The Amadeus School Project

Dear Sir

As a schoolteacher and a Meta-Coach I am dedicated to the Task of providing The children of the world with the best possible schools.

Nothing is more needed for the future than all-round Quality Education.

You need good will and good intentions, as well as knowledge and experience!

The goal of The Amadeus School project is to give all children in the world access to quality education!

The secret of the prosperity of the Scandinavian countries is our educational system!

As human beings we need to educate our mind, as well as our heart and our willpower.

We need knowledge, understanding, independent thinking, being able to think “out of the box”, as well as a healthy emotional life, as a basis for social ability.

Healthy thinking creates healthy emotions.

Healthy emotions and the ability to empathy create a healthy social behavior.

The Amadeus school Program  

The Amadeus School Program is a complete program for all round quality education in the cyber-age, from pre-school to University level.

The basis of the Amadeus method is the educational ideas of four great teachers of the 20’Th century:

Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) creator of the Waldorf School Method.

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) medical doctor from Italy, creator of the Montessori method, and

Dr. Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998) The famous music teacher from Japan who created the Suzuki Method.

In order to teach the children how to take responsibility for themselves, we use the methods developed by the Psychologist Dr. L. Michael Hall.

Dr. Hall developed a program for “Accessing Personal Genius”. Dr. Hall is founder of the international society of Neurosemantics, author of more than twenty books on psychology, personal development and “inside out wealth”.  

In the neurosemantic movement a school program has been developed, which is used to teach children to take responsibility for their own life, and their own learning process.

Jakob Engelstoft founder of the International Peace University 

is born 1954 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

 he has all life been interested in how to learn and how to teach.

Jakob started his own schooling as at student at a Montessori preschool and went on to study at the Waldorf school of Copenhagen “Vidarskolen” During his schooltime I was guest student half a Year in a Waldorf-school in Germany.

After school I studied science at the Copenhagen University....

I think it is very important not only with knowledge, also it is important to use the knowledge to benefit mankind. For this reason I wanted to become a teacher, and   went to Sweden to study Waldorf education.

After becoming a teacher I worked with disabled young people at “Salta Arbetsskola” a school for professional training of mentally handicapped people.

I studied music and violin=playing at a Swedish “Folkhogskola” (Peoples University College).

Folkhogskola  is a genuine Scandinavian invention, the first one being founded in Denmark by the Bishop and member of parliament N.F.S. Grundtvig.  He was also a poet and one of the fathers of the Danish democracy. Grundtvig realized that if we want a real well functioning democracy the people needs good education. Not only children but also adults need a possibility to catch up on a school-education they never had opportunity to get in their childhood.

Help from Scandinavia

The Scandinavian countries Denmark, Sweden and Norway are small countries with limited material resources. (2013 India got 43 million Swedish crowns to 138 different development projects. 1 kr. Is approximately 9 rupees)

Anyway we have unique Know How to offer!

Knowledge about schools and teaching!

We have a long tradition for caring for Children’s Rights.

Jakob Engelstoft’s Qualifications

I am a certified Suzuki method teacher member of the European Suzuki association.

I am a certified Waldorf teacher and can teach almost every subject taught in the Waldorf school.

Most important for me is that I am a Associate Certified Meta Coach educated by Michael Hall himself.  I am also a Certified Master Practitioner of Neurosemantics and Neurolingvistic Psychology (NLP). Educated by Patrik fordell and Anders Wallin at Inner Pover Centre in Sweden www.innerpower.se  

The core of NLP is modeling: How we can attain excellence when we imitate an expert at a certain skill.

For my NLP/NS master-practitioner certificate I made a modeling of Shinichi Suzuki and how he raised children to excellent skills in Music.

Albert Einstein 

The famous physicist, said once that without his violin he would newer have conceived his theory of relativity. Music and Arts are very important in the school in order to develop excellent skills in children.

Albert Einstein was the mentor of Shinichi Suzuki when Suzuki studied music in Germany.

The Amadeus method

is mainly a further development of the Waldorf-method first used at the Waldorf school founded 1919 in Stutgart, Germany.

The core of the Waldorf method is, that we as humans need to develop to harmonious beings, persons not only with a lot of knowledge but also with a good heart and willpower so we can accomplish things in the world. If we are experts in physics and chemistry and use our knowledge to destroy the world, what good have we done?

That is why Music, Arts, Dance and handcrafts are so important in the school.

Teaching is art!

It is just like Music and dance: You can not become a good dancer just reading a good book about the subject. In the same way you can not become a good teacher just reading books. You have to work with your own personality and to experience good teachers at work. For this reason we want to have teachers in the Amadeus school who themselves have a solid experience of good teaching methods.

We will help local people to get the necessary education.

Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori’s contribution to the art of teaching was above all her belief in the ability of all children to develop. A belief that actually unites Montessori , Steiner and Suzuki. Both Montessori and Steiner worked in the beginning with disabled children. She understood intuitively haw important kinesthetic learning  (learning with the body)  is. Montessori had a carpenter make letters in wood that the children could feel with their hands.

Rudolf Steiner

When Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf school gave instructions about how to teach disabled children he said: “Make the Mountains more Mountain-like”  In other words: Find what is typical, stress it and almost exaggerate it  in order to give the children an emotional experience. You tell them how cold it is on the top of the mountain and that the air is so thin that you cannot breath.

For a real Waldorf teacher it is not enough that he or she knows his or her subject. The teacher needs to be a good role model that the children can imitate a kind and loveable person striving after goodness, the quality that in old India was called “satva”. A person with a rotten and lazy character has nothing to do in the school, no matter how good his certificates are… In the same way an angry person with a hot temperament can be dangerous for the children. He can actually influence their health negatively many years later.

Why so much Arts, Dance, Music and handicraft in the Waldorf-school?  

Sometimes a picture can say more than a thousand words. Ten Years old I became a student in the Waldorf school of Copenhagen. In the Waldorf school the main subjects are taught “periods”: In three or four weeks we teach the same subject every morning. We avoid “switch tasking” and new knowledge is becoming an integrated part of the mind of the child. My own first period in the Waldorfschool was about History and Religion of the old India. The first picture I made in the waldorf-school was a drawing of River Ganga with Himalaya in the background. In that first period I made drawings of Krishna, Rama. Manu and the fish,  The Turtle and the Ocean of Milk. I can assure you:  Everything I learned fifty Years ago about India is still very vivid in my mind!

Whatever You teach in the Waldorfschool be it Literature, Physics, Chemistry or Biology, we let the children make paintings and drawings

I In the Waldorf School we teach about all religions and all cultures, a perfect background in a multicultural society. We teach them to sing in different languages, to play music instruments, to dance and to work with their hands. In this way we are educating not only the Thought and Mind (ability to intelligent thinking,) but also Feeling and Emotional life and  Will (ability to act in the world).

Arts, music, dance and handicraft are educational tools helping the children to develop empathy, compassion and the will to accomplish good work in the world.

Development of willpower

Repetition is a great tool for development of willpower!

In old times people had much more willpower than today, simply because they had to repeat the same things, over and over again:

The same acts when working,

The same stories,

The same songs and dances,

The same prayers and mantras,

They were repeated in a way people don’t do to day.

Music is a great tool for teaching willpower

Because if You want to learn a musical instrument,You have to repeat the same things 10.000 times!

For that reason Shinichi Suzuki said: If You think something is difficult You just have to do it 10.000 times and then You will not find it difficult anymore!

Shinichi Suzuki (1899-1999) stressed the importance of parent involvement.

Suzuki-teaching always begins with the parents.

We teach the parents to become good home teachers, and good role models for their children at home.

The Suzuki Method is also called The Mother Tongue Method because You learn music and language the same way as You learn your mother tongue: By listening and imitating. Small children are above all learning by imitating.

The Suzuki method summarized in these three points:

• A good model you can imitate.

• Develop love for the subject and the teacher. ( It is important the teacher is a person the children can love)

• Repetition! Do it many times until it has become an integrated part of your nervous system. In other words subconscious skills.

In the Suzuki teaching the children get recordings to listen to every day. Here is an E-tablet with a little loudspeaker or earphones a great tool.

In just one Year You can learn to speak a new language fluently!

-Important for a country with many languages like India – Don’t You think?

The name “Amadeus school”

The name “Amadeus” is chosen in admiration of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart one of the greatest geniuses of all time, the musician and composer from Salzburg in Austria. Shinichi Suzuki confessed in his autobiography “When I listened to the slow movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto I understood what love is… from Mozart I learned what love is”

Another thing is that the word “Ama-Deus” means “love God” in Latin.

Responsibility for the future

In the future children will need much more than just being able to read and write, calculate, use a computer and speak a few languages – Above all we will need to be able, to take responsibility for our own life, our children, our community and our environment which is the basis of life on earth.

In a world where more and more is produced robots, it is more important than ever, that a human can use his hands!

It is important for young people to know what it feels like to work with wood, metal, textile stone etc.

Respect for the tradition

I will say to You here in India: Don’t imitate the west to much!

Be proud of your tradition!

Your beautiful handcraft, Your fantastic food tradition, I ate a fantastic Palak Makhanwala here in Calangute today! We also love the traditional Indian music, your way to dress, the kindness and the beauty we see everywhere!

We should always be open to do things better, open to new solutions and at the same time not to forget our roots and our tradition!

Meta-coaching as a tool for creating a better world

I am a Metacoach®. Meta means “higher” A Metacoach is a person who helps people and organizations to find their own solutions. A “coach” is a vehicle used to travel from one place to another. Here the word “coach” is used as a metaphor for a person who helps people to accomplish a journey in life.

A Metacoach® is a person, who helps You to achieve your aim, to make your dreams become true, and your goals a become real.

A Metacoach® use questions as a tool to help you, to find your own solutions. Questions are more important than answers. Answers have always limited value. Good questions you can ask again and again and get still deeper in to the matter.

You are the person who is most qualified to solve your own problems, you know the most about the problems and most about the resources available! We always have the necessary resources… It is only a question about finding them!

A Metacoach® should always believe more in his client than the client believes in himself! For that reason I don’t coach everyone!

Metacoaching is all about the client.

The west has gone astray in many ways. Perhaps I can help you to avoid doing all the same mistakes! 

Undoubtedly Metacoaching can help us to become better human beings, when we explore our goals. Explore if there is congruence between our values and our acts, if there is congruence between what we say and what we do.

The first question in Metacoaching® is always “What do you want?”

In the children’s book “Alice in Wonderland” Alice is asking the Cat: “Where shall I go?” And the cat answers: It very much depends on where you want to come. 

With the help of questions we can together explore what kind of school you want for your children here in Goa.

What are the consequences for the society?

What do we mean by Words like “Quality” and “all round education”?

We use metaquestions to explore the higher levels of motivation. Metaquestions are questions which helps you to reflect.

Metacoaching in the Amadeus school

In the Amadeus School we want to offer all students, parents and teachers coaching in order to achieve their best results, and to develop to their highest and their best.

The Curriculum of the Amadeus school.

The Amadeus-school is not only about what to teach.

It is very much about how to teach!

First of all we want to say that the school will follow all laws and regulations seceded by the Indian government as well as the decisions of the local government. To teach the children the ordinary curriculum of Indian schools is the minimum!

All-round  Quality Education for all Ages, from Pre-school to University level

What do we mean by all – round?

All the human senses should be involved:

Visual – Seeing

Auditive – Hearing

Kinesthetic – Feeling in the body, body movement.

Olfactoric – Smelling

Gustatoric – Taste.

All the senses are having a representation in the human mind, sometimes called V-A-K-O-G

In order to achieve such a diversity we will use all kinds of Arts, Music, Dance, Bodymovements, Sports, Health Care, Games, Playing, Handicrafts, Gardening, Cooking, Cleaning, Animal Care, Science and Poetry.

What a day in the Amadeus school will look like

When the child comes to the school he or she is personally received by the class teacher. He/She will shake hand with the child and get an impression of the mood of the child. From first class to class seven the same teacher will be responsible for his/her class. The class-teacher will come to know his/her children very well. The class-teacher knows about the home conditions of the child, knows about the health conditions and other challenges the child has to face. A school-nurse is available and can help the child and the family with health advise.

I think we have to give the children a good breakfast before classes begins. Vitamins and enough to eat and drink is important when we want the children to have well functioning brains and bodies.

In all classes we start the day with reading a Poem together, a poem which is giving good feelings and encouraging the children to do their highest and their best. The poem should have a spiritual content and at the same time be agreeable to children from homes with different religious background. Rudolf Steiner made himself several poems of this kind which are used at the Waldorf schools all over the world. Good poems are to be found both in the world literature, and in the national heritage. In a Waldorfschool in Sweden, I myself used a Hymn from Rigveda as introduction to a period, when I was teaching about India.

After the poem it is time for music. We sing and play music. Singing songs is is a good way to learn language and many other things.

Now it is time for the main subject of the day. We teach the same subject every day in four weeks (when appropriate the period can be longer or shorter).

A Waldorf-teacher should be a good storyteller. In the kindergarten and in the first to third standard we tell a lot of stories, fairytales and other stories which can be appropriate for the children. The stories are about good and bad, right and wrong. In a nice way the children learn to listen, to concentrate and to remember… With the stories we build a good language as basis for later education. It is important that the teacher can tell the story without using a book or a paper. She/He needs to know it by heart. A teacher who is using a book or paper is telling the subconscious of the children, that this is not so important to remember… the teacher don’t remember her/himself! Also the teacher needs eye contact with the child so she she/he can adapt her/his voice-level to the childrens reaction. From the stories pictures are coming, and the letters of the written language literally grow out of the pictures. The children learns to write their own words ad read on the basis of their own language. For example: I have a cat and a dog at home… A dangerous tiger is living in the forest… My mother is nice and she has a red sari… etc.

When we teach the children to calculate, we use a lot of music, singing, clapping and jumping. It is dangerous for a child to sit more than three hours a day on a chair! And naturally we illustrate mathematical concepts with pictures! My own Waldorf teacher Henning Andersen wrote a book about counting and jumping.  We will translate it in to English and Hindi.

After the main subject of the day, the children will have a break for playing and eating.

After the break we teach language. Of course a lot of songs and rhymes are used. After a break we have sports, handicraft, arts and practical activities.

Man is son of his environment  

This wise words, often repeated by Shinichi Suzuki stresses the importance of the environment. A school must be a beautiful place, where children can learn to appreciate the value of beauty. It is a joy to keep such a place clean and tidy.

A well tested method  

Waldorfschools already exist in India and there is a lot of literature in English about the Waldorfmethod.

More than a thousand schools in the world have been educating more than a million children since the first Waldorfschool was founded 1919 in Germany.

More about the curriculum

The complete curriculum of the Waldorfschool is the most all-round quality   education program for children today. To describe it in detail, we will need several volumes. Just a few points: The Waldorfschool, just as Lord Robert Baden Powel, founder of the Scout-movement, believes in learning by doing. In the third standard, when the children are around eight years old, we let the children build a little house and use the measurement as starting point for learning about angles, computing and so on. Another example: in the college we let the young people built a machine and use it for learning higher mathematics.

Summary

It is important to educate all the senses:

• Seeing

• Hearing

• Feeling (body awareness)

• Smelling

• Tasting

And all the soul forces:

• Thinking

• Feeling (emotional life)

• Will (ability to act in the world)

What is the Amadeus-method?

In short: The Amadeus method is the Waldorfmethod boosted with ideas picked from

• Maria Montessori

• Shinichi Suzuki

• Lord Baden Powel  

• Dr. Michael Hall

Dr. Hall has created the Neurosemantics®-program and together with his associates adapted to schools in order to teach the children to take responsibility for their own life and their learning process.

What is Neurosemantics®?

Neurosemantics is the science of using words for clear communication.

Neurosemantics is useful for business communication, therapy, education and coaching, useful for accomplishing positive development in people and organizations. More about Neurosemantics on www.neurosemantics.com

The Vision  

Our vision is to create:

• A model-school, which can serve as a model for good schools.

• A Teacher training college

• A Peoples University college

• A training school for different professions

How to make the vision a reality

Even the longest journey starts with a little step.

The preschool Years are especially important for a child’s development. In the first seven years of a child’s life he/she get habits which often stay for the rest of his/her life. Children learn by imitation, and for this reason it is especially important that the children have adults around them that are good role models.

Building a Waldorf school begins with a preschool, and then we let it grow with one grade/class/standard every year.

We want to create quality so for that reason we let it grow organically.

Fundraising

As soon as the Government of Goa has approved the foundation of a Amadeus-School we can set up a organization for fundraising.

• We count on support from the Waldorf school-movement

• Support from the Suzuki movement

• The international society of Neurosemantics

• The scout movement

• UNICEF

• Sofia foundation (fund, supporting Waldorf schools and ecological agriculture in Africa, Asia and Latin America.)

• The Swedish government development fund SIDA

• Donations from private persons and NGO organizations.

How to start

Since the first step is to start a pre-school-class the resources needed to start are limited. I am dedicated to the Amadeus-project for the rest of my life.

I have already found two nice Young people who would like to become waldorf-teachers.

I and my wife Neris are ready to come to Goa and work for the project.

I am at your disposal as Teacher, Metacoach and Educational Consult.

Thank You!

Thank You for sharing your wonderful Country and Culture with the world!

Neris and I have had wonderful days here!

With the best wishes to your highest and Your best!

Calangute, Goa 05-mar2014

Jakob Engelstoft    Neris Engelstoft