I want you all to sleep well tonight - that's an order!" Ben Cherry was smiling as he said it. It was the end of another day of primary-teacher training at Bangkok's Tridhaksa School.

Everyone laughed, but we quickly began gathering our things and headed off to our homes for the night - participants from all over the world, teachers and parents who want to know more about Rudolf Steiner's much-vaunted Waldorf education.

Cherry, the main lecturer, was one of the founders of Bowral Rudolf Steiner School in Australia 20 years ago.

He began each day talking about the basics of teaching, then focused on how to teach geography and history.

The afternoons were initially occupied by workshops about music in Waldorf education, conducted by Stephan Keuhne from Germany, a long-time music therapist.

The workshops progressed to my own lessons. I'm an art therapist from the Netherlands.

After Cherry had committed us to a good night's sleep, I woke up feeling as though I suddenly knew how to solve a problem, or knew the answer to a question that had been puzzling me. We've all had the experience - how often do you hear someone say, "Let me sleep on it"?

Apparently something happens during the night that gives us the answers we need. Our minds don't remain passive as we sleep. In sleeping, or just taking a break from a problem or your work, you create a distance that might just be filled with a solution.

We all know what happens when a teacher talks too long or gives us too much information - our thoughts start to drift. If the teacher knows when to let his students stop "breathing in" all the information and gives them a chance to exhale, the ability to learn is improved.

I still can remember learning how to use the French verb "to be", even though I've never used it since, because the teacher had the students toss a ball back and forth in a certain pattern while memorising. The rhythm engaged my feelings while my mind got on with learning.

In the playground of Tridhaksa School is a hump of soil that, after the rain, becomes a mud "mountain", down which the youngest students slide. Completely covered in mud, they can only be recognised from their laughter and screams.

This is geography - geography for kindergarten.

They feel the earth they live on and, by having so much fun with it, they feel connected to the earth. By the time they start geography as a classroom subject, they'll have developed a bigger view of things. The teacher won't start with borders, but the earth as a whole.

The teacher tells a story about a river, then lets the students draw illustrations for the tale. Then he shows them the difference between a water animal and a land animal, and they make clay models.

The youngsters breathe in with his instructions, then breathe out with their own self-expression.

Among many other things, this is what we talked about during training in April - and it was inspiring. It's the basis for learning, Waldorf-style.

Jasmijn Mulder was schooled from kindergarten to Grade 9 at a Waldorf school in the Netherlands. She'll be working at Tridhaksa School through April 2007.

Jasmijn Mulder

Special to The Nation