Three Fundamental Forces in Education

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 1

(This is part of a weekly serial started on Michaelmas 2023. To see the other entries, please see the post linked HERE and scroll down to the bottom for individual links)

I would like to draw your attention to a fact that must have our particular concern in the art of Education and can be worked on there…: everything which proceeds downward from the head in the period before the seventh year takes the form of an attack on what is coming to meet it from within in the nature of up-building forces. And everything that works outward from within, rising up towards the head to counter the stream originating there, acts like a defense against this descending stream. The one has the appearance of an attack, the other, working from within outward, gives the appearance of a defense.

Rudolf Steiner, 16 September 1920
Three Fundamental Forces in Education

This quote, this whole lecture really, struck a cord. I’ve been seeped in the world of early childhood for the last few months as I prepared for a workshop and a new group of foundations students who are all in Waldorf early childcare settings. Honestly, revisiting the threefoldness of the human being has brought up some pretty blatant reminders that I needed for myself as much as the children and my EC foundations students.

I’ve written a bit of primer for those not familiar or in need of a refresher of threefoldness. I”ll try and be as succinct as possible. (If you don’t need the refresher, feel free to skip down to my ponderings below!)

If we look at a human’s threefoldness, we will see that the head (the upper pole) is how we take the world, the limbs (or lower pole) how we give back to the world and the heart, plays mediary between the two, imbuing our lives with warmth and interest.

The head is the motherboard of our nerve-sense system, the part of our body that holds the threads of so many of our senses. It is totally awake to the world, letting in all that is around us. As adults we can filter the deluge of sensory stimulation that comes our way on a daily basis, but even we find it difficult to ward off all the attacks on our senses from this incredibly loud, modern world we live in. So it is immensely important to remember that during the first seven years of life, children are not actually able to filter what is brought in through the head. Children before seven are total sense beings, living in and experiencing the world through the senses, filter free. So the words above, that which comes in through the head and proceeds downwards is an attack, hold weight in the knowledge that young children cannot filter. Why an attack? Steiner believed that everything a young child is exposed to has a direct effect on their entire physical growth. Children before age seven grow at a remarkable rate, and not just in height as is easiest to recognize, but all their organs are also developing and finding their rhythm. So an “attack” during this stage can create challenges later on.

Opposite our head and nerve/sense system are our limbs and the metabolic/limb system. We DO with our limbs, we take action in the world in response to what we have brought in through the head. This is how we give back to the world or excrete (when in relation to the metabolic system). It is often a rather sleepy action, not awake like our head. If you think about the many muscles and small movements that go into holding a pen and knowing how to form letters, you can see that if we had to think about each and every movement how much our motor abilities would slow down. So it is correct to say that much of the action we take is done on a somewhat unconscious level. Muscle memory, so to speak. It can also be said about our metabolic system. We don’t choose which nutrients go where or how our food is digested and eliminated. Our body knows how to do it and we really only become aware of it when something is awry.

That brings us to the heart space, the rhythmic system. This system is neither awake nor asleep. It runs on it’s own, but can be adjusted using our will (for example, holding our breath) or as a reaction from our senses (quicken or our heart due to fright or danger). You could say this system is sleepy or dreamy. This is also where our feeling lives, and if you think about our feelings, they often just pop up and we don’t realize them until they are there. Again, we are sleepily aware of our feelings, just like our rhythmic system and they can also be manipulated by our thinking and our will.

(Ponderings upcoming for those who scrolled down!)

SOOO, back to the quote. Everything coming in freely through the head/senses is an attack, and everything related to movement coming from inside is the counter force. I think with this knowledge that it would be appropriate to conclude that the more we allow children the time and space to BE CHILDREN and play freely and experience the world without our constant adult interruptions and manipulations to curb our fears and judgements, the more we did that the more we could create create a life where the child can soften the attacks from above by being fully immersed in DOING. Right?

Let’s go back to adults again for a moment. There is another kind of doing, one that comes from our conscious will, our inner drive, where we choose to act. This is an action that is filled with heart (the mediary between , warms us, opens us to possibilities). We often don’t find the time to act on our conscious will these days, distracted and busy with things and life and obligations. But there is a movement in the world today, one that encourages us adults to create, to make, to move, to build, TO PLAY as a counter action to the stress, anxiety, anger, and fatigue that grows within us. We are encouraged to make a conscious decision to DO as a counter attack to modern day living. Sound familiar? Steiner stated above that which comes up through the body from the limbs counters that attack.

We know that action is healthy. We know that distancing ourselves from play as adults effects our mental, emotional and physical health. So if we know all these things are true for adults, why do we expect something different of our children?

Play is literally their protection. Play is the work they do to lay the path for a better future for their adult selves. They do not do this consciously, of course. They just KNOW it is what they are meant to do, it is spirit led, intuitive. Uninterrupted, independent, child-led play helps to create a harmony within that will last through to adulthood.

This isn’t just backed by Steiner’s indications on how human beings unfold, there are now endless modern scientific studies that show the same correlation. Children who play are better equipped for life down the road.

In my work with homeschooling families, the number one worry I hear is that they aren’t doing enough to prepare their children for school. That it is hard to explain to others why their six year old isn’t reading or formally writing yet and hasn’t started math lessons.

Steiner is here to tell you (along with all those fancy modern day behaviourologists) that you are doing exactly enough. Does looking at it through the lens of protection and preparation for later years curb some of the worry?

Steiner goes on in this lecture to discuss how story and music and art speak to the child through their heart after the change of teeth around seven years of age, and how educators who create an education for the child that centers around this knowledge help support the development of armour, so to speak, against damaging forces. It is a great read. I’ve linked it here if you’d like to read it in its entirety.

Until next time!
Marina