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Human Values in Education
GA 310

21 July 1924, Arnheim

V. The Teachers' Conference in the Waldorf School

At this point of our educational studies I want to interpolate some remarks referring to the arrangements which were made in the Waldorf School in order to facilitate and put into practice those principles about which I have already spoken and shall have more to say in the coming lectures.

The Waldorf School in Stuttgart was inaugurated in the year 1919 on the initiative of Emil Molt, [Director of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory.] with the purpose of carrying out the principles of anthroposophical education. This purpose could be realised through the fact that the direction and leadership of the school was entrusted to me. Therefore when I describe how this school is organised it can at the same time serve as an example for the practical realisation of those fundamental educational principles which we have been dealing with here.

I should like to make clear first of all that the soul of all the instruction and education in the Waldorf School is the Teachers' Conference. These conferences are held regularly by the college of teachers and I attend them whenever I can manage to be in Stuttgart. They are concerned not only with external matters of school organisation, with the drawing up of the timetable, with the formation of classes and so on, but they deal in a penetrative, far-reaching way with everything on which the life and soul of the school depends. Things are arranged in such a way as to further the aim of the school, that is to say, to base the teaching and education on a knowledge of man. It means of course that this knowledge must be applied to every individual child. Time must be devoted to the observation, the psychological observation of each child. This is essential and must be reckoned with in actual, concrete detail when building up the whole educational plan. In the teachers' conferences the individual child is spoken about in such a way that the teachers try to grasp the nature of the human being as such in its special relationship to the child in question. You can well imagine that we have to deal with all grades and types of children with their varying childish talents and qualities of soul. We are confronted with pretty well every kind of child, from the one whom we must class as being psychologically and physically very poorly endowed to the one—and let us hope life will confirm this—who is gifted to the point of genius.

If we want to observe children in their real being we must acquire a psychological faculty of perception. This kind of perception not only includes a cruder form of observing the capacities of individual children, but above all the ability to appraise these capacities rightly. You need only consider the following: One can have a child in the class who appears to be extraordinarily gifted in learning to read and write, or seems to be very gifted in learning arithmetic or languages. But to hold fast to one's opinion and say: This child is gifted, for he can learn languages, arithmetic and so on quite easily—this betokens a psychological superficiality. In childhood, say at about 7, 8 or 9 years old the ease with which a child learns can be a sign that later on he will develop genius; but it can equally well be a sign that sooner or later he will become neurotic, or in some way turn into a sick man. When one has gained insight into the human being and knows that this human being consists not only of the physical body which is perceptible to the eye, but also bears within him the etheric body which is the source of growth and the forces of nourishment, the cause whereby the child grows bigger; when one considers further that man also has an astral body within him, the laws of which have nothing whatever to do with what is being physically established but on the contrary work destructively on the physical, and destroy it in order to make room for the spiritual; and furthermore when one considers that there is still the ego-organisation which is bound up with the human being, so that one has the three organisations—etheric body, astral body, ego-organisation and must pay heed to these as well as to the perceptible physical body—then one can form an idea of how complicated such a human being is, and how each of these members of the human being can be the cause of a talent, or lack of talent in any particular sphere, or can show a deceptive talent which is transient and pathological. One must develop insight as to whether the talent is of such a kind as to have healthy tendencies, or whether it tends towards the unhealthy.

If as teacher and educator, one represents with the necessary love, devotion and selflessness the knowledge of man of which we have been speaking here in these lectures, then something very definite ensues. In living together with the children one becomes—do not misunderstand the word, it is not used in a bragging sense—one becomes ever wiser and wiser. One discovers for oneself how to appraise some particular capacity or achievement of the child. One learns to enter in a living way into the nature of the child and to do so comparatively quickly.

I know that many people will say: If you assert that the human being, in addition to his physical body, consists of super-sensible members, etheric body, astral body and ego-organisation, it follows that only someone who is clairvoyant and able to perceive these super-sensible members of human nature can be a teacher. But this is not the case. Everything perceived through imagination, inspiration and intuition, as described in my books, can be examined and assessed by observing the physical organisation of the child, because it comes to expression everywhere in this physical organisation.

It is therefore perfectly possible for a teacher or educator who carries out his profession in a truly loving way and bases his teaching on a comprehensive knowledge of man, to speak in the following way about some special case: Here the physical body shows signs of hardening, of stiffening, so that the child is unable to develop the faculties which, spiritually, are potentially present, because the physical body is a hindrance. Or, to take another case, it is possible that someone might say: In this particular child, who is about 7 or 8 years old, certain attributes are making their appearance. The child surprises us in that he is able to learn this or that very early; but one can observe that the physical body is too soft, it has a tendency which later on may cause it to run to fat. If the physical body is too soft, if, so to say, the fluid element has an excess of weight in relation to the solid element, then this particular tendency causes the soul and spirit to make themselves felt too soon, and then we have a precocious child. In such a case, during the further development of the physical body, this precocity is pushed back again, so that under certain conditions everything may well be changed and the child become for the whole of life, not only an average person, but one even below average. In short, we must reckon with the fact that what external observation reveals in the child must be estimated rightly by means of inner perceptiveness, so that actually nothing whatever is said if one merely speaks about faculties or lack of faculties.

What I am now saying can also be borne out by studying the biographies of the most varied types of human being. In following the course of the spiritual development of mankind it would be possible to cite many a distinguished personality who in later life achieved great things, but who was regarded as a child as being almost completely ungifted and at school had been, so to say, one of the duffers. In this connection one comes across the most remarkable examples. For instance there is a poet who at the age of 18, 19 and even 20 was held to be so ungifted by all those who were concerned with his education that they advised him, for this very reason, not to attempt studying at a higher level. He did not, however, allow himself to be put off, but continued his studies, and it was not so long afterwards that he was appointed inspector of the very same schools that it had not been thought advisable for him to attend as a young man. There was also an Austrian poet, Robert Hamerling, who studied with the purpose of becoming a teacher in a secondary school (Gymnasium). In the examination he obtained excellent marks for Greek and Latin; on the other hand he did not pass muster for the teaching of the German language, because his essays were considered to be quite inadequate. Nevertheless he became a famous poet! We have found it necessary to separate a number of children from the others, either more or less permanently or for a short time, because they are mentally backward and through their lack of comprehension, through their inability to understand, they are a cause of disturbance. These children are put together into a special class for those who are of limited capacity. This class is led by the man who has spoken to you here, Dr. Schubert, whose very special qualities make him a born leader of such a class. This task calls indeed for special gifts. It needs above all the gift of being able to penetrate into those qualities of soul which are, as it were, imprisoned in the physical and have difficulty in freeing themselves. Little by little they must be liberated. Here we come again to what borders on physical illness, where the psychologically abnormal impinges on what is physically out of order. It is quite possible to shift this borderland, it is in no way rigid or fixed. Indeed it is certainly helpful if one can look behind every so-called psychological abnormality and perceive what is not healthy in the physical organism of the person in question. For in the true sense of the word there are no mental illnesses; they are brought about through the fact that the physical does not release the spiritual.

In Germany today [just after the First World War.] we have also to reckon with the situation that nearly all school children are not only undernourished, but have suffered for years from the effects of under-nourishment. Here therefore we are concerned with the fact that through observing the soul-spiritual and the physical-corporeal we can be led to a comprehension of their essential unity. People find it very difficult to understand that this is essential in education. There was an occasion when a man, who otherwise was possessed of considerable understanding and was directly engaged in matters pertaining to schools, visited the Waldorf School. I myself took him around for days on end. He showed great interest in everything. But after I had told him all I could about one child or another—for we spoke mostly about the children, not about abstract educational principles, our education being based on a knowledge of man—he finally said: “Well and good, but then all teachers would have to be doctors.” I replied: “That is not necessary; but they should certainly have some medical knowledge, as much as a teacher needs to know for his educational work.”

For where shall we be if it is said that for some reason or another, provision cannot be made for it, or the teachers cannot learn it? Provision simply must be made for what is required and the teachers must learn what is necessary. This is the only possible standpoint. The so-called normal capacities which man develops, which are present in every human being, are best studied by observing pathological conditions. And if one has learned to know a sick organism from various points of view, then the foundation is laid for understanding a soul endowed with genius. It is not as though I were taking the standpoint of a Lombroso [Italian criminologist.] or someone holding similar views; this is not the case. I do not assert that genius is always a condition of sickness, but one does actually learn to know the soul-spiritual in learning to know the sick body of a child. In studying the difficulties experienced by soul and spirit in coming to outer manifestation in a sick body, one can learn to understand how the soul seizes hold of the organism when it has something special to express.

So education comes up against not only slight pathological conditions, such as are present in children of limited capacity, but it meets what is pathological in the widest sense of the word. This is why we have also introduced medical treatment for the children in our school. We do not, however, have a doctor who only practises medicine and is quite outside the sphere of education, but our school doctor, Dr. Kolisko, is at the same time the teacher of a class. He stands completely within the school as a teacher, he is acquainted with all the children and is therefore in a position to know the particular angle from which may come any pathological symptom appearing in the child. This is altogether different from what is possible for the school doctor who visits the school on certain formal occasions and judges the state of a child's health on what is necessarily a very cursory observation. Quite apart from this, however, in the teachers' conferences no hard and fast line is drawn between the soul-spiritual and physical-corporeal when considering the case of any particular child. The natural consequence of this is that the teacher has gradually to acquire insight into the whole human being, so that he is just as interested in every detail connected with physical health and sickness as he is in what is mentally sound or abnormal.

This is what we try to achieve in the school. Each teacher should have the deepest interest in, and pay the greatest attention to the whole human being. It follows from this that our teachers are not specialists in the ordinary sense of the word. For in effect the point is not so much whether the history teacher is more or less master of his subject, but whether by and large he is the kind of personality who is able to work upon the children in the way that has been described, and whether he has an awareness of how the child is developing under his care.

I myself was obliged to teach from my 15th year onwards, simply in order to live. I had to give private lessons and so gained direct experience in the practice of education and teaching. For instance, when I was a very young man, only 21, I undertook the education of a family of four boys. I became resident in the family, and at that time one of the boys was 11 years old and he was clearly hydrocephalic. He had most peculiar habits. He disliked eating at table, and would leave the dining room and go into the kitchen where there were the bins for refuse and scraps. There he would eat not only potato peelings but also all the other mess thrown there. At 11 years old he still knew practically nothing. An attempt had been made, on the basis of earlier instruction which he had received, to let him sit for the entrance examination to a primary school, in the hope that he could be received into one of the classes. But when he handed in the results of the examination there was nothing but an exercise book with one large hole where he had rubbed something out. He had achieved nothing else whatever and he was already 11 years old. The parents were distressed. They belonged to the more cultured upper-middle class, and everybody said: The boy is abnormal. Naturally when such things are said about a child people feel a prejudice against him. The general opinion was that he must learn a trade, for he was capable of nothing else. I came into the family, but nobody really understood me when I stated what I was prepared to do. I said: If I am given complete responsibility for the boy I can promise nothing except that I will try to draw out of the boy what is in him. Nobody understood this except the mother, with her instinctive perception, and the excellent family doctor. It was the same doctor who later on, together with Dr. Freud, founded psycho-analysis. When, however, at a later stage it became decadent, he severed his connection with it. It was possible to talk with this man and our conversation led to the decision that I should be entrusted with the boy's education and training.

In eighteen months his head had become noticeably smaller and the boy was now sufficiently advanced to enter a secondary school (Gymnasium). I accompanied him further during his school career for he needed extra help, but nevertheless after eighteen months he was accepted as a pupil in a secondary school. To be sure, his education had to be carried on in such a way that there were times when I needed hours in order to prepare what I wanted the boy to learn in a quarter of an hour. It was essential to exercise the greatest economy when teaching him and never to spend more time on whatever it might be than was absolutely necessary. It was also a question of arranging the day's timetable with great exactitude: so much time must be given to music, so much to gymnastics, so much to going for walks and so on. If this is done, I said to myself, if the boy is educated in this way, then it will be possible to draw out of him what is latent within him. Now there were times when things went quite badly with my efforts in this direction. The boy became pale. With the exception of his mother and the family doctor people said with one accord: That fellow is ruining the boy's health!—To this I replied: Naturally I cannot continue with his education if there is any interference. Things must be allowed to go on according to our agreement. And they went on.

The boy went through secondary school, continued his studies and became a doctor. The only reason for his early death was that when he was called up and served as a doctor during the world war he caught an infection and died of the effects of the ensuing illness. But he carried out the duties of his medical profession in an admirable way. I only bring forward this example in order to show how necessary it is in education to see things all round, as a whole. It also shows how under certain definite educational treatment it is possible in the long run to reduce week by week a hydrocephalic condition.

Now you will say: Certainly, something of this kind can happen when it is a case of private tuition. But it can equally well happen with comparatively large classes. For anyone who enters lovingly into what is put forward here as the knowledge of man will quickly acquire the possibility of observing each individual child with the attention that is necessary; and this he will be able to do even in a class where there are many pupils. It is just here however that the psychological perception of the kind which I have described is necessary, but this perception is not so easily acquired if one goes through the world as a single individual and has absolutely no interest in other people. I can truly say that I am aware of what I owe to the fact that I really never found any human being uninteresting. Even as a child no human being was ever uninteresting to me. And I know that I should never have been able to educate that boy if I had not actually found all human beings interesting.

It is this width of interest which permeates the teachers' conferences at the Waldorf School and gives them atmosphere, so that—if I may so express myself—a psychological mood prevails throughout and these teachers' conferences then really become a school based on the study of a deep psychology. It is interesting to see how from year to year the “college of teachers” as a whole is able to deepen its faculty for psychological perception. In addition to all that I have already described, the following must also be stated when one comes to consider the individual classes. We do not go in for statistics in the ordinary sense of the word, but for us the classes are living beings also, not only the individual pupils. One can take some particular class and study it for itself, and it is extraordinarily interesting to observe what imponderable forces then come to light. When one studies such a class, and when the teachers of the different classes discuss in college meeting the special characteristics of each class, it is interesting for instance to discover that a class having in it more girls than boys—for ours is a co-educational school—is a completely different being from a class where there are more boys than girls; and a class consisting of an equal number of boys and girls is again a completely different being. All this is extremely interesting, not only on account of the talk which takes place among the children, nor of the little love affairs which always occur in the higher classes. Here one must acquire the right kind of observation in order to take notice of it when this is necessary and otherwise not to see it. Quite apart from this however is the fact that the imponderable “being” composed of the different masculine and feminine individuals gives the class a quite definite spiritual structure. In this way one learns to know the individuality of the different classes. And if, as with us in the Waldorf School, there are parallel classes, it is possible when necessary—it is very seldom necessary—to make some alteration in the division of the classes. Studies such as these, in connection with the classes, form ever and again the content of the teachers' conferences. Thus the content of these conferences does not consist only of the administration of the school, but provides a living continuation of education in the school itself, so that the teachers are always learning. In this way the conferences are the soul of the whole school. One learns to estimate trivialities rightly, to give due weight to what has real importance, and so on. Then there will not be an outcry when here or there a child commits some small misdemeanour; but there will be an awareness when something happens which might endanger the further development of the school. So the total picture of our Waldorf School which has only come about in the course of the years, is an interesting one. By and large our children, when they reach the higher classes, are more able to grasp what a child has to learn at school than those from other schools; on the other hand, as I have described, in the lower classes they remain somewhat behind in reading and writing because we use different methods which are extended over several years. Between the ages of 13 and 15, however, the children begin to outstrip the pupils of other schools owing, among other things, to a certain ease with which they are able to enter into things and to a certain aptness of comprehension.

Now a great difficulty arises. It is a remarkable fact that where there is a light, shadows are thrown by objects; where there is a weak light there are weak shadows, where there is a strong light there are strong shadows. Likewise in regard to certain qualities of soul, the following may be observed. If insufficient care is taken by the teachers to establish contact with their pupils in every possible way, so that they are models on which the children base their own behaviour, then, conversely, as the result of a want of contact it can easily happen that deviations from moral conduct make their appearance. About this we must have no illusions whatever. It is so. This is why so much depends upon a complete “growing together” of the individualities of the teachers and the individualities of the pupils, so that the strong inner attachment felt by the children for the teachers on the one side may be reciprocally experienced by the teachers on the other, thus assuring the further development of both.

These things need to be studied in an inner, human, loving way, otherwise one will meet with surprises. But the nature of the method is such that it tends to draw out everything that lies potentially in the human being. At times this is exemplified in a somewhat strange fashion. There is a German poet who knew that he had been badly brought up and badly taught, so that very many of his innate qualities—he was always complaining about this—could not come to expression. This was because his body had already become stiff and hardened, owing to the fact that in his youth no care had been taken to develop his individuality. Then one day he went to a phrenologist. Do not imagine that I am standing up for phrenology or that I rate it particularly highly; it has however some significance when practised intuitively. The phrenologist felt his head and told him all kinds of nice things, for these were of course to be found; but at one spot of the skull he stopped suddenly, became red and did not trust himself to say a word. The poet then said: “Come now, speak out, that is the predisposition to theft in me. It seems therefore that if I had been better educated at school this tendency to theft might have had very serious consequences.”

If we wish to educate we must have plenty of elbow room. This however is not provided for in a school which is run on ordinary lines according to the dreadful timetable: 8 to 9 religion, 9 to 10 gymnastics, 10 to 11 history, 11 to 12 arithmetic. What comes later blots out what has been given earlier, and as, in spite of this, one has to get results, a teacher is well-nigh driven to despair. This is why in the Waldorf School we have what may be termed teaching periods. The child comes into a class. Every day during Main Lesson, which continues for the best part of the morning, from 8 to 10 or from 8 to 11, with short breaks for recreation, he is taught one subject. This is given by one teacher, even in the higher classes. The subject is not changed hour by hour, but is continued for as long as may be necessary for the teacher to get through what he wishes to take with the class. In arithmetic, for instance, such a period might last 4 weeks. Every day then, from 8 to 10 the subject in question is carried further and what is given one day is linked on to what was taught the previous day. No later lesson blots out the one given earlier; concentration is possible. Then, after about 4 weeks, when the arithmetic period has been taken far enough and is brought to a conclusion, a history period may follow, and this again, according to the length of time required, will be continued for another 4 or 5 weeks. And so it goes on. Our point of view is the very opposite to what is called the system of the specialist teacher. You might for instance when visiting the Waldorf School find our Dr. Baravalle taking a class for descriptive geometry. The pupils sit facing him with their drawing boards in front of them. He lets them draw and his manner is that of the most exemplary specialist teacher of geometry. Now coming into another school and looking at its list of professors and teachers you will find appended to one name or another: Diploma in Geometry or Mathematics or whatever it may be. I have known very many teachers, specialists in mathematics for instance, who boasted of the fact that when they took part in a school outing they were quite unable to tell the children the names of the plants.—But morning school is not yet over and here you will see Dr. Baravalle walking up and down between the desks and giving an English lesson. And out of the whole manner and method of his teaching you will see that he is speaking about all kinds of things and there is no means of knowing in which subject he is a specialist. Some of you may think geography is his special subject, or geometry or something else. The essential substance and content of one's teaching material can undoubtedly be acquired very quickly if one has the gift of entering right into the sphere of cognition, of experiencing knowledge within the soul. So we have no timetable. Naturally there is nothing pedantic about this. In our Waldorf School the Main Lesson is given in periods; other lessons must of course be fitted into a timetable, but these follow on after the Main Lesson.

Then we think it very important that the children should be taught two foreign languages from the time they first come to school when they are still quite small. We take French and English. It must be admitted that in our school this can be a perfect misery, because so many pupils have joined the school since its foundation. For instance pupils came to us who should really be taken into Class 6. In this class however, there are children who have already made considerable progress in languages. Now these new children should join them, but they have to be put into Class 5 simply because they haven't the foggiest notion of languages. We have continually to reckon with the difficulties.

Another thing we try to arrange is that whenever possible the most fundamental lessons are given in the morning, so that physical training—gymnastics, eurythmy and so on—is kept for the afternoon. This however is no hard and fast arrangement, for as we cannot afford an endless number of teachers not everything can be fitted in as ideally as we would wish, but only as well as circumstances permit. You will not misunderstand me if I say that with ideals no beginning can be made. Do not say that anthroposophy is not idealistic. We know how to value ideals, but nothing can be begun with ideals. They can be beautifully described, one can say: This is how it ought to be. One can even flatter oneself that one is striving in this direction. But in reality we have to cope with a quite definite, concrete school made up of 800 children whom we know and with between 40 and 50 teachers whom we must also know. But what is the use (you may ask) of a college of teachers when no member of it corresponds to the ideal? The essential thing is that we reckon with what is there. Then we proceed in accordance with reality. If we want to carry out something practically we must take reality into account. This then is what I would say in regard to period teaching.

Owing to our free approach to teaching, and this must certainly be apparent from what I am describing to you, it naturally comes about that the children do not always sit as still as mice. But you should see how the whole moral atmosphere and inner constitution of a class depends on the one who has it in charge, and here again it is the imponderable that counts. In this connection I must say that in the Waldorf School there are also teachers who prove to be inadequate in certain respects. I will not describe them, but it can well happen that on entering a class one is aware that it is “out of tune.” A quarter of the class is lying under the benches, a quarter is on top of them and the rest are continually running out of the room and knocking on the door from outside. We must not let these things baffle us. The situation can be put right again if one knows how to get on with the children. They should be allowed to satisfy their urge for movement; one should not fall back on punishment but set about putting these things right in another way. We are not at all in favour of issuing commands; on the contrary with us everything must be allowed to develop by itself. Through this very fact however there also develops by itself what I have described as something lying within the teachers as their life. Certainly the children sometimes make a frightful noise, but this is only a sign of their vitality. They can also be very active and lively in doing what they should, provided the teacher knows how to arouse their interest. We must of course make use of the good qualities of the so-called good child, so that he learns something, and with a rascal we must even make use of his rascally qualities, so that he too makes progress. We do not get anywhere if we are only able to develop the good qualities. We must from time to time develop the so-called rascally qualities, only we must of course be able to turn them in the right direction. Very often these so-called rascally qualities are precisely those which signify strength in the grown-up human being; they are qualities which, rightly handled, can culminate in what is most excellent in the grown up man or woman.

And so ever and again one has to determine whether a child gives little trouble because he is good, or because he is ill. It is very easy, if one considers one's own convenience, to be just as pleased with the sick child who sits still and does not make himself heard, as with the good child, because he does not call for much attention. But if one looks with real penetration into human nature one often finds that one has to devote much more attention to such a child than to a so-called rascal. Here too it is a question of psychological insight and psychological treatment, the latter naturally from the soul-spiritual point of view.

There is another thing to be considered. In the Waldorf School practically all the teaching takes place in the school itself. The burden of homework is lifted, for the children are given very little to do at home. Because of this, because all the work is done together with the teachers, the children's attitude is a quite remarkable one. In the Waldorf School something very characteristic comes about, as the following example will show: There was an occasion when certain pupils had misbehaved. A teacher who was not yet fully permeated with the Waldorf School education felt it necessary to punish these children and he did so in an intellectualistic way. He said: “You must stay in after school and do some arithmetic.” The children were quite unable to understand that doing arithmetic could be regarded as a punishment, for this was something which gave them the greatest pleasure. And the whole class—this is something which actually happened—asked: “May we stay in too?” And this was intended as a punishment! You see, the whole attitude of mind changes completely, and it should never happen that a child feels that he is being punished when he has to do something which he actually does with devotion, with satisfaction and joy. Our teachers discover all sorts of ways of getting rid of wrong behaviour. Once it so happened that our Dr. Stein, who is particularly inventive in this respect, noticed that during his lesson in a higher class the children were writing letters and passing them round. Now what did he do in order to put the matter right? He began to speak about the postal service, explaining it in some detail and in such a way that the writing of letters gradually ceased. The description of the postal service, the history of the origin of correspondence had apparently nothing to do with the misdemeanour noticed by the teacher and nevertheless it had something to do with it. You see, if one does not ask in a rationalistic way: “What shall I do” but is able to take advantage of a sudden idea because one knows instinctively how to deal with any situation in class, the consequences are often good; for in this way much more can be achieved towards the correction of the pupils than by resorting to punishment.

It must above all be clear to every member of the class that the teacher himself truly lives in accordance with his precepts. It must never come about that a choleric boy who makes a mess of his exercise hooks, seizes his neighbour by the ears and tweaks his hair, is shouted at by the teacher: “How dare you lose your temper, how dare you behave in such a way! Boy, if you ever repeat such a performance I will hurl the inkpot at your head!” This is certainly radically described, but something of the kind may well happen if a teacher does not realise that he himself must be an example in the school of what he expects of the pupils. What one is has far more importance than having principles and a lot of knowledge. What kind of a person one is, that is the point. If a candidate in the examination for teachers, in which he is supposed to show that he is well-fitted for his calling, is only tested in what he knows,—well, what he knows in the examination room is precisely what later on he will have to look up again in his text books. But this can be done without the need of sitting for an examination. But in actual fact no one should enter a school who has not the individuality of a teacher, in body, soul and spirit. Because this is so I can say that in carrying out my task of choosing the teachers comprising the College of Teachers at the Waldorf School, I certainly do not regard it as an obstacle if someone has obtained his teacher's diploma, but in certain respects I look more closely at one who has passed his examination than at another who through his purely human attitude shows me that his individuality is that of a true teacher. It is always a matter of concern when someone has passed examinations; he can undoubtedly still be an extremely clever man, but this must be in spite of having passed examinations.

It is remarkable how Karma works, for the Waldorf School, which is intended to stand as a concrete example of this special education based on the knowledge of man, was actually only possible in Württemberg, nowhere else, because just at the time when we were preparing to open the school a very old school regulation was still in force. If at that time people had been taken hold of by the enlightened ideas which later came forth from the constitutional body of the Weimar National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) with which we have constantly to contend, because it wishes to demolish our lower classes, we should never have been able to create the Waldorf School. It will certainly become ever rarer and rarer for teachers to be judged according to their human individualities and not according to their qualifications. It will become even rarer in the lower classes to be able to do this or that; for the world works—how can one put it—towards “freedom” and “human dignity.” This “human dignity” is however furthered in a strange manner by the help of the time-table and general arrangement of lessons. In the capital city of a country there is a Ministry of Education. In this Ministry it is known what is taught in each school and class by means of regulations which apportion exactly how the subjects are to be divided up. The consequence is that in some out-of-the-way place there is a school. If information is required as to what exactly is being taught for instance on 21st July, 1924 at 9.30 a.m. in the 5th class of this Primary School it has only to be looked up in the corresponding records of the Ministry and one can say precisely what is being taught in the school in question.—With us, on the contrary, you have two parallel classes, 5A and 5B. You go perhaps into both classes, one after the other and are astonished to find that in the one parallel class something completely different is going on from what is happening in the other. There is no similarity. Classes 5A and 5B are entrusted entirely to the individuality of the class teacher; each can do what corresponds to his own individuality, and he does it. In spite of the fact that in the teachers' conferences there is absolute agreement on essential matters, there is no obligation for the one class to be taught in just the same way as the parallel class; for what we seek to achieve must be achieved in the most varied ways. It is never a question of external regulations. So you will find with the little children in Class 1 that a teacher may do something of this kind [Dr Steiner made movements with his hands.] in order to help the children to find their way into drawing with paintbrush and paint: you come into the class and see the children making all kinds of movements with their hands which will then be led over to mastering the use of brush or pencil. Or you come into the other class and there you see the children dancing around in order that the same skill may be drawn out of the movement of the legs. Each teacher does what he deems to be best suited to the individualities of the children and his own individuality. In this way life is brought into the class and already forms the basis of what makes the children feel that they really belong to their teachers.

Naturally, in spite of that old school regulation, in Württemberg, too, there is school inspection; but in regard to this we have come off quite well. The inspectors' attitude showed the greatest possible insight and they agreed to everything when they saw how and why it was done. But such occasions also give rise to quite special happenings. For example, the inspectors came into a class where the teacher usually experienced great difficulty in maintaining discipline. Time and again she had to break into her teaching and not without considerable trouble re-establish order. Well, the inspectors from the Ministry came into her class and the teacher was highly astonished at the perfect behaviour of the children. They were model pupils, so much so that on the following day she felt bound to allude to it and said: “Children, how good you were yesterday!” Thereupon the whole class exclaimed: “But of course, Fräulein Doktor, we will never let you down!” Something quite imponderable develops in the pupils when the teachers try to put into practice what I have stated at the conclusion of all these lectures. If children are taught and educated in such a way that life is livingly carried over into their lives, then out of such teaching life-forces develop which continue to grow and prosper.

Fünfter Vortrag

An dieser Stelle der pädagogischen Betrachtungen möchte ich einiges einfügen über die Einrichtungen in der Waldorfschule, die getroffen worden sind, um jene pädagogischen Prinzipien in die Wirklichkeit umzusetzen, von denen ich hier schon gesprochen habe und die ich im weiteren in diesen Vorträgen besprechen werde.

Die Waldorfschule in Stuttgart ist ja diejenige Schule, welche, auf die Anregung von Emil Molt hin, im Jahre 1919 eingerichtet worden ist im Sinne der anthroposophischen Pädagogik. Diese Einrichtung im Sinne der anthroposophischen Pädagogik war dadurch gegeben, daß mir ja die Einrichtung und Leitung dieser Schule übertragen worden ist. Daher wird, wenn ich schildere, wie diese Schule eingerichtet ist, dies zugleich ein Exempel sein für die praktische Verwirklichung der pädagogischen Grundlagen, von denen hier gesprochen wird.

Zunächst möchte ich dieses andeuten, daß die Seele alles Unterrichtens und Erziehens in der Waldorfschule zunächst die Lehrerkonferenz ist, jene Lehrerkonferenzen, welche regelmäßig vom Lehrerkollegium abgehalten werden und denen ich beiwohne, wenn ich selber in Stuttgart sein kann. Diese Lehrerkonferenzen befassen sich nun nicht bloß mit demjenigen, was äußere Schuleinrichtungen sind, etwa mit der Abfassung des Lehrplanes, mit der Gliederung der Klassen und so weiter, sondern sie befassen sich in einer eingehenden Weise mit dem ganzen Leben der Schule und mit allem, was dieses Leben der Schule beseelen soll. Nun ist ja die Schule daraufhin eingerichtet, Unterricht und Erziehung zu leisten auf Grundlage von Menschenerkenntnis, das heißt aber dann, auf Grundlage der Erkenntnis der einzelnen Kinderindividualitäten. Daher bildet die Beobachtung, die psychologische Beobachtung der Kinderindividualitäten ein wesentliches Moment in der ganzen Ausgestaltung des Unterrichtes im einzelnen, im konkreten. In den Lehrerkonferenzen wird über das einzelne Kind so gesprochen, daß das Wesen der menschlichen Natur eben in jener besonderen Individualität erfaßt zu werden versucht wird, die in einem Kinde gegeben ist. Sie können sich denken, daß man da alle Grade und Arten von kindlichen Befähigungen und kindlichen Seelenkräften vor sich hat. Man hat da alles vor sich, was im kindlichen Menschen vorhanden ist von der, man möchte sagen psychologisch-physiologischen Minderwertigkeit bis hinauf - hoffentlich bestätigt das das Leben - zur Genialität.

Wenn man Kinder beobachten will nach ihrer wirklichen Wesenheit, dann handelt es sich vor allem darum, daß man den psychologischen Blick für die Kinderbeobachtung sich erwirbt. Dieser psychologische Blick schließt nicht nur eine gröbere Beobachtung der einzelnen kindlichen Fähigkeiten ein, sondern vor allen Dingen eine Bewertung dieser kindlichen Fähigkeiten. Denn Sie müssen nur das Folgende bedenken: Man kann ein Kind vor sich haben, das außerordentlich begabt erscheint in bezug auf Lesen- oder Schreibenlernen, das sehr begabt erscheint zum Beispiel in bezug auf Rechnenlernen oder Sprachenlernen. Aber stehenbleiben dabei, sich zu sagen: Dieses Kind ist begabt, denn es lernt leicht Sprachen, lernt leicht Rechnen und so weiter - das ist eine psychologische Oberflächlichkeit. Im kindlichen Alter, etwa von 7, 8 oder 9 Jahren, kann die Leichtigkeit, mit der das Kind lernt, bedeuten, daß aus dem Kinde einstmals ein Genie werden wird; sie kann aber ebensogut bedeuten, daß aus ihm einmal ein nervenkranker oder irgendwie anders kranker Mensch wird. Wenn man einen Einblick darin hat, daß ja die menschliche Wesenheit außer dem physischen Leib, der sich dem Auge darbietet, auch noch den ätherischen Leib in sich trägt, der den Wachstums- und Ernährungskräften zugrunde liegt, der das Kind größer werden läßt; wenn man weiter bedenkt, daß der Mensch auch einen astralischen Leib in sich hat, der in seinen Gesetzen überhaupt nichts mehr mit dem zu tun hat, was physisch aufbauend ist auf der Erde, sondern der eigentlich das Physische fortwährend abbaut, es zerstört, damit das Geistige Platz hat; und wenn man weiter bedenkt, daß dann noch mit dem Menschen die Ich-Organisation verbunden ist, so daß man die drei höheren Organisationen — ätherischer Leib, astralischer Leib, Ich-Organisation — ebenso beachten muß wie den sichtbaren physischen Leib, dann wird man sich auch eine Vorstellung davon bilden können, wie kompliziert ein solches Menschenwesen eigentlich ist, und wie jedes dieser Glieder der menschlichen Wesenheit bewirken kann, daß auf irgendeinem Gebiete Begabung oder Nichtbegabung vorhanden ist, oder eine trügerische Begabung, eine vorübergehende, krankhafte Begabung sich zeigt. Dafür muß man sich den Blick aneignen, ob nun die Begabung eine solche ist, die nach dem Gesunden hingeht oder eine solche, die etwa nach dem Krankhaften hingeht.

Wenn man diejenige Menschenerkenntnis, von der hier in diesen Vorträgen die Rede ist, mit der nötigen Liebe, Hingabe und Opferwilligkeit als Lehrer und Erzieher vertritt, dann stellt sich das Eigentümliche heraus, daß man im Zusammenleben mit den Kindern - mißverstehen Sie das Wort nicht, es soll nicht eine Renommage bedeuten — immer weiser und weiser wird. Man findet es sozusagen selber, wie man irgendeine Fähigkeit oder Verrichtung eines Kindes zu taxieren hat. Man lernt sich eben ganz hineinleben in die Natur des Kindes und verhältnismäßig schnell sich hineinleben.

Ich weiß, daß mancher sagen wird: Wenn du uns da behauptest, daß der Mensch außer seinem sichtbaren Leib noch die übersinnlichen Glieder,Ätherleib, Astralleib und Ich-Organisation hat, so könnte doch eigentlich nur der hellsichtige Mensch Lehrer sein, der diese übersinnlichen Glieder der Menschennatur schauen kann. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Alles was durch Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition am Menschen geschaut werden kann, wie ich es in meinen Büchern beschrieben habe, das kann, weil es beim Kinde in der physischen Organisation überall sich ausdrückt, auch beurteilt werden an der physischen Organisation. Daher liegt durchaus die Möglichkeit vor, daß ein Lehrer oder Erzieher, der einfach in liebevoller Weise auf der Grundlage einer umfassenden Menschenerkenntnis seinen Beruf ausübt, davon sprechen kann, daß er in einem bestimmten Falle zum Beispiel sagt: Hier liegt vor, daß ein Kind in bezug auf sein Ich, seinen astralischen Leib und auch in bezug auf seinen ätherischen Leib ganz gesund ist; der physische Leib aber zeigt in sich Verhärtungen, Versteifungen, so daß das Kind seine Fähigkeiten, die es im Geistigen veranlagt hat, nicht herausbilden kann, weil der physische Leib ein Hindernis ist. - Oder denken Sie einen andern Fall, es ist möglich, daß dann jemand sagt: Da treten bei diesem Kinde frühzeitig, mit 7 oder 8 Jahren, frühreife Eigenschaften auf; das Kind überrascht einen dadurch, daß es früh das eine oder andere lernt, aber man beachte, der physische Leib ist zu weich, er trägt in sich die Anlage, einmal in Fertigkeit auszufließen. -— Wenn nämlich der physische Leib zu weich ist, wenn sozusagen das flüssige Element gegenüber dem festen in einem Übergewicht ist, dann drängt sich mit seiner Eigenart das Geistig-Seelische vor und man hat ein frühreifes Kind, das mit der weiteren Entwickelung des physischen Leibes diese Frühreife wieder zurückstaut und das unter Umständen alles wieder verändern kann und nicht nur ein Durchschnittsmensch, sondern sogar ein mittelmäßiger oder auch minderwertiger Mensch für das Leben werden kann. Kurz, es handelt sich eben darum, daß das, was man beim Kinde äußerlich beobachtet, erst innerlich bewertet werden muß; so daß daher gar nichts damit gesagt ist, wenn man bloß von den Fähigkeiten oder Nichtfähigkeiten spricht.

Was ich Ihnen jetzt sage, kann Sie ja auch die Biographie der verschiedensten Menschen lehren. Man könnte in der Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit eine ganze Galerie erleuchteter Menschen anführen, die später im Leben Großes geleistet haben und die als Kind als fast ganz unbegabt gegolten haben, die man als Kind in den Klassen hat sitzen lassen, wie man sagt. Man trifft ja da die merkwürdigsten Beispiele in der Welt. Es gibt zum Beispiel einen Dichter, der bis in sein 18., 19., ja bis in sein 20. Jahr von allen, die als Lehrer und Erzieher mit ihm zu tun hatten, für so unbegabt gehalten wurde, daß man ihm davon abgeraten hat, höhere Studien zu machen, weil er eben so unbegabt war. Er hat sich aber nicht abhalten lassen, er hat diese höheren Studien doch gemacht und wurde dann später sehr bald zum Inspektor derjenigen Schulen ernannt, in die man ihn als jungen Menschen nicht hatte hinauflassen wollen. — Es gibt einen österreichischen Dichter, Robert Hamerling, der sich darauf vorbereitete, Gymnasiallehrer zu werden. Er bekam beim Examen ausgezeichnete Noten im Griechischen und Lateinischen, dagegen wurde er nicht approbiert für den Unterricht in der deutschen Sprache, weil man seine Aufsätze sehr mangelhaft fand. Aber er wurde ein berühmter Dichter.

Ich könnte so forterzählen und man würde überall sehen, daß es schon schwierig ist, in dem heranwachsenden Kinde dasjenige zu erschauen, was nun wirklich in dem betreffenden jungen Menschen drinnensteckt. Dennoch muß das geschehen in einer Schule, die richtig erziehen und unterrichten will. Daher wird gerade in der Waldorfschule in den Lehrerkonferenzen auf das Studium der Kinder der allergrößte Wert gelegt, damit das ganze Lehrerkollegium immer darüber unterrichtet ist, wie es mit irgendeinem Kinde steht. Natürlich wird diese Aufgabe eine immer umfänglichere. Denn die Waldorfschule, die vor einigen Jahren mit etwa 150 Kindern begründet worden ist, zählt heute mit allen Parallelklassen, die errichtet werden mußten, etwa 800 Schüler in über 20 Klassen mit weit über 40 Lehrkräften. Das alles kann Ihnen bezeugen, daß die Möglichkeit, so vorzugehen wie ich es beschrieben habe, nur dann vorhanden ist, wenn man zugleich den Blick dafür entfaltet, bei welchem Kinde man besonders einzusetzen hat. Denn manches Kind ist so geartet, daß, wenn man es versteht, von diesem Verständnis aus ein Licht auf viele Kinder geworfen wird. Manchem Kinde ist mit dem Verständnis fast gar nicht beizukommen, aber alles das kann die liebevolle Hingabe überwinden an das, was hier als Menschenerkenntnis geschieht.

Wir haben nötig, eine Reihe von Kindern mehr oder weniger dauernd oder vorübergehend aus den andern auszusondern, weil sie geistig minderwertig sind und durch ihr Nicht-fassen-Können, durch ihr Nichtbegreifen-Können die andern stören würden. Die sind dann in einer Klasse für geistig minderwertige Kinder gesammelt. Diese Klasse leitet der Mann, der hier zu Ihnen gesprochen hat, Dr. Schubert, der durch sein ganz besonderes Wesen wie geschaffen ist für die Leitung einer solchen Klasse. Denn die Leitung einer solchen Klasse braucht nämlich wieder ganz besondere Fähigkeiten. Sie braucht wirklich die Fähigkeit, eingehen zu können auf die, ich möchte sagen, in der Körperlichkeit drinnen steckengebliebenen seelischen Eigenschaften, die nicht heraus wollen. Man muß sie erst nach und nach herausholen. Das wiederum grenzt an das Physisch-Kranke; es grenzt da an, wo das Psychologisch-Abnorme an das Physisch-Kranke angrenzt. Diese Grenze ist ganz verschiebbar, sie ist gar nicht irgend etwas Bestimmtes. Ja, man wird gut tun, wenn man überhaupt für jede sogenannte psychologische Abnormität hinüberblicken kann zu dem, was irgendwo in der Physis des Menschen nicht gesund ist. Denn im eigentlichen Sinne des Wortes gibt es keine Geisteskrankheiten, diese sind eigentlich immer dadurch bedingt, daß die Physis das Geistige nicht herausläßt, es irgendwo nicht in sich aufnimmt und für die physische Welt verarbeitet. In Deutschland hat man ja heute auch noch die Eigentümlichkeit in den Schulen, daß fast alle Kinder nicht nur unterernährt sind, sondern schon an jahrelangen Folgen von Unterernährung leiden.

So handelt es sich darum, daß man wirklich auch in seiner ganzen Auffassung die Einheit in der Beobachtung des Seelisch-Geistigen und des Physisch-Leiblichen durchführen kann. Daß dies eine Notwendigkeit ist im Erziehen und Unterrichten, das können die Leute sehr schwer verstehen. Es besuchte einmal ein sonst ganz verständiger Mann, der immer im Schulwesen drinnensteht, die Waldorfschule. Ich führte ihn selbst herum, tagelang. Er interessierte sich sehr für alles. Aber nach alledem, was ich ihm über das eine Kind oder über das andere gesagt habe — denn meist wird über die Kinder gesprochen, nicht über abstrakte Unterrichtsprinzipien; es fußt eben unsere Erziehung auf Menschenerkenntnis -, da sagte er zuletzt: Ja, da müßten aber eigentlich alle Lehrer Ärzte sein. - Ich erwiderte: Das brauchen sie nicht; aber sie müßten schon von der physisch kranken oder gesunden Konstitution des Kindes bis zu dem Grade etwas wissen, wie es für den Lehrer zum Erziehen notwendig ist. Denn, wohin kommt man denn, wenn man sagt, etwas geht aus dem Grunde nicht, oder der Lehrer kann dies oder jenes nicht lernen, weil man nicht dieses oder jenes einrichten kann? Man muß eben dann das Entsprechende einrichten und der Lehrer muß es lernen. Das ist der einzig mögliche Standpunkt. — Die sogenannten normalen Fähigkeiten, die der Mensch entwickelt, die bei jedem Menschen da sind, sie studiert man am besten bei den pathologischen Erscheinungen. Und lernt man einen nach gewissen Richtungen kranken Organismus kennen, dann hat man damit, wenn man ihn wirklich kennenlernt, die Grundlage geschaffen, um eine geniale Seele kennenzulernen. Nicht als ob ich auf irgendeinem Lambroso- oder ähnlichen Standpunkte stehen würde; das ist nicht der Fall. Ich behaupte nicht, daß das Genie immer krank ist; aber man lernt das Geistig-Seelische eben kennen, wenn man gerade den kranken Körper des Kindes kennenlernt. An den Schwierigkeiten, die das Geistig-Seelische bei einem kranken Körper hat, um sich zu äußern, lernt man die Art und Weise erkennen, wie die Seele, wenn sie sich eben dann besonders äußert, den Organismus ergreift.

So grenzt die Pädagogik nicht nur an die leichte Pathologie, die bei minderwertigen Kindern vorliegt, sondern sie grenzt schon an das Pathologische im umfassendsten Sinne. Daher haben wir an unserer Schule auch zugleich die medizinische Behandlung der Kinder eingeführt. Aber wir haben nicht einen Arzt, der wiederum außerhalb der Pädagogik nur in der Medizin drinnensteht, sondern unser Schularzt, Dr. Kolisko, ist wiederum zugleich Lehrer irgendeiner Klasse. Er steht in der ganzen Pädagogik der Schule drinnen, er kennt alle die Kinder und weiß daher in einer ganz andern Weise, aus welcher Ecke irgendein Pathologisches bei einem ihm bekannten Kinde kommt, als wenn nur alle heiligen Zeiten einmal der Schularzt in die Schule kommt und mit ein paar Blicken den Gesundheitszustand eines Kindes beurteilt. Aber außerdem werden die Lehrerkonferenzen so eingerichtet, daß man keine Grenze zieht zwischen dem Geistig-Seelischen und dem Körperlich-Physischen in der Betrachtung desKindes. Natürlich ist es dann so, daß der Lehrer sich allmählich den Blick aneignen muß für den ganzen Menschen, daß ihn das Detail des Physisch-Gesunden oder PhysischKranken ebenso interessiert wie das,was geistig gesund oder abnorm ist.

Das ist es, was wir in der Schule versuchen: daß jeder Lehrer das tiefste Interesse und die größte Aufmerksamkeit hat für den ganzen Menschen. Dadurch ist auch das gegeben, daß unsere Lehrer nicht eigentlich Spezialisten sind. Denn schließlich kommt nicht so viel darauf an, ob der Lehrer die Geschichte besser oder schlechter beherrscht, wenn er nur im allgemeinen eine Persönlichkeit ist, die in dem geschilderten Sinne auf die Kinder wirken kann, und wenn er den Blick dafür hat, wie das Kind sich unter seiner Behandlung entwickelt. Ich habe ja, da ich von meinem 14., 15. Lebensjahre an, um überhaupt leben zu können, unterrichten mußte, immer Einzelunterricht geben mußte, mir diese Pädagogik in der unmittelbaren Unterrichts- und Erziehungspraxis erwerben müssen. Ich bekam zum Beispiel, als ich ein ganz junger Mensch von 21 Jahren war, durch eine Familie die Erziehung von vier Buben übertragen. Unter denen war einer - er war dazumal 11 Jahre alt, als ich in die Familie als Hauslehrer kam -, der im höchsten Grade Hydrozephale war. Er hatte ganz merkwürdige Eigentümlichkeiten. Er aß nicht gern am Tische mit, sondern ging vom Tische weg in die Küche, wo jene Gefäße waren, in die man die Abfälle hineinwarf; dort aß er die Kartoffelschalen, aber auch mit dem Schmutz, der in diese Gefäße hineinkam. Er wußte mit 11 Jahren eigentlich noch gar nichts Besonderes. Man hatte probiert, ob er auf Grundlage des früheren Unterrichtes, den er bekommen hatte, die Aufnahmeprüfung in irgendeine Volksschulklasse machen könnte. Aber als er die Ergebnisse seiner Examenarbeit abgab, da war nur ein Heft da mit einem großen Loch drinnen, wo er etwas ausradiert hatte. Er hatte gar nichts sonst bei diesem Examen geleistet, und er war schon 11 Jahre. Die Eltern waren unglücklich. Sie gehörten dem vornehmeren Bürgerstande an, und alles sagte: Der Knabe ist abnorm, — und natürlich haben dann alle ein Vorurteil gegen ein Kind, wenn dergleichen gesagt wird. Es hieß: Er muß ein Handwerk lernen, weiter kann er es zu nichts bringen. — Ich kam in die Familie, aber es verstand eigentlich niemand, daß ich die Absicht aussprach: Wenn man mir unter voller Verantwortung jetzt den Jungen gibt, dann verspreche ich nichts, sondern nur, alles herauszuholen, was in dem Jungen ist. - Das verstand niemand, nur die Mutter, wie mit einem selbstverständlichen Blick, und der ausgezeichnete Hausarzt. Es war das jener Arzt, der dann später mit Dr. Freud zusammen die Psychoanalyse begründete, aber als sie noch in ihrem besseren Stadium war; später trennte er sich von ihr, als sie in die Dekadenz kam. Aber man konnte mit ihm sprechen, und das führte dazu, daß dann der Junge von mir erzogen und unterrichtet wurde.

In 1½ Jahren war der Kopf wesentlich kleiner geworden, und der Knabe war nun so weit, daß er ins Gymnasium gebracht werden konnte. Ich begleitete ihn dann in seiner Schulzeit noch weiter, er brauchte Nachhilfe, aber er konnte doch nach 1½ Jahren ins Gymnasium aufgenommen werden. Allerdings mußte seine Erziehung so ausgeführt werden, daß ich zuweilen 1½ Stunden brauchte, um das vorzubereiten, was ich dem Knaben in einer Viertelstunde beibringen wollte. Denn es handelte sich eben darum, mit der größten Ökonomie an den Unterricht dieses Knaben heranzutreten, nie für irgend etwas mehr Zeit in Anspruch zu nehmen, als dazu nötig war. Es handelte sich auch darum, daß die Tageseinteilung mit aller Exaktheit gemacht wurde. Ich ordnete an: soviel muß der Knabe musizieren, soviel muß er turnen, soviel spazierengehen und so weiter. Dann aber, sagte ich mir, kann dasjenige mit dem Knaben durchgeführt werden, was aus ihm das herausbringt, was in ihm liegt. — Nun gab es Zeiten, wo es mir mit dieser Erziehung eigentlich recht schlecht ging. Der Knabe wurde blaß. Die Leute, mit Ausnahme der Mutter und des Hausarztes, sagten alle: Der richtet uns den Jungen zugrunde! — Ich erwiderte: Natürlich kann ich nicht weiter erziehen, wenn irgend etwas hineingeredet wird; die Sache muß wie verabredet fortgehen können. — Und sie ging fort. Der Knabe ging durch das Gymnasium, machte sein Studium, wurde Arzt, und er ist nur deshalb früh gestorben, weil er während des Weltkrieges als Arzt, der während des Krieges einberufen wurde, mit einer Krankheit infiziert wurde, an deren Folgen er starb. Aber er hat seinen ärztlichen Beruf recht gut auszuüben verstanden. — Ich führe das nur als ein Beispiel dafür an, wie es nötig ist, in der Erziehung auf alles zu sehen, also zum Beispiel auch einen Blick dafür zu haben, wie unter einer bestimmten Behandlung zuletzt ein Hydrozephalus von Woche zu Woche zurückgeht.

Nun werden Sie sagen: Gewiß, in der Einzelerziehung kann so etwas geschehen.- Aber es kann ebensogut bei verhältnismäßig großen Klassen geschehen. Denn wer sich in dieser Weise liebevoll in das einlebt, was hier als Menschenerkenntnis auseinandergesetzt wird, der eignet sich schnell die Möglichkeit an, in einer Klasse, wo selbst viele Schüler sind, für jeden einzelnen die entsprechende Aufmerksamkeit, die er braucht, zu haben. Aber notwendig ist eben der psychologische Blick, in der Art, wie ich es geschildert habe. Aber diesen psychologischen Blick eignet man sich nicht so leicht an, wenn man als Einzelmensch durch die Welt geht und überhaupt kein Interesse für andere Menschen hat. Ich kann schon sagen, daß ich weiß, was ich dem Umstande verdanke, daß mir eigentlich niemals ein Mensch uninteressant war. Schon als Kind war mir niemals ein Mensch uninteressant. Und ich weiß, ich hätte nicht jenen Knaben erziehen können, wenn mir nicht eigentlich alle Menschen interessant gewesen wären.

Dieses Weiten des Interesses, das ist es, was wie eine Atmosphäre durch die Lehrerkonferenzen der Waldorfschule durchgeht, so daß also da durchaus — wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf — psychologische Stimmung herrscht. Dann aber werden diese Lehrerkonferenzen wirklich zur hohen Psychologieschule. Es ist interessant zu sehen, wie von Jahr zu Jahr das Lehrerkollegium als eine Einheit sich vertiefen kann in bezug auf den psychologischen Blick. Denn zu alledem, was ich geschildert habe, kommt noch folgendes hinzu, wenn man auf die einzelnen Klassen sieht. Statistik pflegen wir nicht im gewöhnlichen Sinne, aber die Klassen sind für uns lebendige Wesen, nicht nur der einzelne Schüler. Solch eine Klasse kann man wieder für sich studieren, und es ist außerordentlich interessant, zu beobachten, welche imponderablen Kräfte daran zutage treten. Wenn man nun aber eine ganze Klasse studiert und wenn die Lehrer der verschiedenen Klassen sich über die Eigentümlichkeiten ihrer Klassen in der Konferenz verständigen, dann ist es zum Beispiel interessant, daß eine Klasse - wir haben Klassen mit beiden Geschlechtern zusammen - ein ganz anderes Geschöpf ist, wo mehr Mädchen als Knaben sind, als eine Klasse, wo mehr Knaben als Mädchen sind; und wieder ein ganz anderes Geschöpf ist eine Klasse, in der gleich viel Knaben wie Mädchen sind. Das wird außerordentlich interessant, nicht etwa durch die gegenseitigen Worte, die ausgetauscht werden, oder durch die kleinen Liebeleien, die in den höheren Klassen immer vorkommen. Dafür eignet man sich auch den nötigen Blick an, der, wenn es nötig ist, sieht, und der da, wo es nicht nötig ist, nicht sieht. Aber davon ganz abgesehen, ist es eigentlich die Tatsache, die innere imponderable Wesenheit der verschiedenen männlichen oder weiblichen Individualitäten, die der Klasse eine ganz bestimmte geistige Struktur gibt. Und so lernt man die Klassenindividualität kennen. Hat man nun, wie bei uns in der Waldorfschule, Parallelklassen, so kann man, wenn es nötig ist — es ist sehr selten nötig —, die Verteilung in den Klassen etwas ändern.

Solche Studien, wie die Klassen als solche sind, bilden wiederum den Inhalt der Lehrerkonferenzen. Und so ist der Inhalt der Konferenzen nicht nur die Einrichtung der Schule, sondern eine lebendige Fortführung der Pädagogik an der Schule selbst, so daß die Lehrer fortwährend lernen. Dadurch werden die Konferenzen die Seele der ganzen Schule. Und dann lernt man auch das Geringfügige in der richtigen Weise schätzen, das Wichtige richtig zu taxieren und so weiter. Dann wird man nicht, wenn irgendwo ein kleines Vergehen bei einem Kinde vorkommt, sogleich Zeter und Mordio schreien; aber man wird auch wieder den Blick dafür haben, wenn etwas vorkommt, was bedeutsam sein kann in der ganzen Fortführung der Schule. So ergibt sich als Totalerscheinung gerade in unserer Waldorfschule etwas sehr Interessantes, das eigentlich erst mit den Jahren hervorgetreten ist: Im ganzen sind unsere Kinder im Erfassen desjenigen, was ein Kind nun in der Schule sich erwerben soll, weiter in irgendeiner höheren Klasse, als die Schüler anderer Schulen sind; in den unteren Klassen, das habe ich geschildert, bleiben sie etwas zurück im Lesen und Schreiben, weil das auf mehr Jahre ausgedehnt wird und eine ganz andere Methode hat. Aber mit 13 bis 15 Jahren beginnen sie gegenüber den Schülern anderer Schulen vorauszueilen in bezug auf eine gewisse Leichtigkeit, in etwas einzudringen, auch in bezug darauf, geschickt etwas aufzunehmen und so weiter.

Nun entsteht eine große Schwierigkeit. Es ist merkwürdig, wenn irgendwo ein Licht ist, dann werfen die Gegenstände Schatten; bei einem schwachen Licht sind schwache, bei einem starken Licht starke Schatten. Und so stellt sich in bezug auf gewisse seelische Eigenschaften das Folgende heraus. Wenn nicht ganz sorgfältig darauf geachtet wird, daß die Lehrer in jeder Weise den Kontakt mit den Schülern haben, so daß die Lehrer wirklich die Vorbilder sind und die Kinder sich wirklich nach den Vorbildern richten, dann können sehr leicht moralische Abirrungen als die Gegenbilder eines mangelnden Kontaktes vorkommen. Darüber darf man sich keinerlei Illusionen hingeben. Das ist so. Deshalb kommt so viel darauf an, daß wirklich ein volles Zusammenwachsen der Lehrerindividualitäten und der Schülerindividualitäten sich entwickelt, so daß durch diesen starken inneren Anschluß der Kinder an die Lehrer dem Fortentwickeln auf der einen Seite auch das Fortentwickeln auf der andern Seite voll entspricht.

Diese Dinge sind alle durchaus innerlich menschlich liebevoll zu studieren, sonst wird man Überraschungen erleben. Aber die Methode ist durchaus geeignet, um alles, was in einem Menschen liegt, auch herauszubringen. Irgendwann kann sich doch dies oder jenes Merk würdige zeigen: Es gibt einen deutschen Dichter, der wußte, daß er sehr schlecht unterrichtet und erzogen worden ist, so daß sehr viele seiner Eigenschaften — darüber klagte er immer — nicht herauskommen konnten, als der Körper schon steif und hart geworden war, weil man eben in der Jugend nicht dafür gesorgt hatte, daß die Individualität sich entwickele. Da kam er einmal zu einem Phrenologen. — Glauben Sie nun nicht, daß ich die Phrenologie irgendwie verteidigen oder besonders hochstellen will; aber sie hat auch ihre Bedeutung, wenn sie intuitiv ausgeübt wird. — Der Phrenologe tastete ihn ab, sagte ihm allerlei schöne Dinge, denn so etwas war ja auch vorhanden; aber an einer Stelle des Schädels hielt er auf einmal inne, er wurde rot und getraute sich nichts zu sagen. Da meinte der Dichter: Nun, reden Sie nur, das ist der Diebssinn, der ist in mir. Und wahrscheinlich wäre es so gewesen, hätte man mich in der Schule besser erzogen, so hätte man mit dem Diebssinn auch die größten Schwierigkeiten gehabt.

Wenn man erziehen will, muß man auch eine gewisse Ellenbogenfreiheit haben. Die hat man aber nicht, wenn in der gewöhnlichen Weise der schauderhafte Stundenplan in der Schule wirkt: von 8 bis 9 Religion, von 9 bis 10 Turnen, von 10 bis 11 Geschichte, von 11 bis 12 Rechnen. Da löscht alles Spätere wiederum das Frühere aus; man kann nichts machen, man verzweifelt als Lehrer, wenn man dann noch zurechtkommen soll. Deshalb haben wir in der Waldorfschule das, was man den Epochenunterricht nennen kann. Das Kind kommt in eine Klasse. Im Hauptunterricht ist es so, daß das Kind jeden Tag in den hauptsächlichsten Vormittagsstunden, von 8 bis 10 oder von 8 bis 11, mit entsprechenden kurzen Erholungspausen, einheitlichen Unterricht erhält. Da ist ein Lehrer in der Klasse, auch in den höheren Klassen. Da wechselt nicht stundenmäßig der Gegenstand des Unterrichtes, sondern man braucht für irgend etwas, was man durchnehmen will, zum Beispiel im Rechnen, sagen wir 4 Wochen. Dann wird jeden Tag von 8 bis 10 Uhr das betreffende Kapitel durchgenommen, und immer wieder wird am nächsten Tage an das angeknüpft, was am vorhergehenden Tage war. Kein Späteres löscht da das Vorangegangene aus; Konzentration ist möglich. Wenn dann 4 Wochen verflossen sind und man ein Rechenkapitel genügend behandelt und abgeschlossen hat, beginnt man mit einem Kapitel Geschichte, das nun wiederum, je nachdem man es braucht, durch 4 bis 5 Wochen durchgeführt wird, und so weiter. Da wird eben auf das Gegenteil von dem gesehen, was man Fachlehrersystem nennt. Sie können zum Beispiel, wenn Sie die Waldorfschule besuchen, unsern Dr. Baravalle einmal in einer Klasse finden, wo er gerade Darstellende Geometrie durchnimmt. Die Schüler sitzen vor ihm auf den Bänken, wo sie ihr Reißbrett ausgebreitet haben, er läßt sie zeichnen, er benimmt sich wie der musterhafteste Fachlehrer in der Geometrie. - Wenn man in eine andere Schule kommt, dann schaut man etwa den Professor- oder Lehrerschematismus nach und findet zum Beispiel bei einem die Bemerkung: Prüft in Geometrie oder Mathematik oder dergleichen, Ich habe sehr viele Lehrer gekannt, die damit renommierten, daß sie, wenn sie Mathematiklehrer waren, bei einem Schulausfluge den Kindern nicht einmal die Namen der Pflanzen sagen konnten. — Aber der Vormittag ist noch nicht vergangen, da finden Sie denselben Dr. Baravalle, in seiner Klasse hin- und herwandernd zwischen den Bänken, englischen Unterricht treiben. Und aus der Art und Weise, wie er hier in seinen Vorträgen Methodik treibt, ersehen Sie ja, da hat er von allem Möglichen geredet und man konnte nicht herausbekommen, in welchem Fache er eigentlich Lehrer ist. Einige von Ihnen werden geglaubt haben, er habe die Geographie als Lehrfach oder auch die Geometrie und dergleichen. Das Eigentliche, das Substantielle und Inhaltliche des Unterrichtens kann ja so schnell erworben werden, wenn man überhaupt die Anlage dafür hat, irgendwo ins Erkennen hineinzukommen, etwas in der Seele erkennend erleben zu können. So also haben wir nicht Stundenplan-, sondern Epochenunterricht. Natürlich nichts pedantisch. Es ist in unserer Waldorfschule der Hauptunterricht epochal gegliedert; manches muß natürlich auch stundenplanmäßig gemacht werden, es schließt sich dann an den Hauptunterricht an.

Sodann legen wir eine große Sorgfalt darauf, daß die Kinder gleich, wenn sie in die Volksschule kommen, in zwei fremden Sprachen unterrichtet werden, bei uns im Französischen und Englischen. Wir machen das von ganz klein auf. Allerdings haben wir da eine furchtbare Misere in unserer Schule, weil ja der Waldorfschule seit ihrer Gründung so viele Schüler zulaufen. Da kommen zum Beispiel Schüler zu uns, die in die 6. Schulklasse aufgenommen werden könnten. Aber in dieser Klasse sind schon Kinder, die es in den Sprachen bereits zu etwas gebracht haben. Nun kommen die Neuen hinzu, und die muß man dann in die 5. Klasse stecken, da sie von den Sprachen überhaupt noch keinen Dunst haben. Mit diesen Schwierigkeiten müssen wir ja fortwährend rechnen.

Dabei sehen wir darauf, daß womöglich der wesentlichste Unterricht auf den Vormittag gelegt werden kann, so daß für den Nachmittag eben die körperlichen Übungen bleiben, Turnen, Eurythmie und so weiter, alles ohne Pedanterie. Denn, da man nicht endlos Lehrer bezahlen kann, kann ja nicht alles dem Ideal nach eingerichtet werden, sondern nur so, wie es möglich ist. Sie werden mich nicht mißverstehen, wenn ich sage, mit Idealen kann man nichts anfangen. Sagen Sie nicht, die Anthroposophie ist nicht idealistisch. Wir können schon Ideale schätzen, aber mit Idealen kann man nichts anfangen; die kann man schön ausmalen, man kann sagen: So soll es sein! - Man kann sich auch einbilden, daß man danach strebt. Aber in der Wirklichkeit hat man ein ganz bestimmtes, konkretes, so geartetes Schülermaterial von 800 Kindern, die man kennen muß, und etwa zwischen 40 und 50 Lehrer, die man auch kennen muß. Denn was nutzt ein Lehrerkollegium, wenn keiner dem Ideal entspricht! Das Wesentliche ist, daß man mit dem rechnet, was wirklich geleistet werden kann, das heißt, was vorhanden ist. Dann bewegt man sich in der Wirklichkeit. Und will man etwas praktisch durchführen, so handelt es sich darum, daß man sich in der Wirklichkeit bewegt. — Dies in bezug auf die Einrichtung des Epochenunterrichtes.

Bei der freien Handhabung des Unterrichtes, die aus alledem ja hervorgehen muß, was ich Ihnen schildere, handelt es sich natürlich darum, daß unsere Kinder auch nicht immer wie die Mäuschen still dasitzen. Aber Sie sollten nur sehen, wie die ganze moralisch-seelische Konstitution einer Klasse das Ergebnis dessen ist, der da drinnensteht, was wiederum von den Imponderabilien abhängt. In dieser Beziehung kann man es schon erleben, ich will sagen, daß es auch Lehrer in der Waldorfschule gibt, die nicht genügen; die will ich nicht schildern, es kann einmal eine Verstimmung eintreten — aber man kann es schon erleben, wenn man in eine Klasse kommt: ein Viertel der Klasse liegt unter den Bänken, ein Viertel ist oben, die andern laufen fortwährend zur Tür heraus und klopfen draußen herum. Das sind Dinge, durch die man sich nicht verblüffen lassen darf. Sie kommen ja auch wieder anders, wenn man mit den Kindern umzugehen weiß. - Man soll durchaus den Kindern lassen, was in ihnen beweglich ist und soll nicht auf eine strafende Weise, sondern auf eine andere Weise mit ihnen zurechtkommen. Kommandiert wird überhaupt nicht bei uns, sondern es entwickelt sich alles bei uns von selber. Aber es entwickelt sich dadurch von selber, daß in den Lehrern das drinnensteckt, was ich geschildert habe — drinnensteckt als ihr Leben. Gewiß, die Kinder machen manchmal schauderhaften Spektakel; aber daran zeigt sich ja nur ihre Viralität. Sie sind dann auch wieder regsam bei dem, was sie machen sollen, wenn man das Interesse dafür zu erregen weiß. Und es muß schon so sein, bei einem sogenannten guten Kinde muß man die guten Eigenschaften benutzen, damit es etwas lerne und bei einem Nichtsnutz muß man sogar die nichtsnutzigen Eigenschaften benutzen, damit er weiterkommt. Doch man kommt nicht dadurch weiter, daß man nur die braven Eigenschaften entwickeln kann. Man muß zuweilen die sogenannten nichtsnutzigen Eigenschaften entwickeln; nur muß man imstande sein, ihnen die Richtung zu geben. Denn in diesen sogenannten nichtsnutzigen Eigenschaften des Kindes liegt sehr häufig gerade das, was die Kraft des erwachsenen Menschen bedeutet, was im erwachsenen Menschen in das äußerste Gute ausgehen kann, wenn man es richtig behandelt.

Und so hat man auch wiederum zu unterscheiden, ob ein Kind einem wenig Mühe macht, weil es brav ist, oder ob es einem weniger Mühe macht, weil es krank ist. Man kann sehr leicht, wenn man nur auf seine Bequemlichkeit bedacht ist, über das kranke Kind, das still dasitzt und nicht ausartet, ebenso erfreut sein wie über das gute Kind, weil man nichts mit ihm zu tun hat. Schaut man aber wirklich hinein in die Menschennatur, so hat man mit einem solchen Kinde oft viel mehr zu tun als mit einem sogenannten Nichtsnutz. Also auch da ist es der psychologische Blick und die psychologische Handhabung, natürlich geistig-seelisch gemeint, auf die es ankommt.

Dann handelt es sich darum, daß in der Waldorfschule das Wesentliche des Unterrichtens in die Schule selber gelegt wird. Die die Kinder überlastenden Hausarbeiten werden nur in der allergeringsten Menge an die Kinder verabreicht. Die Kinder bekommen dann, wenn alles mit den Lehrern gemeinschaftlich erarbeitet wird, ganz merkwürdige Ansichten. So kommt in der Waldorfschule zum Beispiel folgendes vor, es ist das etwas ganz Charakteristisches: Es haben wirklich einige Schüler etwas «ausgefressen». In einem Noch-nicht-ganz-Durchdrungensein mit der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik will der Lehrer in einer «geistreichen» Weise diese Kinder bestrafen. Er sagt: Ihr müßt nach der Schule zurückbleiben, müßt Rechnungen machen! - Die Kinder können gar nicht begreifen, daß Rechnungen machen eine Strafe sein soll; denn das ist etwas, was sie mit der größten Freude machen. Und die ganze Klasse — das ist vorgekommen - fragt: Können wir nicht auch dableiben? - Nun haben Sie also «gestraft»! Man sieht, die Anschauungen ändern sich ganz, und es ist das ja etwas, was nicht sein sollte, daß man sich als Kind dadurch bestraft fühlen soll, daß man etwas machen soll, was man eigentlich mit Hingebung, mit Befriedigung und Freude macht. Alles mögliche finden unsere Lehrer heraus, Schlimmes auszutreiben. Unserem Dr. Stein, der auf diesem Gebiete erfinderisch ist, passierte es zum Beispiel einmal, als er in einer höheren Klasse unterrichtete, daß sich die Kinder während des Unterrichtes Briefe schrieben und sie sich herumgaben. Was tut er, um die Sache zu bessern? Er fängt an, vom Postwesen zu sprechen und erörtert das Postwesen in einer Weise, daß tatsächlich das Briefschreiben nach und nach aufhörte. Scheinbar hatte die Schilderung des Postwesens, die Geschichte des Entstehens des Korrespondierens nichts zu tun mit der von dem Lehrer bemerkten Unart, und dennoch hatte es etwas damit zu tun. Wenn man nämlich nicht rationalistisch fragt: Was soll ich tun? — sondern wenn man in der Lage ist, seinen Einfällen sich hinzugeben, weil man einen Instinkt dafür hat, wie man sich in der Klasse benehmen soll, dann kommt oft das Richtige dabei heraus; denn dann kann man in bezug auf die moralische Verbesserung der Schüler etwas viel durchgreifenderes unternehmen, als wenn man mit Strafen vorgeht.

Vor allem muß sich die Klasse in allen einzelnen Individualitäten darüber klar sein, daß der Lehrer das, was er da vorbringt, auch wirklich selber hält. Niemals darf das vorkommen, daß ein cholerischer Bube, der seine Papierblätter beschmiert, der seine Nachbarn an Ohren und Haaren zaust, von dem Lehrer angeschrien wird: Du darfst nicht leidenschaftlich sein, du darfst nicht so ausarten! Kerl, wenn du jemals wieder so ausartest, schmeiße ich dir das Tintenfaß an den Kopf! Das ist nur radikal geschildert, aber es ist etwas, was vorkommt, wenn man nicht weiß, daß man alles, was man vorbringt, in der Schule als Vorbild auch selbst sein muß. Und es kommt eben viel mehr auf Sein an, als auf Grundsätze haben und auf Kenntnisse haben. Auf die Art und Weise also, wie man ist, kommt es an. Wenn einer im Lehrerexamen, wodurch er die Befähigung erweisen soll, daß er Lehrer sein kann, bloß danach geprüft wird, was er weiß, so weiß er ja im Lehrerexamen doch nur das, was er später wieder in Handbüchern nachschauen muß. Das kann man aber doch gleich ursprünglich tun; dazu braucht man die Sache nicht zum Examen machen. Aber niemand sollte eigentlich in eine Schule hinein, der nicht nach Leib, Seele und Geist eine wirkliche Lehrerindividualität ist! Daher kann ich sagen: Bei der Zusammensetzung des Lehrerkollegiums der Waldorfschule, die mir obliegt, betrachte ich es zwar als kein Hindernis, wenn jemand Examina abgelegt hat, aber ich schaue mir einen solchen, der Examina abgelegt hat, nach gewissen Richtungen doch etwas genauer an als einen solchen, der mir durch sein ganzes menschliches Auftreten die Lehrerindividualität entgegenbringt. Es hat immer etwas Bedenkliches, wenn man Examina abgelegt hat; man kann zwar auch da noch ein leidlich gescheiter Mensch sein, aber man muß es eben sein, trotzdem man Examina abgelegt hat.

Und so ist merkwürdig, wie da Schicksal, wie da Karma wirkt. Denn die Waldorfschule, so wie sie als ein bestimmtes Beispiel für diese besondere, auf Menschenerkenntnis begründete Pädagogik dastehen soll, war eigentlich nur in Württemberg möglich, nirgends sonst, weil dort in dem Augenblick, wo wir die Waldorfschule eingerichtet haben, noch ein uraltes Schulgesetz herrschte. Hätte schon damals jene Erleuchtung die Menschen ergriffen gehabt, die später von der konstituierenden Weimarer Nationalversammlung ausging und mit der wir fortwährend zu kämpfen haben, weil man uns die unteren Klassen abbauen will, dann hätten wir die Waldorfschule nicht machen können. Denn es wird immer mehr und mehr aufhören, die Lehrer nach ihren menschlichen Individualitäten zu beurteilen - und nicht nach ihren Zeugnissen. Es wird immer mehr aufhören, in den unteren Klassen dies oder jenes zu treiben; denn die Welt arbeitet, ja, wie soll man sagen, auf Freiheit und auf Menschenwürde zu. Diese Menschenwürde wird dann für die Schule mit Hilfe des Lehrplanes und Stundenplanes in eigenartiger Weise gehandhabt. Da sitzt in der Hauptstadt eines Landes ein Unterrichtsministerium. In diesem weiß man aus der genauen Einteilung, die man auf dem Schulverordnungswege dem Erziehungswesen angedeihen läßt, was in jeder Schule und Klasse gelehrt wird. Und dann ist irgendwo in einem Winkel des Landes ein Ort mit einer Schule. Wenn man nun wissen will, was zum Beispiel am 21. Juli 1924 um 1/g10 Uhr morgens in der 5. Volksschulklasse gerade gelehrt wird, dann schaut man im Ministerium nach, wie die Verordnung lautet; dann kann man sagen, was dort gelehrt wird. — Bei uns aber haben Sie zum Beispiel in der 5. Klasse zwei Parallelklassen, die 5A und 5B. Sie gehen nacheinander in die beiden Klassen hinein. Sie sind erstaunt darüber: ganz etwas anderes findet in der Parallelklasse statt, in nichts etwas Gleiches von dem, was in der andern Klasse gemacht wird. Die 5A und 5B sind ganz der Lehrerindividualität überlassen; jeder kann das machen, was seiner Individualität entspricht, und er tut es auch. Trotzdem in der Lehrerkonferenz absolutester Einklang im Sachlichen vorhanden ist, gibt es keine Verordnung, daß die eine Klasse im Erziehen und Unterrichten ebenso vorgehen muß wie die Parallelklasse. Denn was erreicht werden soll, muß auf die verschiedenste Weise erreicht werden; es handelt sich nie darum, etwas in äußerlicher Weise vorzuschreiben. So finden Sie, daß zum Beispiel schon bei den kleinen Kindern in der 1. Klasse der eine Lehrer mehr dies macht, um das Kind ins malende Zeichnen hineinzuführen: Sie kommen in die Klasse hinein und sehen die Kinder allerlei Bewegungen mit den Händen machen, die dann überführen in dieHandhabung des Pinsels oder desBleistiftes. Oder Sie kommen in die andere Klasse und Sie sehen dort die Kinder herumtanzen, um aus der Bewegung der Beine dasselbe hervorzuholen. Jeder Lehrer macht es, wie er es nach der Individualität der Kinder und nach seiner eigenen für angemessen hält. Dadurch ist aber wirkliches Leben in der Klasse drinnen, und dadurch bildet sich schon das heraus, daß sich die Kinder zugehörig fühlen zur Lehrkraft.

Eine Schulaufsicht gibt es natürlich, trotzdem jenes alte Schulgesetz da war, auch in Württemberg, aber wir sind mit dieser Schulaufsicht ganz gut ausgekommen. Man hat sich grenzenlos einsichtsvoll verhalten und ist auf alles eingegangen, wenn man gesehen hat, wie es geht. Aber es kommen doch auch besondere Dinge dabei vor. So kam zum Beispiel eine Schulkommission in eine Klasse, wo die Lehrerin immer gewohnt war, recht viel Mühe zu haben mit der Disziplin der Klasse, sich immer zwischen dem Unterrichten viel Mühe geben mußte mit der Disziplin. Nun, die ministerielle Schulkommission kommt, und die Lehrerin ist höchst erstaunt, wie musterhaft in bezug auf die mioralische und sonstige Haltung ihre Klasse ist, so daß sie gar nicht anders konnte, als am nächsten Tage zu sagen: Kinder, ihr waret aber gestern brav. - Darauf sagt die ganze Klasse: Nun, Fräulein Doktor, wir werden Sie doch nicht hineinlegen! — Es kommt eben auch etwas wie Imponderables dann in der Haltung der Schüler heraus, wenn das befolgt wird, was ich immer jetzt an den Schluß der Vorträge gestellt habe: Wenn Unterricht und Erziehung darin bestehen, daß Leben lebendig an Leben übertragen wird, dann kommt auch Leben heraus, das sich entwickelt und gedeiht.

Fifth Lecture

At this point in my educational reflections, I would like to add a few words about the measures taken at Waldorf schools to put into practice the educational principles I have already mentioned here and which I will discuss further in these lectures.

The Waldorf School in Stuttgart is the school that was established in 1919 at the suggestion of Emil Molt in accordance with anthroposophical education. This institution was established in accordance with anthroposophical education because I was entrusted with the establishment and management of this school. Therefore, when I describe how this school is organized, it will also serve as an example of the practical realization of the educational principles discussed here.

First of all, I would like to point out that the soul of all teaching and education at the Waldorf School is first and foremost the teachers' conference, those teachers' conferences which are held regularly by the teaching staff and which I attend when I am in Stuttgart myself. These teachers' conferences do not merely deal with external school matters, such as drawing up the curriculum, organizing the classes, and so on, but deal in depth with the whole life of the school and with everything that should animate this life of the school. Now, the school is designed to provide instruction and education based on knowledge of human nature, which means based on knowledge of the individual personalities of the children. Therefore, observation, psychological observation of the children's individual personalities, is an essential element in the overall design of the instruction in each individual case, in concrete terms. In teachers' conferences, individual children are discussed in such a way that an attempt is made to grasp the essence of human nature in the particular individuality that is present in each child. You can imagine that all degrees and types of childlike abilities and childlike soul forces are present. One has before one everything that is present in the child, from what one might call psychological-physiological inferiority up to—hopefully confirmed by life—genius.

If one wants to observe children according to their true nature, then it is above all a matter of acquiring a psychological eye for observing children. This psychological perspective involves not only a more detailed observation of individual childlike abilities, but above all an evaluation of these childlike abilities. For you only have to consider the following: you may have a child in front of you who appears to be exceptionally gifted in terms of learning to read or write, who appears to be very gifted, for example, in terms of learning arithmetic or languages. But to stop there and say to yourself: This child is gifted because it learns languages easily, learns arithmetic easily, and so on—that is psychological superficiality. At a child's age, say 7, 8, or 9, the ease with which the child learns may mean that the child will one day become a genius; but it can just as easily mean that they will one day become a person with a nervous disorder or some other kind of illness. If one understands that, in addition to the physical body that is visible to the eye, the human being also has an etheric body, which is the basis of the forces of growth and nutrition that allow the child to grow; if one further considers that human beings also have an astral body within them, whose laws have nothing to do with what is physically constructive on earth, but which actually continually breaks down and destroys the physical so that there is room for the spiritual; and if we further consider that the ego organization is also connected with the human being, so that we must regard the three higher organizations — etheric body, astral body, ego organization — must be considered just as much as the visible physical body, then one can also form an idea of how complicated such a human being actually is, and how each of these members of the human being can cause talent or lack of talent to be present in some area, or a deceptive talent, a temporary, pathological talent to appear. To do this, one must learn to discern whether the talent is one that tends toward health or one that tends toward illness.

If one represents the knowledge of human nature discussed in these lectures with the necessary love, devotion, and willingness to make sacrifices as a teacher and educator, then the peculiar thing is that in living together with children—do not misunderstand the word, it is not meant to be a reproach—one becomes wiser and wiser. You discover for yourself, so to speak, how to assess a child's abilities or actions. You learn to empathize completely with the nature of the child and to empathize relatively quickly.

I know that some will say: If you claim that, in addition to their visible body, human beings also have supersensible members, an etheric body, an astral body, and an ego organization, then only clairvoyant people who can see these supersensible members of human nature could actually be teachers. But that is not the case. Everything that can be seen in human beings through imagination, inspiration, and intuition, as I have described in my books, can also be assessed in the physical organization, because it is expressed everywhere in the child's physical organization. Therefore, it is entirely possible that a teacher or educator who simply exercises their profession in a loving manner on the basis of a comprehensive knowledge of human nature can say, for example, in a particular case: Here we have a child who is completely healthy in terms of their ego, their astral body, and also in terms of their etheric body; but the physical body shows hardening and stiffness, so that the child cannot develop its spiritual abilities because the physical body is an obstacle. Or consider another case: it is possible that someone might say: This child shows signs of precociousness at an early age, at 7 or 8 years old; the child surprises us by learning one thing or another early on, but note that the physical body is too soft, it carries within itself the predisposition to one day flow into skill. — For if the physical body is too soft, if, so to speak, the fluid element outweighs the solid, then the spiritual-soul aspect pushes itself forward with its own characteristics, and one has a precocious child who, with the further development of the physical body, holds back this precociousness and, under certain circumstances, can change everything again and become not only an average person, but even a mediocre or inferior person for life. In short, it is precisely a matter of the fact that what is observed externally in the child must first be evaluated internally; so that nothing at all is said when one speaks merely of abilities or non-abilities.

What I am telling you now can also be learned from the biographies of a wide variety of people. In the spiritual development of humanity, one could cite a whole gallery of enlightened people who later achieved great things in life and who as children were considered almost completely untalented, who were left behind in their classes, as they say. One encounters the strangest examples in the world. There is, for example, a poet who, until he was 18, 19, even 20, was considered so untalented by all the teachers and educators who had anything to do with him that they advised him not to pursue higher studies because he was so untalented. But he did not let himself be deterred, he pursued these higher studies after all and was then very soon appointed inspector of the schools that had not wanted to admit him as a young man. There is an Austrian poet, Robert Hamerling, who was preparing to become a high school teacher. He received excellent grades in Greek and Latin on his exams, but he was not approved to teach German because his essays were considered very poor. But he became a famous poet.

I could go on and on, and everywhere you would see that it is difficult to discern in a growing child what is really inside that young person. Nevertheless, this must be done in a school that wants to educate and teach properly. That is why, especially in Waldorf schools, the greatest importance is attached to the study of the children in teachers' conferences, so that the entire teaching staff is always informed about how each child is doing. Of course, this task is becoming increasingly extensive. The Waldorf school, which was founded a few years ago with about 150 children, now has about 800 students in over 20 classes with well over 40 teachers, due to the need to establish parallel classes. All this shows you that the possibility of proceeding as I have described is only available if one simultaneously develops an eye for which child needs special attention. For some children are such that, once one understands them, this understanding sheds light on many other children. Some children are almost impossible to understand, but all this can be overcome by loving devotion to what is happening here in terms of human knowledge.

We need to separate a number of children from the others, either more or less permanently or temporarily, because they are mentally inferior and would disturb the others through their inability to grasp or comprehend. They are then gathered in a class for mentally inferior children. This class is led by the man who has spoken to you here, Dr. Schubert, who, with his very special nature, is perfectly suited to leading such a class. For leading such a class requires very special abilities. It really requires the ability to respond to what I would call the soul qualities that are stuck inside the physical body and do not want to come out. They must first be brought out little by little. This, in turn, borders on physical illness; it borders on the point where psychological abnormality borders on physical illness. This border is quite fluid; it is not something definite. Yes, it is good to be able to look beyond every so-called psychological abnormality to what is unhealthy somewhere in the physical constitution of the human being. For in the true sense of the word, there are no mental illnesses; these are actually always caused by the physical not letting the spiritual out, not absorbing it somewhere within itself and processing it for the physical world. In Germany today, there is still the peculiarity in schools that almost all children are not only undernourished, but are already suffering from years of malnutrition.

So it is a matter of really being able to carry out the unity in the observation of the soul-spiritual and the physical-bodily in one's entire conception. People find it very difficult to understand that this is a necessity in education and teaching. A man who is otherwise quite understanding and who is always involved in the school system once visited the Waldorf school. I showed him around myself for days. He was very interested in everything. But after everything I told him about one child or another — because we mostly talk about the children, not abstract teaching principles; our education is based on knowledge of human nature — he finally said: Yes, but then all teachers would have to be doctors. I replied: They don't need to be, but they do need to know enough about the child's physical health or constitution to the extent that is necessary for the teacher to educate them. Because where does it get you if you say something can't be done for this or that reason, or that the teacher can't learn this or that because you can't set this or that up? You just have to set up the appropriate conditions and the teacher has to learn it. That is the only possible point of view. — The so-called normal abilities that humans develop, which are present in every human being, are best studied in pathological phenomena. And if you get to know an organism that is sick in certain ways, then, if you really get to know it, you have created the basis for getting to know a brilliant soul. Not that I take any Lambroso or similar standpoint; that is not the case. I am not claiming that genius is always ill; but one gets to know the spiritual-soul aspect precisely when one gets to know the sick body of the child. From the difficulties that the spiritual-soul aspect has in expressing itself in a sick body, one learns to recognize the way in which the soul, when it expresses itself in a special way, takes hold of the organism.

Thus, pedagogy borders not only on the mild pathology that is present in inferior children, but also on pathology in the broadest sense. That is why we have also introduced medical treatment for children at our school. But we do not have a doctor who is outside of education and only involved in medicine; our school doctor, Dr. Kolisko, is also a teacher in one of the classes. He is involved in the entire pedagogy of the school, he knows all the children and therefore knows in a completely different way where any pathology in a child he knows comes from, than if the school doctor only comes to the school once in a blue moon and assesses a child's state of health with a few glances. In addition, teacher conferences are organized in such a way that no distinction is made between the mental-emotional and the physical-bodily aspects of the child. Naturally, this means that teachers must gradually learn to see the whole person, that they are just as interested in the details of physical health or physical illness as they are in mental health or mental abnormalities.

This is what we try to achieve in school: that every teacher has the deepest interest and the greatest attention for the whole person. This also means that our teachers are not actually specialists. After all, it does not matter so much whether the teacher has a better or worse command of history, as long as he is generally a personality who can influence the children in the sense described, and as long as he has an eye for how the child develops under his treatment. Since I had to teach from the age of 14 or 15 in order to survive, I always had to give private lessons and had to acquire this pedagogy in the immediate practice of teaching and education. For example, when I was a very young man of 21, a family entrusted me with the education of four boys. Among them was one—he was 11 years old when I joined the family as a tutor—who was severely hydrocephalic. He had some very strange peculiarities. He did not like to eat at the table, but would leave the table and go to the kitchen, where there were containers for throwing away food waste; there he would eat the potato peelings, but also the dirt that had fallen into these containers. At the age of 11, he did not really know anything special. They had tried to see if he could take the entrance exam for any elementary school class based on the earlier education he had received. But when he handed in the results of his exam paper, there was only a notebook with a large hole in it where he had erased something. He had achieved nothing else in this exam, and he was already 11 years old. His parents were unhappy. They belonged to the upper middle class, and everything pointed to the boy being abnormal — and of course, when people say things like that, they all have a prejudice against the child. They said he had to learn a trade, that he would never amount to anything else. I came into the family, but no one really understood when I expressed my intention: If you give me full responsibility for the boy now, I promise nothing, except to bring out everything that is in him. No one understood this, except the mother, who seemed to understand immediately, and the excellent family doctor. It was this doctor who later founded psychoanalysis together with Dr. Freud, but when it was still in its better stage; later he separated from it when it entered its decadent phase. But you could talk to him, and that led to the boy being educated and taught by me.

In 1½ years, his head had become significantly smaller, and the boy was now ready to be sent to secondary school. I continued to accompany him during his school years; he needed extra tuition, but after 1½ years he was able to be admitted to secondary school. However, his education had to be carried out in such a way that it sometimes took me 1½ hours to prepare what I wanted to teach the boy in a quarter of an hour. For it was a matter of approaching this boy's education with the greatest economy, never taking more time for anything than was necessary. It was also a matter of organizing the day with the utmost precision. I prescribed how much music the boy had to play, how much gymnastics he had to do, how much walking, and so on. Then, I told myself, we could do what was necessary with the boy to bring out what was in him. — Now there were times when I actually had a hard time with this education. The boy turned pale. Everyone, except for his mother and the family doctor, said: He's ruining our boy! — I replied: Of course, I can't continue with his education if people keep interfering; things have to proceed as agreed. And they did. The boy went through high school, completed his studies, became a doctor, and died early only because he was infected with a disease while serving as a doctor during the World War, and he died as a result. But he knew how to practice his medical profession quite well. — I cite this only as an example of how it is necessary to keep an eye on everything in education, for example, to have an eye for how, under a certain treatment, hydrocephalus recedes week by week.

Now you will say: Certainly, something like this can happen in individual education. But it can just as easily happen in relatively large classes. For those who lovingly immerse themselves in what is discussed here as human knowledge quickly acquire the ability to give each individual the attention they need, even in a class with many students. But what is necessary is the psychological insight I have described. However, this psychological insight is not easy to acquire if you go through life as an individual and have no interest in other people at all. I can say that I know what I owe to the fact that I have never found anyone uninteresting. Even as a child, I was never uninterested in anyone. And I know that I would not have been able to educate that boy if I had not found all people interesting.

This broadening of interest is what pervades the teachers' conferences at the Waldorf school, so that there is, if I may say so, a psychological atmosphere. But then these teachers' conferences really become a high school of psychology. It is interesting to see how, from year to year, the teaching staff as a whole can deepen their psychological insight. For in addition to everything I have described, the following also applies when looking at the individual classes. We do not keep statistics in the usual sense, but for us the classes are living beings, not just the individual pupils. Such a class can be studied again on its own, and it is extremely interesting to observe the imponderable forces that come to light. But when you study an entire class and when the teachers of the different classes discuss the peculiarities of their classes in conference, it is interesting, for example, that a class – we have classes with both sexes together – is a completely different creature when there are more girls than boys than when there are more boys than girls; and yet another completely different creature is a class in which there are equal numbers of boys and girls. This becomes extremely interesting, not because of the words exchanged between them or the little flirtations that always occur in the higher grades. For this, one also acquires the necessary gaze, which sees when necessary and does not see when not necessary. But quite apart from that, it is actually the fact, the inner imponderable essence of the different male or female individualities, that gives the class a very specific spiritual structure. And so one gets to know the class individuality. If, as in our Waldorf school, there are parallel classes, then, if necessary — it is very rarely necessary — the distribution in the classes can be changed slightly.

Such studies, such as what the classes are like, in turn form the content of the teachers' conferences. And so the content of the conferences is not only the organization of the school, but a living continuation of the pedagogy at the school itself, so that the teachers are constantly learning. In this way, the conferences become the soul of the whole school. And then one also learns to appreciate the insignificant in the right way, to assess the important correctly, and so on. Then, when a child commits a minor offense, one does not immediately cry murder; but one will also have an eye for when something happens that may be significant for the entire continuation of the school. This results in something very interesting in our Waldorf school, which has only become apparent over the years: on the whole, our children are further ahead in understanding what a child should learn at school than pupils at other schools; in the lower grades, as I have described, they lag somewhat behind in reading and writing because this is spread over more years and uses a completely different method. But at the age of 13 to 15, they begin to outpace pupils at other schools in terms of a certain ease in penetrating something, also in terms of skilfully absorbing something, and so on.

Now a great difficulty arises. It is strange that when there is light somewhere, objects cast shadows; with weak light there are weak shadows, with strong light there are strong shadows. And so the following emerges with regard to certain soul qualities. If care is not taken to ensure that teachers have contact with their pupils in every way, so that the teachers are truly role models and the children truly follow their example, then moral aberrations can very easily occur as the counter-images of a lack of contact. One must not harbour any illusions about this. That is how it is. That is why it is so important that a complete merging of the individualities of the teachers and the individualities of the pupils really develops, so that through this strong inner connection of the children to the teachers, the development on the one hand fully corresponds to the development on the other.

All these things must be studied with inner human love, otherwise one will experience surprises. But the method is perfectly suited to bringing out everything that lies within a person. At some point, this or that trait may show itself: there is a German poet who knew that he had been very poorly taught and educated, so that many of his qualities — about which he always complained — could not come out when his body had already become stiff and hard, because no care had been taken in his youth to ensure that his individuality developed. Then he went to see a phrenologist. — Don't think that I want to defend phrenology in any way or hold it in particularly high regard; but it does have its significance when practiced intuitively. — The phrenologist felt his head, told him all sorts of nice things, because such things were also present; but at one point on the skull he suddenly paused, blushed, and didn't dare say anything. Then the poet said: “Well, go ahead and speak, that is the thief in me. And that would probably have been the case if I had been better educated at school, then the thief would have had the greatest difficulties.”

If you want to educate, you also need to have a certain amount of freedom. But you don't have that when the dreadful school timetable is in effect in the usual way: religion from 8 to 9, gymnastics from 9 to 10, history from 10 to 11, arithmetic from 11 to 12. Everything that comes later erases what came before; there's nothing you can do about it, and as a teacher you despair when you're supposed to cope with it all. That is why we have what can be called block teaching at the Waldorf school. The child enters a class. In the main lesson, the child receives uniform instruction every day during the main morning hours, from 8 to 10 or from 8 to 11, with appropriate short breaks. There is one teacher in the class, even in the higher grades. The subject of the lesson does not change from hour to hour, but rather, for example, in arithmetic, you need four weeks to cover something you want to teach. Then, every day from 8 to 10 a.m., the relevant chapter is covered, and the next day you always pick up where you left off the day before. Nothing that comes later erases what came before; concentration is possible. When four weeks have passed and one has sufficiently covered and completed a chapter of arithmetic, one begins with a chapter of history, which in turn is covered over four to five weeks, depending on what is needed, and so on. This is the opposite of what is known as the subject teacher system. For example, if you visit a Waldorf school, you may find our Dr. Baravalle in a class where he is teaching descriptive geometry. The students sit in front of him on benches, where they have spread out their drawing boards, and he lets them draw, behaving like the most exemplary subject teacher in geometry. When you go to another school, you look up the professor or teacher schematism and find, for example, the remark: Tests in geometry or mathematics or the like. I have known many teachers who boasted that, even though they were math teachers, they could not even tell the children the names of the plants on a school trip. — But the morning is not over yet, and you find the same Dr. Baravalle wandering back and forth between the desks in his class, teaching English. And from the way he teaches here in his lectures, you can see that he has talked about all kinds of things and it was impossible to figure out what subject he actually teaches. Some of you may have thought he teaches geography or geometry or something like that. The actual substance and content of teaching can be acquired so quickly if you have the aptitude for it, if you can gain insight somewhere, if you can experience something in your soul. So we don't have a timetable, but rather block teaching. Of course, nothing pedantic. In our Waldorf school, the main lessons are structured in blocks; some things naturally have to be done according to a timetable, and these are then added on to the main lessons.

We then take great care to ensure that the children are taught two foreign languages as soon as they enter elementary school, in our case French and English. We do this from a very early age. However, we have a terrible problem in our school because so many students have been flocking to Waldorf schools since their inception. For example, we have students who could be admitted to the 6th grade. But this class already has children who have already achieved something in languages. Now the new students are joining, and they have to be placed in the 5th grade because they have no knowledge of languages at all. We have to constantly reckon with these difficulties.

We make sure that the most essential lessons are scheduled for the morning, so that the afternoon is reserved for physical exercises, gymnastics, eurythmy, and so on, all without pedantry. Because we cannot pay teachers indefinitely, we cannot organize everything according to the ideal, but only as far as possible. You will not misunderstand me when I say that ideals are of no use. Do not say that anthroposophy is not idealistic. We can appreciate ideals, but they are of no use; one can paint a beautiful picture of them, one can say: This is how it should be! One can also imagine that one is striving for them. But in reality, you have a very specific, concrete group of 800 children that you have to get to know, and between 40 and 50 teachers that you also have to get to know. Because what use is a teaching staff if no one lives up to the ideal! The essential thing is to reckon with what can really be achieved, that is, with what is available. Then you are moving in reality. And if you want to do something practical, it is a matter of moving in reality. — This applies to the organization of block teaching.

With the free handling of teaching, which must result from everything I am describing to you, it is of course a matter of our children not always sitting quietly like mice. But you should only see how the entire moral and spiritual constitution of a class is the result of the person standing there, which in turn depends on imponderables. In this regard, it is possible to experience, I mean to say, that there are also teachers in Waldorf schools who are not up to the task; I do not want to describe them, as this may cause upset — but it is possible to experience this when you enter a classroom: a quarter of the class is lying under the desks, a quarter is sitting up, and the others are constantly running out the door and knocking around outside. These are things that should not surprise us. They will change if we know how to deal with the children. We should definitely allow children to express their inner vitality and should not deal with them in a punitive manner, but in a different way. We do not give orders at all, but everything develops by itself. But it develops by itself because the teachers have what I have described within them — within them as their life. Certainly, children sometimes make a terrible spectacle of themselves, but that only shows their vitality. They are then lively again in what they are supposed to do if you know how to arouse their interest in it. And it has to be that way: with a so-called good child, you have to use their good qualities so that they learn something, and with a good-for-nothing, you even have to use their useless qualities so that they can progress. But you don't get ahead by only developing the good qualities. Sometimes you have to develop the so-called useless qualities; you just have to be able to give them direction. For it is very often precisely these so-called useless qualities in the child that represent the strength of the adult human being, which can develop into the utmost good in the adult human being if treated correctly.

And so, once again, one must distinguish whether a child causes little trouble because it is well-behaved or whether it causes less trouble because it is ill. If one is only concerned with one's own convenience, it is very easy to be just as pleased with the sick child who sits quietly and does not misbehave as with the good child, because one does not have to deal with them. But if one really looks into human nature, one often has much more to do with such a child than with a so-called useless one. So here, too, it is the psychological view and the psychological approach, in a spiritual and emotional sense, of course, that is important.

Then there is the fact that in Waldorf schools, the essence of teaching is placed in the school itself. The children are given only the very smallest amount of homework, which would otherwise overload them. When everything is worked out jointly with the teachers, the children develop very strange views. For example, the following is something that happens in Waldorf schools and is quite characteristic: some students have really “messed up.” Not yet fully immersed in Waldorf school pedagogy, the teacher wants to punish these children in a “witty” way. He says: You have to stay behind after school and do math! The children cannot understand that doing math is supposed to be a punishment, because it is something they enjoy doing. And the whole class—this has happened—asks: Can't we stay too? So now you have “punished” them! You can see that perceptions change completely, and it is something that should not be the case that a child should feel punished by having to do something that they actually do with dedication, satisfaction, and joy. Our teachers come up with all sorts of ways to drive out bad behavior. Our Dr. Stein, who is inventive in this area, once had an experience when he was teaching a higher grade class and the children were writing letters to each other and passing them around during class. What did he do to remedy the situation? He began to talk about the postal system and discussed it in such a way that the letter writing gradually stopped. Apparently, the description of the postal system and the history of the emergence of correspondence had nothing to do with the bad behavior noticed by the teacher, and yet it had something to do with it. For if one does not ask rationally, “What should I do?” but is able to give in to one's ideas because one has an instinct for how to behave in class, then the right thing often comes out of it; for then one can do something much more radical in terms of the moral improvement of the students than if one proceeds with punishments.

Above all, the class must be clear in all its individualities that the teacher really believes what he is saying. It must never happen that a choleric boy who smears his papers and tugs at his neighbors' ears and hair is yelled at by the teacher: "You must not be passionate, you must not degenerate like that! Kid, if you ever misbehave like that again, I'll throw the inkwell at your head!" This is just a radical example, but it is something that happens when you don't know that you have to be a role model for everything you teach in school. And it's much more about being than about having principles and knowledge. So it depends on the way you are. If someone taking a teacher's exam, which is supposed to prove their ability to be a teacher, is only tested on what they know, then all they know in the teacher's exam is what they will later have to look up in manuals. But you can do that right from the start; you don't need to make it an exam. But no one who is not a true teacher in body, soul, and spirit should actually enter a school! Therefore, I can say that when putting together the teaching staff for the Waldorf school, which is my responsibility, I do not consider it an obstacle if someone has taken exams, but I do look at those who have taken exams a little more closely than those who, through their entire human demeanor, convey to me their individuality as teachers. There is always something questionable about someone who has passed exams; they may still be a reasonably intelligent person, but they have to be so despite having passed exams.

And so it is remarkable how fate, how karma, works. For the Waldorf school, as it is supposed to stand as a specific example of this particular pedagogy based on knowledge of human nature, was actually only possible in Württemberg, nowhere else, because at the moment we established the Waldorf school, an ancient school law still prevailed there. If the enlightenment that later emanated from the Weimar National Assembly and with which we are constantly struggling because they want to dismantle the lower classes had already taken hold of people back then, we would not have been able to establish the Waldorf school. For it will increasingly cease to be the case that teachers are judged according to their human individuality – and not according to their certificates. It will increasingly cease to be the case that this or that is done in the lower classes, because the world is working, how shall we say, toward freedom and human dignity. This human dignity is then handled in a peculiar way for the school with the help of the curriculum and timetable. There is a Ministry of Education in the capital of a country. There, they know exactly what is being taught in every school and class from the precise classification that is imposed on the education system by means of school regulations. And then, somewhere in a corner of the country, there is a place with a school. If you want to know what is being taught in the 5th grade of elementary school at 10:10 a.m. on July 21, 1924, for example, you look up the regulations at the ministry and you can say what is being taught there. — But in our case, for example, you have two parallel classes in the 5th grade, 5A and 5B. You go into the two classes one after the other. You are amazed: something completely different is happening in the parallel class, nothing at all like what is being done in the other class. The 5A and 5B are left entirely to the individuality of the teacher; each can do what suits his or her individuality, and that is what they do. Even though there is absolute agreement on the subject matter in the teachers' conference, there is no regulation that one class must proceed in the same way as the parallel class in terms of education and teaching. For what is to be achieved must be achieved in the most diverse ways; it is never a matter of prescribing something in an external way. For example, you will find that even with the little children in the first grade, one teacher does more to introduce the child to painting and drawing: you come into the classroom and see the children making all kinds of movements with their hands, which then translate into the handling of the brush or pencil. Or you come into another class and see the children dancing around to bring out the same thing from the movement of their legs. Each teacher does what he or she considers appropriate according to the individuality of the children and his or her own. But this brings real life into the classroom, and it already creates a sense of belonging between the children and the teacher.

Of course, there is school supervision, even though the old school law was in place, also in Württemberg, but we got along quite well with this school supervision. They were extremely understanding and responded to everything when they saw how things worked. But there are also special circumstances. For example, a school commission came to a class where the teacher was always used to having a lot of trouble with discipline, always having to work hard to maintain discipline between lessons. Now, the ministerial school commission arrives, and the teacher is extremely surprised at how exemplary her class is in terms of moral and other attitudes, so that she could not help but say the next day: Children, you were very well-behaved yesterday. To which the whole class replies: Well, Miss Doctor, we're not going to fool you! — Something like imponderables also emerges in the attitude of the students when they follow what I have always put at the end of my lectures: If teaching and education consist of life being transmitted to life, then life also emerges that develops and flourishes.