What is the point…

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 2

(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)

We should never ask: What is the point of teaching the child to paint, if it will never be used in later life? This represents an entirely superficial view of life because, in reality, a child has every need for just this activity; if one wants to understand the complexity of a child’s needs, one just has to know something about the spiritual background of the human being. … These needs should be recognized as flowing from the human constitution itself; and if they are, one will respond with the right instinct. “

Rudolf Steiner
The Child’s Changing Consciousness and Waldorf Education
GA 306 Lecture 5 19 April 1923

There were SO MANY GEMS in this lecture, it was so hard to pick one. Luckily, I had a phone call yesterday morning from a mother whose husband was questioning the arts and handwork component of their grade one homeschooling. He believed there should be a stronger focus on academics as all his friends’ children were already reading and he felt his child was behind.

This is such a common scenario between parents, and I encourage all couples to sit down and have a conversation. To be open to the concerns of the other and to invite them to SEE and FEEL the importance of the whys behind a Steiner inspired homeschool. Honestly, I even get this question from the parent who is the primary homeschooler, because it is so very different from how we were taught in mainstream education. Questions are wonderful as they create an opportunity for deeper understanding.

In this quote Steiner is speaking specifically about painting, as that was the subject for the few paragraphs before this one. But this quote holds true for all of the artistic elements of Steiner’s indications for education and the unfolding human.

And I think that is a key point there. Steiner’s indications focus on human development and how to bring education to the child in a way that supports that unfolding. Not the other way around. We don’t teach to develop the child as they grow, we teach to the developing child in a way that supports their natural unfolding.

So, when we look at artistic experiences like painting, it isn’t just about painting. It is about feeling the quality of the colour, of how the colour moves on the page and the feeling it creates. It creates in a child a sense of flexibility, “stimulates mobility in the child’s mental imagery, suppleness in feelings and flexibility in the will activities” as Steiner describes it. He goes on to say “The child’s entire soul life will become more sensitive and pliable” and it prepares them for something that comes much later in life within a Steiner education, and that is linear perspective.

How does the experience of painting prepare children for linear perspective? Well, because painting exercises as described by Steiner are qualitative experience, not quantitative. It is exactly opposite of linear thinking. Still with me?

When we experience wet on wet watercolour painting, there is a certain release of control, of knowing that the colours will do what the colours will do, regardless of the intention in our strokes. It calls us to be open minded and experience the colours and how they interact with each other and our own hearts. It is about colour feeling, not painting specific images with clear boundaries. As they move through the grades, they are brought experiences that give them the opportunity to learn how to gently guide the paint and water to create more of a distinct image, but still with the unconscious understanding that the paint and water carry within themselves an unending freedom of movement and quality that laws will never release.

We do not explain this to the child. It is all held within their inner experience. But the freedom of this qualitative experience helps them to develop linear thinking later on because they have already experienced the openness of lateral experiences. Steiner believed it very dangerous (his words, not mine) to introduce linear thinking before many years of experiences with the arts and lateral perspective.

The same can be said of handwork. Simple handwork projects are introduced in the early grades and children come to these experiences ready to tackle the many unknowns of stitching and creating. It helps build perseverance, flexibility and, as Steiner described it, enhancement of judgement.

How does it enhance judgment? (we are going to look back to that linear thinking in a minute, watch for it!) Steiner often speaks of creating learning experiences through childhood that help build towards creative thinking in adulthood. Judgement comes out of the imaginative forces, out of our hearts. It is not just through the brain, but through the hold human being that conscious judgements are made. As we recall from week one’s quote, we take the world in through our senses, and when we experience artistic activities, all our senses are involved. Through our hands, our doing, impressions are made with the senses and we join them together into judgements. Painting and handwork, all the arts really, help us to see things, opens up our awareness to details, wakes us up to what is in front of us. Continually practicing this awareness, or awake-ness, helps build skills needed later for judgement and imaginative, creative thinking.

So as we build towards the ability for linear thinking, we are simultaneously surrounding children in experiences that help them to see details and lead with the heart. A combination that will hopefully support open-mindedness and the ability for clear thinking in adulthood.

And THAT friends, is the importance in the arts. I mean, the world could use some more open-minded people, right?

With Steiner, it is all about the long game, even when it comes to painting and finger knitting!

I leave you with some ponderables:

1. How can you create experiences for free exploration within your home?
2. How can you add more developmentally appropriate artistic expereinces into your days?
3. Have your lessons turned more intellectual and less artistic in their delivery? If so, how can you bring it back to the feeling realm and away from the head? I always like to remind the families I work with, lesson blocks are not meant to teach a thesis to our children!

The quote above goes on to end the paragraph like this: “One will not worry unduly, either, if a child forgets some of what has already been learned, because knowledge is transmuted into capacities, and these are truly important later in life. Such capacities will not develop if you overload a child with knowledge. It is essential to realize – and actually practice (note: Marina’s bolding, not his) – that one should impress in the student’s memory only what is demanded by social life, that there is no purpose in overburdening the student’s memory (again, my bolding).”

Something to think about when asked why we delay academics. I might go into this quote later…

Until next time,
Marina