Flexibility of Mind

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 2 Part 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)

If the pedagogy we are speaking of here becomes instinctive, one will know just what to say at the right moment. Above all, one will avoid sharply defined or rigid concepts. It is really appalling when a teacher’s ideas and concepts have been worked out to the degree that they are no longer adaptable or flexible. They would have an effect similar to the effect of iron gloves forced onto a child’s little hands, preventing them from growing naturally. We must not chain children’s minds to finished concepts, but give them concepts that can grow and expand further. We must give them living concepts that can be transformed. But this can be achieved only through an imaginative approach in every subject, certainly until the twelfth year; then the method of teaching I have thus far sketched for you will encourage you to use language creatively, to draw helpful drawings on the blackboard or to take up a paintbrush to make colourful illustrations of what you want to communicate. But there must always be an awareness that everything a teacher brings has to be inwardly mobile and capable of remaining so; for one must recognize that, with the approach of the twelfth year (actually very close to the twelfth year), something new begins to develop, and that is the sense for cause and effect.”

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

Hi! I’m back. I told you, there were so many gems in this lecture! This one section has been sitting on my heart since I last posted.

Some parts that stand out:

1. Above all, one will avoid sharply defined or rigid concepts.
2. They would have an effect similar to the effect of iron gloves forced onto a child’s little hands, preventing them from growing naturally.
3. There must always be an awareness that everything a teacher brings has to be inwardly mobile and capable of remaining so
4. With the approach of the twelfth year (actually very close to the twelfth year), something new begins to develop, and that is the sense for cause and effect.

If the arts help create imaginative, creative thinkers, are WE as teachers also open and imaginative and creative thinkers ourselves? Or are we coming from a place of dogma, pedantry and fixed mindedness?

Do you ever heard yourself say or think “this is how it is done” or “it must be this way” or “this doesn’t feel right but that’s how I was told to do it?” OR do you find yourself saying “I’ve done this and this and it worked for me so it should be the way for everyone”?

If we are fixed in our thinking and approach to this pedagogy, and knowing what we know about children, their unfolding, and our effect on it, what can we do to build our ability to remain inwardly mobile and capable of remaining so?

Something to ponder…

Until next time!
Marina