Class 3 – Age 9 – The Rubicon Year

In the 9th year of a child’s life, they go through a change. In the Waldorf school, we call this the Rubicon year. It is the first time the child sees themselves as separate from the world. They start to see themselves as ‘I am here’ and ‘the world is there’. This is the second

07 Aug 2026 | Michael Mount Waldorf School

Class 3 – Age 9 – The Rubicon Year

Written by Ms Helen Wertheim Aymes, Class 3 Teacher

In the 9^th year of a child’s life, they go through a change. In the Waldorf school, we call this the Rubicon year. It is the first time the child sees themselves as separate from the world. They start to see themselves as ‘I am here’ and ‘the world is there’. This is the second birthing of the ‘I’. The first occurs around the age of 3, when the child can express themselves as ‘I’ for the first time. This time it is the birthing of their self-awareness.

The Class 3 Waldorf curriculum meets these children in this developmental phase to help them in the unfolding of this incredible change they are experiencing. It seeks to provide these children with a sort of orientation, using tools that will help them through this time. The 9-year-old starts to see that they will have to make their own way in the world. This task, with the self-awareness and loneliness of being just 9 years old, is an overwhelming experience for this child. However, when they realise that they have the capacities and the tools to make their way, they realise the task is less daunting and they are more capable than they realise.

On the one side, we teach the Old Testament, which provides pictures for the child of how to manage oneself socially. These are provided through the laws of Moses. The punishment of Cain also provides an image for the children to work with, and the redemption again of beauty that Cain’s children brought to the world. It provides a healthy example of how to engage with each other and the world, developing key aspects of social hygiene.

On the more practical side of the Class 3 year, we seek to encourage, show, and teach the children about as many different aspects of the world as we can. They will learn to build a home, grow food, cook, learn how to milk a cow, learn how to make compost, and see how bricks and pavers are made. Making practical, everyday life objects, such as oven mitts and cushions; they already know how to knit, and now they learn to crochet. They also learn about money, what it looks like and how to deal with it, managing and learning how to do sales at cake sales and their own market.

These not only provide the child with necessary tools and comfort to ensure that they feel less overwhelmed and lonely, but it also provides a basic map of how the world around them works, it orientates them in the world using the skills that they have learnt.

On their recent tour of the SmartStone brick factory, the children were able to see the Mazingira tiles being made by hand, one tile at a time. It is a one-man operation and shows the children that beautiful, real, and practical items can be made without much machinery. They are then able to take this into their being and into their consciousness going forward, perhaps awakening something within them.

During their compost-making outing at the Collaborative Healing Centre, the children got the opportunity to pick up horse and cow dung, make compost and even boil an egg in a hot compost pile. They saw, experienced, and watched the process of real-life decomposition happening. They recognise that to grow one seed into one plant for harvesting takes hard work, diligence, patience, and care. These are all qualities we wish to see in our adults.

The gift of Waldorf education is one that will allow these children to experience this change with love, care, and beauty in an environment where they need not fear the world, but embrace it, experience the truth, and be prepared for the future.