The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Educational Practices of the Passing Age and Educational Practices of the Coming Age

Presentation Given at the Parents' Night

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! I would like to extend a warm welcome to you all here in this room, where we are gathering for the second time to discuss important issues concerning the life of our Waldorf School. We are particularly pleased that so many of you have come. The topic I have chosen for today’s lecture is: “School Habits of the Passing Age and School Practices of the Coming Day.”

[ 2 ] Ladies and gentlemen! It seemed to me that such a topic was all the more appropriate to choose, given that—since our Waldorf School was founded—it has become more than just a theoretical problem for all of you. What is intended as an introduction in today’s presentation is not merely a theoretical problem for you, but a question in which you find serious opportunities to engage with the present day. And by reaching the decision, through this engagement, to send your children to the Waldorf School, you have demonstrated that you can place your trust in the new approaches being pursued at this school. Drawing on this sense of trust, I would like to attempt to arrive at a kind of judgment by shedding light on all that lies behind us—what is being left behind and fading away—and by trying to take stock of what has already emerged from our school’s work to date as a source of encouragement.

[ 3 ] If we wish to examine this question, it will be helpful to consider what that moment—which is referred to as a child’s first day of school—actually means in today’s circumstances. Circumstances have evolved to such an extent that one might say: what is now made available to growing children in the parental home in terms of freshness and immediacy has been rescued from the constraints and barriers that characterize our social life. It is precisely the opportunity to live out one’s life purely as a human being in the nursery, at home. Not many children today still have the opportunity to let their energies run free in a way that would correspond to the deep urges of their own volitional nature. And the fact that they are no longer able to do so has become evident over the course of the last two centuries.

[ 4 ] When children from this environment are sent to school, something highly significant—and with far-reaching consequences in today’s world—takes place. No matter how much of this “boxed-in” life one may have managed to keep out of the child’s early upbringing, all of it lies in wait for the young person as they approach school; it takes effect from the very first day of school and becomes a reality from the moment they enter school. It has such a profound effect that, without exaggeration, one can speak of a significant crisis in the child’s life.

[ 5 ] This crisis consists in the fact that the child finds himself confronted with a ready-made system within the old school habits, which have something that is presented to the children in the form of a detailed curriculum; they have something that is established as a traditional, comprehensive method, and, in connection with these educational goals, they also have a very specific way of enforcing discipline in school.

[ 6 ] And all of this has been structured in such a way that, unfortunately, one cannot say that the actual driving forces of the present—namely, the deeper currents of social development in the recent past and present—have found their way into these structures. As far as the curriculum is concerned, until a few years ago it was generally the case that the structure established fifty years ago remained in effect. This helped to mitigate the negative consequences that could arise from the curriculum. This will be touched upon later.

[ 7 ] What was presented was something so fully formed, something that had been crafted in such a way that one could not say practical school experience had gone into it, for those people who were required by their official capacity to make this assessment may have had some connection to school during the early stages of their development. Very soon this connection had been severed—not, perhaps, because of their outstanding teaching abilities, but because they proved very adept at positioning themselves within the entire administrative system of the school system as promising, up-and-coming civil servants. These officials administered what is called the “curriculum,” cut off from actual school development—though one can hardly speak of such a thing in the first place; rather, one should speak of the stifled forces of development that an attentive observer would have had to notice.

[ 8 ] From the very first day, the child was confronted with this curriculum: something foreign and cold that, with relentless strictness, would determine every aspect of the child’s emotional and spiritual life, starting from day one. Not only was the overall goal of instruction set in stone, but—particularly in recent decades—it had been determined, class by class and week by week, exactly where the lesson was to be in the curriculum on a specific date.

[ 9 ] And the achievement of the goal was prescribed down to the smallest detail by what might be called the state-approved method. This method was of such a nature that it would not have been possible for an individual teacher to deviate from it freely. He would have been able to do so only for a short time; then he would have found himself in conflict with the officials responsible for administering it.

[ 10 ] How does this method work? This method stems from conditions of human life that, in essence, have long since become obsolete. The school system developed in the Middle Ages under the authority of the Church. Then the states took over everything that had constituted the Church’s school system. The public school system was expanded, and it can be said that the more its foundations were defined in detail, the less room there was for further development; the more it could be paraded to the outside world—particularly through what was known as the modern elementary school—the greater the yawning void within the school system itself became. This desolation was bound to become so vast because the method originated in the old church school—the Latin school—whether it was directly transplanted into the modern, contemporary high school or whether it was otherwise employed there. It was the old pedagogical, legal-Latin method used in schools of all types. When attempts were made to counter this, when partial reforms were attempted, this may have had historical significance, but transformative forces were not unleashed by these partial reforms.

[ 11 ] We now have the curriculum tradition; we have the method. How, then, were both of these presented to the child? Was it the case that factors other than those of a purely academic nature also had a decisive influence on the child’s life? Everywhere we see schools structured along class lines. There has been much talk about the comprehensive school. But no real action was taken until we founded the Waldorf School. We did this out of the conviction that we had to take on a great social mission.

[ 12 ] As soon as the child entered the classroom on the first day of school, he or she experienced not only what we call a psychological and spiritual crisis, but also a social crisis. On that day, when the child came home from elementary school or high school for the first time and met his playmates, he had to become aware of what are called class distinctions. From the very first day, he was fed that poison that has caused the division among the various social classes. Such a crisis in the child’s sense of social reality—in the very fabric of the child’s inner life—came upon the child on that very first day.

[ 13 ] How must such a process play out? We will be able to understand this based on what Spiritual Science has revealed to us today. We can see that what becomes a formative force in the classroom from the age of seven onward can exert a formative influence and can set itself certain tasks precisely because certain forces have been released in the child through an organic development that has already taken place. One can work with these forces. One can work in such a way that these forces bring about what is called the inner development of the human being, so that they take shape in the course of further organic development. This is a fundamental view bestowed upon us by Spiritual Science, whose method we strive to incorporate into our work.

[ 14 ] If we contrast this with the practices of the old school, we must conclude that the old school had no connection whatsoever to those organically liberated forces that come into play during this stage of development, and failed to recognize a perspective that should have emerged from sound teaching practice. On the one hand, because it was unable to guide these emerging forces toward creative expression, those forces began to run rampant, so that impulses developed rather than being channeled into the predetermined course of development. On the other hand, from the very first day of school, it drew upon those organic forces that, if one understands childhood nature, should only be set free much later—and would only wish to be set free then.

[ 15 ] This resulted in what Ste observed in the skeletal system. The child’s inner stability—the skeleton—was weakened. Certain opportunities for the child to stand upright in life were taken away by the fact that, from the very first day of school, the aim was to focus solely on intellectual development, addressing only the child’s intellect without attempting—or being able—to reach any deeper.

[ 16 ] Such facts are often reflected in minor symptoms. $o It was interesting to find in Haug’s book the statement that the teaching of the French language—which, as you know, we teach starting at the very first grade—should not be practiced at that level because the language is irrational.

[ 17 ] What does such a characteristic reveal? Here we see very clearly that what stands before the child is not a living human being, but a thick book that has held fateful significance for all of us—a book called “Grammar.” At this stage, grammar cannot be introduced to children; for those accustomed to the old school methods, this was tantamount to the impossibility of allowing the living power of language to play a role in the child’s development. - Just as you have the book in high schools, so in elementary schools you have other things standing in place of the living personality who should actually be bringing the contents of life to the child. People have moved away from the book; instead, you now find all the more cards, diagrams, and tables. All of this is supposed to be presented to the child so that it may learn to judge.

[ 18 ] But one must admit, if one truly understands a child’s nature, that the child’s inattention—particularly toward this type of instruction—has deeper reasons. The child turns away from the book and from an intellectualized approach through the power of wisdom, which seeks to protect the child from harm. What appears as inattention is actually a form of self-protection on the part of the child. The child withdraws from the homogenizing influences of this kind of instruction. If one teaches in the manner described from the very first lesson to the very last, the child will attempt to withdraw from such instruction through inattention.

[ 19 ] But how could this experiment possibly succeed in a school that also enforced a certain kind of discipline! Not only was the curriculum presented in the manner just described; the child was also expected to switch subjects three or four times in the course of a single morning, so that he or she was thrown from one level into the next. Anyone who could clearly follow this development could see how, in recent times, there has been a drive to shorten classes even further—to 45 minutes—and to have the entire curriculum flash by like a movie. This structure was also applied to individual lessons. And in what way? The formal stages—established by Ziller and now adopted throughout elementary school education—stand as a masterpiece of modern didactics.

[ 20 ] Consider what such a teacher must accomplish within a single 45-minute class period. The material must be presented to the child in six phases: First, introduction; second, reinforcement, and after reinforcement comes the inspiration of the material; then, following inspiration, comes the stage of familiarity with the material. This stage is rather limited in scope. Then comes the stage of mastering the material and applying it within the lesson itself. But this process is repeated four more times that same morning across different subject areas. - You will agree with me when I say that our children cannot be taught using such a method, which mistreats them. - If such mistreated children wanted to withdraw from the effects of the instruction—the curriculum that demands, “On Tuesday, May 11, this and that goal must be achieved in all classes”—what would happen then?

[ 21 ] Then discipline took effect. From the very first school lesson, it employed methods that were bound to deeply corrupt the child’s entire moral life. The child, who was accustomed to expressing himself naturally, found himself facing praise or reprimand at every turn. A pattern of rigid conformity set in. From the very beginning, the children braced themselves for the possibility of being called on, so that they paid attention in class only in certain situations. If a child had been accustomed up to that point to expressing himself freely and wanted to do so in school as well, he found that he was cut off by the reprimand he always received whenever he tried to approach the teacher in that manner; they had to anticipate punishment, which was bound to cast the gravest doubts into the child’s inner life. The children were then required to complete special school assignments, instead of having the realization instilled in them from the very beginning that it is a joy to be allowed to work at school. Thus, schoolwork came to be branded as punishment. The child developed a peculiar view of this kind of instruction. The entire educational process is associated with a system of punishment. This manifests itself in those organic impairments that hinder a child’s growth, causing various aspects within the child to become distorted that would otherwise have developed healthily.

[ 22 ] I would like to point out that a very specific phenomenon in the later school years is connected to this. Our students view the entire school system with cynicism, and this permeates their entire attitude toward their teachers and their school. They all know from their own school days how much pleasure it brought to pass judgment on their teachers. Then there is the phenomenon of student suicides; these alarming incidents are becoming increasingly frequent, and the administration finds itself increasingly at a loss in the face of them. Genuine life forces, which seek to express themselves through education in harmony with nature, have been suppressed. Everything that is thus suppressed gives rise to the nervousness we call a “disease of our times,” which manifests itself in the realm of the school system.

[ 23 ] Now let us ask ourselves: What has been achieved and brought to a certain conclusion when one progresses from the lowest grade to the highest? Our elementary school students leave school at the age of fifteen. People who have had a lot of contact with the working class—and who have frequently looked working people in the face—will notice that something like a certain harshness becomes evident in these people’s faces. Much has been said about this, but little thought has been given to it. But it has not been observed that this could not be otherwise—that this is a naturally inevitable consequence of the fact that, at the age of fourteen, a person’s emotional life is set free, and from that point on, the majority of our fellow citizens were cut off from education. How could it be otherwise when, in the course of these people’s lives, their emotional capacities are unable to develop into formative forces?

[ 24 ] The others, whose studies were continued, were even more thoroughly introduced to that old Latin method I mentioned at the beginning. The study of classical languages came more to the fore, as did the study of the natural sciences, which in their structure were also merely the legacy of the Roman Empire and Roman law. The result was that while elementary school graduates were necessarily held back in their development, those who emerged from the humanistic gymnasium would later become the representatives of the humanistic educational ideal. It was presented as an achievement that one could study languages for their own sake. But it was not realized that engagement with such languages has a ripple effect on the whole person—that people who had immersed themselves in the Greek language for many hours became incapable of understanding the German language and the language of facts. Those who entered life from the Realschule went on to become the later realpolitikers, who always insist on facts and on laws of all kinds, but who fail to see how reality is influenced by currents entirely different from those they call their laws.

[ 25 ] We may view all three of these instances of dropping out of school in such a way that we see the disastrous effect at work: the forces that could have shaped the organism and influenced education in the deepest sense of the word are held back, while, on the other hand, the forces that were unable to flow in were bound to proliferate. Where emotional life is not nurtured, it tends to descend into sentimentality at every turn.

[ 26 ] The will—what became of it? Either it was broken to such an extent that we now have those “ruins of human beings” who hold positions of responsibility, or, on the other hand, those brutal, violent individuals who stride into the world trampling everything underfoot—a consequence of the fact that the will was never able to be nurtured.

[ 27 ] These phenomena have often been summarized. Criticism has been leveled in abundance. — As the process of the world revolution unfolded, the view had emerged: Now something will be able to flow from the cauldron of seething new forces—something like a new current of life—into the school system itself; we will be able to transform the criticism into a creative act. Since those days, people have not grown weary of repeatedly using the term “unified school” as a label for the efforts that sought to connect with the times. But when we observe the omissions in the legislation, we cannot help but see what stands before us as a dark danger. We see that, although the traditional structure of the school system has been outwardly altered, the danger must be described as imminent because what is called “school licensing” is set to take on a much greater role than before. We see that the public school can become a denominational school, a partisan school, and a school for specific economic groups; that there is even less consideration than before for universal human values, now enforced with all the rigor of the legal bureaucracy.

[ 28 ] You will find that the civil servant has not lost his importance under the new conditions; rather, he can have a much greater impact—and cause much more disruption—than he could under the old system. Note the zeal with which compliance with all regulations is enforced. Faced with this brutal determination, one cannot help but admit that it will not be easy to realize that educational ideal. We will have to expect that, more than in the past, it will be determined what is to be taught to children, particularly in history classes.

[ 29 ] What will be the next consequence? The consequence will be that teachers will take on an even more bureaucratic character.

[ 30 ] Set against all this is our world today, the plight of our times, which demands something entirely different from what some would like to cast as a faint glimmer of hope for the future—not only in the school system but beyond it as well. Why can’t these innovations lead to that goal? We arrive at a peculiar law: When something is conceived somewhere, and it is unable to manifest itself because it is not imbued with the full energy of the human being, it has the effect not of reducing the negative, but of combining with the negative conditions. It flows underground in that direction. As Lichtwark put it: Partial reforms only serve to reinforce existing tendencies. Anything but a fundamental transformation is to be expected. We can only expect a further intensification of the existing tendencies.

[ 31 ] Well, I have presented this picture to you in order to make it clear—and this does not seem like an exaggeration to me—what fate seems intent on eliminating from the personal lives of many teachers; for if we wish to allow the aspirations of our Free School to flow properly into the social life of our time, we must be aware of the danger that threatens us from the old school system. It cannot be the purpose of my current remarks to repeat our aspirations once again.

[ 32 ] If our school lacks the regulations that legally govern the old school system, that does not mean we have made our task easier. We have made our task more difficult. The times demand that we take on heavy burdens for the sake of the development from which we may expect a future. But once we have taken on these heavy burdens, we can bear them only if all those who have placed their trust in us help to carry them, if they are mindful that even the smallest actions matter, and if they follow school life with the utmost seriousness; no lesson, no other activity that arises in the course of school life, is conceived in the same way as it is within the old school customs.

[ 33 ] What is being accomplished here is the very life force of our people—forces whose effects we need. Our times are crying out for them. If, however, the family home stands in opposition to the school, as is the case under the old school customs, then much of this must be achieved in a completely different way. Either there was a conflict, or there was what one might call a back-and-forth between the family home and the school. For how often do you encounter the view that parents are glad as soon as their children are at school? They want them to be at school all day and are very upset by all the unreasonable demands made of them to support the school’s activities. The child subtly absorbs all the nuances present in their environment. If the child observes: “What I’m told at school is viewed differently at home!”—then the child is torn, and the effects intended to influence the child cannot take hold.

[ 34 ] Now that we have established our school, and are striving with all our might to fulfill a part of its mission, the old school habits have remained alive, so that people who grew up within these habits carry the conditions from the old into the new. They want to judge the whole thing according to that pattern of pigeonholing. It can happen that people become concerned when, in our school—which aims to develop all faculties—we cannot demonstrate why a child has not yet learned this or that, and so on. People are deeply worried. One should bear in mind that these concerns are unjustified; that if this were the case, we could not speak of a new school, but rather that we would have incorporated the old school habits into the school in some repackaged form. What is done differently in the Waldorf school compared to old school habits is done out of a practice that does not stem from an intellectually contrived view, but from those forces that relate to the developmental powers of young people and of the people themselves. By giving you this assurance, you may feel sufficiently connected to your inner sources of trust. You will need to have patience if you wish to wait for what is ripening there.

[ 35 ] Take, as a sign of emerging maturity, the spirit that inspires and enlivens our children everywhere—the spirit they bring with them to school when they tell themselves: “Learning here is not a punishment.” Consider that spirit, which is even evident in the rosy cheeks of some of our pupils; take it as a sign that things are maturing. Do not let yourself be intimidated by the spectres that seek to intrude upon our declining age. Tell yourself: The child who is to grow up here should only be able to compare themselves to their former selves once they have stepped out into life as a mature person.

[ 36 ] If we bring such a perspective to the school, then the joy of creation that animates us will bear fruit, so that we will see that modern life will have to reckon with the school. Creative powers can only emerge from schools where they are not stifled but rather nurtured, so that the first day of school does not mark a crisis but instead guides the child in such a way that they become open to life in the future; so that the child leaves school not as a domineering person, not as someone merely burdened with intellectual knowledge, but as a person capable of embodying a new kind of education—the true human education of the new era. In the true understanding of the human nature lies the guarantee for the future development of our people.

[ 37 ] This task, too, is a great one, but it is a sign of our times that it is harsh. People do not want to stand before the face of our times with such a clear gaze that they would see its embittered features. People want to draw veil after veil over this face and thus shield themselves from its sight, because they fear the language that speaks from it. The tasks we have taken on are harsh and grand. But we believe that there may be people who are capable of loving these tasks all the more precisely because they are harsh and grand. We join with you in the hope that you will learn to love them precisely because they are arduous tasks. From this harshness, freshness will be able to spring forth.

[ 38 ] What we have to uphold is harsh and sharp; but this harshness will give us the strength, here at the Free Waldorf School, to inscribe a flaming symbol on the brow of this declining age. May it, as it lives out its days in empty rhetoric, find the strength to die a powerful death, so that the sun of the coming day may rise upon it.