The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Education as an Issue in Teacher Training

[ 1 ] In these lectures, my main concern is to show to what extent the Spiritual Science—whose purpose I have outlined for you—can enrich the art of education. Now, of course, it is not possible to develop an entire system of education in fourteen lectures, As I already pointed out in my initial introductory remarks, I do not actually regard a renewal of pedagogy as a science as something that is immediately necessary, because we already have all the good things we could possibly want in terms of pedagogical principles and foundations. I believe that, above all, what is needed is a revitalization of the art of pedagogy. And the Spiritual Science is perfectly suited to inspiring pedagogical practice—based on what in many respects is already an excellent pedagogical theory—precisely because the Spiritual Science, as such, seeks to grasp the living spirit; and the grasping of the living spirit is at the same time a source of inspiration for the will and the soul, which is particularly necessary in the art of pedagogy. Furthermore, Spiritual Science is a source of genuine insight into human nature—an insight that arises from interaction with human beings in general, and especially with the growing human being, the child. So I ask you to pay close attention to the fact that I intend to approach my topic from this perspective. In connection with this very topic, a whole series of interesting questions has already been raised, which will be addressed in particular in today’s lecture. For now, however, I would like to make one point: It goes without saying that all teaching—regardless of whether, due to the demands of circumstances, it is oriented more toward the intellect or toward other faculties of the soul—must be accompanied by the development of the human being in emotional, and above all, moral and religious terms. However, as soon as we consider the realm of emotional development—and even more so when we consider the realms of ethical, moral, and religious education—we are dealing with the development of the whole person. Whenever we wish to influence the soul or the will through the whole person, we must take into account the transformations that a person undergoes in the course of their life—transformations they already experience as a child and continue to experience throughout their later life. It is precisely for these transformations in later life that we must provide the necessary, appropriate impulses during the period of schooling and upbringing.

[ 2 ] But it is impossible to reach people on a moral, emotional, or—above all—religious level unless we first gain access to the human soul and spirit through other forms of education and instruction. It is a great mistake to believe that we can immediately establish rules stating that one should appeal to this or that aspect of a person’s emotional, religious, or moral nature. In reality, the situation is quite different. The situation is as follows:

[ 3 ] If, particularly with children such as those we have considered so far—up to about the age of 9—I am able, through the very nature of my teaching, to establish an appropriate relationship with the child, such that through this relationship I have a connection to the child’s soul that is initiated more by the child than by me, then the child will be open to my guidance in moral and religious matters. If I do not establish such a relationship—if I teach in a way that closes the child’s mind to me—then the child will remain inaccessible to me, even when it comes to the best moral teachings and the best religious impulses. As I have indicated, this particular aspect has been given far too little consideration right up to the present day. And precisely in this area, it does no good at all if we indulge in illusions in the present, merely to lull ourselves into a false sense of security regarding the cultural damage of our time. But we indulge in these illusions mainly because we are under the influence of creeds—against which nothing is to be said here—that actually look only toward one side of life, reckoning with the eternity of the human soul.

[ 4 ] We are actually always focused on conveying to people a sound understanding and a healthy sense of what it means to pass through the gate of death, and of the soul’s continued existence after death. It might seem as though such a point were, at first glance, merely theoretical. It is not. For whether one holds one view or another on such a question of life—to put it somewhat extremely—determines every action we take in life, everything we do, everything we say, and especially how we do it and how we say it. Now, the beliefs that, on the one hand, merely point to the eternity of the soul beyond death—which is, of course, absolutely true in its own way—have actually all arisen from a certain human tendency toward the egoism inherent in human nature. Perhaps this has simply not been explicitly stated, but in reality, these beliefs have developed out of human egoism. Isn’t it true that what I am saying now has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the view regarding the survival of the soul after death? This content is, of course, fully established for Spiritual Science. But when we speak to people in general—or to children in particular—solely about this survival after death—and of course we must speak about it—but when we speak solely about it, we are reflecting on the selfishness of human nature, which simply wants to live on when the body is returned to the earth, which does not want to be destroyed. But in doing so, we are, in a certain sense, cutting people off from their earthly life tasks. We, in particular as educators and teachers, cut ourselves off from the actual task of human development when we think and act under the influence of such a one-sided view. For you see, just as we are to look toward the life that lies beyond birth, we must also look at how earthly human life—which we begin in childhood and which then continues until death—is the continuation of a supersensible life; how that which lives within us as the soul-spiritual descends from a supersensible world and unites with that which can be formed from the stream of heredity as our physical body. And it is very significant to view the growing child in this way. Every child, after all, when viewed impartially, is a riddle to be solved, especially for the educator. When we look at the growing child in this way and say to ourselves: What has entered into earthly life here is the continuation of a spiritual life, and we have the responsibility to guide in the right way what the spiritual being intended by incarnating itself in an earthly human being; then—and only then—will we be overcome by that sense of sacredness without which one cannot educate or teach, that sense that seeks to solve the mystery as it stands before the growing human being. To assign to life, as it unfolds here in the physical world, the task of continuing a spiritual life—that is something significant when it truly permeates us.

[ 5 ] And with this, I point to a significant example of how differently a teacher or educator will act depending on whether he or she holds this or that attitude. Of course, in external social life, what is first and foremost taken into account is what a person is as an agent. But when we stand before the developing human being—the child—we are facing the innermost essence of human nature. There, one cannot act in any other way than by one attitude influencing another, and what matters most are the underlying impulses of that attitude. If this attitude is present, it instills a profound sense of responsibility toward the task of education and instruction. And without this sense of responsibility, we cannot truly succeed in the practice of education. Everything must be permeated by it. And in particular, I would like you to view today’s remarks—which may seem far removed from such a perspective—in such a way that you are imbued with precisely this feeling that I have just expressed.

[ 6 ] If we truly look closely at how human beings, as I explained yesterday, derive their activities from two sources in their entire being, we will also be able to turn our attention to the difference that exists between what a person brings with them into life and what is to be developed precisely through this physical life. The one source, which I spoke of yesterday and on the preceding days, points more to what the human being brings into physical life from a superphysical existence. And the other source points more to what the human being is to draw from this life here. When I pointed out how the intellectual aspect is actually born with the change of teeth, and how, with sexual maturity, the will, so to speak, bursts into the human being, I thereby characterized the two sources from two perspectives—though there are, of course, many others. When we focus on the human being and consider their intellectual aspect, we are, of course, looking more at what they have brought into physical existence through birth. When we turn to their will, we must be aware that we are presenting to them what they must primarily take in from this physical world in order to incorporate it into their higher nature. It is here, in the struggles of physical life—in all the disharmonies and harmonies with the world that develop through physical life—that the human will is educated; it is here, so to speak, that the human will comes into being. We must try to draw out of human nature that which emerges from it as something more than the intellectual. Simply by stating this, one points to many misunderstandings that arise precisely when educational truths are articulated. People always want to describe things in a one-sided way, even though they are actually two-sided in life. People tend to say: either we must draw everything out of the human being, or we must cram everything into the human being. Both views are, of course, incorrect. But to a certain degree, it holds true for all mental images in the human being that we must draw them out of human nature. For everything volitional—though not exclusively—it holds true that the experiences we bring to the human being are formative for them, directly formative. A person draws their will from this life. That is why it is so important for the development of the will how we ourselves relate to the person—how we stand in relation to them—so that they can imitate us or look up to us in such a way that what we ourselves say and do becomes an authority for them after about the age of seven. It is simply not usually the case in life that there is a strict “either-or” correct answer, but rather a “both-and.” Both one thing and the other play a role in life. We must draw much out of the child. We must place the child in an environment where it can draw as much as possible from the world on its own—especially for the development of its will. There you can already see how much of what one might call the question of education and the question of instruction is actually a question of the teacher—a question of the qualities of the educator and instructor. And so, before I continue with the reflection I began yesterday, I would like to characterize—at least from a certain perspective—that element in the practice of all teaching and education which is meant to permeate the entire process of education and instruction.

[ 7 ] Here, too, one can easily become very one-sided. One may be driven by one’s own nature to impose instruction or to impose education on others with an eternal seriousness, with the face of a teacher or educator who can never laugh, who can only admonish, who can only ever be serious. And one can also, if one is so inclined, bring very little seriousness to the entire process of teaching and upbringing. Both approaches lead to educational outcomes that prove to be extraordinarily harmful in life. It is roughly as if someone were to ponder—one does not engage in such pondering when it comes to nature, precisely because one recognizes the absurdity, but when dealing with intellectual matters, one does not immediately recognize the absurdity—it is as if someone were to ponder whether inhaling is better than exhaling. The point is not at all whether inhaling or exhaling is better, but rather that a person must inhale and exhale, and that if they try to inhale when they should be exhaling, it goes against their nature—and vice versa. Just as there is a strict rhythm within human beings, according to which they take an average of eighteen breaths per minute, so too is the whole of human life, in a certain sense, oriented toward rhythm. And one aspect of this rhythm—though, as I said, many other factors come into play—is the alternation between humor and seriousness. Let us take a look at the physical manifestations of humor and seriousness, and let us try not to interpret them, but to recognize them as arising from human nature.

[ 8 ] Humor, which makes people laugh or smile in at least one of these ways—what does it actually count on? Humor expects that, in a certain way, at the very moment a person begins to smile—or even when they smile inwardly simply because of the humorous impression—that person detaches from themselves. Try to explore this matter through thought and feeling; you will find that, as we move toward the humorous, toward the humorous experience, we detach ourselves from ourselves in a certain way—we, so to speak, set out on the path into dreaming. We do not go all the way down that path. We leave it very soon. We remain fully conscious, but it is the beginning of the path into dreaming when we move in the direction of humor. And this losing oneself—which is expressed—at first, of course, a person can express what they experience physically and spiritually within themselves only through the few movements in the physiognomy of their face—is expressed through a smile. In a smile, in laughter, what happens is that the spiritual-soul aspect—what we in Spiritual Science call the “I” and the “astral body”—in a certain sense withdraws—though in such a way that the person remains in control—from the physical and the etheric. The person expands spiritually and soulfully by experiencing humor.

[ 9 ] And let us consider the radical extreme of seriousness, the radical extreme: crying, becoming sad—it is at least one aspect of seriousness, but the aspect that reveals to us what truly lives within seriousness—it is a pressing oneself together more closely, it is a more intimate connecting of the soul-spiritual with the physical-bodily than is the case when we are in an indifferent mood—neither humorous nor serious. A humorous mood is an expansion of the soul-spiritual; a serious mood is a pressing together within oneself of the spiritual-soul nature with the physical-bodily. We could also say—since we must not indulge in pedantic or old-fashioned teachings about these things—that in laughter, a person becomes altruistic; in seriousness, a person becomes selfish.

[ 10 ] This claim will seem open to challenge. Certainly, all claims are, in essence, open to challenge, because they do not apply to the whole world, but only to a limited area. When I say, “Seriousness makes people selfish,” one must of course be clear that it’s easy enough to preach that people should fight selfishness; but what good does it really do if a person combats selfishness—and I’m going to say something quite radical here—if a person combats selfishness out of selfishness, so that others will find him truly unselfish, truly selfless, so that he, too, when he reflects on himself, can derive pleasure from being selfless? It is much better not to indulge in illusions about such things, but to be clear that if someone is so selfish that they take pleasure in loving many people—if that satisfies their selfishness—that is a better endowment for them than if someone is so selfless that they want to reap all manner of self-praise because of this selflessness, or at least will bestow it upon themselves when reflecting on their own person. These things must be viewed as they correspond to the reality of human nature, not as one might wish to interpret or define them to heighten spiritual pleasure. What really matters is that the interplay within a person between a cheerful mood and a serious mood sustains the spiritual-mental life just as physical life is sustained by inhaling and exhaling. And just as exhalation is a kind of surrender to the outside world—just as exhalation is a state in which a person becomes more alienated from themselves, and inhalation is a state in which a person physically indulges their egoism—so humor is a state in which a person dissolves into the vastness, and seriousness is a state in which a person egoistically withdraws into themselves. Between these two states of mind, the child’s life must flow through the teacher’s conduct, especially during class time.

[ 11 ] Well, it is extraordinarily difficult when one is supposed to enter the classroom—I would say—under a kind of abstract self-imposed obligation and tell oneself: “You must now alternate between being humorous and being serious.” Setting oneself such a task is, of course, completely impossible; it is ridiculous—something that simply cannot be—because no one can demand of me that, after a difficult personal experience, I should spice up my morning lesson with humorous elements. But such an abstract, self-evident duty is not necessary if one approaches the content of what is meant to inspire one’s teaching in a way that is based on Spiritual Science; for if one approaches it in this way, one’s engagement with the individual aspects of life becomes objective and impersonal. It’s simply that. When I enter the classroom at 3 o’clock and have to cover something with the children, and I approach my material in the way one approaches Spiritual Science—if I have trained myself to engage with my material in the same way one learns to train oneself in Spiritual Science— then the material becomes something through which I disregard the entire external world, in which my own mood disappears, where I am so absorbed by the objectivity of the material that, at the right moment, it instills in me both humor and seriousness, and things take care of themselves.

[ 12 ] This is an example of how Spiritual Science can enrich the art of teaching. It can enrich the art of teaching right down to the teacher’s attitude. Just as, I would say, if one cannot breathe properly, a doctor is necessary to restore the proper breathing process—if possible—so too is the healing influence of an education grounded in the Spiritual Science necessary for a person who, as a healthy individual, is to have an impact on children, so that they can approach the subject matter with objectivity. It is conceivable that, even on the way to school, one might justifiably have to hang one’s head, to reflect on the worst things that have affected one; one enters the classroom, is permeated by the task at hand, and does not speak oneself—neither sorrow nor joy speaks: the things at hand are what speak; they move our fingers, moving them when they are to draw with chalk, write, or do anything else. This shows that what really matters today is not establishing new educational principles, but rather bringing about a new mental structure that enables us to truly set aside our subjectivity in the face of our task. The teachers at the Waldorf School are striving precisely to cultivate this—or at least to draw it out of human nature. So that, in fact, even in the short time we have been working there, something of what I would like to characterize as follows has already been achieved. To remain as discreet as possible, I will characterize it as abstractly as possible. I have, after all, had to learn that people who, for one reason or another, did not entirely agree with my selection of teachers told me: “Yes, he might not be quite up to the task; he’s too pedantic.” I did not let myself be dissuaded; for the point is not, when a person is otherwise suitable in terms of his intellectual, moral, and emotional capacities, to focus on whether he happens to be somewhat pedantic, but rather on how to channel those pedantic tendencies in an appropriate way into the service of humanity. If one were to simply rule out all pedantic tendencies simply because they are present in one person or another, then you would see how little one could cope with life. When one takes Spiritual Science to heart, it becomes easier to explain a specific, concrete area of life in an unbiased way, because it is precisely through this Spiritual Science that the subjective characteristics of pedantry cease to be particularly effective—and it actually turns out that those who may have been labeled as pedantic have become very inspiring teachers, once they have found their way into the classroom simply out of a mindset based on Spiritual Science. It is precisely a matter of not acting out of this or that prejudiced idea, but of acting out of life itself. That is what we need in the present. Socialism would like to shape the whole world according to a theory. The task of the present, however, with regard to human development, consists in working from life itself.

[ 13 ] Everything I have said today, in a sense, forms the other side of what I said yesterday about language instruction, eurythmy instruction, physical education, and so on. For what I said yesterday can only be carried out properly by the teacher if he approaches it in the way I have described today.

[ 14 ] And this brings me to a particularly interesting question that was posed to me, one that is directly related to what I have just explained. A twelve-and-a-half-year-old student—the one who was mentioned—had a “2” in conduct. During a discussion of an essay, she said: “I always had good grades at the private school, but I always got a 2 in conduct. Then I had a teacher whom I really liked, and I never got a 2 under him; but later, his son took over as our teacher, and the same thing started happening to me again—and it’s continued here at this school right up until recently.”

[ 15 ] The question is posed with profound seriousness, and I think that precisely such a question can be extraordinarily stimulating in relation to various points that have been discussed today. For you see, two things are necessary in teaching and education. One is that we understand the art of bringing out as much as possible from the child—after all, we will first draw out what is in the child’s imagination; the other, however, is that we have the opportunity to be with the child in such a way that the child can love us in its own way.

[ 16 ] Well, there are all those things that one can cultivate with effort, and in some cases even as an instinct. This is a complex psychological problem that we cannot address directly right now; but the fact is that what we can cultivate within ourselves with great effort comes naturally to certain individuals, as if by instinct: they are loved by a group of children as if by themselves. This is something that can be very beautiful when it manifests in individual cases. But in relation to the development of culture and civilization, the point is that we can also achieve something like this through a certain kind of self-education. And we can achieve it if we try to relate to the world in the way we must when we practice Spiritual Science. As I’ve already said, we cannot practice Spiritual Science as if we were sitting in a movie theater watching a film; we can only practice Spiritual Science if we participate with our innermost being. I’ve said this before: Read my *Secret Science*, and if you read it without experiencing it inwardly—so that what is said serves merely as a guide to your own thoughts—then this entire Spiritual Science will remain mere straw to you. That is why it remains mere straw to many people. But if you read it in such a way that you regard it merely as a musical score—one that you truly possess only when you draw all the details out of yourself—then, in the process of drawing them out, you will develop within yourself powers that would otherwise remain locked within human nature, powers that would not come to the surface.

[ 17 ] These are precisely the forces that shape our relationships—especially with children—and that, in a sense, draw the children’s attention to us. Once we have undergone this inner process of bringing spiritual forces to the fore within ourselves, we establish a direct soul-to-soul bond between ourselves and the child. And this bond is of immense importance for the emotional and moral guidance—the guidance of the child’s will. You will hardly be able to calm a class in which 40 percent are rowdy—children who are unruly in moral and emotional terms—through moral or gentle admonitions that come out of you like abstract phrases. You may sometimes achieve something for a short time through the tone or energy of your voice. But essentially, nothing is achieved that way. Try, however, to gain some experience with the following: Try to prepare for your school lessons by adding, in addition to your usual preparation, a kind of meditative preparation—something that has absolutely nothing to do with the lesson you are about to teach, but which has to do with the elevation of your own soul, with penetrating some substance, some sensation, some feeling that opens us up to the world. If, in the evening, you have undergone such a meditative inner—if I may use the term—contemplation, and if you bring this contemplation to life by reflecting on it again in the morning and, so to speak, reliving it, then you will notice an effect when you enter the classroom. This may sound as if I were talking about superstition, but these are things one should not form theories about, but rather observe. One observes them, and one will find them to be true. That is what matters. After all, most people today do not have much inclination to observe such things. But if we want to emerge from the misery of our times, we will simply have to make the effort to engage in such observation; then the corresponding convictions that can arise from such observations—especially for the art of education—will also become accessible to humanity. When we are dealing with a student such as the one in question here, she clearly points out to us that in the specific instance where she said she loved the teacher, her will was being shaped under the direct influence of this personal relationship. But all development of the will in children will always be shaped by the influence of personal relationships, even beyond the onset of puberty. One may philosophize about this as one pleases, but any philosophy that asserts anything other than that personal relationships are decisive for the development of the soul and the will will be at odds with life itself. This is precisely what must be called an understanding of life—one that does not shy away from addressing these aspects of life. And if one takes seriously the possibilities that arise when the art of education is enriched by Spiritual Science, then certain things will become clear that would otherwise remain completely obscure. This brings me to another extraordinarily interesting question:

[ 18 ] In every elementary school, especially in boys’ schools, one usually finds at least one boy who, without being in the least mentally deficient, nevertheless appears extraordinarily dull in every subject he studies, yet possesses a quite remarkable talent for drawing—and thus also a certain instinct for observation and a genuine sense of art. That is a very accurate observation. This general lack of intelligence is almost always connected to a kind of moral weakness and a brooding selfishness. He seems unable to muster the strength to break out of his shell. What insight can Spiritual Science provide regarding such a disposition? How should a teacher deal with such a student in order to develop not only his intellectual abilities but, above all, his moral strength—the power to carry out his own decisions?

[ 19 ] Well, this question has been put to me. When I am faced with such a question—especially when it is posed in such a concrete, individual way drawn directly from life—I always have the feeling that, in a certain sense, I am standing before insurmountable barriers. When one attempts to penetrate the facts of the world through Spiritual Science, the tendency toward a certain superficiality ceases; the mindset that arises from these spiritual-scientific reflections does not allow one to take things lightly. And at first, when engaging in Spiritual Science reflection—especially when confronted with such elementary questions, about which some people are brimming with theories and seem to have all sorts of things to say—one experiences the most oppressive feeling of all. One knows that no matter how much one speculates and philosophizes, one still cannot arrive at the specific form of what leads to an answer, because life almost always reveals individual facts in a completely individual way—with their very specific nuances—and one must first come to terms with these nuances. And you see, especially in Spiritual Science in the strictest sense, one is always led back to experience, in order to wrestle with the answers to such questions based on that experience.

[ 20 ] Now I would like to show you how to try to find ways to overcome, at least to some extent, such insurmountable obstacles as those that arise when life itself presents them to you. I came to know a boy—I was also able to follow his life as he grew into a young man—who had a remarkable lack of willpower; for example, because of this lack of willpower, he would stand at the street corner, having resolved to board tram number such-and-such to travel from there to there. When the tram approached, he could not muster the will to get on. He was fully intent on making his way using the tram, but he could not get on. He was still standing there even after the tram had already passed. I became acquainted with just such a boy—who had since become a young man—an extraordinarily intelligent, advanced young man, and at first I was faced with a mystery. The mystery was solved in a very peculiar way. I became aware that the father of this boy—whom I now also knew—held the view—it was his worldview—that developing the will does not actually belong to the qualities of the soul. It was simply a view. My thoughts thus focused on, so to speak, arguing the will out of the qualities of the soul. Now the path was clear: The father was of such a nature that this view of his had by no means yet become second nature, that it had not yet taken hold of his organs. In the son, what had been a thought in the father had become habitual. This naturally also created the possibility that what the son had inherited would be further reinforced by the fact that he constantly heard thoughts that perhaps did not explicitly state that the will does not belong to the qualities of the soul, but which were nonetheless such that this very view lay behind them. And so people find their way into life through very, very complicated circumstances.

[ 21 ] Only when one is properly guided through an individual case, I would say, is one ready to judge the matter from a somewhat universal perspective. I could, of course, mention many other cases. One can then see how it is inherent in human nature to develop the three faculties of the soul with a certain structure: imagination, feeling, and will. But the fact is that something from feeling always finds its way into our thoughts. We never actually have entirely pure thinking, except when we strictly train ourselves to do so, and except when we devote ourselves to moral ideals or religion. But in ordinary life, in thinking about the external world, and in thinking together with other people, we always have only mental images that are interwoven with feelings. So we can say: Our mental images are emotionally infused. Precisely because our feelings are in turn stimulated by our mental images, they reflect the nature of our imaginative life. Our will, on the other hand, is in a reciprocal relationship with feeling. There is a great difference between one will and another. The will can be, I would say, a more neutral impulse, or it can be vibrating with emotional warmth. But this relationship is such that, in certain human dispositions, feeling intensifies at the expense of the will; the connection between feeling and willing becomes so pronounced that feeling takes the lion’s share and the will is neglected. In such people, what happens in childhood is that they retain in their feelings what should actually pass into the will; and then they content themselves with the image of the action and do not proceed to carry it out. These are the people we are talking about here. We must then observe such children to see to what extent their feelings react strongly to this or that, and we must try, especially with such children, not only to indulge in drawing but, above all, to direct the child’s attention to what sets the whole person in motion.

[ 22 ] I would like to point out that for children who exhibit this kind of moral weakness, an animated form of physical exercise—such as I have described as eurythmy—has a healing effect, provided that this eurythmy, in which a person not only draws with their hands but also draws themselves into space, is taught to children before they reach the age of 9.

[ 23 ] And so the point is to take into account the interplay of human faculties. Then, as one learns to observe life, one will also come to shape the influences to which the child is exposed in such a way that the forces of the soul and of the whole human being are brought into the appropriate interplay. However, I should mention, in closing today, that training in the Spiritual Science—when properly applied by a person—leads to observing life. As a rule, people forget the most important facts of life, or they fail to find the right balance between humor and seriousness. One has not found the right rhythm if one merely laughs at a young person whom a streetcar passes by. He is certainly an object of humor, but one must be able to move from humor to seriousness; then such an event becomes interwoven with the other facts of life, and then the soul within us—which is meant to grow together with life—comes alive. And no one who lacks the necessary sense of humor will be able to take such a reflection on a human being—even if he is presented in this way—seriously enough. But one must not remain stuck at one extreme or the other. Such a view of life is precisely what educators and teachers need in particular. But it is also what can truly be cultivated within us through proper self-education in the Spiritual Science. I will take the liberty of speaking about this in my next lecture.