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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Rudolf Steiner in the Waldorf School
GA 298

11 June 1920, Stuttgart

Educational Practices in an Age of Decline and the Educational Practices of the Day to Come

Ladies and gentlemen! I would like to warmly welcome you here to this room, where we are gathered for the second time to relate important issues in the life of our Waldorf School. We are especially glad that so many of you have come. The theme I have chosen for tonight’s lecture is “Educational Practices in an Age of Decline, and the Educational Practices of the Day to Come.”

This is no mere theoretical problem for you, now that our Waldorf School has come into being. All the more reason for choosing a theme such as this, so it seemed to me. My remarks today are intended as an introductory formulation of this theme, which for you is not merely an intellectual problem but an issue in which you discover real possibilities of entering into debate with our present times. Having decided, in the course of this debate, to send your children to the Waldorf school, you demonstrated your confidence in the new things this school is trying out. Taking your confidence as a basis, I would like to try to come to a conclusion of sorts by undertaking to illuminate everything that is falling away and dying off and now lies behind us, and by attempting to keep in mind the encouraging things that are coming towards us out of the work of the school up to this point.

In looking at this issue, it will be useful to keep in mind what the moment in which a child first enters school signifies under present circumstances. Circumstances being what they are today, we might say that the freshness and immediacy that are available to growing children at home have escaped from the compartmentalization and limitations that characterize our public life. The possibility for free human expression does exist at home, in the nursery. Not many contemporary children still have the possibility to give their energies free play in a way that corresponds to the deep urges of the individual nature of their will. That they will never again be able to do this is something that has developed over the last two centuries.

When children are sent out of this home environment to go to school, something happens that is very significant, of serious consequence in this day and age. No matter how much of the above-mentioned compartmentalized life we have been able to keep out of the nursery, it all lies in wait for the young person who is growing up. It begins to take effect on the very first day of school; it becomes relevant in the very moment the child enters school. Its effect is so great that it is no exaggeration to speak of a significant crisis in the life of the child.

This crisis consists of the child being confronted with a ready-made system of old educational practices that are in possession of something that is presented to the children in the form of a curriculum that is already worked out. This is fixed in the form of a comprehensive method that has been passed down to us, and in connection with its educational goals there is also a very specific way of enforcing discipline in school.

All of this is unfortunately structured in such a way that we cannot say that the actual driving forces of the present, especially the deeper currents of social change in the immediate past and in the present, have flowed into these structures at all. With regard to the curriculum, until just a few years ago it was generally the case that it existed in the form in which it had been drawn up fifty years ago. This contributed to lessening some negative consequences that could have proceeded from the curriculum. This will be touched on later.

Something was present in finished form, and we cannot say that the experience of people active in education had been able to flow into making it, since the people whose office entitled them to establish it may perhaps [only] have had a specific connection to the schools in the early stages of their development. Very soon this connection was severed, perhaps not by virtue of their outstanding quality as teachers, but because they had proven very adept at finding places in the school system’s administration as up-and-coming officials who awakened hope. The so-called drawing-up of the curriculum as administered by these bureaucrats was cut off from the actual development of the schools themselves, although in fact we can hardly call it that. We might better speak of developmental forces being held back, as an attentive observer would have had to see.

From day one, the child was confronted with this curriculum, with something foreign and cold that determined with unrelenting strictness everything comprising the child’s life of soul and spirit from the first day on. Not only the entire goal of teaching was already set, but in the last few decades it had even been determined at what stage instruction was supposed to be and at what date, from class to class and from week to week.

And how to reach this goal had been prescribed in detail through what was known as the state-approved method. This method was such that it was not possible for the individual teacher to freely disregard it. This would have been only briefly possible before he or she came into conflict with the officials who had to administrate this.

Now, how did this method work its way in? This method stems from presuppositions about human life that have basically been outdated for a long time. In the Middle Ages, schools developed under the sovereignty of the church. Then the states took over the ecclesiastical school system in its entirety and the state schools consolidated their position. The more their basis was prescribed in detail, the less possibility for evolution remained, we might say; the more the modern primary school was flaunted outwardly, the greater the gaping emptiness within this school system became. And the reason for this great emptiness was that the method of teaching stemmed from the old church schools, the Latin schools, whether directly transplanted into the modern Gymnasiunr2A classical German secondary school that prepares its pupils for university study. or adapted in some way. The old legalistic Latin method of teaching was still to be found in schools of all sorts. Combatting this and attempting partial reforms may have had historical significance, but did not release any forces of transformation.

So now we have the curriculum as it has been passed down to us, and we have the method. In what way were both of these presented to the children? Were there other assumptions, not purely instructional in character, that influenced the children’s lives and destinies? All our schools are based on separation by social class. A lot has been said about comprehensive schools, but nothing was actually done in this direction until we founded the Waldorf School. This was done out of the recognition that we were meant to take on a great social mission.

Children coming to class on their very first day experienced not only the crisis we have described as a soul and spiritual one, but also a social crisis. On that day, children coming home from primary school or from the Gymnasium and meeting their playmates necessarily became aware of so-called class differences. From the very first day, they were fed this poison produced by the separation of the different classes of society. This is the crisis in social feeling, in the child’s naive feeling-life as a whole, that confronted the child on the very first day.

What is the outcome of something like this? We can know what modern spiritual science has worked out on the subject. We can see that what develops into a formative force in teaching children around the age of seven can be effective and can set itself certain tasks because at this point certain forces have been set free in the child as a result of an organic development that has already been completed. These are forces we can work with. We can work with them in such a way that they bring about the inner development and education of the human being and leave their imprint on the further course of organic development. Spiritual science, whose methods we are trying to incorporate, supplies this basic way of looking at the matter.

If we contrast this to old school practices, it must be said that the old school had no connection to the forces that are freed up organically and that come under consideration at this stage of life. Thus it sinned in failing to acknowledge a view such as this, which it would have had to discover if its instructional practices had been sound. On the one hand, because the old school was not able to shape these freed-up forces, they began to run rampant, so that urges developed that were not guided into the developmental direction laid out for them. On the other hand, organic forces that should be freed up only much later, that wanted to become free only much later (if we understand the nature of the child), were pressed into service from the very first day of school.

This brought about what you can observe in the skeletal system. Inner support was weakened; the skeleton was weakened. Certain possibilities of standing upright in life were taken from the children because they were presented from the very first day with an education that addressed only their heads, that spoke only to their understanding. It could not or did not want to penetrate any deeper.

Facts such as these are often reflected in small symptoms. In this connection, it was interesting to find the statement in Haug’s book that French, which we introduce in the first grade, as you know, should not be taught at that stage because it is an irrational language.

What is revealed in this characteristic statement? We can clearly see here that what is standing in front of the child is not a living person but a big fat book entitled Grammar; a fateful book for all of us. Grammar cannot be presented to children at this grade level; this is an impossibility tantamount to the impossibility for people with old-school habits of letting the living power of language play into the child’s development. In the Gymnasium, this book stands there, and in the primary schools something else replaces the living personality who is actually meant to bring life’s contents to the children. In the primary schools we have gotten away from the big book; instead, there are many more cards, charts and tables, all of which are supposed to be presented to the children so that they will learn to form judgments and conclusions.

If we understand the nature of the child correctly, we will be forced to admit that children have subtle reasons for not paying attention when they are confronted with a lesson of this sort. The power of wisdom that wants to protect them from harm makes them resist the big book, resist an intellectual way of looking at things. The inattentiveness that appears is a means of self-defense for them. They are evading the leveling influences of a lesson of this sort. If you teach like this from the first hour to the last, then the children attempt to escape from the lesson by being inattentive.

But how can this attempt possibly succeed in a school with any form of discipline? Not only is the material presented in the way described above, but the children are also expected to adjust to a different subject matter three or four times in the course of a morning, so they are thrown from one level to another. Those who know how to follow the school’s development clearly realize that most recently the attempt was made to shorten the lessons still further, to 45 minutes each, to have the subject matter flow past in a movie-like fashion. This division was then extended to the individual lessons. How was that done? The formal stages of instruction established by Ziller are a masterpiece of modern methodology, and have been universally accepted in the primary schools.3Tuiskon Ziller, 1817-1882, a student of Herbart and author of Einleitung in die allgemeine Pädagogik [An Introduction to General Pedagogy], published in 1856, and Grundlegung zur Lehre vom erziehenden Unterricht [Laying the Foundations for a Theory of Educational Instruction], published in 1865. Let me make it clear to you what a teacher of this sort has to accomplish in a single 45 minute lesson. The material is supposed to be presented to the children in six stages: First, the introduction. Second, consolidation. Third, enlivening the subject matter. Then comes the stage of making the subject accessible. This stage is not very extensive. Then comes the stage of mastering the material, and last the stage of putting it to use, all in the same lesson. But this is repeated four times in the same morning in different subject areas.

You will have to admit that I am right in saying that our children cannot be dealt with according to this abusive method. But what happened when these mistreated children tried to evade the effects of the methodology and curriculum that required that on Tuesday, May 11, this particular goal must have been achieved in all classes at this grade level? What happened then?

This is where discipline came into effect. From the very first lesson, it worked with means that inevitably poisoned the children’s entire moral life. Children who had been accustomed to expressing themselves freely and naturally found themselves confronted with praise or blame at every turn. Schematization set in. From the very beginning, the children adapted to the possibility of being called upon, so only in some cases did they participate attentively in the lesson. If they had been accustomed to expressing themselves freely and tried to do the same in school, they found themselves reprimanded and cut off whenever they tried to approach the teacher in this way, and had to be prepared for punishments that must have occasioned grave misgivings in their naive soul life. They then had to complete specific assignments rather than having the attitude awakened in them that it is a pleasure to be permitted to do schoolwork. Homework received the stamp of a punishment. The children got a very strange impression of lessons of this sort. Instruction as a whole had something to do with a system of punishment, and this was expressed in organic impairments that stunted their young growth and allowed certain things in them to grow rampant that would otherwise have unfolded in a healthy way.

I would like to point out that this is related to a very specific phenomenon that occurs in the later grades. Students deal with the school system as a whole with a sarcasm that pervades all of their behavior toward their teachers and their schools. You all know from your own school days what fun it was to be critical of the teachers. Add to that the phenomenon of suicides among children of school age. These ominous phenomena are becoming ever more pronounced, and school administrators are ever more helpless in the face of them. Real life forces that want to become active in a natural and appropriate form of instruction have been dammed up. Everything that has been held back in this way then causes the nervousness that we see as a typical ailment of the times manifesting in the school system.

Now let us ask ourselves what has been accomplished, what has been brought to a conclusion of sorts, when grade school has been completed. Our primary-school students leave school in their fifteenth year. People who have had a lot to do with the proletariat and who have often had to look working people in the face will notice the phenomenon of a harshness of sorts that leaves its mark on these people’s faces. Much has been said about this, but little thought has been given to it. It has not been observed, however, that this is inevitable, an unavoidable consequence of the fact that the life of feeling is set free in the fourteenth year, and for the majority of our compatriots, their education has been cut off at this point. How could anything different come of it, if feeling abilities are not able to become formative forces in these people’s destiny?

Those who continued on were now seriously introduced to the old Latin method I spoke about in the beginning. The study of classical languages was emphasized more, or alternatively the study of the sciences, which in a certain respect are also only the heritage of the Roman Empire and of Roman law.

The consequence of this was that if people leaving primary school had inevitably been restricted in their development, the people leaving the humanistic Gymnasium were supposed to represent the ideal of humanistic education. Being able to speak languages that were studied for their own sake was regarded as an accomplishment. People failed to notice, however, that being preoccupied with such languages reflected back on the entire being of the person in question, and that people who had spent many hours in the study of ancient Greek had become incapable of understanding the language of everyday facts. And the people coming out of the Realschule4A modern secondary school emphasizing modern languages, mathematics and science. later became the practitioners of Realpolitik, always insisting on facts and on laws of all sorts, but failing to see that reality is influenced by trends totally different from the ones they call their laws.

Keeping this in mind, we can see the fateful consequences of graduating from all three of these types of schools—forces were held back that could have worked to form organs, influencing education in the deepest sense of the word,5Translator’s note: there is a play on words in the German here—“forming” and “education” are the same word, “Bildung.” while on the other hand forces that were not able to flow in had to run rampant. If left uncultivated, the life of feeling has the tendency to fall into sentimentality at every turn.

And what happened to the will? Either it was so broken that we now have human wrecks serving in responsible positions, or on the other hand we have those brutal and violent human beings who come out trampling everything under their feet as a consequence of not having been able to cultivate their will.

These phenomena have been frequently summed up and abundantly criticized. During the revolutionary period, the opinion arose that now, out of the foul-smelling vapor of new forces brewing, something like a new stream of life would be able to flow into the school system as such; it would be possible to whip up criticism to the point of doing something constructive. Since then we have not grown tired of using the term “comprehensive school” over and over again to label efforts that thought to get in touch with the times. But when we look at the legislature’s omissions, we will not be able to avoid seeing the great danger that confronts us. Although the traditional structure of the schools has been changed outwardly, we see that because of the desire to expand the so-called “school franchise,” the danger is imminent. We are seeing that primary schools can turn into denominational schools, party schools, or schools of specific economic groups. Even less thought than before is being given to the universal human aspect, and this is now happening at the insistence of a legally functioning bureaucratic apparatus.

You will find that the relevance of bureaucrats has not been reduced under recent conditions. On the contrary, they are able to have a much greater effect and to subvert much more than they could under the old system. Just observe how jealously they make sure that all regulations are observed. In the face of this brutal will, we will not be able to avoid the conclusion that it will not be easily possible to realize our educational ideal. We must be prepared for the possibility that the instructional content we are supposed to bring to the children will be regulated to an even greater extent than it was previously, especially in the subject of history.

What will the further consequence of this be? The result will be that the bureaucratic character of teaching will become even more pronounced. All of this stands in contrast to our world of today, to the needs of our times, which are asking for something totally different from the pale glimmer of things to come that people want to spread over the school system and beyond it. Why is it impossible for existing innovations to lead to that goal? Here we come upon a very strange law: If something is conceived of somewhere and it is not able to pour itself out fully into the object of its concern because people are not putting all their energy into it, its effect is not to decrease the negative circumstances, but to unite with them. Beneath the surface, it flows over to join them. Lichtwark put it like this: “Partial reforms accomplish only an intensification of existing tendencies.”5Alfred Lichtwark, 1852-1914, art educator. What we must expect in this case is anything but a restructuring. We can only expect a further intensification of efforts that are already present.

Now, I have spread out this picture before you to clarify something that does not seem exaggerated to me, something that many teachers would like to see eliminated from their lives and destinies, because if we want to have the efforts of our independent school flow into the public life of our times in the right way, we must know the danger that threatens us from the old school system. It cannot be the task of my remarks today to describe these efforts again.

Even if the prescriptions that legally regulated the old school system are lacking in our school, that does not mean that we have made our task any easier. In fact, we have made it more difficult. Our times require us to take up heavy burdens for the sake of the evolution on which we base our hopes for the future. Having taken up these heavy burdens, we will be able to carry them only with the help of all those who have lent us their confidence. They must be aware that the smallest results are of significance; they must follow the progress of our life in the school with great seriousness. Not a single lesson, not a single other undertaking that belongs to the school, is envisaged in the way in which it would result from old educational practices.

What is being accomplished here is a life-force for our nation itself. It is a force whose effects we need. Our times are thirsting for them. We must bring about a totally different encounter between home and school than was the case under the old school practices. Either there was a conflict, or the children were thrown back and forth between home and school, so to speak. We often encounter the opinion that parents are happy once the children are in school; they want them to be in school all day long and are very upset by “unreasonable” demands that they should support the activity of the school. In a very subtle way, children pick up on all the nuances that are circulated in their environment. When the children can observe that their parents look at things in ways that differ from what is said in school, the children get involved in a conflict, and it becomes impossible to focus on the children to the intended effect.

Now that we have brought our school into existence, now that we have worked with all our might to realize a part of it, the old educational practices are still alive, and people who grew up under them are trying to introduce old requirements into this new thing. They would like to judge the whole thing according to a compartmentalized standard. It can happen that people are concerned when our school, which tries to develop all of a child’s forces, cannot show why a child has not yet learned this or that. They are very concerned about it. We must take into account that these concerns are not justified, or we would not be able to speak of a new school, but would simply have taken up old educational practices and repackaged them in some way. What deviates from the old practices in the Waldorf School is done out of educational practices that do not flow out of clever, rationally thought-out ways of looking at things.

Rather, it flows out of forces that are related to the developmental forces of young people and of our nation as a whole. Having assured you of this, we hope that you will feel sufficiently connected to what we are doing to grant us your confidence. You must have patience and wait for this to bear fruit.

Meanwhile, the mood that ensouls and enlivens all our children can be taken as an indication of what the fruit will be. They bring it to school with them; they realize that learning is not a punishment here. Take this mood, which is even evident in the fresh red cheeks of some of our pupils, as a sign that things are coming to fruition. Do not let yourselves be intimidated by the ghosts trying to take our declining times by storm. Tell yourselves that on stepping out into life as a mature person, a child who has grown up here shall be compared only to him or herself.

When we apply this way of looking at things to the school, the creative joy that enlivens us will bear fruit, and we will see that contemporary life is forced to take the school into account. Creative forces can only come out of schools in which such forces are not held back but are developed, so that the children’s first day of school does not constitute a crisis. Instead, the children are introduced to school in a way that opens them up to their life to come. They leave school, not as violent individuals and not as people burdened merely with head-knowledge, but as individuals who can stand for an education of a new sort, the truly human education of a new age. Inherent in truly understanding the human being is a pledge to support our nation’s evolution in the future.

This task, too, is great, but harshness is a sign of our times. People do not want to see the face of our times so clearly that its embittered lines are visible. They want to avoid seeing it, to draw veil upon veil over this face because they are afraid of what it might say. The tasks that we have taken on are great and severe.

But we believe that there can be people who love these tasks doubly because of their very greatness and severity. We unite with you in the hope that you will learn to love them for this. Something new and fresh will be able to come from this severity.

What we have to stand for is harsh and severe, but this severity will give those of us who work out of the Independent Waldorf School the strength to inscribe a fiery sign on the brow of our declining age. May this school, as it lives out its life among hollow phrases, find the strength to die a mighty death so that the sun of the day to come may shine on it.

Die Schulgewohnheiten Der Niedergehenden Zeit Und Die Schulpraxis Des Kommenden Tages

Vortrag, Gehalten Am Elternabend

Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden! Ich darf Sie herzlich willkommen heißen hier in diesem Raume, in dem wir uns ja zum zweiten Male versammeln, um Fühlung zu nehmen in wichtigen Fragen, die das Leben unserer Waldorfschule betreffen. Es freut uns ganz besonders, daß Sie so zahlreich erschienen sind. Als Thema des heutigen Vortrages habe ich gewählt: Die Schulgewohnheiten der niedergehenden Zeit und die Schulpraxis des kommenden Tages.

Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden! Mir schien es, daß ein solches Thema um so mehr gewählt werden dürfte, als es für Sie alle, nachdem unsere Waldorfschule ins Leben trat, mehr als ein bloßes Denkproblem geworden ist. Was in einer solchen Fassung meiner heutigen Ausführungen wie einleitend dastehen soll, ist für Sie nicht bloß ein Denkproblem, sondern eine Frage, in der Sie ernstliche Möglichkeiten der Auseinandersetzung mit der heutigen Zeit finden. Und Sie haben, nachdem Sie in dieser Auseinandersetzung zum Entschluß kamen, Ihre Kinder in die Waldorfschule zu schicken, bewiesen, daß Sie Vertrauen haben können zu dem, was in dieser Schule als Neues versucht werden will. Aus dem Empfinden dieses Vertrauens möchte ich versuchen, zu einer Art von Urteil dadurch zu kommen, daß ich alles dasjenige zu beleuchten unternehme, was als Zurückbleibendes, Absterbendes hinter uns liegt, und daß ich ins Auge zu fassen versuche, was uns jetzt schon aus der bisherigen Arbeit unserer Schule wie eine Ermutigung entgegentreten konnte.

Wenn wir diese Frage betrachten wollen, so wird es dienlich sein, einmal ins Auge zu fassen, was eigentlich jener Moment, den man den Augenblick des Schuleintrittes beim Kinde nennt, innerhalb der heutigen Verhältnisse bedeutet. Die Verhältnisse sind so geworden, daß man sagen dürfte, was heute im Elternhaus an Frische und Unmittelbarkeit freigemacht wird für die heranwachsenden Zöglinge, hat sich herausgerettet aus den Einschachtelungen und Abschrankungen, wie sie unser soziales Leben bezeichnen. Es ist gerade die Möglichkeit, in der Kinderstube, im Heim einmal sich rein menschlich ausleben zu können. Nicht viele Kinder unserer Gegenwart haben überhaupt noch die Möglichkeit, ihre Kräfte so spielen zu lassen, wie es dem tiefen Drange ihrer eigenen Willensnatur entsprechen würde. Und daß sie dies nimmer vermögen, das hat sich in der Zeit der letzten zwei Jahrhunderte herausgebildet.

Werden nun aus dieser Umgebung Kinder in die Schule hineingeschickt, da vollzieht sich etwas höchst Bedeutsames, sehr Folgenschweres in der heutigen Zeit. Soviel man auch noch vor der Kinderstube hat zurückhalten können von dem bezeichneten eingeschachtelten Leben, alles das lauert auf den herankommenden jungen Menschen, das wird von dem ersten Schultag an wirksam, das wird vom Augenblick des Schuleintrittes an aktuell. Es wird so wirksam, daß man ohne Übertreibung von einer bedeutsamen Krisis im Leben des Kindes sprechen kann.

Diese Krisis besteht darin, daß das Kind sich gegenübergestellt sieht einem fertigen System innerhalb der alten Schulgewohnheiten, die etwas haben, was an die Kinder herangebracht wird in Form eines ausgearbeiteten Lehrplanes; sie haben etwas, was feststeht als eine überlieferte umfassende Methode, und sie haben im Zusammenhang mit diesen Lehrzielen auch eine ganz bestimmte Art, besonders die Disziplin in der Schule auszuüben.

Und alles dieses ist so ausgestaltet worden, daf3 man leider nicht sagen kann, die eigentlich treibenden Kräfte der Gegenwart, namentlich die tieferen Strömungen des sozialen Werdens der unmittelbaren Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, wären in diese Gestaltungen ausgeflossen. Was den Lehrplan betrifft, war es bis vor wenigen Jahren im allgemeinen so, daß diejenige Aufstellung galt, die vor fünfzig Jahren gemacht worden war. Das trug dazu bei, die schlechten Folgen zu mindern, die vom Lehrplan ausgehen konnten. Das wird später gestreift werden.

Etwas derartig Fertiges lag vor, etwas, das so gemacht worden war, daß man nicht sagen konnte, die tätige Schulerfahrung ist da hineingeflossen, denn jene Menschen, die diese Feststellung von Amts wegen zu machen hatten, hatten vielleicht in der ersten Zeit ihrer Entwickelung eine gewisse Beziehung zur Schule gehabt. Sehr bald war diese Beziehung gelöst worden, nicht vielleicht vermöge ihrer hervorragenden Lehrerqualität, sondern vermöge der Tatsache, daß sie sehr geschickt sich erweisen konnten, sich ins ganze Verwaltungssystem des Schulwesens als Hoffnung erweckende angehende Beamte hineinzustellen. Diese Beamten verwalteten dasjenige, was man Aufstellung des Lehrplanes nennt, abgeschnitten von der eigentlichen Schulentwickelung, wenn man auch von einer solchen kaum eigentlich sprechen darf, wenn man nicht eher zu sprechen hätte von den hintangehaltenen Entwickelungskräften, die ein aufmerksamer Beobachter hätte sehen müssen.

Diesem Lehrplan sah sich das Kind vom ersten Tag an bereits gegenübergestellt: etwas Fremdes, Kaltes, was mit unerbittlicher Strenge alles zu bestimmen haben wird, was seelisch-geistiges Leben des Kindes bedeutet, von dem ersten Tage ab. Nicht nur das ganze Ziel des Lehrens war festgesetzt, sondern es war namentlich in den letzten Jahrzehnten bestimmt worden, von Klasse zu Klasse, von Woche zu Woche, an welcher Stelle der Unterricht zu stehen hat an dem und dem Datum.

Und es wurde die Erreichung des Zieles bis ins einzelste hinein vorgeschrieben durch das, was man die staatlich approbierte Methode nennen könnte. Diese Methode war von einer solchen Art, daß es dem einzelnen Lehrer nicht möglich gewesen wäre, in Freiheit von ihr abzusehen. Es wäre ihm nur kurze Zeit möglich geworden, dann hätte er sich in Konflikt befunden mit den Beamten, die das zu verwalten hatten.

Diese Methode, wie wirkt sie hinein? Diese Methode stammt aus Lebensvoraussetzungen der Menschheit, die im Grunde genommen längst überholt waren. Die Schule entwickelte sich im Mittelalter unter der Oberhoheit der Kirche. Dann übernahmen die Staaten alles das, was das Schulwesen der Kirche gewesen war. Es wurde die staatliche Schule ausgebaut, von der man sagen kann: je mehr ihre Grundlage im einzelnen bestimmt wurde, um so weniger konnte noch eine Entwickelungsmöglichkeit bleiben; je mehr man nach außen paradieren konnte, namentlich mit dem, was moderne Volksschule war, um so größer wurde die gähnende Öde innerhalb des Schulwesens selbst. Diese Öde mußte so groß werden, weil die Methode aus der alten Kirchenschule, Lateinschule stammt, sei es, daß man sie in das moderne neuzeitliche Gymnasium direkt verpflanzte, sei es, daß man sonst mit ihr arbeitet. Es war die alte unterrichtliche, juristisch-lateinische Methode in den Schulen aller Gattungen. Wenn dagegen angegangen wurde, wenn Teilreformen versucht wurden, so mag das eine historische Bedeutung haben, umgestaltende Kräfte sind nicht entfesselt worden von den Teilreformen.

Wir haben nun die Lehrplanüberlieferung, wir haben die Methode. In welcher Weise wurde nun beides ans Kind herangetragen? War es so, daß auch andere Voraussetzungen als diejenigen der rein lehrmäßigen Art auf das kindliche Leben eine schicksalbeeinflussende Bedeutung haben? Wir haben überall die Schule, die sich auf Standesgliederung aufbaut. Über die Einheitsschule hat man viel gesprochen. Zur wirklichen Tat ist man nicht gekommen, bis wir die Waldorfschule gründeten. Dieses tat man aus der Erkenntnis, eine große soziale Mission übernehmen zu sollen.

Sowie das Kind am ersten Schultag in die Stunde kam, erlebte es nicht nur die Krisis, die wir als die seelisch-geistige bezeichnen, sondern es erlebte auch eine soziale Krisis. An diesem Tage, als das Kind zum erstenmal aus der Volksschule oder aus dem Gymnasium heimkam und seinem Spielgenossen begegnete, da mußte ihm zum Bewußtsein kommen, was man die Standesunterschiede nennt. Vom ersten Tage ab wurde ihm jenes Gift, das die Spaltung der einzelnen Gesellschaftsschichten gemacht hat, eingeträufelt. Eine solche Krise im Empfinden sozialer Art, im Empfinden des gesamten kindlichen Seelenlebens trat ans Kind heran am ersten Tag.

Wie muß sich ein derartiges ausleben? Das werden wir wissen können, so wie es uns die Geisteswissenschaft heute herausgearbeitet hat. Wir können sehen: das, was gestaltende Kraft wird im Unterricht vom siebenten Lebensjahre ab, kann deswegen gestaltend wirken, kann sich deswegen bestimmte Aufgaben stellen, weil im Kinde durch eine bereits vollzogene organische Entwickelung gewisse Kräfte frei geworden sind. Mit diesen Kräften kann man arbeiten. Man kann so arbeiten, daß sie das bewirken, was man die innere Ausbildung des Menschen nennt, daß sie sich ausprägen im Verlaufe der weiteren organischen Fortentwickelung. Das ist eine Grundanschauung, wie sie uns von der Geisteswissenschaft, deren Methode wir hineinzuarbeiten bemüht sind, geschenkt worden ist.

Stellt man dem gegenüber die Gewohnheit der alten Schule, so muß man sagen, die alte Schule hat keinerlei Beziehung zu jenen organisch freigewordenen Kräften gehabt, die in Betracht kommen während dieser Altersstufe, und hat gesündigt gegen die Anerkennung einer derartigen Anschauung, die hätte gefunden werden müssen aus der gesunden Unterrichtspraxis. Indem sie einerseits die freiwerdenden Kräfte nicht zur Gestaltung zu führen vermochte, begannen jene Kräfte zu wuchern, so daß sich Triebe entwickeln und nicht in den Strom der Entwickelung geführt werden, die vorgezeichnet ist. Andrerseits nahmen sie diejenigen organischen Kräfte schon vom ersten Schultage ab in Anspruch, die sehr viel später erst frei werden sollten und frei werden wollten, wenn man die kindliche Natur versteht.

Dadurch wurde bewirkt, was Ste im Knochensystem beobachten können. Der innere Halt, das Skelett wurde geschwächt. Es wurden gewisse Möglichkeiten des Aufrechtstehens im Leben dem Kinde dadurch genommen, daß man vom allerersten Schultage an eine reine Kopfbildung ans Kind heranbringen wollte, daß man nur zu seinem Verstand sprach, gar nicht tiefer herandringen wollte oder konnte.

Solche Tatsachen spiegeln sich oft in kleinen Symptomen. $o war es interessant, in dem Buche von Haug den Satz zu finden, daß man den Unterricht der französischen Sprache, von der Sie wissen, daß wir sie von der allerersten Schulstufe ab unterrichten, nicht pflegen dürfe auf jener Stufe, weil die Sprache irrational sei.

Was offenbart sich in einem derartigen Merkmal? Ganz deutlich sehen wir hier, wie vor dem Kinde nicht der lebendige Mensch steht, sondern ein dickes Buch, das für uns alle Schicksalsbedeutung gehabt hat, das «Grammatik» heißt. Die Grammatik kann man auf dieser Stufe nicht an die Kinder heranbringen; das war identisch für die Menschen der alten Schulgewohnheiten mit der Unmöglichkeit, die lebendige Kraft der Sprache hineinspielen zu lassen in die kindliche Entwickelung. - So wie Sie in den Gymnasien das Buch stehen haben, so haben Sie in den Volksschulen anderes anstelle der lebendigen Persönlichkeit stehen, die eigentlich ans Kind die Inhalte des Lebens heranbringen muß. Von dem Buch ist man abgekommen, dafür finden Sie jetzt um so mehr Karten, Schemen, Tabellen. Alles das soll ans Kind herangebracht werden, damit es urteilen lerne.

Aber man wird zugestehen müssen, wenn man die kindliche Natur richtig kennt, daß die Unaufmerksamkeit des Kindes gerade gegenüber einer derartigen Unterrichtsart ihre feineren Gründe hat. Es strebt zurück von dem Buche, von der intellektualisierenden Anschauung, durch die Kraft der Weisheit, die das Kind vor Schädigung bewahren will. Es ist eine Selbsthilfe des Kindes, was als Unaufmerksamkeit eintritt. Das Kind entzieht sich den nivellierenden Einflüssen eines derartigen Unterrichts. Unterrichtet man von der ersten Stunde bis zur letzten in der geschilderten Art, dann wird der Versuch gemacht, durch Unaufmerksamkeit sich einem derartigen Unterricht zu entziehen.

Wie soll nun aber dieser Versuch gelingen innerhalb einer Schule, die auch eine Art Disziplin hatte! Nicht nur, daß in der eben angedeuteten Art und Weise der Lehrstoff herangebracht wurde; dem Kinde wurde auch zugemutet, daß es innerhalb eines Vormittages drei- bis viermal sich umstellen mußte in bezug auf den Lehrstoff, so daß es gestürzt wurde von der einen Stufe in die andere hinein. Wer deutlich die Entwickelung zu verfolgen wußte, der konnte erkennen, wie in der letzten Zeit das Streben vorhanden war, die Stunden noch weiter zu kürzen, auf 45 Minuten, kinematographisch den ganzen Unterrichtsstoff vorbeiziehen zu lassen. Die Gliederung übertrug sich noch auf die einzelnen Stunden. Und in welcher Art? Als Meisterwerk der modernen Didaktik, so stehen die Formalstufen da, von Ziller begründet, heute übernommen im ganzen Volksschulunterricht.

Lassen Sie sich klarmachen, was ein solcher Lehrer innerhalb einer einzigen Unterrichtsstunde von 45 Minuten zu leisten hat. Der Stoff soll an das Kind herangebracht werden in sechs Phasen: Erstens: Anknüpfung; zweitens: Vertiefung, und nach der Vertiefung kommt die Beseelung des Stoffes; dann weiter nach der Beseelung kommt die Stufe der Verfügbarkeit des Stoffes. Sie schließt wenig in sich. Dann kommt die Stufe der Stoffbemeisterung, Stoffverwertung innerhalb der Stunde selbst. Aber das wiederholt sich ja viermal noch am selben Vormittag innerhalb der verschiedenen Gebiete. - Sie werden mir zugestehen, wenn ich sagen muß, unsere Kinder können nach einer derartigen Methode, die die Kinder mißhandelt, nicht behandelt werden. - Wenn sich solche mißhandelten Kinder den Wirkungen des Unterrichts, des Lehrplanes, der verlangt, am Dienstag, den 11. Mai, muß in allen Klassen dies und dieses Ziel erreicht werden, entziehen wollten, was geschah da?

Dann trat die Disziplin in Kraft. Sie arbeitete von der allerersten Schulstunde mit Mitteln, die in tiefer Weise das ganze moralische Leben des Kindes verseuchen mußten. Das Kind, das gewohnt war, sich natürlicherweise zu äußern, sah sich auf Schritt und Tritt dem Lob oder Tadel gegenüber. Schematisierung trat ein. Die Kinder stellten sich von vorneherein auf die Möglichkeit ein, gefragt zu werden, so daß sie nur in gewissen Fällen mit der Aufmerksamkeit beim Unterricht dabei waren. Wenn das Kind bis dahin gewohnt war, sich frei zu äußern, und es das in der Schule ebenso tun wollte, so erlebte es, daß es abgeschnitten wurde durch jene Rüge, die es immer erfuhr, wenn es in solcher Weise an den Lehrer herantreten wollte; es hatte Strafe zu gewärtigen, die die allergrößßten Bedenken ins kindliche Seelenleben senken mußte. Die Kinder mußten dann besondere Schulaufgaben machen, anstatt daß ihnen von vorneherein die Anschauung wachgerufen worden wäre, es sei eine Freude, in der Schule arbeiten zu dürfen. So wurde die Schulaufgabe zur Strafe gestempelt. Das Kind bekam eine eigenartige Auffassung vom Unterricht solcher Art. Der ganze Unterricht hat etwas mit einem Strafsystem zu tun. Es äußert sich in jenen organischen Beeinträchtigungen, die das kindliche Wachstum hemmen, daß im Kinde verschiedenes zur Wucherung kam, was sonst sich gesund entfaltet hätte.

Ich möchte darauf hinweisen, daß eine ganz bestimmte Erscheinung der späteren Schulstufe damit zusammenhängt. Unsere Schüler stehen ironisch gegenüber dem gesamten Schulwesen, und das durchsetzt das ganze Verhalten des Schülers zu seinem Lehrer, zu seiner Schule. Sie wissen alle aus ihrer Schulzeit her, wie es Vergnügen bereitet hat, über die Lehrer zu urteilen. Dann die Erscheinung der Schülerselbstmorde; immer mehr treten diese drohenden Erscheinungen hervor, und immer ratloser sieht sich die Verwaltung gegenüber diesen Erscheinungen. Wirkliche Lebenskräfte, die sich betätigen wollen in einem naturgemäßen Unterricht, sind zurückgedämmt worden. Alles was so zurückgestaut wird, das bewirkt jene Nervosität, die wir eine Zeitkrankheit nennen, die sich auf dem Gebiete des Schulwesens offenbart.

Nun fragen wir uns, was wurde erreicht und bis zu einem bestimmten Abschluß gebracht, wenn man von der untersten Schulstufe bis zur letzten Stufe geht? Unsere Volksschüler verlassen die Schule mit dem fünfzehnten Jahr. Menschen, die viel mit Proletariern zu tun hatten und “ die häufig den arbeitenden Menschen ins Gesicht gesehen haben, werden die Erscheinung bemerken, daß etwas wie eine gewisse Herbheit sich ausprägt im Antlitz dieser Menschen. Es ist viel darüber gesprochen worden, wenig gedacht. Aber man hat nicht beobachtet, daß dies ja gar nicht anders sein könne, daß dies eine naturnotwendige Folge davon ist, daß mit dem vierzehnten Jahre im Menschen das Empfindungsleben frei wird, und von diesem Zeitpunkt ab war für die Mehrzahl unserer Volksgenossen die Bildung abgeschnitten. Wie kann es anders sein, wenn Empfindungsfähigkeiten nicht zu bildenden Kräften zu werden vermögen im Schicksal dieser Menschen?

Die anderen, die nun weiter fortgeführt wurden, die wurden erst recht hineingeführt in jene alte, lateinische Methode, von der ich eingangs sprach. Das Studium der klassischen Sprachen trat mehr in den Vordergrund, oder das Studium der Naturwissenschaften, die im Aufbau auch nur das Erbe des Römischen Reiches und Rechtes angetreten haben. Die Folge davon war, daß wenn aus der Volksschule notwendig in ihrer Entwickelung zurückgehaltene Menschen austraten, so traten von dem humanistischen Gymnasium Menschen heraus, die später die Vertreter des humanistischen Bildungsideals werden sollten. Es wurde dies als eine Errungenschaft dargestellt, daß man Sprachen treiben könne, die man um ihrer selbst willen treibe. Man bemerkte aber nicht, daß die Beschäftigung mit derartigen Sprachen zurückstrahlt auf den ganzen Menschen, daß die Menschen, die sich in vielen Stunden in die griechische Sprache versenkt hatten, unfähig wurden, die deutsche Sprache und die Sprache der Tatsachen zu verstehen. Jene Menschen, die von der Realschule ins Leben traten, die gaben ab die späteren Realpolitiker, die immer pochen auf Tatsachen, pochen auf Gesetze aller Art, die aber nicht sehen, wie die Wirklichkeit beeinflußt wird von ganz anderen Strömungen als denjenigen, die sie ihre Gesetze nennen.

Alle diese drei Schulaustritte dürfen wir so ins Auge fassen, daß wir die verhängnisvolle Wirkung so arbeiten sehen, daß die Kräfte hintangehalten werden, die organbildend sein können und Bildung beeinflussend im tiefsten Sinne des Wortes, daß andererseits die Kräfte, die nicht einströmen konnten, wuchern mußten. Dort, wo ein Gefühlsleben nicht gepflegt wird, hat es die Neigung, zur Sentimentalität zu gelangen auf Schritt und Tritt.

Der Wille, was wurde aus dem? Entweder er wurde so gebrochen, daß wir jene Ruinen von Menschen haben, die heute auf verantwortungsvollen Posten stehen, oder auf der anderen Seite jene brutalen Gewaltmenschen, die in die Welt so hineintreten, daß sie alles unter ihren Füßen zusammenstampfen, eine Folge davon, daß der Wille gar nicht zu einer Pflege kommen konnte.

Diese Erscheinungen sind häufig zusammengefaßt worden. Kritik ist in Hülle und Fülle ausgeübt worden. - Als sich der Vorgang der Weltrevolution abspielte, da war die Meinung entstanden: Jetzt wird aus dem Brodem der kochenden neuen Kräfte etwas hineinfließen können, etwas wie eine neue Lebensströmung in das Schulwesen selbst; man wird dazu kommen, die Kritik aufzupeitschen zu einer gestaltenden Tat. Seit jenen Tagen ist man nicht müde geworden, immer wieder das Wort «Einheitsschule» zu gebrauchen als einen Titel für die Bestrebungen, die meinten, sich mit der Zeit in Verbindung zu setzen. Aber wenn wir die Auslassungen der Gesetzgebung beobachten, so werden wir nicht umhin können zu sehen, was wie eine schwarze Gefahr uns gegenübertritt. Wir sehen, daß zwar jene Gliederung der Schule, wie sie althergebracht war, äußerlich verändert worden ist, daß aber, weil das, was man Schulkonzession nennt, viel ausgiebiger als sonst noch zur Geltung kommen möchte, die Gefahr als drohend bezeichnet werden muß. Wir sehen, daß die Volksschule zu einer Konfessionsschule, einer Parteischule und Schule von bestimmten wirtschaftlichen Gruppen werden kann, daß man noch weniger als früher bedacht ist, auf das allgemein Menschliche Rücksicht zu nehmen, jetzt mit aller Eindringlichkeit des juristisch arbeitenden Beamtenapparates.

Sie werden finden, daß der Beamte innerhalb der neuen Zustände nicht seine Bedeutung verloren hat, daß er viel mehr wirken kann, daß er viel mehr zersetzen kann, als innerhalb des alten Systems. Beachten Sie, mit welcher Eifersucht gewacht wird, daß alle Verfügungen beachtet werden. Gegenüber diesem brutalen Willen wird man nicht umhin können zuzugeben, daß es nicht leicht möglich werden wird, jenes Bildungsideal durchzuführen. Wir werden gewärtig sein müssen, daß mehr als früher bestimmt werden wird, was als Unterricht ans Kind herangebracht werden soll, namentlich im Geschichtsunterricht.

Was wird die Folge weiter sein? Die Folge wird sein, daß der Beamtencharakter des Lehrers sich noch mehr ausprägen wird.

Alledem gegenüber steht unsere Welt von heute, die Not der Zeit, die noch nach ganz anderem verlangt als demjenigen, was man als einen schwachen Zukunftsschimmer ausgießen möchte über das Schulwesen und darüber hinaus. Warum können die Neuerungen nicht zu jenem Ziele führen? Wir kommen zu einem eigenartigen Gesetz: Wenn irgendwo etwas gedacht wird, und es sich nicht auszugießen vermag, weil es nicht durchdrungen ist von der ganzen Energie des Menschenwesens, so wirkt es so, daß dies nicht eine Verminderung des Negativen ist, sondern sich verbindet mit den negativen Zuständen. Es fließt unterirdisch da hinüber. So hat es Lichtwark ausgedrückt: Teilreformen bewirken nur eine Verstärkung der bereits bestehenden Tendenzen. Alles andere ist zu erwarten als eine Neugestaltung. Wir können nur eine weitere Verstärkung der schon vorhandenen Bestrebungen erwarten.

Nun, dieses Bild habe ich vor Ihnen aufgerollt, um Ihnen deutlich werden zu lassen an dem, was mir nicht übertrieben scheint, was aus dem persönlichen Leben vieler Lehrender schicksalmäßig beseitigt werden möchte, weil wir, wenn wir jenes Bestreben unserer Freien Schule richtig ins soziale Leben der Zeit hineinfließen lassen wollen, wissen müssen, welche Gefahr uns von dem alten Schulwesen droht. Es kann nicht die Aufgabe meiner jetzigen Ausführungen sein, unsere Bestrebungen noch einmal zu wiederholen.

Wenn in unserer Schule jene Bestimmungen fehlen, die das alte Schulleben gesetzmäßig regeln, so bedeutet das nicht, daß wir uns unsere Aufgabe leicht gemacht haben. Wir haben uns unsere Aufgabe schwerer gemacht. Die Zeit muß fordern, daß man schwere Lasten auf sich nimmt, um derjenigen Entwickelung willen, von der wir eine Zukunft erwarten dürfen. Wenn wir aber die schweren Lasten auf uns genommen haben, so können wir sie nur tragen, wenn alle diejenigen mittragen helfen, die uns Vertrauen geschenkt haben, wenn sie darauf bedacht sind, daß die kleinsten Wirkungen von Bedeutung sind, und hierbei auf das Ernsteste das Schulleben verfolgen; keine Unterrichtsstunde, keine andere Unternehmung, die im Verlaufe des Schulwesens sich ergibt, ist so gedacht, wie sie sich innerhalb der alten Schulgewohnheiten ergibt.

Was hier geleistet wird, ist Lebenskraft unseres Volkes selbst, sind Kräfte, deren Auswirkungen wir brauchen. Unsere Zeit lechzt nach ihnen. Wenn nun das Elternhaus der Schule so gegenübersteht, wie es innerhalb der alten Schulgewohnheit der Fall ist, so muß vieles von dem ganz anders verwirklicht werden. Entweder es bestand ein Kampf, oder es bestand dies, was man nennen kann ein Hinundherwerfen zwischen Elternhaus und Schule. Denn wie häufig treten Sie der Meinung gegenüber, daß die Eltern froh sind, sobald die Kinder in der Schule sind. Sie möchten sie den ganzen Tag in der Schule haben und sind sehr aufgebracht über alle Zumutungen, die gemacht werden, daß sie die Tätigkeit der Schule unterstützen sollen. Das Kind übernimmt alle Nuancen, die in seiner Umgebung angeschlagen werden, in feiner Weise. Wenn das Kind beobachten kann: Was mir in der Schule gesagt wird, das wird zu Hause anders betrachtet! - dann kommt das Kind in einen Zwiespalt, und diejenigen Wirkungen, die auf das Kind ausgehen sollen, können nicht ausgehen.

Nachdem wir unsere Schule ins Leben gerufen haben, nachdem wir mit allen Kräften danach ringen, einen Teil zu erfüllen, da sind die alten Schulgewohnheiten lebendig geblieben, so daß Menschen, die innerhalb dieser Gewohnheiten groß geworden sind, die Voraussetzungen aus einem Alten ins Neue hineintragen. Sie möchten das Ganze nach jenem Einschachtelungsmuster beurteilen. Es kann vorkommen, daß Menschen besorgt sind, wenn man nicht nachweisen kann in unserer Schule, die alle Kräfte entwickeln will: warum hat das Kind das oder das noch nicht gelernt und so weiter? Man ist in großen Sorgen. Man sollte berücksichtigen, daß diese Sorgen ungerechtfertigt sind, daß wir dann nicht sprechen dürfen von einer neuen Schule, sondern daß wir die alten Schulgewohnheiten in irgendeiner umgeschachtelten Form in die Schule aufgenommen hätten. Dasjenige, was in der Waldorfschule abweichend gemacht wird von den alten Schulgewohnheiten, wird so gemacht aus einer Praxis, die nicht aus einer verstandesmäßig erklügelten Anschauung erfließt, sondern aus jenen Kräften, die sich auf die Werdekräfte der jungen Menschen und des Volkes selbst beziehen. Indem wir Ihnen diese Zusicherung geben, dürfen Sie sich mit Ihren Vertrauenskräften genug verbunden fühlen. Sie werden die Geduld haben müssen, wenn Sie abwarten wollen das, was da reift.

Nehmen Sie doch als ein Zeichen der beginnenden Reife die Stimmung, die unsere Kinder überall beseelt und belebt, die die Kinder in die Schule hineintragen, wenn sie sich sagen: das Lernen ist hier keine Strafe. Nehmen Sie jene Stimmung, die sich sogar an frisch geröteten Wangen mancher unserer Zöglinge offenbart, nehmen Sie sie als Wahrzeichen dafür, daß Dinge in der Reife sind. Lassen Sie sich nicht einschüchtern durch die Gespenster, die in unsere niedergehende Zeit hineinbrechen möchten. Sagen Sie sich: Das Kind, das hier heranwachsen soll, das soll nur mit sich selbst einmal verglichen werden können, wenn es als reifer Mensch ins Leben herausgetreten sein wird.

Wenn wir eine derartige Anschauung an die Schule heranbringen, dann wird die Schaffensfreude, die uns belebt, Früchte tragen, daß wir sehen, das heutige Leben wird mit der Schule zu rechnen haben. Schöpferkräfte können nur aus solchen Schulen kommen, wo Schöpferkräfte nicht zurückgestaut werden, sondern wo sie entwickelt werden, so daß der erste Tag in der Schule nicht eine Krisis bedeutet, sondern das Kind so hineinführt, daß es aufgeschlossen wird für das Leben später; so daß es die Schule verläßt, nicht als Gewaltmensch, nicht als bloß mit Kopfwissen beladener Mensch, sondern als Mensch, der eine neue Bildung zu vertreten vermag, die wahre Menschenbildung der neuen Zeit. In der wahren Erkenntnis des Menschenwesens liegt das Unterpfand für die Entwickelung unseres Volkes in der Zukunft.

Auch diese Aufgabe ist groß, aber es ist ein Zeichen unserer Zeit, daß sie herb ist. Man will vor dem Antlitz unserer Zeit nicht so klaren Blickes stehen, daß man die verbitterten Züge sehen will. Man will Schleier über Schleier vor dieses Antlitz ziehen und will sich seinen Anblick deswegen fernhalten, weil man die Sprache fürchtet, die aus dem Antlitz redet. Herb und groß sind die Aufgaben, die wir übernommen haben. Aber wir glauben, daß es Menschen geben kann, die die Aufgaben doppelt zu lieben vermögen, weil sie herb und groß sind. Wir vereinigen uns mit Ihnen in der Hoffnung, daß Sie sie lieben lernen werden, weil es eine herbe Aufgabe ist. Aus der Herbheit wird die Frische entspringen können.

Herb und scharf ist das, was wir zu vertreten haben; aber diese Herbheit wird uns die Kraft geben, hier von der Freien Waldorfschule aus der niedergehenden Zeit ein Flammenzeichen auf die Stirne zu schreiben. Sie möge, während sie dahinlebt im Phrasentum, die Kraft finden, einen kräftigen Tod zu sterben, daß darauf fallen möge die Sonne des kommenden Tages.

School Habits of the Past and School Practices of the Future

Lecture given at a parents' evening

Ladies and gentlemen! I would like to welcome you all here to this room, where we are gathering for the second time to discuss important issues concerning the life of our Waldorf school. We are particularly pleased that so many of you have come. I have chosen as the topic of today's lecture: School habits of the past and school practices of the future.

Ladies and gentlemen! It seemed to me that such a topic was all the more appropriate as it has become more than just a theoretical problem for all of you since our Waldorf school was founded. What is to serve as an introduction to my remarks today is not merely a theoretical problem for you, but a question in which you find serious possibilities for engaging with the present age. And by deciding to send your children to the Waldorf School, you have demonstrated that you can have confidence in the new approaches being attempted at this school. Based on this feeling of trust, I would like to try to arrive at a kind of judgment by attempting to shed light on everything that lies behind us as something that is lagging behind and dying out, and by trying to consider what has already emerged from the work of our school to date as a source of encouragement.

If we want to consider this question, it will be helpful to first consider what the moment of a child's entry into school actually means in today's circumstances. Conditions have become such that one could say that what is now made available to growing pupils in the parental home in terms of freshness and immediacy has been rescued from the confines and barriers that characterize our social life. It is precisely the opportunity to be able to express oneself purely as a human being in the nursery, at home. Not many children of our time still have the opportunity to let their energies play out in a way that corresponds to the deep urges of their own will. And the fact that they are no longer able to do so has become apparent over the last two centuries.

When children from this environment are sent to school, something highly significant and very consequential takes place in today's world. No matter how much one has been able to hold back from the aforementioned boxed-in life before the nursery, all of this lurks in wait for the approaching young person, becomes effective from the first day of school, and becomes relevant from the moment of entering school. It becomes so effective that one can speak without exaggeration of a significant crisis in the life of the child.

This crisis consists in the fact that the child is confronted with a ready-made system within the old school habits, which have something that is brought to the children in the form of a detailed curriculum; they have something that is established as a traditional comprehensive method, and in connection with these teaching objectives, they also have a very specific way of exercising discipline in school.

And all this has been designed in such a way that, unfortunately, one cannot say that the actual driving forces of the present, namely the deeper currents of social development in the immediate past and present, have flowed into these designs. As far as the curriculum is concerned, until a few years ago, the one that had been drawn up fifty years ago was generally still in use. This helped to mitigate the negative consequences that could arise from the curriculum. This will be touched upon later.

Something so complete was available, something that had been designed in such a way that one could not say that active school experience had been incorporated into it, because those people who had to make this assessment in an official capacity may have had a certain relationship with the school in the early stages of its development. Very soon, this connection was severed, not perhaps because of their outstanding teaching qualities, but because of the fact that they proved very adept at inserting themselves into the entire administrative system of the school system as promising prospective civil servants. These officials administered what is called the curriculum, cut off from the actual development of the school, although one can hardly speak of such a thing, but rather of the stifled forces of development that an attentive observer would have had to see.

From the very first day, the child was confronted with this curriculum: something foreign and cold that would determine with relentless severity everything that constituted the child's emotional and intellectual life from the very first day. Not only was the overall goal of teaching fixed, but in recent decades it had been determined, class by class, week by week, where the lessons should be at a given date.

And the achievement of the goal was prescribed down to the smallest detail by what could be called the state-approved method. This method was of such a nature that it would not have been possible for the individual teacher to deviate from it freely. He would only have been able to do so for a short time, then he would have found himself in conflict with the officials who had to administer it.

How does this method work? This method stems from the living conditions of humanity, which, in essence, had long since become obsolete. Schools developed in the Middle Ages under the authority of the Church. Then the states took over everything that had been the Church's school system. State schools were expanded, and it can be said that the more their foundations were defined in detail, the less room there was for development; the more one could parade outwardly, namely with what was modern elementary school, the greater became the yawning desolation within the school system itself. This desolation had to become so great because the method originated in the old church school, the Latin school, whether it was transplanted directly into the modern secondary school or whether it was used in other ways. It was the old teaching method, based on legal Latin, in schools of all kinds. When attempts were made to counter this, when partial reforms were attempted, this may have had historical significance, but the forces of change were not unleashed by the partial reforms.

We now have the traditional curriculum, we have the method. How were both of these brought to the child? Was it the case that other conditions than those of a purely doctrinal nature had a fateful influence on the child's life? Everywhere we have schools that are based on class divisions. There has been much talk about the comprehensive school. Nothing really happened until we founded the Waldorf School. This was done out of the realization that we had to take on a great social mission.

As soon as the child entered the classroom on its first day of school, it experienced not only the crisis that we call the spiritual crisis, but also a social crisis. On that day, when the child came home from elementary school or high school for the first time and met his playmates, he had to become aware of what is called class differences. From the very first day, he was instilled with the poison that has divided the individual social classes. Such a crisis in social perception, in the perception of the entire child's soul life, approached the child on the first day.

How must such a thing play out? We will be able to know this, as spiritual science has worked out for us today. We can see that what becomes a formative force in teaching from the age of seven onwards can have a formative effect and can therefore set itself certain tasks because certain forces have been released in the child through an organic development that has already taken place. One can work with these forces. One can work in such a way that they bring about what is called the inner education of the human being, that they become expressed in the course of further organic development. This is a fundamental view that has been given to us by spiritual science, whose methods we are striving to incorporate.

If we compare this with the habits of the old school, we must say that the old school had no connection whatsoever with those organically released forces that come into play during this age group, and sinned against the recognition of such a view, which should have been found in healthy teaching practice. On the one hand, because it was unable to guide the forces that were becoming free toward formation, those forces began to proliferate, so that instincts developed and were not guided into the stream of development that was predestined. On the other hand, from the very first day of school, it made use of those organic forces that should only become free much later and would become free if one understands childlike nature.

This resulted in what Ste observed in the skeletal system. The inner support, the skeleton, was weakened. Certain possibilities for standing upright in life were taken away from the child by the fact that, from the very first day of school, the aim was to teach the child purely intellectual skills, to speak only to their intellect, without wanting or being able to go any deeper.

Such facts are often reflected in small symptoms. It was interesting to find in Haug's book the statement that the teaching of the French language, which, as you know, we teach from the very first grade, should not be cultivated at that level because the language is irrational.

What does such a characteristic reveal? We can see quite clearly here that it is not a living person who stands before the child, but a thick book that has had a fateful significance for all of us, called “grammar.” Grammar cannot be taught to children at this level; for people with old school habits, this was synonymous with the impossibility of allowing the living power of language to play a role in children's development. Just as you have the book in high schools, you have other things in elementary schools instead of the living personality that should actually bring the content of life to the child. The book has been abandoned, and now you find all the more cards, diagrams, and tables. All of this is to be brought to the child so that it learns to judge.

But if you really understand child nature, you will have to admit that there are subtle reasons for children's inattention to this type of teaching. They shy away from books and intellectualized views through the power of wisdom that wants to protect them from harm. What appears to be inattention is actually a form of self-help for the child. The child withdraws from the leveling influences of such teaching. If one teaches from the first lesson to the last in the manner described, then the child will attempt to withdraw from such teaching through inattention.

But how can this attempt succeed in a school that also had a kind of discipline? Not only was the subject matter taught in the manner just described, but the child was also expected to change subjects three or four times in the course of a morning, so that it was thrown from one level to another. Anyone who was able to follow the development closely could see how, in recent times, there had been an effort to shorten the lessons even further, to 45 minutes, and to cover the entire curriculum cinematographically. The structure was also transferred to the individual lessons. And in what way? The formal stages, established by Ziller and now adopted throughout elementary school education, are considered a masterpiece of modern didactics.

Let us clarify what such a teacher has to accomplish within a single 45-minute lesson. The material is to be presented to the child in six phases: First: connection; second: deepening, and after deepening comes the inspiration of the material; then, after inspiration, comes the stage of availability of the material. It contains little in itself. Then comes the stage of mastery of the material, utilization of the material within the lesson itself. But that is repeated four times in the same morning within the different areas. You will agree with me when I say that our children cannot be treated in such a way, which mistreats them. When such mistreated children wanted to escape the effects of the teaching, of the curriculum, which demanded that on Tuesday, May 11, this and that goal had to be achieved in all classes, what happened?

Then discipline came into force. From the very first lesson, it worked with means that were bound to deeply contaminate the whole moral life of the child. The child, who was used to expressing himself naturally, was faced with praise or blame at every turn. Schematization set in. The children prepared themselves from the outset for the possibility of being questioned, so that they only paid attention in class in certain cases. If the child had been accustomed to expressing itself freely up to that point and wanted to do the same at school, it experienced being cut off by the reprimand it always received when it tried to approach the teacher in this way; they had to expect punishment, which was bound to cause the greatest concerns in their childish souls. The children then had to do special schoolwork instead of being made aware from the outset that it was a joy to be allowed to work at school. Thus, schoolwork became stigmatized as punishment. The child developed a peculiar view of this kind of teaching. The whole teaching process has something to do with a system of punishment. This is expressed in those organic impairments that inhibit the child's growth, causing various things to proliferate in the child that would otherwise have developed healthily.

I would like to point out that a very specific phenomenon in later school years is related to this. Our students are ironic about the entire school system, and this permeates the student's entire behavior toward his teacher and his school. They all know from their own school days how much fun it was to judge their teachers. Then there is the phenomenon of student suicides; these threatening phenomena are becoming more and more prevalent, and the administration is increasingly at a loss as to how to deal with them. Real life forces that want to be active in natural teaching have been held back. Everything that is held back in this way causes the nervousness that we call a disease of the times, which manifests itself in the field of education.

Now we ask ourselves, what has been achieved and brought to a certain conclusion when one goes from the lowest school level to the last level? Our elementary school students leave school at the age of fifteen. People who have had a lot to do with proletarians and who have often looked working people in the face will notice that something like a certain harshness is expressed in the faces of these people. Much has been said about this, but little thought has been given to it. But it has not been observed that this could not be otherwise, that this is a natural consequence of the fact that at the age of fourteen, a person's emotional life becomes free, and from that point on, education was cut off for the majority of our compatriots. How could it be otherwise when emotional abilities cannot become formative forces in the fate of these people?

The others, who were allowed to continue, were led even more deeply into that old Latin method I mentioned at the beginning. The study of classical languages came more to the fore, or the study of the natural sciences, which in their structure were also merely the legacy of the Roman Empire and law. The result was that when people who were necessarily held back in their development left elementary school, people who would later become the representatives of the humanistic educational ideal emerged from the humanistic high school. This was presented as an achievement, that one could study languages for their own sake. However, it was not noticed that the study of such languages had an impact on the whole person, that people who had immersed themselves in the Greek language for many hours became unable to understand the German language and the language of facts. Those people who entered life from secondary school became the realpolitik politicians of later years, who always insist on facts, insist on laws of all kinds, but who do not see how reality is influenced by currents quite different from those they call their laws.

We can view all three of these school dropouts in such a way that we see the disastrous effect at work, that the forces that can be formative and influence education in the deepest sense of the word are held back, while on the other hand, the forces that could not flow in had to proliferate. Where emotional life is not cultivated, it has a tendency to descend into sentimentality at every turn.

The will, what became of it? Either it was broken to such an extent that we have those ruins of human beings who today hold positions of responsibility, or, on the other hand, those brutal, violent people who enter the world in such a way that they trample everything underfoot, a consequence of the fact that the will could not be cultivated at all.

These phenomena have often been summarized. Criticism has been exercised in abundance. When the process of world revolution was taking place, the opinion arose that now something would be able to flow in from the ferment of the boiling new forces, something like a new life current into the school system itself; criticism would be whipped up into a creative act. Since those days, people have not tired of using the term “comprehensive school” as a title for the efforts that sought to connect with the times. But when we observe the omissions in legislation, we cannot help but see what appears to be a dark danger facing us. We see that although the traditional structure of the school has been changed externally, the danger must be described as imminent because what is known as school concessions are likely to become much more prevalent than before. We see that elementary school can become a denominational school, a party school, and a school of certain economic groups, that even less consideration is given than before to general human considerations, now with all the urgency of the legally operating civil service.

You will find that civil servants have not lost their importance under the new conditions, that they can have much more influence, that they can cause much more disruption than under the old system. Note the zeal with which they ensure that all regulations are observed. In the face of this brutal will, one cannot help but admit that it will not be easy to implement that educational ideal. We will have to expect that, more than before, what is to be taught to children will be determined, especially in history lessons.

What will be the consequence? The consequence will be that the civil servant character of the teacher will become even more pronounced.

All this contrasts with our world today, the needs of the times, which demand something quite different from what one would like to pour out as a faint glimmer of hope for the future of the school system and beyond. Why can't the innovations lead to that goal? We come to a peculiar law: if something is conceived somewhere and cannot be expressed because it is not imbued with the whole energy of the human being, it has the effect that this is not a reduction of the negative, but rather combines with the negative conditions. It flows underground. As Lichtwark put it: partial reforms only reinforce existing tendencies. Anything other than a reorganization is to be expected. We can only expect a further reinforcement of existing efforts.

Now, I have presented this picture to you in order to make clear what I do not consider to be an exaggeration, what fate seems to want to eliminate from the personal lives of many teachers, because if we want to allow the aspirations of our Free School to flow properly into the social life of the time, we must know what danger threatens us from the old school system. It cannot be the task of my present remarks to repeat our endeavors once again.

If our school lacks the regulations that govern the old school life, this does not mean that we have made our task easy. We have made our task more difficult. The times demand that we take on heavy burdens for the sake of the development from which we can expect a future. But once we have taken on these heavy burdens, we can only carry them if all those who have placed their trust in us help to carry them, if they are mindful that even the smallest effects are significant, and if they follow school life with the utmost seriousness; No lesson, no other undertaking that arises in the course of the school system is conceived in the same way as it arises within the old school habits.

What is being achieved here is the vitality of our people themselves, forces whose effects we need. Our time craves them. If the parents' home now takes the same attitude toward the school as is the case within the old school habits, then much of this must be realized in a completely different way. Either there was a struggle, or there was what could be called a tug-of-war between the parental home and the school. For how often do you encounter the opinion that parents are happy as soon as their children are at school? They want them to be at school all day and are very upset about all the demands made on them to support the school's activities. The child subtly picks up on all the nuances in its environment. If the child observes that what is said to it at school is viewed differently at home, it becomes conflicted, and the desired effects on the child cannot be achieved.

After we started our school, after we struggled with all our might to fulfill a part of our mission, the old school habits remained alive, so that people who grew up within these habits carried the conditions from the old into the new. They want to judge the whole thing according to that pattern of pigeonholing. It can happen that people are concerned when it cannot be proven in our school, which wants to develop all abilities: why has the child not yet learned this or that, and so on? People are very worried. One should take into account that these concerns are unjustified, that we cannot then speak of a new school, but that we have incorporated the old school habits into the school in some repackaged form. What is done differently in Waldorf schools from old school habits is done on the basis of a practice that does not flow from an intellectually contrived view, but from those forces that relate to the developing powers of young people and the people themselves. By giving you this assurance, you can feel sufficiently connected to your powers of trust. You will have to be patient if you want to wait for what is maturing.

Take as a sign of the beginning of maturity the mood that animates and enlivens our children everywhere, which the children bring into school when they say to themselves: learning here is not a punishment. Take that mood, which is even revealed in the freshly reddened cheeks of some of our pupils, take it as a sign that things are maturing. Do not be intimidated by the ghosts that want to break into our declining times. Tell yourself: the child who is to grow up here should only be compared with himself once he has stepped out into life as a mature human being.

If we bring such a view to school, then the creative joy that enlivens us will bear fruit, and we will see that today's life will have to reckon with school. Creative forces can only come from schools where creative forces are not held back, but where they are developed, so that the first day at school does not mean a crisis, but introduces the child in such a way that they become open to later life; so that they leave school not as violent people, not as people merely loaded with intellectual knowledge, but as people who are capable of representing a new education, the true human education of the new era. The true knowledge of human nature is the guarantee for the future development of our people.

This task is also great, but it is a sign of our times that it is harsh. People do not want to look at the face of our times so clearly that they see its bitter features. They want to draw veil after veil over this face and keep their eyes away from it because they fear the language that speaks from it. The tasks we have taken on are harsh and great. But we believe that there may be people who are able to love these tasks twice as much because they are harsh and great. We join with you in the hope that you will learn to love them because they are harsh tasks. Freshness will spring from this harshness.

What we have to represent is harsh and sharp, but this harshness will give us the strength to write a sign of fire on our foreheads here at the Free Waldorf School from the declining times. May it, while it lives on in phraseology, find the strength to die a powerful death, so that the sun of the coming day may fall upon it.