Report Verses: A Unique Innovation

School reports record performance with letters or numbers, though it has long been recognised that this reductive system is unable to do justice to the complexity of learning. As ever, Waldorf Schools take a wholly different approach with their distinctive Report Verses.

This innovation began a hundred years ago with Rudolf Steiner’s indications.

In his Spiritual Ground of Education GA 305, we read:

“We know the child, and know whether he is deficient in will, in feeling or in thought, we know whether this emotion or the other predominates in him. And in the light of this knowledge, for every single child in the Waldorf School we make a little verse or saying. This we inscribe in his report.

It is meant as a guiding line for the whole of the next year at school. The child learns this verse by heart and bears it in mind. And the verse works upon the child’s will, or upon his emotions or mental peculiarities, modifying and balancing them.

Thus the report is not merely an intellectual expression of what the child has done, but it is a power in itself and continues to work until the child receives a new report. And one must indeed come to know the individuality of a child very accurately – as you will realise – if one is to give him a report of such a potent nature year by year.”

The class teacher’s Report Verse for the child is supplemented with a detailed written description of progress for the parents. Pictorial verse and emphatic summary arise from the teacher’s thorough study of a child’s character, temperament, tendencies, talents and challenges.

Subject teachers add their own description in brief, for they teach several classes and a great many students.

Note: In 1919, a verse “for every single child in the Waldorf School” meant Classes 1 to 8.

“The child learns this verse by heart and bears it in mind,” Steiner states. Nowhere does he mention reciting it to the class. That custom will have arisen as the first generation of teachers began to work with the verses in a daily rhythm.

Letting each child recite their verse on the weekday of their birth is also a later development. Though it does not bear Steiner’s hallmark, it makes sense and is a good example of how his indications were developed.

REPORT VERSES IN THEORY

Waldorf reports generally express the teaching staff’s pedagogical insight, their loving care for each individual, their understanding of difficulties and hindrances. They take a supportive view of developments.

Such reports are unique. Instead of measuring performance to tell where children passed or failed, they focus on steps of progress along each individual path of learning. And as they record the ups and downs of achievements and obstacles in the moment, they keep the overall picture in mind – past, present and future.

In The Kingdom of Childhood GA 311:

“At the Waldorf School (…) every teacher knows every child and describes him in the report; he describes in his own words what the child’s capacities are and what progress he has made. And then every year each child receives in his report a motto or verse for his own life, which can be a word of guidance for him in the year to come.

The report is like this: first there is the child’s name and then his verse, and then the teacher without any stereotyped letters or numbers simply characterises what the child is like, and what progress he has made in the different subjects. The report is thus a description. The children always love their reports, and their parents also get a true picture of what the child is like at school.”

Note: Steiner rarely gave such specific instructions. He clearly thought the report’s form important and made no distinction between reports for younger and older classes.

Following the annual report, Waldorf pupils are not split into groups according to performance levels, nor are they funnelled into separate streams that lead to different types of graduation. Each class of mixed abilities continues together, which can result in surprising leaps on the part of those who find academic learning challenging.

In Waldorf Education, we have and give time.

REPORT VERSES IN PRACTICE

Of course this way of summarising the year puts an extra load on the teacher’s shoulders, and the task gets more magnificent with every increase in class size.

As energy levels ebb towards the end of the school year, Waldorf teachers spend weekends and nights at their desk, perusing assessment and evaluation notes. Some reports are a joy to write and flow from the pen; others need figuring out how best to negotiate between forthrightness and diplomacy.

But the fruits of such efforts are usually worth saving. Most Waldorf alumni (or their parents) keep these reports long after they leave school. Many are moved when re-reading their teachers’ views.

A DUBIOUS GRADING SYSTEM

In Austria and Germany, the top grade is 1, and 6 means a fail. But in Switzerland, 6 is top and 1 rock bottom. To my young mind, this cast doubt on the entire grading system. I did not yet realise that the anglophone world employs – nay, demeans – letters for that same purpose.

Rudolf Steiner states his own doubts in Soul Economy: Body, Soul and Spirit in Waldorf Education, GA 303:

“These grades are then converted into numbers, so that in Germany some reports show the various subjects arranged in one column, and on the opposite side there is a column of figures, such as 4½, 3, 3-4, and so on. I have never been able to develop the necessary understanding for these somewhat occult relationships.”

My own distressing encounter with the Austrian grading system was over before Class 1 ended. For reasons narrated in The Story, my parents took me out of school and switched to Waldorf Education.

THE WALDORF REPORT BOOK

At my new school in Zurich I received a large report book. It look elegant and important with its blank pages of cream paper bound in blue linen. A printed title page was followed by the first Report Verse.

This verse, composed for me at the end of Class 2, made a deep impression on all the family.

The way my parents read it out left no doubt that the coltsfoot in question was little me; the verse an image for my situation. (The coltsfoot is the first alpine flower to emerge in early spring. Small and bright, it looks like a tiny sun as it braves cold winds and oppressive drifts of snow.)

I read this verse repeatedly and admired my teacher’s beautifully printed letters. He had chosen a different colour for each verse, going from frosty blues through a delicate green to golden yellow and warm orange.

The whole page breathed the feeling of spring, and the verse spoke to me. It was a fitting image for the warm sunrise I experienced in my soul upon joining his class … But I wondered: How did he, how could he know?

Over fifty years later, I no longer have the report book but still remember my verse:

What’s with the gnomes and sylphs, you ask? – A good question! But that is a topic for another day.

Looking back at this verse after years as a class teacher, I am struck not only by its quality, but also its length. Our teacher was a musician, not a poet, and his class had close to forty members!

The time and effort it must have cost to produce such verses for us all at the end of an exhausting year can only be guessed at. Maybe it compares to writing a doctoral thesis – but without kudos and acknowledgement.

Yes, this enormous amount of creativity is invested in secret and lives on in the mind alone. Report Verses are to be cherished in private, as precious gifts from an older wayfarer to younger ones.

Classmate Angelika McAlice writes: “In response to your mail, I took a look at my report book and was amazed that, after reading their first lines, I still knew every verse by heart. Impressive! They are genuine life companions, as true now as they were then, though of course on a different level. What incredible empathy, recognition and support of the student! After all, our deepest longing is to be recognised. With its added helpful impulses for development and self-awareness, this is a phenomenally ingenious and altruistic method.”

Note: In the Seventies, it was not yet customary at our Swiss Waldorf School to recite these verses on a weekly basis. We just learnt them by heart and recited them to the class a few times.

Rudolf Steiner acknowledges in The Fundamentals of Waldorf Education Ga 304:

“Naturally, writing this kind of report demands a great deal of time. But the child receives a kind of mirror of itself. So far, I have not come across a single student who did not show genuine interest in his or her report, even if it contained some real home truths.“

“Especially the aptly chosen verse at the end is something that can become of real educational value to the child. One must make use of all means possible to call forth in the children the feeling that their guides and educators have taken the task of writing these reports very seriously, and that they have done so not in a one-sided manner, but from a direct and genuine interest in their charges.”

THE BIRTHDAY VERSES

Thirty years on, now a teacher in England, I met a different approach. This Waldorf School (and others) did not add a verse to the report. Instead, a verse was given on each birthday, spaced out across the year. And each child received their Birthday Verse just as reverently as we did our Report Verse.

Reports were the familiar descriptive summaries, but now typed and photocopied. Their loose leaves were assembled inside a printed cover, resulting in a booklet for every school year.

One class teacher also added a snapshot of the child; a portrait from a play, a craft project or activity. By this simple means, the sequence of annual reports included a visual record of progress made in growing up.

From Classes 1 to 4, each birthday child received a handmade card as part of their celebration in class. On it, the teacher had written a verse in beautiful letters, decorated with a border or an illustration. The teacher read out the verse, and then it was taken home to be shared with the parents and learnt by heart.

On every day of a normal school week, the class sat and listened attentively to each solo recital in turn. The speaker stood at their desk, eyes on the teacher who prompted them until they knew their verse well.

Another interesting aspect, wholly new to me, was that the children recited their verse on the weekday of their birth. (Sunday’s and Monday’s children on Monday, Friday’s and Saturday’s children on Friday.)

A NEW CUSTOM

I was intrigued, liked this new custom a lot and adopted it with my own class. But, teaching in my third language and not being poetically gifted, I felt unable to compose twenty meaningful verses within a feasible time span and on top of everything else.

To be equal to the task, I would have needed a month off work, in seclusion, assisted by a shopping cook and cleaner. Yes, colleagues with a partner who runs the household certainly have the edge!

It is an indisputable fact that verses written by the teacher have the greatest pedagogical impact and are our ideal. And yet it is equally certain that not everyone is able to write verses of the required standard.

My advice: Don’t feel a failure and beat yourself up. Accept the fact, be honest about it, and pour your love and your understanding into choosing the right verses for your children.

I did so without qualms and found verses by talented colleagues, known and unknown; inspirational lines that held meaning for each individual. I adapted them where necessary, wrote them out and gave them a different look each year with added decorative elements.

These are examples from my Class 2 and Class 3 respectively:

Steiner’s demand for “the aptly chosen verse” with “a direct and genuine interest in their charges” can be fulfilled in this way too. And it still takes several weeks to produce a class set.

At the end of the year, every member of the class knew each and every verse by heart. In the final week, when normal routines pleasantly dissolve, all were to recite a classmate’s freely chosen verse instead of their own.

Hearing these secret favourites provided new insights. It also accentuated the intimate connection which the children developed to these verses.

A BIT OF RESEARCH

I wish I had thought to investigate at the time how the replacing of Report Verses with Birthday Verses came about. Who did this first? Why, when and where?

Do you know relevant details? Then post a comment below, or write to fabwolf@waldorfdiary.com

My question “How did the Report Verses become Birthday Verses” produced many interesting responses, and the picture that emerges is this:

Former students and current teachers confirm that Report Verses continue to be used from Denmark to Brazil, from New York to New Zealand. In some schools, Report Verses end with Class 4, in others they are given up to Class 8. For the older children, passages may be chosen from important cultural sources.

German class teachers Heinz Müller, Martin Tittmann, Traugott Horneber, Gisela Klonk and Gabriele Böttcher published collections of their verses and described their approach. In the anglophone world, Roberto Trostli, David Donaldson and others are following suit.

British schools seem to be going it alone with their preference for the more recent custom of Birthday Verses. Understandably, their teachers appreciate the relief of compiling verses during the long summer break.

The tradition of letting each child speak their verse on the weekday of their birth seems to have become universal. It may be this very custom that inspired the idea of linking verses to birthdays instead of reports.

One teacher recalls that Brien Masters, when teaching the writing of “Birthday Verses” at the London Waldorf Teacher Training Seminar, mentioned that he started giving verses on birthdays to ease the workload of the report-writing season.

Her recollection answers my question and seems entirely likely.

Note: From the late Sixties, Brien Masters (1931-2013) was class teacher at Britain’s largest Waldorf School, Michael Hall. He wrote music, edited the periodical Child and Man, chaired the UK Fellowship of Steiner Waldorf Schools, represented the movement at international events and trained teachers.

Isn’t it surprising that not one of the institutions to which he dedicated his life’s work has set up a Wikipedia page to honour his memory and his contributions? Googling his name, we find “a British writer, best known for his biographies of serial killers,” and an Anglican bishop.

Just saying …

HOW TO WRITE REPORT VERSES

(Or Birthday Verses.) That is the topic of the next article. Former colleague David Donaldson, experienced class teacher, mentor and gifted poet, will share a step-by-step tutorial as my blog’s first guest author.

How to integrate Report or Birthday Verses in the daily rhythm of the Main Lesson is shown in these chapters of my own publication, which also contain examples of inspirational verses:

Comments are welcome, so don’t hesitate to share experiences, questions and feedback below.

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