52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 48 The point is, everything teachers do in front of children at this stage of life constitutes meaningful language for them. The actual words that teachers speak are merely part of this language. There are many other unconscious factors lying in the depths of the feeling life that also play … Continue reading More Than Words
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 47 We can notice that boys especially feel a strong need at this age [of fourteen and fifteen]—we only have to discover this and understand it correctly—for: “Everybody must choose his own hero, whom he has to follow on his way to Mt. Olympus.” And it is especially important for … Continue reading Differentiated Needs
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 46 You see, one of the most essential things in the training of the Waldorf School teachers themselves is receptivity to the changes in human nature. And this the teachers have acquired relatively quickly for reasons which I shall explain. A Waldorf teacher—if I may express myself paradoxically—a Waldorf teacher … Continue reading Nothing Stays the Same
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 45 For centuries, no one has been educated in a way appropriate to human nature, which makes it quite impossible to accurately look at human life and compare it with the life of the earth. People express themselves through their view of the world. Quite understandably, people say, for … Continue reading Inner Impulses
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 44 Among ancient people an age-old saying remains even today. One says so frequently that what the simple person gets from such sayings often may contain something good, but just as often it is something false. So it is with the saying, “There are many illnesses, but only one … Continue reading There are as many states of health as there are human beings
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 43 He who consciously turns his mind, for one month, to the positive aspect of all his experiences will gradually notice a feeling creeping into him as if his skin were becoming porous on all sides, and as if his soul were opening wide to all kinds of secret … Continue reading Opening to the World
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 42 I feel, as if enchantedIn glory of the world, the spirit's weaving;It has my selfhood's beingIn senses' dullness shrouded,To bestow on me the strengthWhich my own I within its boundsIs powerless itself to give.—Tr. Liselotte & William Mann~I feel enchanted weavingOf spirit within outer glory.In dullness of the … Continue reading Same Verse, Different Voice
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 41 We are not really aware of the fact that we have regressed in human evolution. In the past, children were allowed to grow up without being educated; their freedom was not invaded.Now we violate this freedom when we begin to educate them in the sixth or seventh year. … Continue reading Growing Up In Freedom
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 40 Never underestimate the effect of the unknown or half known. The effect of such on feeling is extremely important. If toward the end of a lesson we say, “and tomorrow we shall do this…”—the children need not know anything about “this”; their expectation and curiosity will still be … Continue reading The Effects of the Unknown
52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 39 On the slope of the mountains there was a cloister of the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer. I often met the monks on my walks. I still remember how glad I should have been if they had spoken to me. They never did. And so I carried … Continue reading Questions Left Unanswered – The Nine Year Old
