T H E
C H I L D ' S C H A N G I N G C O N S C I O U S N E S S
Lecture Eight
DORNACH, APRIL 22, 1923
In order to round off, so to speak, what we could only
superficially outline during the last few days regarding
education based on anthroposophical investigations, I would
like to add something today, as an example of how these ideas
can be put into practice, about how the Waldorf school is run.
What has to emerge clearly from the spirit of this education is
that equal consideration be given to everything pertaining to
the human body, soul, and spirit. If the actual teaching is
carried out as characterized, therefore, it will at the same
time become a kind of hygiene in the life of the child and, if
necessary, even a therapy.
To
see this clearly, one has to be able to look at the child's
being in the right way. And here it must be understood that
everything we have said about the child's development, from
birth to the change of teeth, is revealed most of all in the
activities of the nerve-sense system. Every organic system
naturally extends over the entire human body, but each system
is at the same time localized in a definite part of the
physical organism. Thus the nervous system is mainly organized
in the head. But when speaking about the three main organic
systems of the human being — the nerve-sense
system, the rhythmic system, and the
metabolic-motor system — we do not imply that they
are confined only to the head, the chest, and the
metabolic-limb systems, because this would be completely
inaccurate. It is impossible to divide the human organization
into three separate spatial regions. It can only be said that
these three systems interpenetrate one another, that they work
and weave into each other everywhere.
The
nerve-sense system is, nevertheless, localized primarily in the
region of the head. The rhythmic system, which includes
everything of a rhythmic nature in the human being, is mainly
organized in the chest organs, in the organs of breathing and
blood circulation. Here one must not ignore the fact that
everything that furthers the rhythms of digestion — and
ultimately those of sleeping and waking — also belongs to
the rhythmic system, insofar as digesting, and sleeping and
waking are based physically within the human organism. The
actual chemical-physiological process of digestion is closely
connected with all that forms the human motor system. As for
movement itself, a reciprocal activity occurs between the
nutritional and digestive system on the one hand, and the
actual physical movement on the other.
All
of this means that, although the three systems work naturally
into each other during the child's early years until the change
of teeth, the formative and malleable shaping forces involved
in the child's growth and nourishing processes work mainly
downward from the head, the center of the senses and the
nervous system. Consequently, if a young child becomes ill,
that illness is due primarily to the influences of the
nerve-sense system. That is why young children before their
second dentition are especially likely to suffer from illnesses
that originate from within — those called childhood
illnesses.
The
influences that emanate from the environment, those that reach
children through their urge to imitate, have a very powerful
effect on this vulnerability to childhood illnesses, more than
is commonly realized by the medical profession within the
current materialistic climate. Thus, a sudden outburst of anger
by an adult, when witnessed by a young child, can be
responsible in many cases for an attack of measles. I am not
referring to the psychopathic outburst of a psychopath, but to
a less violent form of temper that can very often be seen among
people. The shock that follows, together with its moral and
spiritual implications, must certainly be seen as a
contributing factor for measles. Furthermore, all these
influences that work on the child will remain as after-effects
until almost the ninth year. If a teacher happens to become
very angry in school (for example, if a child accidentally
spills some ink, and the teacher reacts by shouting, “If
you do that again, I'll pour the entire inkwell over your
head!” or “I'll throw it at your head!”),
then we shouldn't be surprised when this has a very damaging
effect on the child's physical health. Of course, I have chosen
a fairly drastic example, but this kind of thing can happen too
easily in a classroom.
Inner dishonesty in teachers also has a very harmful effect on
children, even after their second dentition. Falsehoods can
take on many different guises, such as insincerity or
hypocritical piety, or establishing a moral code for the
children that the adults would not dream of applying to
themselves. In such cases the element of untruth weaves and
lives in the words spoken, and in what unfolds in front of the
child. An adult may remain totally oblivious to it, but
children will take it in through the teachers' gestures.
Through the nerve-sense system, dishonesty and hypocrisy have
an extremely powerful effect on the organic structure of the
child's digestive tract, and especially on the development of
the gall bladder, which can then play a very significant role
for the rest of the child's life.
All
pedagogical interactions have to be permeated by this intensive
awareness of how spirit, soul, and body constantly interweave
and affect each other, even though it is unnecessary for
teachers to speak of it all the time. And since the human
organism, from the head downward, is so active during these
early years — that is, from the polarity of the
nerve-sense system — and because abnormal conditions can
easily override socalled normal conditions in the head region,
the child is particularly vulnerable to childhood diseases at
just this age.
The
years between the change of teeth and puberty, strangely enough
(and yet, true to the nature of the human organism) are the
child's healthiest years, although this is not really
surprising to anyone with insight into human development. This
is because the child's entire organic structure at this age
radiates from the rhythmic system. This is the very system that
never becomes tired or overstimulated on its own. Symptoms of
illness that occur during these years are due to outer
circumstances, although this statement must not be taken too
strictly, of course, and only within the context of actual life
situations. The child who is subject to illness at this
particular age, when the rhythmic system plays such a dominant
part has been treated improperly, one way or another, in outer
life.
When puberty is left behind, the occurrence of illness radiates
outward from within — that is, from the metabolic-motor
system. That is the time of life when the causes of illness, to
which young people are exposed, arise from within. Because the
method of teaching the actual lessons plays a large part in the
physical well-being of the students, we must always allow a
certain physical and soul hygiene to be carried, as if on
wings, by our educational ideas and methods. This must always
be part of whatever we do with our classes, particularly during
the second period of childhood.
Here certain details can be indicated. Let us take, for
example, a child with a melancholic disposition. If you give
that child sugar — an appropriate amount, of course
— you will find that the sugar has a totally different
effect than it would have on a predominantly sanguine child. In
a melancholic child the sugar will have a suppressive effect on
liver activity. This gradual lessening of liver activity, in
radiating out into the entire being of the child, effectively
curbs the melancholic tendencies from the physical side. It is
a useful expedient, but one has to understand it. Using it as
an aid does not mean the denial of soul and spirit, because
anyone who knows that spirit is working in all physical or
material processes — as anthroposophy reveals —
will not view the effect of an increased sugar-intake on the
activity of the liver as something merely physical, but as the
working of soul and spirit brought about by physical means.
(Naturally, the result always depends on the correct dosage.)
In the case of a sanguine child it can be beneficial to
stimulate liver activity by withholding sugar.
This is an example of how knowledge of the interaction and
mutual working of body, soul, and spirit can greatly benefit
the three systems of the human being. It definitely allows one
to say as well that, contrary to frequently held opinions,
Waldorf pedagogy (which arises from spiritual foundations)
certainly does not neglect the physical aspects of education.
On the other hand, you will find that other forms of pedagogy,
bent on developing the physical part of the child according to
fixed, abstract rules indeed serve it least, because their
adherents do not realize that every soul and spiritual stirring
within a child has a direct effect on his or her physical
nature.
Because of all this, I felt it necessary to give a seminar
course before the opening of the Waldorf school, for the
benefit of those who had been chosen to become its first
teachers.
[See Rudolf Steiner,
The Foundations of Human Experience,
Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996, and
Practical Advice to Teachers,
Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1976, and
Discussions with Teachers,
Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1967.] One of the primary aims
of this course was to bring the fundamental and comprehensive thought
of the working together of soul, body, and spirit into the new
pedagogy before its actual launching; for knowledge of this has
been lost gradually during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries — more so than is generally realized.
During the years after the Waldorf school founding, shorter
supplementary courses were also given.
[See
Balance in Teaching,
Mercury Press, Spring Valley, NY, 1990;
Education for Adolescents,
Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996; and
Deeper Insights into Education
(to be republished).]
It goes without saying that anyone who seriously
considers taking an active role in Waldorf education must live
in the spirit of these courses. This is what really matters. If
one wants to treat a certain subject in a living way, the
details are not as important, because they can always be worked
out of the spiritual background. The details will then also
appear in proper perspective. You may already have seen,
through talks given by Waldorf teachers such as Dr. von
Baravalle
[Dr. Herman von Baravalle (1898–1973) teacher of
mathematics and physics at the Waldorf school in Stuttgart.]
and Dr. von Heydebrand,
[Caroline von Heydebrand (1866–1938)
class teacher at the Waldorf school.] how the attempt was made
to let the spirit living in this education flow into the ways
of teaching various subjects. Something like lifeblood will
pulse through the lessons when the human structure is
comprehended in terms of an all-comprising spiritual entity. In
this respect, of course, much of what can be said today will
have to remain brief and superficial.
I
mentioned yesterday that a united faculty of teachers,
functioning like the soul and spirit of the entire school
organism, is absolutely fundamental to running a Waldorf
school. According to one of its pedagogical impulses, it is not
so much a statistical collection of the teachers' observations
expressed during the meetings that is important, but that a
living and individualizing psychology should be jointly
developed from out of the actual experience of teaching
lessons. I would like to give you an example.
In
our school, boys and girls sit next to each other. When we
started, there were just over one hundred students in the
Waldorf school. But our numbers have grown so quickly that we
had seven hundred pupils last year, which necessitated opening
parallel classes, especially in the lower grades of the school.
Now we find that there are more girls than boys in some
classes, while in others there are more boys. The number of
boys and girls more or less even in very few classes. To insist
on equal numbers in each class would not only be pedantic, but
would not work. First of all, new arrivals do not come neatly
paired, and, second, such a scheme would not represent real
life. The right way to proceed in such a situation is to make
it possible to apply educational impulses whatever the outer
circumstances may be.
All
the same, we soon found that a class with a majority of girls
presented a very different psychological picture than those
with more boys, aside from outer circumstances — that is,
aside from the most obvious. What gives such a class its
psychological character is the imponderable element that easily
escapes one's notice. Nevertheless, when working together in
our meetings, the opportunity was presented to make fruitful
investigations in this direction. And it soon became clear that
sharing such questions of common interest greatly contributed
to the school's becoming a living, ensouled organism.
Let's imagine someone who says, “I want to think only
thoughts that will be useful to me later in life. I don't want
to allow anything to enter my soul that does not have direct
value for later life, because this would be
uneconomical.” Such a person would become an appalling
figure in life! First, because such a person would have nothing
to dream about — indeed, could never dream. Of course,
people who are inclined in this direction might simply reply,
“Dreams are unimportant. One can very well do without
them, because they really don't mean anything in life.”
True, dreams have little consequence for those who accept only
external reality. But what if there were more to dreams than
just fantastic images? Naturally, those who believe they see
something highly significant and deeply prophetic in every
dream, even if it is only caused by the activities of their
liver, bladder, or stomach — people who consider dreams
more important than events in waking life — they will not
draw any benefit from their dreaming. Yet, if one knows that in
one's dream life forces are expressed — even if only
indistinctly — that have either a health-giving or an
illness-inducing effect on the breathing, circulatory, and
nerve-sense systems, then one also knows that half of the human
being is mirrored in these dreams, either in a hygienic or in a
pathological sense. Further, one will recognize that not to
dream at all would be similar to undermining the digestion or
circulation through taking some form of poison. It is important
to realize that much of what may appear unnecessary in a human
being for outer life, nevertheless, plays an important part
— similar to the way we see outer nature. Just compare
the infinite number of herring eggs, distributed all over the
seas, with the number of herrings actually born, and you could
easily reproach nature for being tremendously wasteful.
However, this could only be the opinion of those who do not
know of the powerful spiritual effects the dead herring eggs
have on the growing herrings. A certain number of eggs have to
die so that a certain number of eggs may thrive. These things
are all interconnected.
If
we now relate this thought to the school as a living organism,
we have the following situation: In the staff meetings of our
teachers such matters as the proportion of boys to girls, and
many other problems, are being worked through from a
psychological and pneumatological aspect as part of a common
study of soul and spirit. Efforts are made continually to
effect a new understanding of the psychological and
pathological problems facing the school. And, in order to cover
every contingency, something else is essential in the life of a
school, something we have in the Waldorf school, and that is a
school doctor. He is a full-time staff member, who also teaches
various classes in the school. This allows the teachers —
insofar as they actively take part in all the meetings —
to discuss and work through pathological and therapeutic
questions, as well as those posed by the specially gifted
child. Problems are studied not only for the benefit of
individual cases — more or less statistically — but
they are worked through in depth. In this way, much can be
learned from each individual case, even if it does not always
appear to be immediately useful.
One
could compare this situation with someone who has taken in one
thing or another, and declares it to be of no use in life.
Nevertheless, life may prove otherwise. Similarly, whatever is
worked through by the teachers in these meetings, creating a
living psychology, a living physiology, and so on, continues to
have an effect, often in very unexpected places. Imagine you
had occupied yourself, let's say, with the spiritual functions
of a child's gall — forgive this expression, but it is
fully justified — and that through this study you had
learned to find a way into this kind of thinking. If you were
now suddenly called on to deal with a child's nose, you
actually would relate very differently to the new situation.
Even if you may think, “What is the good of learning all
about the gall if now I have to deal with the nose?” Once
you find a point of entry, you meet every problem and task
differently.
In
this sense, the teaching faculty must become the spirit and
soul of the entire school organism. Only then will each teacher
enter the classroom with the proper attitude and in the right
soul condition. At the same time, we must also remember that,
in just these matters, an intensely religious element can be
found. It is unnecessary to have the name of the Lord
constantly on one's lips or to call on the name of Christ all
the time. It is better to adhere to the command: “Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord God in vain.”
Nevertheless, it is possible to permeate one's entire life with
a fundamental religious impulse, with an intensely Christian
impulse. Certain experiences of old, no longer known to the
modern mind, will then begin to stir in one's soul, experiences
deeply rooted in human evolution, in the Christian development
of humankind. For example, teachers who in the depths of their
souls are seeking the proper stimulation for finding
appropriate forms of pedagogy (especially in these
pathological-physiological areas) would do well to allow
themselves to be inspired, time and again, by what radiates
from the Gospel of Saint Luke. (To modern ears such a statement
must sound bizarre.) On the other hand, teachers who want to
instill the necessary idealism for life in their students,
would do well to find a source of inspiration by reading again
and again the Gospel of Saint John. If teachers do not want
their pupils to grow up into cowards, but into the kind of
people who will tackle life's tasks with exuberant energy, they
should look for inspiration in the Gospel of Saint Mark. And
those who are enthusiastic to educate the young to grow into
perceptive adults, rather than into people who go through life
with unseeing eyes, may find the necessary stimulation in the
Gospel of Saint Matthew. These are the qualities that, in
ancient times, were felt to live in the different Gospels. If
our contemporaries were to read that in past ages the Gospel of
Saint Luke was felt to radiate a healing element in a medical
sense, they could not make anything of it. On the other hand,
if they entered life as real pedagogues, they would begin to
understand such matters again.
This is one way one can speak about these things. It is just as
possible to speak of them in an entirely different way, no less
religious or Christian. For instance, the main theme during a
seminar course could well be the four temperaments of the human
being — that is, the psychic, physical, and spiritual
natures of the choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic
temperaments. First, one would give a description of these four
temperaments and then one could discuss how they must be
treated in class. For example, it has a salutary effect if one
seats choleric children together in one corner of the
classroom, giving a certain relief in this way to the rest of
the class, because the teacher is freed from having to
constantly discipline them. Choleric children can't help
pushing and hitting each other. If they now find themselves
suddenly at the receiving end, this in itself produces a
thoroughly pedagogical effect, because the ones who do the
pushing and shoving, goading others into retaliating, are being
“shaped up” in a very direct way. And if, by
seating the phlegmatics together, one lets them
“phlegmatize” each other, this also has a
wonderfully pedagogical effect. However, all this needs to be
done with the appropriate tact. One really has to know how to
handle the situation in each individual case. You will find a
detailed treatment of the children's various temperaments in
the published version of the first training course, given to
the teachers of the Waldorf school.
[See footnote page 171. See
also the 1909 lecture, “The Four Temperaments,”
contained in Rudolf Steiner,
Anthroposophy in Everyday Life,
Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1995.]
What I have said about the four Gospels, fundamentally
speaking, is exactly the same when seen from a spiritual
perspective, because it leads one into the same element of
life. Today it is ordinarily felt that, if one wants to learn
something, the relevant elements have to be put neatly side by
side. But this is a procedure that will not lead to fundamental
principles, as they have to be dealt with in actual life. For
example, one cannot understand the human gall or liver system
unless one also has an understanding of the human head, because
every organ in the digestive tract has a complementary organ in
the brain. One does not know anything about the liver unless
one also knows its correlative function in the brain. Likewise,
one does not have an inner understanding of the immense
inspiration that can flow into the human soul from the Gospels,
unless one can also transform these into the ways that
character and temperament are imprinted into the human
individuality here on Earth. To livingly comprehend the world
is very different from comprehending it through dead
concepts.
This will also help one to see that if children are raised in
light of the education spoken of here, one allows something to
grow in them that will outlast their childhood days, something
that will continue to affect them throughout their lives; for
what do you have to do when you grow old? People who do not
understand human nature cannot assess how important certain
impulses, which can be implanted only during childhood, are for
life. At that tender age it is still possible for these
impulses to be immersed into the soft and pliable organism of
the child, still very open to the musical-formative forces. In
later years the organism becomes harder, not necessarily
physically, but in any case, tending toward psycho-bodily
hardening. What one has absorbed through one's upbringing and
education, however, does not grow old. No matter how old one
has become, one is still inwardly endowed with the same
youthful element that one had from, say, the tenth to the
fifteenth year. One always carries this element of youthfulness
within, but it has to remain supple and flexible to the degree
that the now aged brain — perhaps already covered by a
bald head — can use it in the same way that the
previously soft brain did. If a person's education has not
helped this process, however, the result is a generation gap,
which appears so often these days, and is considered
unbridgeable.
Sometimes people say something that is actually the opposite of
what is really happening. For example, one often hears the
comment, “The young today don't understand the elderly,
because old people no longer know how to be young with the
young.” But this is not the truth. Not at all. What
really happens is that the young generation expects the old
generation to be able to properly use the physical organization
which has grown old. In this way, young people recognize
something in the old that is different from their own
condition, something they do not yet have. This is the quality
that leads to the natural respect for old age. When young
people meet an old person who can still use an already-bald
head in the way children use their tousled heads, they feel
that something can be received from the older generation,
something that they cannot find in their contemporaries. This
is how it should be.
We
must educate young people so that they know how to grow old
properly. It is the malaise of our time that as young people
grow up, they do not recognize among the older generation those
who have aged properly. They see merely childish individuals,
instead, who have remained at the same level of development as
the young generation. This is because of the inadequate
education of old people who cannot properly use their physical
organization, and they remain infantile. The expression
“overgrown kids” is really chosen with great
ingenuity, for it implies that such persons lost the ability to
get hold of their entire organism during the course of their
lives.
[The German expression is Kindskopf, literally
“child's head.” — TRANS.]
They can work only with the head, which is precisely what
children or young people are meant to do. So the young respond
by saying, “Why should we learn from them? They are no
further along than we are; they are just as childish as we
are.” The point is not that old age lacks youthfulness,
but that it has remained behind, is too infantile, and this
causes difficulties today. You see how expressions, sometimes
chosen with the most goodwill, mean the opposite of what they
intend convey.
[See Rudolf Steiner's
The Youth Section of the School of Spiritual Science,
March 9, 1924 (published in
The Constitution of the School of Spiritual Science,
Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain, 1964), which
states:
But
the youth today does not see in the older men and women any
human quality different from its own, yet worthy of its
emulation. For the older people of the present day are not
really “old.” They have taken in the content of
many things and can talk of these. But their knowledge has not
ripened in them. They have grown older in years, but in the
soul they have not kept pace with the advancing years. They
speak out of an older brain in just the same way that they
spoke when the brain was young. Young people feel this fact.
They do not perceive maturity when they are with their elders;
they see their own young condition of soul in older bodies, and
they turn away, for this does not seem true to them.]
These things must all be seen in the proper light before
education can stand on its feet again. This has become more
than necessary today. Forgive this somewhat drastic way of
saying it, but in our intellectual age education really has
been turned upside-down.
Thus, one of the characteristic features of Waldorf pedagogy is
to learn that it is not the externals that are important.
Whether a teacher draws substance to nourish the souls of
students from the different qualities of the four Gospels, or
whether this is done by using what was presented in the
Stuttgart teachers' training course with regard to the four
temperaments does not matter at all. What does matter is the
spirit that reigns in everything developed there. Because of
how superficially these things are often regarded today, it
could easily happen that someone, when told that the treatment
of the four temperaments could be studied in the fundamental
course given in Stuttgart, could also consult a later course
where one would find something about the teacher's attitude
toward the four Gospels. The reaction of such a person might
well be, “In this case, I should study the later course
as well.” It certainly is a good thing to approach
different subjects by using different sources. But there is
also another way of looking at it — that is, one may find
a common message running through both courses, given in two
different places at different times, even though outwardly the
subjects may appear very different. This inner correspondence
found within different lecture courses can be uncomfortable
because of the way their various points are interlinked,
instead of fitting into the more conventional patterns of cause
and effect.
Thus, the educational course given here at the Goetheanum just
over a year ago (where some English friends were present, and
which was rendered very competently and artistically by Mister
Steffen
[Albert Steffen (1884–1963), Swiss poet, novelist,
playwright, and a leading student of Rudolf Steiner beginning
in 1907.]) can be compared with what I presented to you again
differently in this course.
[See Rudolf Steiner,
Soul Economy and Waldorf Education,
Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1986.]
You will find that, basically, the substance
of both courses is the same as, for example, the head and the
stomach; each form a part of one organism. It may be
uncomfortable that, because of how various themes mutually
support each other, one cannot say: I have read and understood
the first course; and because the later one is supposed to
carry the same message, there is no need for me to study it as
well. The fact is, however, that, if one has studied both
courses, the earlier one will be understood in greater depth,
because each sheds light on the other. It could even be said
that, only when one has digested a later teachers' course, can
one fully understand an earlier one because of these reciprocal
effects. Mathematics is built on purely causal sequences, so it
is possible to understand earlier stages without any knowledge
of subsequent stages. But when it comes to teaching in a living
way, its subject is affected by mutual interconnections, so
that what was given at an earlier date may receive further
elucidation by what was presented later.
I
mention this because it is all part of the living spirit that
has to permeate the Waldorf way of teaching. One has to have
the good will that wants to know it from all sides, and one
must never be satisfied with having comprehended one particular
aspect of it. As a Waldorf teacher, one has to be conscious of
the necessity for continually widening and deepening one's
knowledge, rather than feeling satisfied with one's
achievements and, indeed, considering oneself very clever. If
one has lived into the Waldorf way of teaching, such delusions
are soon overcome! For a real Waldorf teacher, everything that
flows from this activity must be permeated with true heart and
soul forces. It has to spring from the right kind of
self-confidence, which rests on trust in God. When there is
awareness of the divine forces working within, one will be fed
by a constantly flowing fountain of life, flowing since time
beyond memory, and very much apart from what one may or may not
have learned externally. It is only the beginning of the way
when self-confidence stems from outer achievements. One is in
the proper place when self-confidence has led to confidence in
the working of God, when it has led to an awareness of the
power of the words: Not I, but the Christ in me. When
this happens, self-confidence also becomes self-modesty,
because one realizes that the divine forces of Christ are
reflected in whatever is carried in one's soul. This spirit
must reign throughout the school.
If
it were not present, the school would be like a natural
organism whose lifeblood was being drawn out, or that was
slowly being asphyxiated.
This is the spirit that is most important, and if it is alive,
it will engender enthusiasm, regardless of the staff or the
leadership of the school. One can then be confident that a
somewhat objective spirit will live throughout the school,
which is not the same as the sum of the teachers' individual
spirits. This, however, can be nurtured only gradually within
the life of the teaching staff.
As
a result of working in this way, something has emerged in the
Waldorf school that we call “block periods” or
“main lessons.” These main lessons — much
longer than the ordinary lessons, which allow one subject to be
studied in depth — do not distract children, as often
happens because of too many subject changes. For example,
students might typically be given a geography lesson from 8 to
8:45 A.M., followed by an entirely different subject, such as
Latin, from 8:45 until 9:30 A.M. This might be followed again
by math, or some other lesson. Block periods of main lessons,
on the other hand, are structured so that the same subject is
taught every day for about three or four weeks (depending on
the type of subject) during the first half of the morning
session. For example, in a main lesson period, geography would
be studied for perhaps three or four weeks — not severely
or in a heavy-handed way, but in a more relaxed, yet completely
serious way. When the same subject is taken up again during one
of the following terms, it will build on what was given during
the previous block period. In this way, the subject matter
covered during one year is taught in block periods instead of
during regular weekly lessons. This method is, no doubt, more
taxing for teachers than the conventional schedule arrangements
would be, because such lengthy geography lessons could easily
become boring for the children. This is solved by the teachers'
much deeper immersion in the subjects, so that they are equal
to their freely-chosen tasks.
After a mid-morning break, which is essential for the children,
the main lesson is usually followed by language lessons, or by
other subjects not taught in main lesson periods. Two foreign
languages are introduced to our pupils as soon as they enter
the first grade in a Waldorf school. Using our own methods, we
teach them French and English — the aim not being so much
a widening of their outer horizons, but an enrichment of their
soul life.
You
will ascertain from what was said yesterday that physical
movement, practiced most of all in eurythmy and gymnastics, is
by no means considered to be less important, but is dealt with
so that it can play a proper role within the total curriculum.
Similarly, right from the beginning in the first grade, all
lessons are permeated by a musical element according to various
ages and stages.
I
have already indicated (with unavoidable briefness,
unfortunately) how our pupils are being directed into artistic
activities — into singing, music-making, modeling, and so
on. It is absolutely necessary to nurture these activities.
Simply through practicing them with the children, one will come
to realize exactly what it means for their entire lives to be
properly guided musically during these younger years, from the
change of teeth through the ninth and twelfth years until
puberty. Proper introduction to the musical element is
fundamental for a human being to overcome any hindrance that
impedes, later in life, a sound development of a will permeated
with courage. Musical forces effect the human organism by
allowing, as smoothly as possible, the nerve fluctuations to
become active in the stream of breath. The breath-stream, in
turn, works back upon the functions of the nervous system. The
breathing rhythms then work over into the rhythms of the blood
circulation, which in turn act on the rhythms of sleeping and
waking. This insight, afforded by anthroposophical
investigation, of how musical forces creatively work within the
structure of the human being, is one of the most wonderful
things in life.
One
learns to recognize that we have an extremely sensitive and
refined musical instrument in the raying out of the nerves from
the spinal marrow, from the entire system of the spinal cord.
One also learns to see how this delicate instrument dries up
and hardens, whereby, inwardly, the human being can no longer
properly develop qualities of courage, if musical instruction
and the general musical education do not work harmoniously with
this wonderfully fine musical instrument. What constitutes a
truly delicate and unique musical instrument is coming into
being through the mutual interplay between the organs of the
nerves and senses with their functions on the one hand, and on
the other hand, the human motor functions with their close
affinities to the digestive rhythms and those of sleeping and
waking.
The
upper part of the human being wants to influence the lower
part. By directing the child's entire organism toward the realm
of music, we enhance the merging of external sounds (from a
piano during music lessons, or from the children's singing
voices) with the nervous and circulatory systems, in what can
be recognized as a divine plan of creation. This is a sublime
thing, because in every music lesson there is a meeting between
the divine-spiritual and what comes from the earthly realm,
rising, as it were, within the child's body. Heaven and Earth
truly meet in every achievement of musical culture throughout
human earthly evolution, and we should always be aware of this.
This awareness, plus the teachers' knowledge that they are
instrumental in bringing together the genius of Heaven with the
genius of Earth, gives them the enthusiasm they need to face
their classes. This same enthusiasm is also carried into the
teachers' staff meetings where the music teacher may inspire
the art teacher, and so on. Here you can see clearly how
essential it is that spirit works through every aspect of
Waldorf education.
To
give another example: not long ago, during one of our teacher
meetings, it truly became possible to work out to a large
extent what happens to the students' spirit, soul, and body,
when first given eurythmy exercises and then directed in doing
gymnastics. Such insight into the relationship between
gymnastics and eurythmy (which is very important to how these
lessons are presented) was really accomplished in one of our
teacher meetings the other day. Of course, we will continue our
research. But, this is how teacher meetings become like the
blood that must flow through the school as a living organism.
Everything else will fall into place, as long as that is
allowed to happen.
Teachers will know also when it is proper to take their classes
for a walk or for an outing, and the role of gymnastics will
find a natural and appropriate place within the life of the
students, regardless of which school they attend. Doubts and
anxieties will disappear with regard to the remark: What is
done in a Waldorf school may all be very good, but they neglect
sports there. Admittedly, it is not yet possible for us to do
everything that may be desirable, because the Waldorf school
has had to develop from small beginnings. Only by overcoming
enormous obstacles and external difficulties was it possible to
have gone as far as we have today. But when matters are taken
care of with spiritual insight, the whole question of the
relationship between physical and spiritual will be handled
properly.
The
following analogy could be used: Just as it is unnecessary to
learn how the various larger and smaller muscles of the arm
function (according to the laws of dynamics and statics, of
vitalism, and so on) so that one can lift it, so it is also
unnecessary to know every detail of the ins-and-outs of
everything that must be done, as long as we can approach and
present lessons out of the spirit that has become transformed
into the proper attitude of the teacher — as long as we
can penetrate properly to the very essence of all our tasks and
duties.
I
could only give you brief and superficial outlines of the
fundamental principles and impulses, flowing from
anthroposophical research, according to which the Waldorf
school functions. And so we have come to the end of this course
— primarily because of your other commitments.
At
this point I would like to express once more what I already
said during one of our discussions: If one lives with heart and
soul, with the ideal of allowing education to grow into a
blessing for all humankind in its evolution, one is filled with
deep gratitude when meeting teachers from so many different
places; for you have come to this course to obtain information
about the way of teaching that arises from anthroposophical
investigation, which I have attempted to place before you.
Beyond whether this was received by one or another participant
with more or less sympathy, I want to express my deep gratitude
and inner satisfaction that it was again possible for a large
group of souls to perceive what is intended to work on the most
varied branches of life, and what is meant to fructify life in
general through anthroposophy. Two thoughts will remain with
you, especially with those who dealt with the organization and
practical arrangements of this course: the happy memory of the
gratitude, and the happy memory of the inner satisfaction as I
expressed it just now. And the more intensely these thoughts
can be inwardly formed — the thoughts of the work based
on such gratitude and satisfaction — the more hope will
grow that, in times to come, this way of teaching may yet
succeed for the benefit of all of humanity.
Such hope will intensify the loving care for this way of
teaching in those who already have the will to devote
themselves to it with all their human qualities.
It
should also be said that it was not only the Waldorf teachers
who may have given you something of their practical experience,
because those of you who have been present here as visitors
have certainly given equally to them. By allowing us to witness
what lives in us begin to live in other souls as well, you have
fanned the glow of love that is both necessary and natural, and
just that can engender genuine enthusiasm. And we may hope that
out of feelings of gratitude and inner satisfaction, of hope
and love that have flowed together during this course, good
fruits may ripen, provided we can maintain the necessary
interest in these matters, and that we are inwardly active
enough to sustain them.
Ladies and gentlemen, my dear friends, this is what I want to
pour into my farewell, which is not to be taken as formal or
abstract, but as very concrete, in which gratitude becomes a
firm foundation, and inner satisfaction a source of warmth,
from which hope will radiate out, bringing both courage and
strength. May the love of putting into practice what is willed
to become a way of teaching for all human beings be turned into
light that shines for those who feel it their duty to care for
the education of all humankind!
In
this sense, having to bring this course to its conclusion, I
wish to give you all my warmest farewell greetings.
Question: Would it be possible to implement the Waldorf way
of teaching in other countries, in Czechoslovakia, for
example?
RUDOLF STEINER: In principle it is
possible to introduce
Waldorf education anywhere, because it is based purely on
pedagogy. This is the significant difference between Waldorf
pedagogy and other educational movements. As you know, there
are people today who maintain that if one wants to give pupils
a proper education, one must send them to a country school,
because they consider an urban environment unsuitable for
children's education. Then there are those who hold the opinion
that only a boarding school can offer the proper conditions for
their children's education, while still others insist that only
life at home can provide the proper background for children.
All of these things cease to be of real importance in Waldorf
education. I do not wish to quarrel about these different
attitudes (each of which may have its justification from one or
another point of view), but since Waldorf education focuses
entirely on the pedagogical aspect, it can be adapted to any
outer conditions, whether a city school, a country school or
whatever. It is not designed to meet specific external
conditions, but is based entirely on observation and insight
into the growing human being. This means that Waldorf pedagogy
could be implemented in every school.
Whether this would be allowed to happen, whether the
authorities that oversee education, the establishing of
curricula, and so on would ever agree to such a step being
taken, is an entirely different question. There is nothing to
stop Waldorf pedagogy from being applied anywhere in the world,
even tomorrow, but the real question is whether permission for
this to happen would be granted. This question can be answered
only in terms of the various local government policies. That is
really all one can say about it.
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