The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Anthroposophy and Educational Science

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! The anthroposophical worldview is, understandably, constantly accused of proclaiming its ideas and findings on the basis of research for which human capacities must first be developed—that is, that the research results of anthroposophy cannot be verified by everyone from the outset, and yet it nevertheless proclaims these views to people who are unprepared for them.

[ 2 ] Yet this very accusation, however justified it may seem, is among the most unjustified that can be leveled against the anthroposophical movement. For its aim is not to immediately guide every individual to become a researcher in the supersensible realm, but rather to present its research findings in a way that can be verified by every individual, simply through ordinary common sense and ordinary sound logic. This does not, however, make it unnecessary to strive to take at least the first steps toward supersensible research, and for this purpose there are indeed instructions in the various writings that have already been mentioned here. Anyone can therefore become an anthroposophical researcher to a certain extent—simply based on the conditions of modern civilization—but this is not necessary for verifying the results of anthroposophical research, for such verification can be carried out simply through common sense. And one of the fields in which this verification can truly be carried out in practice is the field of education.

[ 3 ] Ladies and gentlemen! For a long time, the anthroposophical worldview had to focus solely on presenting ideas about the supersensible that resonated with people before the cultural conditions of the present day made it possible for it to truly intervene in practical life—an area to which it feels particularly drawn. This became possible—albeit in a limited sphere, and even there only to a very small extent—when Emil Molt founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which I am now responsible for directing. Admittedly, as the short pamphlet *The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science* shows, an attempt had already been made earlier to advocate certain educational principles based on anthroposophical foundations. But it was only with the founding of the Waldorf School that it became possible to introduce these ideas into practical life, and since that time it has also been possible to implement the pedagogical and didactic aspects of anthroposophy in detail. Of course, it will not be possible for me to offer more than a few hints here in this introductory lecture, but I believe that the other lectures today will allow for a further elaboration of what has been touched upon here.

[ 4 ] What is absorbed through anthroposophical ideas—when one simply verifies them for oneself using common sense—is not merely a theoretical perspective; these are not merely abstract ideas that one might hold simply to satisfy some need for knowledge in a theoretical way. Rather, what is expressed in the ideas drawn from anthroposophical sources is genuine human power; it is something that permeates the whole person, intensifies love, and can be transformed into human energy. While the ideas and thoughts of conventional science—which relate solely to the sensory world—are characterized precisely by the fact that they serve theoretical interests and practical interests that, in turn, apply only to the sensory world, the defining feature of those ideas that incorporate the findings of anthroposophical research is that they affect the whole human being, his capacity for strength, his — if I may put it that way — ability to navigate life, and on their understanding of life; specifically, on that understanding of life which enables them to truly intervene through their will in the most diverse circumstances of life. And if one simply takes hold of this life at any point and enriches it with anthroposophical ideas, one can see how human action, when guided by these ideas, gains greater strength, greater intensity, and so on. This is something that must prove its worth particularly in the field of education and pedagogy.

[ 5 ] When the Waldorf School was founded, we did not have the opportunity to choose the external conditions for the education and instruction of the children entrusted to us. It is often argued today that if satisfactory instruction and education are to be achieved, then a specific location must be chosen for the school, the educational institution, or the like. Certainly, there is a great deal to support all these claims, and they do prove themselves in practice to a certain extent. But we had none of that. To begin with, we had to start our experiment under the given conditions with the children from the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Factory in Stuttgart. So we had a very specific group of children to begin with, and we had to start our teaching and education in a building that was, of course, very ill-suited for the purpose—it was a former tavern. We could therefore rely on nothing other than what can be initiated purely from spiritual foundations for pedagogical and didactic purposes.

[ 6 ] And this must be emphasized again and again: Because anthroposophy does not strive for abstract intellectual knowledge—if I may use that expression—but rather for an insight into the world and its mysteries that engages the whole human being, it can, precisely because of this, lead to a knowledge of humanity, to an understanding of humanity, that cannot otherwise be attained in any theoretical field. And ultimately, all education and all teaching are based on that understanding of the human being that proves itself in the relationship between the teacher, the educator, and the developing, growing human being—the child. That is why our Waldorf pedagogy is built upon an intimate understanding of the developing human being, the child. I need only point to one detail that illustrates how genuine insight into the whole human being must prove its worth in practice.

[ 7 ] Today, we also have a branch of psychology that is more or less accepted by the scientific community. But this psychology theorizes about all sorts of questions that are bound to leave an unsatisfactory residue. For example, it asks: What is the relationship between the spiritual-psychic and the physical-bodily aspects of the human being? — and it has developed all kinds of theories about this. There are three types of theories here: One seeks to start from the spiritual-psychic realm, first defining it in some way, forming an abstract concept of it, and then investigating to what extent the spiritual-psychic realm can influence the physical-bodily realm. Another, more materialistically oriented theory assumes that the physical-bodily realm is the foundation, and that this physical-bodily realm then produces the spiritual-psychic realm merely as a function. A third theory is that of psychophysical parallelism, which posits that the spiritual-psychic and the physical-bodily exist side by side on an equal footing, and merely traces how the functions of one run parallel to those of the other, without delving into an inner interrelationship between the two. All of this is psychological speculation. It only becomes a matter of practical application the moment one arrives, through this psychology—through this understanding of the soul—at pedagogical and didactic driving forces.

[ 8 ] One could say: In this field, our understanding of the spiritual and psychological aspects of human beings has simply not yet lived up to the principles we are accustomed to following as a matter of course in the natural sciences. In the natural sciences, when, for example, heat occurs somewhere without having been supplied in the usual way, we investigate how this heat was present in a different state—that is, as so-called latent heat—and how it developed from this latent state to now manifest as heat. Such principles, as they are standard practice in the natural sciences, must—naturally, in an appropriately adapted form—also be incorporated into the consideration of the whole human being, which encompasses the spiritual and soul aspects.

[ 9 ] And one arrives at a perspective that can be fully justified in the light of natural science—even if this is not yet recognized today—when, for example, one turns one’s attention to the first significant transformation that takes place throughout the entire human organism: the change of teeth around the age of seven. Such transformations in human beings are generally observed in a rather superficial way. Yet the change of teeth is something that profoundly affects the whole of human life. Anyone who trains their powers of observation to perceive this will come to recognize how, with the onset of the change of teeth, the child’s entire inner life is transformed. They come to recognize how, prior to this, the child did not—in the fullest sense of the word—actually live “within itself,” but was entirely absorbed in its surroundings through its inner life. They come to recognize how imitation is the most essential driving force in the child’s organism before the change of teeth. Through imitation, the child learns its movements.

[ 10 ] Through unbiased observation, one can determine exactly how the movements of the father and mother—or of the child’s wider environment—penetrate into the child’s own organism. One can observe how, under healthy conditions, language is learned through imitation. One can see how the child is, in the fullest sense of the word, wholly devoted to its surroundings with its entire being. But this changes completely during the process of tooth replacement. There we see how forces develop within the child that enable it to generate its own ideas independently. This capacity for independent ideas, which to a certain degree frees the child’s inner life from the external environment, is completely absent before the age of seven. With the change of teeth, the child acquires a certain inner life and gradually becomes receptive to abstract concepts as well.

[ 11 ] However, the child’s nature dictates that everything that lives inwardly in the people surrounding the child is absorbed by the child. Therefore, during the second stage of life—which begins with the change of teeth and continues until sexual maturity—it must be understood that everything that now develops within the child forms in accordance with the human environment. Not what the people in its environment do—for that is imitated—but what lives within these people, that is, what is expressed through speech, through attitude, through the direction of thought; this is transmitted to the child, not through imitation, but through a force that the child is just as naturally predisposed to absorb as it is to the forces of growth and nourishment: the power of authority. I trust there will be no misunderstanding of what I mean here by the power of authority, for the author of *The Philosophy of Freedom* wishes only to point out how the principle of authority applies to a specific phase of human life. Thus, education as a whole should not be based solely on what is often referred to today as the principle of authority. If one now attaches the appropriate value to such observations, then things become increasingly distinct, and one acquires an ever-greater ability to observe the metamorphoses in human beings not only from year to year, but from month to month. But what, then, is it that comes to light in the child between the change of teeth and sexual maturity?

[ 12 ] If one develops an eye for what is actually present there, one finds that between the ages of seven and fourteen—these are, of course, only approximate figures—what was previously at work within the child as a hidden force comes to inner, psychological expression. This force was embedded deep within the physical body and shaped the human organism; it also played a role in the development of the brain during the first years of life and in the preparation of the speech organs—in short, it was active in everything the child developed physically. And so one can say: Just as, for example, heat may be hidden within a body and then be released under certain circumstances, so too does the spiritual-soul aspect—which acts latently within the physical-organic realm during the first seven years of life, finding expression in every single movement and every physical process—only become free later on. After the seventh year of life, the physical body is left more to its own devices; the spiritual-soul aspect does not, however, withdraw completely from the physical body, but it does so to a large extent. The change of teeth then marks a kind of conclusion to the first phase of development, in which the human being’s spiritual-soul aspect was still identical with the physical-bodily aspect.

[ 13 ] You can see that this approach enables us to recognize a genuine relationship between the spiritual-soul aspect and the physical-bodily aspect. One no longer merely theorizes about how the two interact with one another and so on. One simply sees the spiritual-soul aspect fully embedded within the physical during one stage of life—one has a vivid example of this in childhood development—and one sees it later, after its liberation, in its own form. Thus, one does not first compare what has previously been expressed in abstract terms, but rather traces the activity of the spiritual-soul aspect within the physical body across the various stages of life. This means, however, that what is investigated in the natural sciences as accessible to the external senses is elevated into the spiritual realm. If one were to delve much more deeply into the details of what anthroposophy aims to achieve, rather than stopping at superficial definitions, one would already see what a faithful successor the spiritual-scientific and anthroposophical worldview actually is to the well-founded scientific way of thinking. But once one has acquired an understanding of the world of concepts and ideas in this way—delving deep into the realm of human knowledge—the accusation that the world of ideas is detached from life dissolves of its own accord.

[ 14 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Anthroposophy has no desire whatsoever to be in any way opposed, particularly in the field of education, to the great and significant educational principles that have been contributed to humanity by the great educators, especially throughout the 19th century. Anthroposophy fully acknowledges that there are great, significant educational principles, and it does not fall short of anyone else in its appreciation of the great educators. Nevertheless, it must be said: Despite all the great educational principles that exist, there is often a certain dissatisfaction with current educational practice today, and educational methods of all kinds bear witness to this fact. Why is this so?

[ 15 ] This is often merely a consequence of the intellectualism of our age. This intellectualism does, in fact—more than is generally believed—give rise to a certain hostility toward life, particularly in the social spheres of existence. With regard to the realm of ideas, it actually produces nothing but the abstract. But the abstract has no life force within it; in a certain sense, it is the corpse of the spiritual and is also experienced as such. And even if one has the most beautiful principles, for which one can burn with sheer enthusiasm—as long as these principles remain abstract, they cannot exert any beneficial influence in life. Only when these principles are imbued with true spirituality—with living spirituality that connects with the essence of the human being—can these principles become practical. And so anthroposophy does not seek to establish new educational principles in an abstract manner; it merely aims to serve as a guide for pedagogical and didactic skills, for the practice of the art of education and the art of teaching, and it seeks to provide precisely what even the most beautiful educational principles cannot provide: a spiritual foundation for practical application, for the teacher’s inner capacity to work effectively in the school and in education.

[ 16 ] That is why the Waldorf school is not structured in such a way that—as is unfortunately often believed—it is intended to instill in children the worldview that we present to adults. We must therefore emphasize in particular that even religious instruction for Catholic children is entrusted to Catholic priests, and for Protestant children to Protestant pastors. We have established independent religious instruction only for those children who come from dissenting families and who, if this instruction had not been established, would have no religious instruction at all. It is precisely through this that we have been able to contribute once again to the revitalization of religious sentiment; for it is precisely those parents who would otherwise have completely withdrawn their children from religious instruction who now send their children to these classes, in which we strive not to present anthroposophy, but to develop what needs to be developed for children of this age in this regard. So the point is not to instill anthroposophy into the children’s minds, but rather that anthroposophy enables the teaching staff to structure their pedagogical and didactic approaches in such a way that they truly correspond to authentic human education.

[ 17 ] It follows from this that, first and foremost, it is simply through practical application that such an upbringing and such instruction come about—one that does not focus solely on the child, but on the whole person. For it would be utterly foolish to regard, for example, a child’s feet or hands—as they are in childhood—as something complete, and to force them, as it were, to remain as they are in childhood. It goes without saying that, during childhood, we regard the child’s organism as something in the process of becoming, which must be different later in life. But when it comes to the spiritual and soul aspects, we do not always do the same in life. We often even see that rigid concepts are instilled in the child, and that the child frequently absorbs into his or her soul, even in early childhood, something that has sharp contours. That is wrong! The aim must be to present everything we wish to incorporate into the child’s organism in such a way that it can grow and gradually transform itself; so that later in life—at the age of thirty, for example—a person will not merely have a memory of what they absorbed in childhood, but will have transformed what they absorbed back then in the same way that they have transformed their own body. In everything we give the child intellectually and emotionally, we must also give them something that contains within it the forces of growth and transformation; that is to say, we must make instruction more and more alive.

[ 18 ] Certainly, this can be stated as an abstract principle; but it can only be achieved in practice if there is a truly intimate understanding of human nature. Such an intimate understanding of human nature makes it possible to derive everything that is usually understood as a curriculum and learning objectives simply from the child’s own nature. That is why the Waldorf school follows a curriculum and sets learning goals that are derived from a genuine understanding of human nature and are gleaned, month by month, from the development of the child’s nature itself. An effort has been made to shape truly everything in a living way.

[ 19 ] I’d like to mention just one thing. It’s true that in many respects, things have improved in today’s public education system. However, as you all know, throughout the entire school year, children actually suffer more than we usually realize from the system that evaluates their progress. On the one hand, there are the children’s achievements; on the other, there are the teacher’s evaluations of those achievements, which are expressed as “satisfactory,” “almost satisfactory,” “barely satisfactory,” “less than satisfactory,” and so on. I must confess to you frankly: I have actually never been able to see a difference between “almost satisfactory,” “almost not satisfactory,” and the like. At our Waldorf school, the approach is that, based on the child’s overall progress, a kind of report card is given to the child at the end of the school year, in which the teacher individually characterizes the child by simply writing down on a piece of paper what he or she has observed about the child. The child sees a kind of reflection of themselves, and experience has shown that they receive this reflection—which does not include ratings like “satisfactory,” “less than satisfactory,” and so on for individual subjects—with a certain inner satisfaction and joy, even if it contains criticism. And then the child is given a kind of motto drawn directly from their own nature, which they then make their own and which can serve as a guiding principle for the coming year. — In this way, if one has the love to engage with what is alive, one can make lessons come alive even under unfavorable conditions.

[ 20 ] But this also leads us to overcome something that, in our age, must be overcome—particularly in the fields of pedagogy and didactics. After all, one will find few clues in conventional historical writings today as to how people’s states of mind have changed throughout the various epochs of human development. But anyone who is open-minded enough will be able to understand how what we might call the spiritual expressions of, for example, the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries—as they present themselves to the soul—have a completely different character than what has become the state of mind of civilized humanity since, say, the middle of the 15th century. Indeed, by the 20th century, intellectualism had developed in humanity to a point of culmination. This intellectualism, however, has the peculiarity that—just like the principle of imitation or the principle of authority—it is only transformed from a latent to a free state at a certain age in a person’s life, and in the case of intellectualism, this occurs at a relatively late age. We see how a person, only after having overcome sexual maturity—and in fact even later—becomes, by virtue of his or her elemental nature, capable of progressing toward intellectualism. Before that, intellectualism has a thoroughly paralyzing, stifling effect on the activity of the soul.

[ 21 ] Therefore, we can say: We live in an age that is really intended only for adults, an age whose most important cultural impulse is something that should only find its full expression in adults. But this has the consequence that today, with what is currently setting the tone for adults in terms of culture as a whole, we actually no longer understand children—or even young people!

[ 22 ] This is the most important thing to bear in mind in our civilization. We must be clear that it is precisely through those forces that have brought our sciences and technology to such great triumphs and such great prosperity that we are depriving ourselves of the ability to fully understand the child and to respond to the child’s full human nature. We need, once again, our own means to build a bridge to young people and children. What is now emerging in many forms as a youth movement—whatever one’s stance on it may be—has its deepest justification; it is nothing other than the cry of youth: “You adults have a civilization that we simply cannot understand when we surrender to our most elemental nature!” — But this bridge from the adult world to the world of children must be rediscovered, and anthroposophy would like to contribute its part to this.

[ 23 ] And when we then move from the general cultural perspective down to the individual level, we will once again find how this educational plan—which is derived from the very nature of the child—enables us to recognize what must be developed in the educational plan for the individual stages of childhood. In earlier times, reading and writing were something entirely different from what they are today. Take our letters today: they are something entirely abstract, alien to life itself. Let us go back to earlier times: in pictographic writing, we find something that is directly rooted in life. Today we often give no thought at all to how intimately [this pictographic writing] was connected to life, and how alien to life it is today: reading and writing. Yes, we live in a civilization for which it is natural that the things most alien to life are developed for the purposes of civilization. Anyone today who, with an unbiased mind, sees, for example, a stenographer or an elderly person sitting at a typewriter knows that, through such an activity, precisely that which is most alien to humanity has been incorporated into civilization. Ladies and gentlemen, one does not become hostile to culture or a reactionary by stating this. Nor is anything being said against what has entered the modern era through these means; they had to be there. But we must also develop the counterforces that will heal what—if left to operate unchecked—could only lead to a certain decline of culture, to decadence. And the most important factor that can be introduced as a remedy in this regard lies in education, in instruction—which, however, must always be structured in an educational manner,

[ 24 ] When we enroll a child in elementary school, the fact is that his or her intellect is still dormant at first. The capacity for abstract thinking—which must first be stimulated by other factors—does not emerge until later. Therefore, when the child first enters school, we cannot yet approach them with abstract forms of writing and reading. We can only use what allows us to engage the child in a living way, for within the child itself there is at work an artistic, soulful principle that is more perfect and magnificent than any other art. This works in an unconscious way. We must continue to nurture this and strive to invent special forms for childhood that allow the child to enter into writing—that is, into the activity of their whole being—in an artistic way, and then move on to reading. In terms of pedagogy, when children today are still unable to read or write at the age of eight or nine, we must have the courage to say: Thank God that children of this age cannot yet read or write! — for what matters is not that a person learns this or that [early on], but that they learn it at the right age and in the right way.

[ 25 ] Thus, in the Waldorf school, instruction is structured around artistic expression. The approach begins with pedagogical and artistic principles and only gradually transitions to intellectual content. We also take into account that music should be introduced as early as possible in the curriculum, because it is connected to the development of the human will. We take this into account by incorporating eurythmy—animated movement—into the regular physical education curriculum. It still needs to undergo a transformation and be translated into pedagogical and didactic terms; but then one finds that through this art of movement, which is meant to perceive what constitutes the human spirit and soul, something meaningful is conveyed. One finds that during their compulsory schooling, children find their way into this art of movement just as they find their way into language as very young children—with inner delight and a sense of natural ease. — This process of developing artistic skills also leads to allowing the child to work with colors from a very early age. Even if this is sometimes inconvenient, and even if stricter standards of cleanliness than usual must be enforced as a result, it will nevertheless become apparent that this introduces the child more deeply into life than would otherwise be the case. One helps the child develop a sense of life, so that it does not pass life by, but rather lives in harmony with the external world, becoming receptive to all that is beautiful, to everything meaningful that it encounters in nature and human life. And this is more important than imparting individual details from this or that field to the child.

[ 26 ] In addition to all that I can only hint at here in general terms, there is what flows into the teacher’s mindset from anthroposophical foundations—what the teacher simply brings with him through his entire being in terms of pedagogical and didactic intangibles—when he closes the classroom door behind him to enter the classroom, when he steps before the children. Anyone who observes with a living sense—not with abstract ideas—how the child adapts to its surroundings through imitation knows what is at work in this child as a spiritual-soul aspect. They come to know the child and thereby gain the basis for assessing it in a completely different way than is usually done. I will cite just one example of this.

[ 27 ] You really do learn a thing or two when you look at life from this perspective. A couple came to see me once and said that their young son, who had always been very well-behaved and tidy, had suddenly started stealing. I asked, “How old is the child?” — The parents replied, “Five years old.” I said, “Then we must first investigate what the child actually did, because perhaps he didn’t steal at all.” — What had he done, then? He had taken some money from the drawer where his mother took money every morning when she wanted to go shopping. With that money, the boy had bought some treats, which he didn’t even keep for himself but gave to other children. In this case, one must say: There is no question of stealing at all; the child simply saw what the mother did every morning and felt authorized to do the same. The child is an imitator. That relationship of the child to the norms of adults—which find their expression in “good” and “bad”—only begins to emerge once the child has gone through the transition from baby teeth to permanent teeth. We must therefore develop a completely different way of assessing situations and learn to recognize that everything we do in the child’s environment must be arranged in such a way that the child can imitate it—even down to the intangible aspects of our thoughts. This is precisely where the reality of thoughts becomes evident. It is not merely what we do, but also the nature of our thoughts that is decisive in this regard. We should not indulge in just any thought in the child’s environment, for it affects the child. Thus, thoughts must be taken into account right down to their most intangible aspects.

[ 28 ] If one observes how a child lives in its environment up to the age of seven, one finds there an imprint of what the child was before the human being descended into the physical-sensory world. Until then—as anthroposophical research shows—the human being is completely surrounded by a spiritual-soul world that is connected to them in the universe just as their physical body is connected to this physical world. And we come to see in a child’s life up to the age of seven a true continuation of life before birth or before conception. But this must be transformed into a pedagogical and didactic sensibility, so that the teacher stands before the child saying to himself: Something has been entrusted to me from the supersensible worlds that I must unravel, for which I must pave the way through life.

[ 29 ] Teaching and education thus truly become a service of sacrifice to the whole world. Through teaching and education, something of that spirit—which is a force, and without which true teaching and true education can be nothing—is poured out. This spirit, which arises not from an externally adopted but from an internally developed anthroposophical worldview, is precisely the most important element in pedagogical and didactic work. One then stands with a reverent, almost shy awe before what the child’s body holds within; one observes how something arising from the eternal foundations of the world gradually reveals itself in the child’s movements, gestures, and so on, and one knows that one must solve a mystery of life in a practical way. It is only through this that the entire attitude toward education and teaching is set on the right path in the first place. This atmosphere, which pervades all the actions that must be carried out in school life, is what anthroposophy wishes above all to bring into the realm of education and teaching, and it is this atmosphere that it wishes to see governing every detail. But in order to master it, it is necessary to arrive, through genuine inner insight, at the point where one can see, in the child’s smallest life impulse, how the spirit continues to work right down to the fingertips. To this end, the teacher will develop a comprehensive inner perspective, so that—drawing on an ability that must in turn become instinct—he or she approaches the class with the attitude and skill that arise precisely from this inner assimilation of the anthroposophical worldview.

[ 30 ] These are a few points I was able to raise; they will be further elaborated upon in the following lectures. These remarks were intended to show that anthroposophy does not seek to take a radical stance against the great achievements in the field of education, but rather aims to be an aid to these great achievements—which would otherwise remain merely abstract—so that they can be brought to life in practical experience, enabling the art of education to become a genuine impulse and an effective factor in our social life!