The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Based on the insights that can emerge from discussions such as the one we just had in the General Pedagogy class, I would like to mention right away a methodological point that is extremely important and will also tie in with the methodological discussions of the previous days.

[ 2 ] You must have in your mind's eye the first class you teach with your students in each grade. In a certain sense, something far more significant will emerge from this first class than from all the others. But the other lessons will also need to be utilized to ensure that what emerges from that first lesson bears fruit for the entire course of instruction. Let us now create a mental image of how we will structure the first school lesson with the children—and you will soon be in a position to get to know these children, who come from all walks of life in terms of both education and upbringing. Of course, I can only offer general guidelines here, which you will then be able to develop further. The key will be not to follow certain convoluted educational principles that have emerged in recent times, but rather to focus on what is truly significant for the child’s development.

[ 3 ] So you have the class in front of you, with children of all different kinds. The first thing you should do is make the children aware of why they are actually there. It is of the utmost importance that you speak to the children something like this: “So you have now come to school, and I want to tell you why you have come to school.” — And now this very fact—that the children have come to school—must be brought to the forefront of their consciousness. — You’ve come to school because you’re supposed to learn something here. You won’t have any mental image yet today of everything you’re supposed to learn in school, but you’ll have to learn many things here. Why will you have to learn so many things in school? Well, you’ve already gotten to know the adults—the grown-ups—and you’ve probably noticed that they can do things you can’t. And you’re here so that one day you, too, will be able to do what the grown-ups can do. One day you’ll be able to do what you can’t do yet. — It’s extremely important to go through this set of ideas with the children. But this set of ideas brings something else with it as well.

[ 4 ] No lesson is on the right track unless it is accompanied by a certain reverence for the preceding generation. As emotional and intuitive as this nuance must remain, it must nevertheless be cultivated in children by every means possible: so that the child looks with esteem and respect upon what older generations have already achieved and what the child is also meant to achieve through school. This regard for the culture of their surroundings, with a certain sense of respect, must be awakened in the child right from the start, so that the child truly sees, in a sense, something of a higher nature in those who have already grown older. Without awakening this feeling, one cannot make progress in teaching and education. Nor, however, can one make progress unless one brings into the soul’s consciousness what is actually meant to come to be. Therefore, one should continue to engage the child in the following reflections, without any concern that one might thereby be going beyond the child’s current horizon. For it does not matter if one tells the child many things that it will only come to understand later. The principle that one should present to the child only what it already understands—about which it can already form a judgment—is the very principle that has ruined so much in our culture. — A very well-known educator of an even more famous contemporary figure once boasted of having raised this figure according to the following principle. The man said: “I raised this boy well, because I forced him to form an opinion about everything immediately.” - Well, a great many people today agree with this principle of forming an opinion about everything immediately, and it is not surprising that a very well-known educator of an even more famous figure would emphasize this principle and then seek to reiterate it in educational books. I have, in fact, come across a contemporary educational work that, building on this principle, states: “One can only hope that every German boy and every German girl might be granted such an exemplary upbringing.” - You can see from this that in contemporary educational theory, one can find many examples of what not to do, for there is a great tragedy in this kind of upbringing, and this tragedy, in turn, is linked to the current global catastrophe.

[ 5 ] It is not, then, a matter of the child immediately forming an opinion about everything, but rather that between the ages of 7 and 15, the child absorbs what it is meant to absorb out of love and respect for the educator. Therefore, one should also seek to continue the conversation already mentioned—which can be expanded in any way—with the child, perhaps like this: “Look, adults have books and can read. You can’t read yet, but you’ll learn to read, and once you’ve learned to read, you’ll also be able to pick up those books and learn from them what grown-ups can learn from them.” Grown-ups can also write letters to each other; they can write down all sorts of things. You’ll be able to write letters later on, too, because in addition to learning to read, you’ll also learn to write. And besides reading and writing, grown-ups can also do arithmetic. You don’t even know yet what arithmetic is. But you have to be able to do arithmetic in life, for example, if you want to buy something to eat, or if you want to buy or have clothes made. — You have to have a conversation like this with the child and then tell them: You’ll learn arithmetic, too. It’s good to draw the child’s attention to this, and then perhaps to bring their attention back to it the very next day, so that through frequent repetition you go over this with the child as well. It is therefore important to bring to the child’s conscious awareness what they are doing in this way.

[ 6 ] In general, it is of the utmost importance for teaching and education to ensure that—if I may use the expression—we consciously bring into awareness what otherwise takes place habitually in life. On the other hand, it is not beneficial for teaching and education to include all sorts of things in the classroom merely for the sake of teaching—or even merely for the apparent sake of teaching. You may find today that it is recommended that a child come to school equipped with a box of burnt-down matches, and that the child should then be instructed to lay out sticks using these burnt-down matches—which are best not round but square, so that they do not roll off the slanted benches in the classroom. For example, they should be taught to build a house out of these matches and similar activities. Stick-laying is, after all, a favorite activity that is particularly recommended for young children today. But compared to a genuine understanding of life, such an activity seems like a mere trifle; it has no significance for the human being to learn anything from stick-laying. For in later life, a person can only view such things—to which matchstick laying may lead—as mere trifles. It is not good to introduce mere trifles into education. On the other hand, introducing what is truly vital and full of life into education—that is our task; but what is merely a trifle should not be introduced. So please do not misunderstand me: I am not saying that play should not be introduced into education; it is simply that a game artificially contrived for the sake of instruction should not be introduced into school. We will have much more to discuss regarding the way in which play should be integrated into instruction.

[ 7 ] But how can one truly influence the formation of will right from the start?

[ 8 ] Once you have sufficiently discussed what I have just explained—which, on the one hand, is intended to help the child develop an awareness of why they are in school, and, on the other hand, is intended to help the child develop a certain regard and respect for adults—it is important to move on to something else. It is then good to say to the child, for example: Take a look at yourself. You have two hands, a left hand and a right hand. You have these hands for working; with these hands you can do all sorts of things. —So, try to bring to consciousness what it means to be human. The child should not only know that they have hands, but they should also become aware that they have hands. Of course, you might now say: “But they are already aware that they have hands.” — But there is a difference between knowing that they have hands for working and this thought never having crossed their mind. Once you have spoken with the child for a while about hands and working with them, move on to having the child do something that requires manual dexterity. Under certain circumstances, this can happen as early as the first lesson. You can say to the child: “Now I’m going to do this (see drawing on the left). So take your hand and do it too!” — You can now have the children do the same thing, as slowly as possible, because the process will naturally proceed slowly if you call the children up one by one, have them do this at the blackboard, and then let them return to their seats. Proper assimilation of the lesson is of the utmost importance here. Afterward, you can say to the child: “Now I’m going to do this (see drawing on the right); now you do this with your hand, too.” —- Now let each child do this as well. Once this is completed, tell them: “This one is a straight line, and the other is a curved line; so you have now made a straight line and a curved line with your hands.” — Help the children who are clumsy, but make sure that every child does it with a certain degree of precision right from the start.

[ 9 ] So, make sure that the children are allowed to do something right from the start, and further ensure that such an activity is repeated several times over the next few hours. In the next lesson, for example, have them draw a straight line, then a curved line. Now there is a subtle nuance to consider. The main emphasis should not initially be on having the children draw a straight line and a curved line from memory; rather, the next time, you should demonstrate the straight line on the board and have the children copy it, and do the same with the curved line. Then simply ask: “Hey, what’s this?” — “A straight line!” — “Hey, what’s this?” — “A curved line!” - You should therefore make use of the principle of repetition by having the child copy the drawing and, rather than providing the answer yourself, letting the child identify what is in front of them. Making use of this subtle nuance is of great importance. You must, in general, make it a habit to do what is right for the children and to incorporate the principles of teaching into your daily routines.

[ 10 ] Then you certainly don’t need to shy away from setting out a box of paints quite early on—it’s actually especially good to do something like this with children very early on—along with a glass of water next to it, pick up a paintbrush, dip it into the glass of water, take a little paint, and—after you’ve first marked off a white area on the board with thumbtacks—apply a small yellow area there. After you’ve made this small yellow area, let each child make a yellow area of their own. Each child must leave a certain distance between their yellow area and the next one, so that you end up with a certain number of yellow areas. Then you dip the brush into the blue paint yourself and paint a blue area right next to the small yellow area you painted. Now have the children paint blue in the same way. After about half of the children have done this, say: “Now let’s do something else; I’m going to dip the brush in green and add a green patch to the others.” — I’ll now have the other children—while taking care in some way to prevent them from becoming jealous of one another—paint green in the same way. This will take some time; the children will absorb it well, since it’s essential to proceed with the lesson very slowly, in very small steps. — Now you should say: “I want to tell you something that you may not yet fully understand, but that you will understand well one day: what we did up there—putting blue next to yellow—is more beautiful than what we did down here, where we put green next to yellow; blue next to yellow is more beautiful than green next to yellow!” - This will take root very deeply in the child’s soul. Not only will it be a frequent point of reference during review, but it will also linger in the child’s mind; the child will not accept it with complete indifference, but will learn to understand very well—through simple, basic examples—how to distinguish, little by little and intuitively, what is beautiful from what is less beautiful.

[ 11 ] A similar approach can also be used in music lessons. Here, too, it is good to start with any note. You don’t even need to teach the child the name of this note; instead, you simply sound a note in some way. It is then good to have the children strike this note themselves right away, thus also connecting the act of striking the note with their own volition. Afterward, one strikes a second consonant note and again has a group of children strike this same consonant note. One then continues by striking a dissonant note alongside a consonant note and again has the children imitate this. And one now tries, just as before with color, to awaken a sense of consonance and dissonance for tones in the children, not by speaking to them about consonance and dissonance, but rather about what is beautiful and what is less beautiful—thus focusing on their sensory experience. The first lessons should be based on these things, not on letters. That is where one should begin.

[ 12 ] Now let’s assume we start with the classroom teacher. In his or her lessons with the children, the teacher will have the conversations just mentioned. The musical aspect may need to be kept separate; it will then be introduced to the children at a different time. It would be beneficial for the music teacher to have a very similar conversation with the children—one focused more specifically on music—and to repeat it regularly, so that the child realizes: This is not just one teacher saying this; the other teacher says the same thing as well, and through this, the children learn the same lesson. This is intended to foster a more democratic character in the school. These matters should always be discussed at the weekly faculty meeting to foster a certain unity in instruction.

[ 13 ] Only after conducting manual and auditory instruction with the children in this manner has the time come to move on to the first elements of reading—specifically, reading written text. — We will discuss each detail in greater depth later; today, in this preparatory lesson, I do not wish to list everything pedantically side by side; rather, I would like to outline the principles according to which we can then proceed. — It will already have an extraordinarily positive effect on the child from a methodological standpoint if, in the first few lessons, you have explained to them that although they cannot yet write, read, or do arithmetic, they will learn all these things in school. This instills in the child hope, desire, and resolve, and through their own actions, they immerse themselves in a world of feelings that in turn serves as an incentive for the world of the will. So even in this regard, you can avoid presenting to the child—in terms of education—what you intend to do later; instead, let them remain in a state of anticipation for some time. This has an extraordinarily beneficial effect on the development of the will in the growing human being.

[ 14 ] Now, before I go into this further, I would like to dispel a few mental images you may have that could lead you astray. So many mistakes have been made with the methods used to date for teaching reading and writing—but especially with those forms of learning that are closely linked to learning to read and write: language instruction, grammar, syntax, and so on. So many mistakes have been made that there are probably few people who do not recall with a certain dread the way they had to learn grammar or even syntax. This dread is, of course, entirely justified. Yet one must not believe that, for this reason, the study of language as such is useless and should be eliminated entirely. That would be a completely false belief. Of course, it could be that now—since one is simply trying to do the right thing by swinging from one extreme to the other—someone might say: “So let’s do away with all grammar; let’s teach the child to read practically by presenting reading passages; let’s teach them to read and write without any grammar at all!” This mental image might arise precisely from the dread that many recall. Yet the study of grammar is not an unnecessary factor, especially not in our time, for the following reason.

[ 15 ] What are we actually doing when we elevate unconscious speech to the level of grammar, to the knowledge of grammar? With our student, we are in the process of elevating language from the unconscious to the conscious; we do not intend to teach them grammar in a pedantic way, but rather to elevate to the conscious level what is otherwise carried out unconsciously. Unconsciously or semi-consciously, human beings do indeed climb up through life in the external world in a way that corresponds to what we learn in grammar. In grammar, for example, we learn that there are nouns. Nouns are designations for objects—objects that, in a certain sense, are self-contained in space. The fact that we approach such objects in life is not without significance for our lives. Through everything expressed by nouns, we become aware of our independence as human beings. We separate ourselves from the external world by learning to designate things through nouns. When we call something a table or a chair, we separate ourselves from the table or the chair: we are here, the table or chair is there. It is quite different when we designate things using adjectives. When I say, “The chair is blue,” I am expressing something that unites me with the chair. The quality I perceive unites me with the chair. By designating an object with a noun, I separate myself from it; by expressing its quality, I draw closer to it again, so that the development of our consciousness in relation to things plays out in forms of address that we must certainly bring to our awareness. — When I utter the verb “The man is writing,” I not only unite myself with the being of whom I speak, but I also participate in what the other is doing with his physical body. I participate in this; my “I” participates in it. Whatever is carried out with the physical body, my “I” participates in it by uttering a verb. I connect my “I” with the other person’s physical body when I express a verb. Our listening—especially when it comes to verbs—is in reality always a form of participation. The most spiritual aspect of the human being participates; it merely suppresses the activity. In eurythmy, it is precisely this activity that is brought into the outer world. Eurythmy encompasses, among everything else, the very act of listening. When one person tells a story, the other listens by participating in their “I” with what lives physically in the sounds, yet they suppress it. The “I” is always participating in eurythmy, and what eurythmy then expresses through the physical body is merely the manifestation of listening. So you are always performing eurythmy when you listen, and when you truly perform eurythmy, you are merely making visible what you allow to remain invisible while listening. For the revelation of the activity of the person who is listening is, in fact, eurythmy. It is by no means arbitrary; rather, it is in reality the manifestation of the activity of the person who is listening. — People today are, after all, terribly scatterbrained inwardly, so that when they listen, they initially perform a terribly poor eurythmy inwardly. By performing it in a normative way, you elevate it to true eurythmy. People will learn to listen properly through eurythmy, for today they are simply unable to listen properly. — I have made some strange discoveries during my current lectures. For example, speakers emerge in the discussion. But you very quickly realize from their remarks that they haven’t actually heard the entire lecture at all—not even physically—but have only heard certain parts of it. This is of particular significance, especially at this stage of humanity’s development. So someone interjects in the discussion and then speaks of what they have been accustomed to thinking for decades. Now one is speaking before people with socialist views, but they actually hear only what they have been hearing from their agitators for decades; they do not even physically hear the rest. They sometimes express this naively by saying: “Dr. Steiner says many beautiful things, but he says nothing new!” — People have become so rigid in their listening that they tune out everything else except what has become ingrained in them over decades. People cannot listen—and will be less and less able to listen in our age—unless this ability to listen is reawakened through eurythmy.

[ 16 ] There must once again be a kind of healing of the soul. Therefore, it will be particularly important to supplement the materialistic-hygienic aspects of physical education—and everything that focuses solely on the physiology of physical movements—with the hygiene of the soul, by alternating between a physical education class and a eurythmy class. Although eurythmy is primarily an artistic endeavor, its hygienic element will be of particular benefit to the students, for they will not only learn something artistic through eurythmy, but they will also learn for the soul through eurythmy what they learn from “gymnastics for the body,” and these two things will interact very beautifully with one another. It is essential that we truly educate our children in such a way that they learn once again to pay attention to their surroundings and to their fellow human beings. That, after all, is the foundation of all social life. Today everyone talks about social impulses, but there are nothing but antisocial impulses among people. Socialism would have to begin with people learning to respect one another again. They can only do this if they truly listen to one another. It is extremely important to refocus one’s attention on these matters if one is to become an educator or teacher.

[ 17 ] Now that you know about something like this: by uttering the noun, I separate myself from the environment; by uttering the adjective, I connect with it; and by uttering the verb, I actively merge with the environment and participate in it—by knowing this, you will already speak with a completely different internal emphasis on nouns, adjectives, and verbs than if you did not have this awareness. All of this, however, is merely preliminary; it is to be continued further. For now, I merely wish to evoke certain mental images, the absence of which might mislead you.

[ 18 ] It is therefore extremely important that we understand what significance becoming aware of the structure of our language has for human beings. But in addition, we must cultivate a sense—one that has already largely died out in people today—of just how wise language actually is. After all, it is far wiser than any of us. Language—as you will surely agree from the outset—was not constructed by human beings. Just imagine, if people had had to sit together in parliaments and determine the structure of language based on their own cleverness, what would have come of it! Something as clever as our laws! But the structure of language is truly wiser than our state laws. The structure of language contains the greatest wisdom. And one can learn an extraordinary amount from the way a people or a tribe speaks. By consciously immersing oneself in the fabric of language, one learns a great deal from the genius of language itself. And learning to perceive something concrete about the workings and interplay of the linguistic spirit is of extraordinary importance. Believing that the linguistic genius is at work in the structure of language is of great significance. This sense can also be further developed—to the point where one becomes aware: We humans speak; animals cannot yet speak; at most, they possess the beginnings of an articulated language. - In our time, when people want to blur all distinctions, they even attribute language to ants and bees. But in light of reality, that is all nonsense. It is all based on a form of judgment that I have often drawn attention to. There are natural philosophers today who consider themselves very wise and who say: Why shouldn’t plants also have a life of will and feeling? After all, there are even plants—the so-called carnivorous plants—that, when small animals fly near them, attract them and then close in on them once the animal has crawled inside. — These are, then, beings that appear to behave intentionally toward whatever comes near them. But one must not use such external characteristics to define the nature of will. When such a view is discussed, I usually respond—using the same logical forms—by saying: I know of a thing that also waits until a living being comes near it, then takes it in and holds it fast within itself. That is the mousetrap. Merely observing the mousetrap could therefore be considered just as much proof of the mousetrap’s life as observing the Venus flytrap could be considered proof of that plant’s consciousness.

[ 19 ] One must develop a strong awareness that articulate speech is a uniquely human trait. Human beings must also become aware of how they relate to the other three kingdoms of nature in the world. Once they are aware of this, they know that their “I” is essentially conditioned by everything that constitutes language. Today, however, speaking has already become something very abstract for people. But I would like to remind you of something that can help you regain your respect for language. In very ancient times, for example in Jewish culture—but this applies even more clearly to even older cultures — when the representatives of the cult, the custodians of the cult, the priests, encountered certain concepts during ritual acts, they would interrupt their speech and, when referring to exalted beings, would not use words but would fall silent and perform only the corresponding eurythmic gesture; then they would continue speaking. For example, that name—which sounds quite abstract to us today and is rendered in Hebrew as “I am who I am”—was never spoken aloud; instead, the speech would be brought up to that point, the gesture would be made, and then the speech would continue. Expressed through the gesture, this signified the “unspeakable name of God within the human being.” Why was this done? It was done because, if this name had been spoken and repeated without further ado, people would have been stunned by their sensitivity at that time. There were still speech sounds and combinations of speech sounds capable of stunning the people of ancient cultures—so powerful was their effect on them. Something like a pure sense of powerlessness would have overcome people upon uttering or hearing such words. That is why one spoke of the “unpronounceable name of God.” This had great significance. And you will find this described in the statement that only priests—and even they only on special occasions—were permitted to utter such names, because otherwise, if spoken before people who were not prepared for them, heaven and earth would collapse. That is to say, the person would have fainted. Therefore, such a name was expressed through a gesture. What language truly is, then, was expressed through such a sensation. Today, however, people babble everything out thoughtlessly. We can no longer vary our feelings, and those people have become very rare who, without being sentimental, get tears in their eyes at certain passages in a novel, for example. That is something quite atavistic today. The living sensitivity to what lies in language and in the perception of language has become very dulled.

[ 20 ] This is something that, among many other things, must be revived, and through which—if we do revive it—we can learn to clearly appreciate the value of speech. We owe much of our sense of self—the fact that we feel ourselves to be individuals—precisely to language. And in a person, this feeling can even rise to something like a prayerful mood: I hear speech all around me, and the power of the “I” flows into me through language! — If you have this sense of the sacredness of invoking the “I” through language, then you will also be able to awaken it in children through various methods. And then you will not awaken the sense of “I” in children in an egotistical way, but in a different way. For the sense of “I” can be awakened in a child in two ways. If it is awakened incorrectly, it serves to fuel selfishness; if it is awakened correctly, it serves to strengthen the will, to foster selflessness, and to foster a life in harmony with the outside world.

[ 21 ] What I have just said is intended for you—as educators and teachers—to internalize. You will need to apply it in the design of your language instruction. Tomorrow we will discuss further how this can be put into practice with mindfulness in order to awaken a sense of self-awareness in the child.