Freedom in Teaching

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 4

(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)

This week, a group of “seasoned” homeschoolers and I were discussing the weight of dogma and pedantry on the homeschooling parent. How many new-to-Waldorf families feel they aren’t “Waldorf” enough, and are comparing their home to the home of others, and on top of that, being told it must be done in such and such a way. Beyond the obvious need for inner work and clear observation to be able to filter out those unhelpful messages, I believe what is needed in this case for is a study of Steiner’s own words.

The Kingdom of Childhood is one of my FAVOURITE Steiner lecture compilations. I find it an easier read than some of his other lectures, and it really covers a wide variety of advice for the grades as well as the anthroposophical reasoning behind it. This quote comes from the second lecture. At this point in the lecture, he had just finished discussing a mainstream school, and how classroom A and classroom B can only be called different because the children themselves are different in each class. That the topic and the delivery by the teacher was exactly the same in each class. With the exception of the actual students, each classroom offers the same to the children because each teacher is using the “right method” to teach said topic.

With us in the Waldorf School you find no such thing. You go into Class A. There you see a teacher who is teaching writing. The teacher lets the children make all kinds of forms, let us say with string. They then go on to painting the forms and gradually letters arise. A second teacher likes to do it differently. If you go into Class B you find that this teacher is letting the children “dance” the forms round the room, in order that they many experience the forms of the letters in their own bodies. Then this teacher carries over these forms also into the letters themselves. You would never find uniformity of teaching is Classes A, B, and C. The same things are taught but in completely different ways, for a free creative imagination pervades the class. There are no prescribed rules for teaching in the Waldorf School, but only one unifying spirit that permeates the whole. It is very important that you understand this. Teachers are autonomous. Within this one unifying spirit they can do entirely what they know is right for themselves.”

Rudolf Steiner
The Kingdom of Childhood, Lecture Two
Torquay, August 12, 1924

Teachers are autonomous.

Within this one unifying spirit they can do entirely what they know is right.

You know what is right because you know your child. You too live within this one unifying spirit. It is the unifying spirit of understanding the archetypal nature, development and growth of the human being. And within that you know what to bring to children to support that growth. And within that is your intuition.

Trust in that spirit.

If you don’t fully understand the archetypal human and what to bring, learn about it (book suggestions at the end of this post). When we learn about the spirit of this educational pedagogy from the source, we are able to lean into the freedom of it all. We see that it is LIVING and not dead on the page. It is not “the right way” but the scaffolding for our own creation and art and imagination. It will be unique to each family and child! We are not here to create carbon copies of the Waldorf School, we are here to individualize Steiner’s indications for education based on the development of the children who stand before us. Remember, “Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book.”

Let me tell you a story. When I first introduced letters to my daughter I did not connect with F for fish as Steiner indicated. All the resources and families I knew used fish, but I just couldn’t connect. The way we wrote f didn’t fit into a fish no matter how strategically I drew it! So I used the image of a fence instead, because my daughter was very much into farming and when playing built a fence around all her animals and buildings. When I worked with a family who came late to Waldorf after realizing their son was struggling to learn letters and sounds, I used the image of a falcon for f, because this child LOVED falconry. With another family, I used a fountain, just like the one they saw on their trip to Niagara Falls one summer.

When you connect with a child and they begin to share their lives with you, you will find just the right way to bring topics to them so that it speaks to their heart. This will change across individuals, because no child connects with two people in the exact same way! So your partner might bring something to your child in a totally different, but equally effective, way than you would have chosen. And that’s okay!

I’d like to add another quote here, from Discussions with Teachers, also from the second lecture.

We must be very clear that there is no need to make our methods rigidly uniform, because of course, one teacher can do something that is very good in a particular case, and another teacher something else equally good. So we need not strive for pedantic uniformity, but on the other hand must adhere to certain important principles, which must be thoroughly comprehended.”

Those principles are human nature, development and growth.

I leave you with some ponderables:

• Name one thing you struggle with because it doesn’t feel right but you “think” you should be doing it. Where did you learn it was how it should be done?
• How can you individualize it to suit the needs of your family?
• Does it really need to stay? Why or why not?

My favourite books for introductions to child development and education:

1. The Kingdom of Childhood – part of the Foundations of Waldorf Education series by Anthroposophic Press and also available online on The Rudolf Steiner Archive, linked HERE
2. Discussions with Teachers – also part of the Foundations of Waldorf Education series by Anthroposophic Press and also available online on The Rudolf Steiner Archive, linked HERE
3. Phases of Childhood: Growing in Body, Soul and Spirit by Bernard C J Lievegoed

Until next time,
Marina