The Principle of Geometry
The first principle of Harmony is that of geometry and an understanding of the extraordinary patterning and symmetry that exists in Nature. Our first aim therefore is to help our children learn how to recreate these patterns and symmetry by drawing out the circle and spiral forms that make them. In every year group through the school, we plan activities that trigger the learning each week through the lens of geometry. This might be to practice making the petalled form of a flower by overlapping circles in different arrangements. It might be a bubbles experiment out on the playground to learn why a water droplet forms as a sphere and what might distort that spherical shape. It might be learning the Fibonacci number sequence, drawing out its spiral and learning where we see this spiral form in Nature and in ourselves. It might be to visit a place of worship to sketch the geometric forms that exist there and indeed in any place of worship, be it a church, a temple or a mosque. Often the children will preface the geometry work with some sketching to get their eye in.
Importantly the children learn to be very accurate in their geometry work to ensure they recreate these beautiful forms as they truly are. What this work does is to generate a new language of learning. For example, when we overlap two circles to create an almond shape in the middle, the children learn that this shape is called the vesica or vesica piscis, meaning fish bladder. They really start to look at their world in a new way.
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