Sophia Mundi Steiner School

Platonic Solids Main Lesson

Class 8 at Sophia Mundi have just finished the Platonic Solids Main Lesson and from their submitted work, it is clear that they have rather enjoyed it.  The Main Lesson teaches the benefits of care and patience – if a measurement is a little bit off the whole drawing or model will not come out as planned. It also focuses on the importance of purposeful thoughts, without which, the work would not come together as a unified whole.  

The class also learnt the allegorical significance of these forms as well as by drawing, building and modelling them in their books, through their appropriate tessellated nets, and in clay (this last being attained through transformation from form to form).  Traditionally, these constructions are carried out in chalk, charcoal, and clay (as there is nothing as ‘honest’ as chalk; nothing as ‘fervent’ as charcoal; nothing as ‘zealous’ as clay); the forms and their allegorical interpretations having been part of the Western knowledge framework since Plato, 2500 years ago.  In our own day, the forms find their place in modern computer programming logic, whereas their allegorical lessons have never left us.  

Nik Sakellaropoulos – Sophia Mundi Steiner School, Maths and Latin Teacher (6-12)