For the first seven years, the young child lives its life as an extremely perceptive sense organ. Whatever it sees and hears, feels, tastes and smells affects the development of its brain and its entire organism. The environment leaves its mark on every child, either in a health-giving or a detrimental way.
Imitation is the primary form of learning. Little children imitate with joy and without judgement. As all-round sense organs, they absorb and replicate every nuance of what they perceive.
That not only our actions, but also our thoughts and feelings influence the young child directly means that education has to be, first and foremost, self-education. Who you are as a person, and how you are in that moment, is mirrored by the child’s sensitive being and reappears as unreflected impulses of will.
LEARNING THROUGH IMITATION
The first seven years of our lives and learning can be termed the Age of Imitation. In these years, copying others leads us to master two of our greatest achievements: to walk upright, and to speak. Thinking, the third exclusively human skill, is developed in years of education.
And yet the Waldorf curriculum of the early years does not address the faculty of thinking directly, because young children are constitutionally unprepared for intellectual learning.
Rudolf Steiner: “It is of the greatest importance to know that man’s ordinary forces of thought are refined formative and growth forces. Something spiritual reveals itself in the formation and growth of the human organism. The spiritual element then appears during the course of life as the spiritual force of thought. And this force of thought is only a part of the human formative and growth force that works in the etheric.”
In effect, the very forces that will later enable analytical thinking are at present forming the young child’s malleable organs, consolidating their interaction. It follows that the less small children are made to engage in analytical mind processes and intellectual learning, the better for their long-term health.
Since intellectual hothousing in early childhood hinders a healthy maturation of the body’s organs by draining and diverting formative life-forces, the adult body is likely to lack energy and be prone to develop ailments and illnesses, particularly of the digestive system.
This means that old-age healthcare begins in childhood. The damages and costs inflicted on society by a school system of intellectual drill are being investigated in a range of studies, but the outcomes are already known. And the mental health crisis now affecting young generations lends extra urgency to such studies.
Valentin Wember: “The staggered release of the life processes for soul functions was the critical point for the curriculum of Waldorf education. Right down to the finest details this curriculum was tuned in to the release of the various life processes to be transformed into soul processes. Thus, with the setting up of the curriculum, the difference between Waldorf education and most conventional educational systems could hardly be greater. There it is a question of portioning what needs to be learnt into the time available. In Waldorf education the question in its fundamental approach is a different one:
1) What do the body and soul of the human being need in the way of inner nourishment at each respective point of development?
2) Which thought processes, which feelings, which will efforts should be involved only once certain aspects of the body have matured?”
Note: Rudolf Steiner’s main contribution to the field of education is to explain how the physical and spiritual parts that constitute our organism relate to each other, and how they evolve after birth in logical stages. Observing with unparalleled accuracy, he was able to draw the right conclusions.
Steiner’s Waldorf Education is not hostile to the intellect. But, taking health into account, it prepares for sound intellectual activity by strengthening young children’s life forces. The little ones are first to gain a wealth of experience by doing things, engaged in creative work and play.
Excluding technical and digital aspects of the adult world with its dense overlay of teen pop culture, Waldorf Kindergartens create a protected space for age-appropriate imaginative activity. (Age-appropriate being a key term of our education.)
The week’s purposeful rhythm includes singing and baking, stories, fairy tales and puppet plays, craftwork and gardening. Little hands gain dexterity as they help to carry out seasonal tasks in unquestioning imitation.
Fully engaged in this way, all senses are addressed and developed alongside the crucial faculties of concentration and memory, interest in the surroundings, social skills and initiative. This results in a healthy enjoyment of being active in work and learning.
Of course such a protected situation is interfered with by much in daily life that is alien to it. Every family must determine for themselves to which degree they are willing and able to support the ideal for their children’s sake.
Note: One can easily feel guilty or depressed when the ideal one aspires to is out of reach. But a realistic attitude makes the gulf between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’ bearable. We follow our guiding star in the knowledge that we can never lay hands on it.
LEARNING THROUGH AUTHORITY
The next seven years coincide with Lower School education. Beginning with the change of teeth, the Age of Imitation is gradually replaced by the Age of Authority. Now the young child needs adults to be reliable guides who know the way and can be followed with confidence.
Steve Biddulph pointed out that children, and boys in particular, want to know three things: Who is in charge? What are the rules? And are these rules fairly enforced? – At this stage, the children feel happiest and most secure with decisive yet empathic adults who set firm boundaries.
Besides parents and grandparents, this role of a guiding authority falls to class teachers. At school, they are in charge. They make the rules and enforce them fairly. They bring the world into the classroom, and through them the children learn to understand and love the world. No longer by imitation alone, but because of their teacher’s trusted authority: “Because Ms Smith said it, I know that it is true.”
Michaela Glöckler: “Unless the teacher stands in life, head, heart and hand, and teaches the students out of this inner connectedness, the students have no role model and no true orientation, and therefore cannot experience real learning. But soul development needs orientation from human beings who already have the abilities that still need to develop in the child. Steiner expected teachers to have the courage to become ‘a beloved authority’.”
Class teachers, accompanying a group for up to eight years, get to know, understand and love these children. Every day is spent thinking about their needs, reflecting on challenges and achievements, witnessing their development. This informs the preparation of learning content in ways that suit this group of individuals.
Trust, love and respect for adult authority are essential parts of building a healthy soul life. Rudolf Steiner expressed the consequences dramatically: If you deprive children of the experience of adult authority between the ages of seven and fourteen, you may as well cut off one of their arms, for it would be equally damaging.
Note: Naturally, the authority referred to here is not the draconian patriarchal kind that sought to train tough soldiers, and mothers of soldiers, and ultimately sparked the well-meaning but misguided anti-authoritarian school movement.
An experienced advisor stated that children must “consume authority” In the Lower School. A lack of form, order and sensible guidance deprives pre-teens of an essential limb of their inner self that can only be developed at this stage.
If you read ‘French Children Don’t Throw Food’ (US title: ‘Bringing Up Bébé’), you will enjoy the way American author Pamela Druckerman investigates the importance of adult authority while reflecting entertainingly on how children are raised today:
“We assign ourselves the job of pushing, stimulating and urging our kids from one developmental stage to the next. The better we are at parenting, we think, the faster our kids will move up.”
And: “It turns out that to be a different kind of parent, you don’t just need a different parenting philosophy. You need a very different view of what a child actually is.”
Which brings us back to Rudolf Steiner, who – thus far uniquely – was able to describe what a child really is.
In the Age of Authority, other important principles are beauty and imagination. Teachers are to present all learning content in such a way that the children’s emotions are engaged by the beauty and imagination that inform every lesson – arithmetic and foreign languages included.
The capacity for rational thought is gradually awakened through rich and varied – and increasingly demanding – lesson content, but a purely intellectual approach is still avoided.
Because the Waldorf curriculum is designed to meet a child’s developmental requirements at every stage, its topics are chosen with attention to the evolving soul capacities of each particular age group. It is rewarding to witness how these topics meet the children’s needs and elicit lively interest.
Note: In each class the age range spans a year, and the youngest members can easily feel emotionally overwhelmed by the curriculum. This speaks for letting those born near the cut-off date have another year in Kindergarten. Starting Class 1 as the oldest child of the group, their experience of school will compare to surfing with skill and enjoyment, instead of treading water while gasping for air. In such cases, parents must overcome the ambition to see their child “move up fast”.
The Waldorf School’s wide range of subjects and activities allows every child to experience at least one area where they do well. The children see that everyone has talents and weaknesses, which leads to tolerance. They help those who are struggling and accept help themselves.
Staying together for up to 12 years (15 with Kindergarten), a Waldorf class may grow as close as siblings. In any case they are learning much from each other in the interpersonal realm.
Waldorf parents best support their child’s education by making themselves aware of the school’s aims and ideals. Embracing the role of a loving and firm authority, they shut out excesses of the media culture. This isn’t easy, but it can be done.
It has been observed that Waldorf Education is not for the fainthearted. In the early years, parents need staunch conviction when friends and relatives point out how well their little ones already read and write; and how many “snippets of information” they can reel off by rote, whereas Waldorf children … Well, what do they do all day?
By Class 4 the situation has changed. Average numeracy and literacy skills have reached a similar or higher standard. Even so, those with special needs remain integrated in the class and get one-on-one lessons with Learning Support staff on the side.
Pupils crossing over from the mainstream are overawed by the abilities of their new classmates. Their own efforts in language arts, handwriting, drawing, painting, modelling, handcrafts, drama, music and movement generally don’t compare with the skills of their Waldorf peers. Nevertheless they catch up fairly quickly, inspired and motivated by what they see.
Learning through Insight
Once Waldorf students reach the Age of Independence and the Upper School, they demonstrate reassuring levels of competence and initiative. In college, university and the workplace, their open way of meeting the world and engaging with others makes them welcome anywhere.
With the onset of puberty, more life forces are set free from their organ-forming work. Rational thought, critical analysis and intellectual understanding blossom and are exercised in subjects taught by specialists.
The teacher’s role changes in step with the questioning, critical and often challenging mindset of the students. The Lower School’s person of authority is replaced by a trusted guardian and advisor. And, as always, the best teachers are those whose approval or disappointment matters.
Comments are welcome, so don’t hesitate to share experiences, questions and feedback below.
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