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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Human Values in Education
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Human Values in Education
On-line since: 15th May, 2012
Human Values in Education
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
Lectures Section
The underlying thesis of these lectures is that a true education
must be founded on a knowledge of man, and that there can be no true
knowledge of man without love. In pursuit of this knowledge of man the
lectures investigate every aspect of the child's growth in its threefold
aspect of body, soul and spirit. But they also show how the teacher must
develop himself if he is to prove worthy of his calling.
In Steiner's view it is man who gives significance to the world: and
the lectures contain the terrible indictment that 'the world
significance of modern education is that it is gradually undermining
the significance of the world.' The lectures show how education
can restore to man the significance of the world, and to the world the
significance of man.
By Rudolf Steiner
Translated by Vera Compton-Burnett
Bn/GA 310
The underlying thesis of these lectures is that a true education
must be founded on a knowledge of man, and that there can be no true
knowledge of man without love. In pursuit of this knowledge of man the
lectures investigate every aspect of the child's growth in its threefold
aspect of body, soul and spirit. But they also show how the teacher must
develop himself if he is to prove worthy of his calling.
In Steiner's view it is man who gives significance to the world: and
the lectures contain the terrible indictment that ‘the world
significance of modern education is that it is gradually undermining
the significance of the world.’ The lectures show how education
can restore to man the significance of the world, and to the world the
significance of man.
This lecture series, translated by Vera Compton-Burnett, was published
in German as,
Paedagogische Wert der Menschenerkenntnis und der
Kulturwert der Paedagogik
(vol. 318 in the Bibliographic Survey).
This volume is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf
Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.
Copyright © 1971
This e.Text edition is provided with the cooperation of:
The Rudolf Steiner Press
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Thanks to an anonymous donation, this Lecture Series has been made available.
| Cover Sheet |
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| Guide to Contents |
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| Foreword |
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Lecture I: | Anthroposophical Education Based on a Knowledge of Man |
July 17, 1924 |
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Anthroposophical Education based on a knowledge of
man. Theoretical knowledge fails in life, as illustrated in
business affairs and medicine. External educational psychology
does not understand the living child. Love the first essential
in education. Child descends from spiritual worlds by divine
grace. Cleverness of modern education programmes. No programme
in Waldorf School, only teachers and children. Relation between
the physical and the soul-spiritual in childhood differs from
that in adult. Old age in early epochs. Maturation regresses in
history. Greek relation to sculpture. Genius in childhood.
Teacher compared to a gardener.
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Lecture II: | Descent into the Physical Body, Goethe and Schiller |
July 18, 1924 |
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Experiences in childhood may not produce their effects
till the fifties. Need to understand effect of experience in spiritual
world exemplified by Goethe and Schiller. Goethe's difficulty
in entering body, but his subsequent good health and good
looks. Long trunk and short legs a sign of harmonious
adaptation to the body. Productive power in the middle of
Goethe's life. Schiller's disharmony with his body. His ugly
head, long legs, and weak rhythmic system, leading to cramps.
All this due to stoppages in the fulfilment of karma. Similar
conditions illustrated in acquaintance of Steiner, who
also could not bring experience of spiritual world into
physical. He suffered from stutter and squint and died after
operation for the latter at 30. He would have had difficulty in
developing consciousness soul at 35. Schiller prevented from
finishing things by his cramp. The “Malteser” and
“Demetrius.” Mystery of his death. Importance of
listening to children's voices.
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Lecture III: | Stages of Childhood |
July 19, 1924 |
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Importance of stages of childhood. Fine distinctions
necessary. Mother's milk mediates child into world into which he
grows in first seven years. Movement, gesture and imitation characterise
this period. Distinction in early movements. Speech arises from
movement. Vowels. Consonants. Religious devotion to world
reaches to the physical body. Environment affects child's
organism. The counting horse explained. After seven comes
feeling for coordination and for speech, which arises from
gesture. Authority of teacher vital. Teaching immortality
through the symbol of the butterfly. Letters to be introduced
as pictures. Two theories of origin of a speech. Outer and
inner harmonised in consonants and vowels. Examples of picture
letters. Realistic dolls condemned. “Study of Man”
at ten or eleven and its effect on modelling. Greek artists and
the model. Living teaching necessary. A question answered.
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Lecture IV: | Three Epochs of Childhood |
July 20, 1924 |
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A question concerning imitation from a very young age.
Reflection of the three epochs of childhood in gesture, speaking,
thinking within the first epoch. Writing to be taught before reading
because more active. Etheric forces freed from body at change
of teeth; until then soul revealed in body. After this teaching
in pictures needed to develop etheric. Astral (within etheric)
works musically. Between 9th and 10th years the ego becomes
conscious, and teaching of outer world can begin with plants.
Plant never to be divorced from earth. The right treatment of
the soil. Abstractions of modern thought in connection with
speed of sound. Working of subconscious in child. Animals do
not belong to earth, like plants, but are exaggerations of
human form. Art for the etheric, music for the astral. The two
combined manifest in Eurythmy, which must supplement Gymnastics.
History and Geography to be taught pictorially till twelfth year,
when child first understands causation. Explanation of child's
so-called “animism.” Danger of making all subjects
“visual.” Need for children to assimilate living
concepts that grow. Dead concepts and sclerosis.
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Lecture V: | The Teachers' Conference in the Waldorf School |
July 21, 1924 |
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Importance of Teacher's Conference in Waldorf School.
Insight needed to determine whether a talent is healthy or unhealthy.
The super-sensible is revealed in physical body of child,
clairvoyance not needed. Example of a late developer.
Hamerling's difficulty with the German language. Special class
for children whose physical body does not release the spiritual.
Medical knowledge for teachers. Steiner's own experience with
hydrocephalic boy. Difference of classes where boys or girls
predominate. Reciprocal feeling between teachers and children.
The “main lesson” method and versatility of the
teachers. Promise in the rascal. Goodness may be due to illness.
Punishment. Qualifications for teachers. A unified educational
ideal described. Contrast in parallel classes in Waldorf School.
Behaviour of children at an inspection.
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Lecture VI: | Meetings of Parents and Teachers |
July 22, 1924 |
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Meetings of parents and teachers. Teachers should visit parents.
Confidence of child in teacher begins to weaken between 9th and
10th year. How to strengthen it. Stories from the Gospels. Teacher
is to read the book of the child. He should be inspired by
anthroposophy but not teach it. Children should be kept in their
own environment. Activities of children should be real. Children's
sense of colour. Eurythmy should first be shown as an art, not
as demonstrated by children. Abstract definitions to be avoided.
Joy of understanding later in life what was learnt earlier.
Experiencing good as pleasure and bad as displeasure in middle
epoch is true basis of morality, 1st seven years, Gratitude;
2nd seven years, Love; 3rd seven years, Duty. Astral descends
at puberty into physical and etheric, but is already working in
twelfth year. Every man is bi-sexual, the male having female
etheric body and vice versa.
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Lecture VII: | Diet for Children, Four Temperaments |
July 23, 1924 |
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Anthroposophy sees spiritual world in concrete detail.
It sees the spiritual in the physical and the physical as manifesting
the spiritual. Treatment of pale child and over-red child
(a) by medicine and (b) by education through
right use of memory. The four temperaments. Advantage of
grouping children by temperament. Teacher to embody and use all
temperaments. Co-operation of school and home in matter of
diet. Melancholic child to have more sugar, sanguine child
less. Child of quick comprehension, who quickly forgets, may
need to eat less potato. Sugar consumption in England and
Russia. Effect of potato on intelligence in Europe. Deeper
grasp with less detail changed to quick and more superficial
intelligence. Coffee helps logical thoughts — for
writers. Tea produces fleeting thoughts — for diplomats.
Typical forms of carbohydrates, as seen through microscope,
appear in astral body of potato consumers. Modern divorce of
Art, Science and Religion. Supersensible sometimes allowed
today in art (Björnson) and appears in strange places.
Mystery Centres were places of unity of art, science and
religion, which uniting man needs again today.
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Lecture VIII: | Modelling of Bodies |
July 24, 1924 |
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The four kingdoms of nature. The etheric body re-models
physical in first seven years, but traces of the original model may
survive. All teachers should practise sculpture, which helps in
understanding etheric forces. Astral body fashioned out of
music. Ancient architecture formed musically. From Greek age
the mechanical and mathematical supplanted the musical.
First Goetheanum again formed musically. Through astral man's
body is a musical creation e.g. in breathing and blood
circulation. Ratio of breath and pulse was basis of ancient
poetry. The arm as formed by the musical scale. Singing and
instruments to be taught in first school years. Intellectual,
artistic and musical training needed for teachers to understand
physical, etheric and astral. Ego reveals itself in speech.
Differences of languages. Kopf and Testa. Example of form in
speech. Observation needed by teacher, not intellect. The class
and the individual child. History. Personalities and
description of customs from 10th to 12th years. Making time
spatially visible. Arithmetic to start with the whole.
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Lecture IX: | Styles in Education, Historical Examples |
July 24, 1924 |
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Relation of teacher and pupil in ancient East. Waldorf
Education is for the whole man. Greek education based on the
Gymnast. Women today more mobile in thinking than men.
Greek thinking illustrated. Roman education less universal and
based on the Rhetorician. This education still found in
the mediaeval seven liberal arts, and even into Jesuit
training. Modern education since the Renaissance limited to the
intellect and its representative figure is the Professor.
A modern professor of “Eloquence” who taught only
archaeology. Abstract ideas in Marx of which none saw the
consequences. Modern finance impersonal and out of touch with
reality. Story of Rothschild and the ambassador. Prime need of
a teacher is not knowledge but the understanding of man. Modern
education destroys significance of world. Needed — medical
knowledge for teacher, educational knowledge for doctor.
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Lecture X: | Closing Words, the Relation of the Art of Teaching to the Anthroposophical Movement |
July 24, 1924 |
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Thanks to organiser of the course. Spiritual revelation
in ancient Mysteries worked in practical life. The same principle
in new forms is possible today and is found in Waldorf
education. The situation of anthroposophy compared to the early
Christianity of the catacombs. The fate of the gnosis —
to be obliterated — must not befall anthroposophy.
The founding of Eurythmy and of the anthroposophical medical
and educational movements arose from human needs and human
personalities. The founding of the Waldorf School by Emil Molt
coincided with a moment of freedom. Religious teaching in the
Waldorf School. Its financial difficulties. It must be nurtured
by love. Request by the top class in the school for an
anthroposophical university. The problem of matriculation
interfering with the curriculum dealt with by adding a 13th
class. Progress or retrogression in civilisation depends on
education. Waldorf education can show how anthroposophy works
out of life.
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