Developing Potential

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 28  (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)

The question to be asked is not: what does an individual need to know and be capable of doing so as to fit into the existing social order? but rather: what potential does an individual have and what can be developed in him or her? When this is taken into account each new generation can bring forces of continuous renewal to the social order. In this social order there will then live all that the fully mature human beings in it cause it to be. For the existing social order to mold the coming generations in its own image is something that must not happen.” ~ Steiner, Occult Science

The Tasks and Content of the Steiner-Waldorf Curriculum, edited by Kevin Avison and Martyn Rawson is a book that has held a place on my shelf for many years, but honestly, I used it as a reference and didn’t read through the chapters at the front. I’ve been called to take it down and dust if off many times this last week, so I finally sat down and read through those initial chapters. And what a treasure trove of Steiner quotes I found!

I chose this one to share today because I feel it is so relevant to today’s educational world in both traditional and alternative educational settings.

We can easily get caught up in worry about the future. There is much to worry about! But does this worry serve us?

Educational systems around the world work hard to create a curriculum that “produces” citizens of the future. But if we look at many of the models, they are mostly built on two things. The past and fear. Past tests, past occurrences, past failures. Fear that their country will be at the bottom of ratings, fear that children won’t have skills needed for the workforce, fear that upon graduation they will not be able to contribute.

(Okay, so maybe the models are built on three things: the belief that work and profession is the goal. But that is a whole other topic that will quickly derail this post, so I shall keep my soapbox tucked under my chair for another time! )

Adults around the world create educational systems based on what they feel is needed for the future; based on what they have experienced and what they feel is needed.

But what if we believed that the children of today come fully equipped for the future, and it is not our job to “train them up” but to support their unfolding so we can see the gifts they carry? What if we believed that the gifts children carry are the key to the future? What if we let go of trying to fortune tell, and instead looked at what is right in front of us?

In the case of psychology, fortune telling is labeled an unhelpful or negative thought process in which the patient attempts to predict the future. They could be doing this to be prepared, or just as a habit of thought, but either way, it serves mostly to keep the person in a state of stress and anxiety because fortune telling rarely tells of positive, calm scenarios. It is a place I lived for many years of my life, trying to stay ahead of the game so I would be prepared for anything and everything. And while there were occasions that it reaped rewards (you don’t keep doing something over and over again without some type of gain from it), mostly what it did was exhaust me and break down my spirit.

I think when we fortune tell in education, we wear ourselves out. And while it might work at occasionally creating good policy, for the most part, it takes the spirit, what is living, out of education. We cannot look across a room of children and say there is nothing living in education. And we cannot look across a room of children and think we can predict their future.

But we CAN look at children and see their potential.

We can stop looking at the behaviours that distract from our main goal of preparing them for a future life we can’t predict, and start looking at what they are telling us about themselves.

I hear often in the news that those graduating from secondary and higher education are ill prepared for the world. Then why are we still using the same model to create their education? We are trying to shape the future in our image and it cannot be done and still “produce” healthy adults.

We need to shift the mechanical, materialistic ways of factory education and start to really see the children and their true potential (not the potential we want to see!).

Something to ponder: When you take away future thinking while planning your lessons, and replace in that spot a child, what happens to your planning?

Until next time,
Marina