During the fall season each year, The Waldorf School of Garden City, along with Waldorf Schools around the world, celebrate Michaelmas.
Michaelmas honors what is truly human and our process of self-development. The story told through the festival examines the process of taming our inner demons and choosing what kind of person we will be in the world. Students in grades 2, 6, and 12 are the primary participants in the pageant and represent the pageant characters: a reckless dragon in need of taming, St. Michael, and a royal family. The pageant ends with all students in attendance following the lead of St. Michael in walking a spiral, first circling inward and then outward before departing, as if looking inward and then walking out into the world as better people.
The Waldorf School of Garden City students were able to enjoy a full Michaelmas pageant and activities this year as they embraced and embodied the qualities of courage, inner strength, and deeds of goodness (See the photo gallery below).
The afternoon activities began with a “Courage Game” that took the form of a 4-way tug of war by grades 6, 7, and 8. This was followed by separate group activities. First graders completed chalk drawings around the school with their senior buddies. Second graders worked with eighth graders creating Hojolata (foil art). Third grade students made beeswax candles. The fourth grade made dragon piñatas. Sixth graders honed their drumming skills, and the fifth and seventh grades took on stewardship projects like weeding, and refreshing a bench and the Lower School playground sandbox.
High school students and faculty broke into stewardship groups with a few groups tending to the school grounds, weeding, mulching, and trimming bushes, trees, and gardens. Another group spent time creating folded paper art to hang in the windows around the school. A group of staff also baked “Dragon Roll” buns in the cafeteria that were delivered to students at the end of the day.
The weather cooperated and we were happy to share the day together as an entire school for the first time in over a year. For this long-awaited renewal, we are all truly grateful.
Michaelmas Gallery:
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