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 Six
DORNACH, APRIL 20, 1923
Questions of ethical and social education are raised
when we consider the relationship between growing children and
their surroundings. We will consider these two issues today
— even though briefly and superficially, due to the
shortness of time. Once again, the kernel of the matter is
knowing how to adapt to the individuality of the growing child.
At the same time, you must remember that, as a teacher and
educator, you are part of the social setting, and that you
personally bring the social environment and its ethical
attitudes to the growing pupil. Again, pedagogical principles
and methods must be formed so that they offer every opportunity
of reaching the child's true nature — one must learn to
know the child's true nature according to what has been shown
here briefly during the last few days. As always, much depends
on how one's material is brought to the students during
their various ages and stages.
Here we need to consider three human virtues —
concerning, on the one hand, the child's own development, and
on the other hand, what is seen in relation to society in
general. They are three fundamental virtues. The first concerns
everything that can live in will to gratitude; the
second, everything that can live in the will to love;
and third, everything that can live in the will to duty.
Fundamentally, these are the three principal human virtues
and, to a certain extent, encompass all other virtues.
Generally speaking, people are far too unaware of what, in this
context, I would like to term gratitude or thankfulness. And
yet gratitude is a virtue that, in order to play a proper role
in the human soul, must grow with the child. Gratitude is
something that must already flow into the human being when the
growth forces — working in the child in an inward
direction — are liveliest, when they are at the peak of
their shaping and molding activities. Gratitude is something
that has to be developed out of the bodily-religious
relationship I described as the dominant feature in the child
from birth until the change of teeth. At the same time,
however, gratitude will develop very spontaneously during this
first period of life, as long as the child is treated properly.
All that flows, with devotion and love, from a child's inner
being toward whatever comes from the periphery through the
parents or other educators — and everything expressed
outwardly in the child's imitation — will be permeated
with a natural mood of gratitude. We only have to act in ways
that are worthy of the child's gratitude and it will flow
toward us, especially during the first period of life. This
gratitude then develops further by flowing into the forces of
growth that make the limbs grow, and that alter even the
chemical composition of the blood and other bodily fluids. This
gratitude lives in the physical body and must dwell in it,
since it would not otherwise be anchored deeply enough.
It
would be very incorrect to remind children constantly to be
thankful for whatever comes from their surroundings. On the
contrary, an atmosphere of gratitude should grow naturally in
children through merely witnessing the gratitude that their
elders feel as they receive what is freely given by their
fellow human beings, and in how they express their gratitude.
In this situation, one would also cultivate the habit of
feeling grateful by allowing the child to imitate what is done
in the surroundings. If a child says “thank you”
very naturally — not in response to the urging of others,
but simply by imitation — something has been done that
will greatly benefit the child's whole life. Out of this an
all-embracing gratitude will develop toward the whole
world.
The
cultivation of this universal gratitude toward the world is of
paramount importance. It does not always need to be in one's
consciousness, but may simply live in the background of the
feeling life, so that, at the end of a strenuous day, one can
experience gratitude, for example, when entering a beautiful
meadow full of flowers. Such a subconscious feeling of
gratitude may arise in us whenever we look at nature. It may be
felt every morning when the Sun rises, when beholding any of
nature's phenomena. And if we only act properly in front of the
children, a corresponding increase in gratitude will develop
within them for all that comes to them from the people living
around them, from the way they speak or smile, or the way such
people treat them.
This universal mood of gratitude is the basis for a truly
religious attitude; for it is not always recognized that this
universal sense of gratitude, provided it takes hold of the
whole human being during the first period of life, will
engender something even further. In human life, love flows into
everything if only the proper conditions present themselves for
development. The possibility of a more intense experience of
love, reaching the physical level, is given only during the
second period of life between the change of teeth and puberty.
But that first tender love, so deeply embodied in the inner
being of the child, without as yet working outward — this
tender blossom will become firmly rooted through the
development of gratitude. Love, born out of the experience of
gratitude during the first period of the child's life, is the
love of God. One should realize that, just as one has to dig
the roots of a plant into the soil in order to receive its
blossom later on, one also has to plant gratitude into the soul
of the child, because it is the root of the love of God. The
love of God will develop out of universal gratitude, as the
blossom develops from the root.
We
should attend to these things, because in the abstract we
usually know very well how they should be. In actual life
situations, however, all too often these things turn out to be
very different. It is easy enough, in theory, to say that
people should carry the love of God within themselves —
and this could not be more correct. But such demands, made
abstractly, have a peculiar habit of never seeing the light of
day in practice.
I
would like to return to what I said during one of the last few
days. It is easy enough to think of the function of a stove in
the following way: You are a stove and we have to put you here
because we want to heat the room. Your categorical imperative
— the true categorical “stove-imperative”
— tells you that you are obliged to heat the room. We
know only too well that this in itself will not make the
slightest difference in the temperature of the room. But we can
also save our sermonizing, and, instead, simply light the stove
and heat it with suitable logs. Then it will radiate its warmth
without being reminded of its categorical imperative. And this
is how it is when, during various stages of childhood, we bring
the right thing to children at the right time. If, during the
first period of life, we create an atmosphere of gratitude
around children, and if we do something else, of which I shall
speak later, then, out of this gratitude toward the world,
toward the entire universe, and also out of an inner
thankfulness for being in this world at all (which is something
that should ensoul all people), the most deep-seated and
warmest piety will grow. Not the kind that lives on one's lips
or in thought only, but piety that will pervade the entire
human being, that will be upright, honest, and true. As for
gratitude, it must grow; but this can happen with the intensity
necessary for such a soul and spiritual quality only when it
develops from the child's tender life-stirrings during the time
from birth to its change of teeth. And then this gratitude will
become the root of the love of God. It is the foundation for
the love of God.
Knowing all this will make us realize that, when we receive
children into the first grade, we must also consider the kinds
of lives they have led before reaching school age. There should
really be direct contact with the parental home — that
is, with what has happened before the child entered school.
This contact should always be worked for, because teachers
should have a fairly clear picture of how the present situation
of children was influenced by their social conditions and the
milieu in which they grew up. At school, teachers will then
find plenty of opportunities to rectify any possible
hindrances. For this to happen, however, knowledge of the
child's home background, through contact with the parents, is
of course absolutely essential. It is necessary that teachers
can observe how certain characteristics have developed in a
child by simply watching and imitating the mother at home. To
be aware of this is very important when the child begins
schooling. It is just as much part of teaching as what is done
in the classroom. These matters must not be overlooked if one
wants to build an effective and properly based education.
We
have already seen that, in the years between the child's change
of teeth and the coming of puberty, the development of a sense
for the authority of the teacher is both natural and essential.
The second fundamental virtue, which is love, then grows from
that when the child is in the process of also developing the
physical basis of love. But one must see love in its true
light, for, because of the prevailing materialistic attitudes
of our time, the concept of love has become very one-sided and
narrow; and because a materialistic outlook tends to see love
only in terms of sexual love, it generally traces all
manifestations of love back to a hidden sexuality. In an
instance of what I called “amateurism squared” the
day before yesterday, we find, if not in every case, that at
least many psychologists trace human traits back to sexual
origins, even if they have nothing whatsoever to do with sex.
To balance such an attitude, the teacher must have acquired at
least some degree of appreciation for the universal nature of
love; for sexual love is not the only thing that begins to
develop between the child's second dentition and puberty, but
also love in its fullest sense, love for everything in the
world. Sexual love is only one aspect of love that develops at
this time of life. At that age one can see how love of nature
and love for fellow human beings awaken in the child, and the
teacher needs to have a strong view of how sexual love
represents only one facet, one single chapter in life's book of
love. If one realizes this, one will also know how to assign
sexual love to its proper place in life. Today, for many people
who look at life with theoretical eyes, sexual love has become
a kind of Moloch who devours his own offspring, inasmuch as, if
such views were true, sexual love would devour all other forms
of love.
The
way love develops in the human soul is different from the way
gratitude does. Gratitude has to grow with the growing human
being, and this is why it has to be planted when the child's
growing forces are at their strongest. Love, on the other hand,
has to awaken. The development of love really does
resemble the process of awakening, and, like awakening, it has
to remain more in the region of the soul. The gradual emergence
of love is a slow awakening, until the final stage of this
process has been reached. Observe for a moment what happens
when one awakes in the morning. At first there is a dim
awareness of vague notions; perhaps first sensations begin to
stir; slowly the eyelids struggle free of being closed;
gradually the outer world aids one's awakening; and finally the
moment arrives when that awakening passes into the physical
body.
This is also how it is with the awakening of love —
except that, in the child, this process takes about seven
years. At first love begins to stir when sympathy is aroused
for whatever is taught during the early days at school. If we
begin to approach the child with the kind of imagery I have
described, we can see how love especially comes to meet this
activity. Everything has to be saturated with this love. At
that stage, love has a profoundly soul-like and tender quality.
If one compares it with the daily process of waking up, one
would still be deeply asleep, or at least in a state of
sleeping-dreaming. (Here I am referring to the child's
condition, of course — the teacher must not be in a
dream, although this appears to happen all too often!) This
condition then yields to a stronger jolt into wakefulness. And
in what I described yesterday and the day before about the
ninth and tenth years — and especially in the time
leading up to the twelfth year — love of nature awakens
in the child. Only then do we see it truly emerging.
Before this stage, the child's relationship to nature is
completely different. A child then has a great love for all
that belongs to the fairyworld of nature, a love that has to be
nourished by a creative and pictorial approach. Love for the
realities in nature awakens only later. At this point we are
faced with a particularly difficult task. Into everything
connected with the curriculum at this time of life (causality,
the study of lifeless matter, an understanding of historical
interconnections, the beginnings of physics and chemistry) into
all of this, the teacher must introduce — and here I am
not joking, but speak very earnestly — the teacher must
introduce an element of grace. In geometry or physics
lessons, for example, there is every need for the teacher to
allow real grace to enter into teaching. All lessons should be
pervaded with an air of graciousness, and, above all, the
subjects must never be allowed to become sour. So often, just
during the ages from eleven and a half, or eleven and
three-quarters, to fourteen or fifteen, work in these subjects
suffers so much by becoming unpalatable and sour. What the
pupils have to learn about the refraction and reflection of
light or about the measurement of surface areas in a spherical
calotte, is so often spoken of not with grace, but with an air
of sourness.
At
just this time of life the teacher must remember the need for a
certain “soul-breathing” in the lessons, which
communicates itself to the pupils in a very strange way —
soul-breathing must be allowed for. Ordinary breathing consists
of inhaling and exhaling. In most cases, or at least on many
occasions, teachers, in their physics and geometry lessons,
only breathe out with their souls. They do not breathe in, and
the outbreath is what produces this acidity. I am referring to
the outbreathing of soul expressed in dull and monotonous
descriptions, which infuses all content with the added
seriousness of inflated proportion. Seriousness does have its
place, but not through exaggeration.
On
the other hand, an in-breathing of soul brings an inherent
sense of humor that is always prepared to sparkle, both within
and outside the classroom, or whenever an opportunity arises
for teachers and pupils to be together. The only possible
hindrance to such radiating humor is the teachers themselves.
The children certainly would not stand in its way, nor would
the various subjects, provided they were handled with just the
right touch during this particular age. If teachers could feel
at home in their subjects to the degree that they were entirely
free of having to chew over their content while presenting
lessons, then they might find themselves in a position where
even reflected light is likely to crack a joke, or where a
spherical skullcap might calculate its surface area with a
winning smile. Of course, jokes should not be planned ahead,
nor should they be forced on the classroom situation.
Everything should be tinted with spontaneous humor, which is
inherent within the content, and not artificially grafted onto
it. This is the core of the matter. Humor has to be found in
things themselves and, above all, it should not even be
necessary to search for it. At best, teachers who have prepared
their lessons properly need to bring a certain order and
discipline into the ideas that will come to them while
teaching, for this is what happens if one is well prepared. The
opposite is equally possible, however, if one has not prepared
the lessons adequately; one will feel deprived of ideas because
one still has to wrestle with the lesson content. This spoils a
healthy out-breathing of soul and shuts out the humor-filled
air it needs. These are the important points one has to
remember at this particular age.
If
teaching follows its proper course in this way, the awakening
of love will happen so that the student's soul and spirit are
properly integrated into the human organization during the
final stage of this awakening — that is, when the
approach of puberty, begins. This is when what first developed
so tenderly in the child's soul, and then in a more robust way,
can finally take hold of the bodily nature in the right and
proper way.
Now
you may wonder what teachers have to do to be capable of
accomplishing their tasks as described. Here we have to
consider something I would like to call the
“social aspect” of the teaching profession,
the importance of which is recognized far too little. Too often
we encounter an image that a certain era (not ancient times,
however) has associated with the teaching profession, whose
members are not generally respected and honored as they should
be. Only when society looks upon teachers with the respect
their calling deserves, only when it recognizes that the
teachers stand at the forefront of bringing new impulses into
our civilization — not just in speeches from a political
platform — only then will teachers receive the moral
support they need to do their work. Such an attitude — or
perhaps better still, such a sentiment — would pave the
way toward acquiring a wider and more comprehensive view of
life. This is what the teachers need; they also need to be
fully integrated into life. They need more than just the proper
qualifications in educational principles and methods, more than
just special training for their various subjects; most of all
teachers need something that will renew itself again and again:
a view of life that pulsates in a living way through their
souls. What they need is a deep understanding of life itself;
they need far more than what can pass from their lips as they
stand in front of their classes. All of this has to flow into
the making of a teacher. Strictly speaking, the question of
education should be part of the social question, and it must
embrace not just the actual teaching schools, but also the
inner development of the teaching faculty.
It
should be understood, at the same time, that the aims and
aspirations for contemporary education, as presented here, are
in no way rebellious or revolutionary. To believe that would be
a great misunderstanding. What is advocated here can be
introduced into the present situation without any need for
radical changes. And yet, one feels tempted to add that it is
just this social aspect of education that points to so many
topical questions in life. And so, I would like to mention
something, not because I want to agitate against present
conditions, but only to illustrate, to put into words, what is
bound to come one day. It will not happen in our current age,
so please do not view what I am going to say as something
radical or revolutionary.
As
you know, it is customary today to confer a doctorate on people
who, fundamentally speaking, have not yet gained any practical
experience in the subjects for which they are given their
degree, whether chemistry, geography, or geology. And yet, the
proof of their knowledge and capacity would surely have to
include the ability to pass their expertise on to other
candidates, of teaching them.
[The word doctor is derived from
docere, the Latin verb meaning “to teach.”
— TRANS.]
And so a doctor's degree should
not really be granted until a candidate has passed the
practical test of teaching and training others who wish to take
up the same vocation. You can see great wisdom, based on
instinctive knowledge, in the popular expression; for, in the
vernacular, only a person capable of healing, capable of giving
tangible proof of healing abilities, is called a
“doctor.” In this instance the word doctor
refers to someone engaged as a practical healer, and not just
to a person who has acquired specialized medical knowledge,
however comprehensive this might be.
Two
concepts have arisen gradually from the original single concept
— that of educating as well as that of healing. In more
distant times, teaching or educating was also thought of as
including healing. The process of educating was considered
synonymous with that of healing. Because it was felt that the
human being bore too many marks of physical heredity, education
was viewed as a form of healing, as I have already mentioned
during a previous meeting here. Using the terminology of past
ages, one could even say teaching was considered a means of
healing the effects of original sin.
[See footnote on page 37.]
Seen in this light, the processes of healing, set in motion by
the doctor, are fundamentally the same as those of teaching,
though in a different realm of life. From a broader
perspective, the teacher is as much of a healer as a doctor.
And so the weight the title “doctor” usually
carries in the eyes of the public could well become dependent
on a general awareness that only those who have passed the test
of practical experience should receive the honor of the degree.
Otherwise, this title would remain only a label.
However, as I have already said, this must not be misunderstood
as the demand of an instigator for the immediate present. I
would not even have mentioned it except in a pedagogical
context. I am only too aware of the kind of claims that are
likely to be listened to in our times, and the ones that
inevitably give the impression one is trying to crash through
closed doors. If one wants to accomplish something in life, one
must be willing to forgo abstract aims or remote ideals, the
attempted realization of which would either break one's neck or
bruise one's forehead. One must always try to remain in touch
with reality. Then one is also justified in using something to
illustrate certain needs of our time, even if these may only be
fulfilled in the future; for what I have spoken of cannot be
demanded for a very long time to come. It may help us to
appreciate, nevertheless, the dignity within the social sphere
that should be due the teaching profession. I have mentioned
all of this because it seemed important that we should see this
question in the proper light. If teachers can feel moral
support coming from society as a whole, then the gradual
awakening of love in the young will become the close ally of
their natural sense of authority, which must prevail in
schools. Such things sometimes originate in very unexpected
places.
Just as the love of God is rooted in gratitude, so genuine
moral impulses originate in love, as was described. For nothing
else can be the basis for truly ethical virtue except a kind of
love for humankind that does not allow us to pass our fellow
human beings without bothering to know them, because we no
longer have an eye for what lives in them — as happens so
easily nowadays. The general love toward all people is the love
that reaches out for human understanding everywhere. It is the
love that awakens in the child in the time between the change
of teeth and puberty, just as gratitude has grown between the
child's birth and the loss of the first teeth. At school, we
must do everything we can to awaken love.
How
are children affected by what happens in their immediate
surroundings during the first period of life — that is,
from birth to the change of teeth? They see that people engage
in all kinds of activities. But what children take in are not
the actual accomplishments in themselves, for they have not yet
developed the faculty to perceive them consciously. What they
do perceive are meaningful gestures. During this first period
of life we are concerned with only a childlike understanding of
the meaningful gestures they imitate. And from the perception
of these meaningful gestures the feeling of gratitude develops,
from which the gratitude-engendered will to act arises.
Nor
do children perceive the activities happening in their
environment during the subsequent years, between the change of
teeth and puberty — especially not during the early
stages of this period. What they do perceive — even in
the kinds of movements of the people around them — no
longer represents the sum total of meaningful gestures.
Instead, events begin to speak to the children, become a
meaningful language. Not just what is spoken in actual words,
but every physical movement and every activity speaks directly
to the child during this particular time. It makes all the
difference, therefore, whether a teacher writes on the
blackboard:
Or
writes the same word thus:
Whether the teacher writes the figure seven like this:
Or
like this:
Whether it is written in an artistic, in a less-refined, or
even in a slovenly way, makes a great difference. The way in
which these things affect the child's life is what matters.
Whether the word leaf is written in the first or second
way (see above), is a meaningful language for the child.
Whether the teacher enters the classroom in a dignified manner,
or whether the teacher tries to cut a fine figure, speaks
directly to the child. Likewise, whether the teacher is always
fully awake to the classroom situation — this will show
itself in the child's eye by the way the teacher handles
various objects during the lessons — or, during
wintertime, whether it could even happen that the teacher
absent-mindedly walks off with the blackboard towel around his
or her neck, mistaking it for a scarf — all of this
speaks volumes to the child. It is not so much the outer
actions that work on the child, but what lives behind them,
whether unpleasant and ugly, or charming and pleasant.
In
this context, it is even possible that a certain personal habit
of a teacher may generate a friendly atmosphere in the
classroom, even if it might appear, in itself, very comic. For
example, from my thirteenth to eighteenth year I had a teacher
— and I always considered him to be my best teacher
— who never began a lesson without gently blowing his
nose first. Had he ever started his lesson without doing so, we
would have sorely missed it. I am not saying that he was at all
conscious of the effect this was having on his pupils, but one
really begins to wonder whether in such a case it would even be
right to expect such a person to overcome an ingrained habit.
But this is an altogether different matter. I have mentioned
this episode only as an illustration.
The
point is, everything teachers do in front of children at this
stage of life constitutes meaningful language for them. The
actual words that teachers speak are merely part of this
language. There are many other unconscious factors lying in the
depths of the feeling life that also play a part. For example,
the child has an extraordinarily fine perception (which never
reaches the sphere of consciousness) of whether a teacher makes
up to one or another pupil during lessons or whether she or he
behaves in a natural and dignified way. All this is of immense
importance to the child. In addition, it makes a tremendous
difference to the pupils whether teachers have prepared
themselves well enough to present their lessons without having
to use printed or written notes, as already mentioned during
our discussion. Without being aware of it, children ask
themselves: Why should I have to know what the teachers do not
know? After all, I too am only human. Teachers are supposed to
be fully grown up, and I am only a child. Why should I have to
work so hard to learn what even they don't know?
This is the sort of thing that deeply torments the child's
unconscious, something that cannot be rectified once it has
become fixed there. It confirms that the sensitive yet natural
relationship between teachers and students of this age can come
about only if the teachers — forgive this rather pedantic
remark, but it cannot be avoided in this situation — have
the subject completely at their fingertips. It must live
“well-greased” in them — if I may use this
expression — but not in the sense of bad and careless
writing.
[In German, “very untidy writing” is often
referred to as Geschmier, a “smear on the
page.” The verb schmieren also means “to
grease.” — TRANS.]
I use it here in the sense of
greasing wheels to make them run smoothly. Teachers will then
feel in full command of the classroom situation, and they will
act accordingly. This in itself will ensure an atmosphere where
it would never occur to students to be impudent.
For
that to happen among children of ten, eleven, or twelve would
really be one of the worst possible things. We must always be
aware that whatever we say to our pupils, even if we are trying
to be humorous, should never induce them to give a frivolous or
insolent reply. An example of this is the following situation:
A teacher might say to a student who suddenly got stuck because
of a lack of effort and attention, “Here the ox stands
held up by the mountain.” And the pupil retorts,
“Sir, I am not a mountain.”
[The German saying
“Wie der Ochs Corm Berg stehen.” It
means literally “to stand there like the ox facing the
mountain.” It is a very common saying, and it can also be
translated as “to be completely out of one's depth,”
“to be nonplussed.” — TRANS.]
This sort of thing must not be allowed to happen. If the
teachers have prepared their lessons properly, a respectful
attitude will emerge toward them as a matter of course. And if
such an attitude is present, such an impertinent reply would be
unthinkable. It may, of course, be of a milder and less
undermining kind. I have mentioned it only to illustrate my
point. Such impudent remarks would destroy not only the mood
for work in the class, but they could easily infect other
pupils and thus spoil a whole class.
Only when the transition from the second life period to the
third occurs, is the possibility given for (how shall I call
them now in these modern times?) young men and young women to
observe the activities occurring around them. Previously the
meaningful gesture was perceived, and later the meaningful
language of the events around the child. Only now does the
possibility exist for the adolescent to observe the activities
performed by other people in the environment. I have also said
that, by perceiving meaningful gestures, and through
experiencing gratitude, the love for God develops, and that,
through the meaningful language that comes from the
surroundings, love for everything human is developed as the
foundation for an individual sense of morality. If now the
adolescent is enabled to observe other people's activities
properly, love of work will develop. While gratitude must be
allowed to grow, and love must be awakened, what needs to
evolve now must appear with the young person's full inner
awareness. We must have enabled the young person to enter this
new phase of development after puberty with full inner
awareness, so that in a certain way the adolescent comes to
find the self. Then love of work will develop. This love of
work has to grow freely on the strength of what has already
been attained. This is love of work in general and also love
for what one does oneself. At the moment when an understanding
for the activities of other people awakens as a complementary
image, a conscious attitude toward love of work, a love of
“doing” must arise. In this way, during the
intervening stages, the child's early play has become
transmuted into the proper view of work, and this is what we
must aim for in our society today.
What part do teachers and educators have to play in all of
this? This is something that belongs to one of the most
difficult things in their vocational lives. For the best thing
teachers can do for the child during the first and second life
period is to help what will awaken on its own with the
beginning of puberty. When, to their everlasting surprise,
teachers witness time and again how the child's individuality
is gradually emerging, they have to realize that they
themselves have been only a tool. Without this attitude,
sparked by this realization, one can hardly be a proper
teacher; for in classes one is faced with the most varied types
of individuals, and it would never do to stand in the classroom
with the feeling that all of one's students should become
copies of oneself. Such a sentiment should never arise —
and why not? Because it could very well happen that, if one is
fortunate enough, among the pupils there might be three or four
budding geniuses, very distinct from the dull ones, about whom
we will have more to say later. Surely you will acknowledge
that it is not possible to select only geniuses for the
teaching profession, that it is certain that teachers are not
endowed with the genius that some of their students will
display in later life. Yet teachers must be able to educate not
only pupils of their own capacity, but also those who, with
their exceptional brightness, will far outshine them.
However, teachers will be able to do this only if they get out
of the habit of hoping to make their pupils into what they
themselves are. If they can make a firm resolve to stand in the
school as selflessly as possible, to obliterate not only their
own sympathies and antipathies, but also their personal
ambitions, in order to dedicate themselves to whatever comes
from the students, then they will properly educate potential
geniuses as well as the less-bright pupils. Only such an
attitude will lead to the realization that all education is,
fundamentally, a matter of self-education.
Essentially, there is no education other than self-education,
whatever the level may be. This is recognized in its full depth
within anthroposophy, which has conscious knowledge through
spiritual investigation of repeated Earth lives. Every
education is self-education, and as teachers we can only
provide the environment for children's self-education. We have
to provide the most favorable conditions where, through our
agency, children can educate themselves according to their own
destinies.
This is the attitude that teachers should have toward children,
and such an attitude can be developed only through an
ever-growing awareness of this fact. For people in general
there may be many kinds of prayers. Over and above these there
is this special prayer for the teacher:
Dear God, cause that I — inasmuch as my personal
ambitions are concerned — negate myself. And Christ make
true in me the Pauline words, “Not I, but the Christ in
me.”
This prayer, addressed to God in general and to Christ in
particular, continues: “... so that the Holy Spirit may
hold sway in the teacher.” This is the true Trinity.
If
one can live in these thoughts while in close proximity to the
students, then the hoped-for results of this education can also
become a social act at the same time. But other matters also
come into play, and I can only touch on them. Just consider
what, in the opinion of many people, would have to be done to
improve today's social order. People expect better conditions
through the implementation of external measures. You need only
look at the dreadful experiments being carried out in Soviet
Russia. There the happiness of the whole world is sought
through the inauguration of external programs. It is believed
that improvements in the social sphere depend on the creation
of institutions. And yet, these are the least significant
factors within social development. You can set up any
institutions you like, be they monarchist or republican,
democratic or socialist; the decisive factor will always be the
kind of people who live and work under any of these systems.
For those who spread a socializing influence, the two things
that matter are a loving devotion toward what they are doing,
and an understanding interest in what others are doing.
Think about what can flow from just these two attributes; at
least people can work together again in the social sphere. But
this will have to become a tradition over ages. As long as you
merely work externally, you will produce no tangible results.
You have to bring out these two qualities from the depths of
human nature. If you want to introduce changes by external
means, even when established with the best of intentions, you
will find that people will not respond as expected. And,
conversely, their actions may elude your understanding.
Institutions are the outcome of individual endeavor. You can
see this everywhere. They were created by the very two
qualities that more or less lived in the initiators —
that is, loving devotion toward what they were doing, and an
understanding interest in what others were doing.
When one looks at the social ferment in our times with open
eyes, one finds that the strangest ideas have arisen,
especially in the social sphere, simply because the current
situation was not understood properly. Let me give you an
example:
Today, the message of so-called Marxism regarding human labor
and its relationship to social classes is being drummed not
just into thousands but into millions of heads.
[See Karl
Marx's major work, Das Kapital (Capital),
Vol. I, Hamburg, 1867.] And if you investigate what its
author alleges to have discovered — something with which
millions of people are being indoctrinated so that they see it
as their socialist gospel, to use as a means for political
agitation — you will find it all based upon a fundamental
error regarding the attitude toward social realities. Karl Marx
wants to base the value of work on the human energy spent
performing it.
[Karl Heinrich Marx (1818–1883), German
political philosopher and coauthor, with Friedrich Engels, of
The Communist Manifesto
in 1848.] This leads to a
complete absurdity, because, from the perspective of energy
output, it makes no difference whether someone cuts a certain
quantity of firewood within a given time, or whether — if
one can afford to avoid such a menial task — one expends
the same energy and time on treading the pedals of a wheel
specially designed to combat incipient obesity. According to
Karl Marx's reckoning, there is no difference between the human
energy expended on those two physical activities. But cutting
firewood has its proper place within the social order. Treading
the pedals of a slimming cycle, on the other hand, is of no
social use, because it only produces a hygienic effect for the
person doing it. And yet, Karl Marx's yardstick for measuring
the value of work consists of calculating the food consumption
necessary for work to be done. This way of assessing the value
of labor within the context of the national economy is simply
absurd. Nevertheless, all kinds of calculations were made
toward this end. The importance of one factor, however, was
ignored — that is, loving devotion toward what one is
doing and an understanding interest in what others are
doing.
What we must achieve when we are with young people is that,
through our own conduct, a full consciousness of the social
implications contained in those two things will enter the minds
of adolescents. To do so we must realize what it means to stand
by children so that we can aid in their own self-education.
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