my subconscious was plundering.

But he felt compelled to support her anyway, based on a bit of wisdom taught to him by his dad: never side against a strong woman, because it never ends well.

Cats are the servants of the moon goddess. Only evil people can't tolerate them. It's like garlic and vampires. (I have a cat, and I enjoy vampire books, so this one made me smile.)

 Something inside my chest felt pinched, bunched up and tied with a tight string. I think it was the place in my heart where the joy of youth had once been: a phantom pain.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Courtesy of Meryl L Moss Media Relations, I have one print copy to give away to a US resident. The book will be mailed directly from them to the winner.