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Rudolf Steiner in the Waldorf School
GA 298

1 June 1924, Stuttgart

The fourth official meeting of the Independent Waldorf School Association: How Teachers Interact with the Home in the Spirit of Waldorf Pedagogy

Ladies and gentlemen! From the viewpoints the Waldorf School takes as its points of departure, there is not one path but many that lead away from the unnatural things that have been imposed on humanity, and especially on our public life, toward something natural that is being demanded by human nature in its broadest sense, so to speak. I intend to outline one such path, the path between the teacher and the parents” house, in the remarks I am going to present to you today.

You may say that this path can be taken for granted, and yet, ladies and gentlemen, not only has the path teachers and educators take to the parents” house been found to be very difficult at times, but there are many, many significant views on education that pay no attention to it at all. I need only remind you of something that was experienced as a great event in the course of German cultural development—the appearance of Johann Gottlieb Fichte in all fields. Today, however, we will only mention his appearance in the field of education. During one of the most difficult times in German history, he gave his penetrating “Speeches to the German Nation” in which he pointed out that healing and re-enlivening German life after the humiliation of 1806 would have to happen through education.1Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762-1814, Reden an die deutsche Nation [“Speeches to the German Nation”] given in Berlin during the Napoleonic occupation of 1807-08. We can say that Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of the noblest of all Germans, found the most beautiful and most significant words to say about education. However, he regarded it as a fundamental prerequisite for carrying out his pedagogical intentions that children be taken from their parents homes and cooped up together in special educational institutions that would be run according to strict principles and only by a unified state. After his time, we also witnessed a great variety of educational experiments in which children from certain circumstances were brought together in special places to be educated appropriately. In the course of humanity’s evolution we have seen numerous examples that necessitated the removal of children from their homes.

Although Waldorf education and its spirit work with at least as much urgency and at least as much out-of-the-depths of the human soul as the educational experiments sketched briefly above, this spirit of Waldorf education took a very different direction from the very beginning. It did not take superficialities as its starting point. It did not say that this or that social provision had to be made for the sake of the children. It did not say that children needed to be removed from their normal situations and placed in different ones. From the very beginning the spirit of Waldorf education was a purely pedagogical and methodological one. The social situation and the circumstances of the children’s lives are accepted for what they are, and everything that is to be accomplished through Waldorf education is striven for on the basis of the inner spiritual foundations of pedagogy itself. We can thus say, in effect, that wherever educational difficulties arise because of a childs social situation or other circumstances, these are accepted as destiny by the spirit of Waldorf education, and methods are put into effect that will allow the difficulties to be overcome out of the spirit and out of teaching practices that are individualized for the child in question to the greatest possible extent. This means, however, that a school like the Waldorf School stands in the midst of actual life. In actual life, if we are dealing with a school that takes children at age six or seven, they are coming from home, and since we have no boarding facility they remain at home and in the care of their parents during the time when they are not in school. Thus the entire thrust of education in the Waldorf School is to work together with the parents. In particular, as we shall see, we must feel, sense, and think together with the parents.

No doubt many of you have often been presented with the idea of the significance of the stages of life for the life of a child.

There are two or three of life’s stages that are of concern to our theory of education. The first begins at birth and ends at the change of teeth, the second begins at the change of teeth and ends at puberty, and the third continues from there until approximately the twenty-first year of life. If we have an unprejudiced sense of how things are, each of these stages in the life of a child shows us the child in a totally different constitution of soul and of body. Let us first consider the child’s soul constitution.

Until the change of teeth, the child is definitely dependent on imitation for learning what is taught. What you demonstrate to the child works like an outer stimulus that calls upon the child’s entire bodily organization—in some places more visibly, in others less visibly—to imitate the impression. To substantiate this, we need only keep in mind the decisive fact that children acquire their native language wholly through imitation, which works deeply into the organization of their bodies and souls. We must take into account that the vibration, the waves of movement, of any spoken sound is experienced much more intensely in childhood than it is later on in life. Even in speaking, when it is a person’s native language that is in question, any adjusting of the larynx, any inner ensouling of the organs, is based on imitation. This is how it is with everything in the child’s life until the change of teeth.

Nowadays, when a misunderstanding, or rather numerous misunderstandings, generate great errors in our otherwise so admirable scientific world-view, we often talk about the hereditary basis of one or the other thing a child acquires in the first stage of life up to the change of teeth. But as far as the child is concerned, the only basis for this talk of heredity is the fact that the people who are talking about it have no real sense of observation. Otherwise they would find out that basically much of what we attribute today to this dark and mysterious heredity must actually be looked for in the child’s clearly comprehensible tendency to imitate.

However, consider how close the child’s soul life, which arises out of this imitative activity, is to the life of the parents simply because the child is a being who imitates. If we really grasp how strong the tendency toward imitation is in the child, we come to have a holy awe and a profound respect for the child/parent relationship. And if we then look at the basis for all this in spiritual cosmic connections, then we are truly able to say that since a human being is a spiritual being prior to embarking on a physical existence, this person—in spite of being a free being—enters earthly existence with a very specific destiny with regard to the forms, if not the routines, of life. If we look on the one hand at how this destiny unrolls with an inner regularity from the smallest experiences of childhood to a ripe old age, and on the other hand at how the child grows close to the parents by being an imitative being, if we really see all this in the context of all the underlying spiritual connections, we begin to have sensations that are religious in character, you might say, about what is given to us as teachers and educators when a child is entrusted to us. And these almost religious sensations make us strongly inclined to want to understand, when a child is entrusted to us on entering school, precisely how this child is connected to his or her parents.

It may be said that theoretical pedagogical considerations or abstract principles are truly not what determine how the spirit of Waldorf education sets out to meet the parents of the children. Rather, it is something living, just as everything else in the Waldorf school is meant to be something living. It is a living thing; it is the Waldorf teacher’s active need to be able not only to approach the child in spirit but also to find a way from the child to the parents through every expression of soul the child presents, through every motivating force, through every type of childish impulsiveness, and even through every gesture and every hand movement. This confirms our understanding of the child, which we Waldorf teachers need above all else if we are to teach by deriving our educational impulses from the very nature of the child in question. First and foremost, we can confirm that we are looking at a child in the right way by turning to the parents standing behind him or her. This is the case even when the parent/child relationship is not absolutely harmonious. In actual life what grows out of children and parents living together can manifest in the greatest possible variety of ways. Of course we have an inner feeling of happiness when we look at the destiny of a child who has the possibility of living in fully harmonious circumstances with exemplary parents. But may we not pose a counterquestion to this? If we observe life, either contemporary or historical life, without bias, do we not find that the greatest spirits, not only intellectual geniuses but also geniuses of virtue and moral action, have often sprung from grave disharmonies between child and parents? Waldorf teachers must acquire the habit of not criticizing the child/parent relationship, but of accepting it objectively, because their acquaintance with the parents can shed light on the child’s idiosyncrasies.

Thus it is not some pedagogical principle that challenges the Waldorf teacher to find a way to get to know the parents, but rather an inner heartfelt need, just as Waldorf education in general is essentially a pedagogy of the heart.

Let us now look at something else, namely the fact that teachers are now obliged to take on part of what used to be provided solely by the parents of children of elementary-school age. On entering elementary school, a child is going through the change of teeth. Nowadays children are sent to school somewhat too early; elementary-school age actually only begins with the change of teeth, but that is not the main point here.

When a child is sent to school and entrusted to a teacher, the teacher must take on a part of education or child-rearing that acquires its specific character from the fact that the child’s entire soul life, the child’s entire constitution of soul and spirit, is also transformed at the change of teeth. After that, the child is no longer an imitative being, although the principle of imitation does persist for several years into the child’s time in elementary school. Fundamentally, however, the child is now no longer an imitative being, but a being who is stimulated by what it meets in the form of images, through our structuring what we present in an appropriate and artistic way, you might say. At this age, children no longer tend to apply themselves imitatively and with their entire constitution to what is presented to them. Instead, they shift to the principle of natural authority. Whereas earlier it was the children’s will that imitatively traced what was demonstrated to them in their entire constitution, now it is their feeling that likes or dislikes what their teacher presents to them in images, including the images of his or her entire personality and actions, of the composition of his or her speech, and so forth. And the authority that prevails in school between the change of teeth and puberty must not be arbitrarily imposed. It must be a matter of course. Without admitting this, it is impossible to look at how human life unfolds as a whole. It is so easy to say that we should always use visual aids in our lessons. I do not mean to say anything against visual aids, but they should not become a means of trivializing instruction. We cannot take it as a principle to reduce everything to the level the children are already on. The point is that only those things that directly nurture the children through visualization need to be cloaked in a visual representation. But take a circumstance from religious or moral life—how are we supposed to use visual aids in this case? Aside from that, however, the inner soul nature of the children is such that something is true because a teacher to whom they feel sympathetic, who is an authority to them as a matter of course, has pronounced it true. They feel something to be beautiful because a natural authority finds it beautiful; they find something good because this authority finds it good. The authority figure incorporates the true, the beautiful and the good. It is bad for a person to have to acquire a feeling for the true, the good, and the beautiful as a matter of principle, on the basis of abstract commandments or all kinds of rational rules, before having acquired it at the right age—the age between the change of teeth and puberty—by having it confront him or her in the person of another human being. We should first learn that something is true because a respected person declares it true, and only later recognize the inner abstract laws of truth, which actually can have an effect on us only after we achieve sexual maturity.

Surely you do not expect someone who wrote 7he Philosophy of Freedom over thirty years ago to go to bat for the principle of authority in a place where it does not belong. However, the authoritative principle that children demand by their very nature absolutely does belong in the elementary school. Teachers themselves, with their rationality, their hearts and feelings, and their whole nature as human beings, are guidelines with regard to the true, the good, and the beautiful as the children are meant to embrace them. The human relationship that comes about reaches right into how the children construe the true, the good, and the beautiful. All this is presented in greater detail in various pedagogical writings on Waldorf education which are available for you to read.2See Rudolf Steiner’s 7The Renewal of Education, Kolisko Archive Publications for Rudolf Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications, Forest Row, Sussex, England, 1980 [Die Erneuerung der padagogisch-didaktischen Kunst durch Geisteswissenschaft, Dornach, 1977], 14 lectures given in Basel, 1920, GA 301; Education and Modern Spiritual Life, Garber Publications, Blauvelt, NY, 1989 [Gegenwärtiges Geistesleben und Erziehung, Dornach, 1923], 14 lectures given in Ilkley, 1923, GA 307; The Roots of Education, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996 [Anthroposophische Pädagogik und ihre Voraussetzungen, Dornach, 1972], 5 lectures given in Bern, 1924, GA 309; Human Values in Education, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1971 [Der pädagogische Wert der Menschenerkenntnis und der Kulturwert der Pädagogik, Dornach 1965], 10 lectures given in Arnheim, 1924, GA 310; The Kingdom of Childhood, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1995 [Die Kunst des Erziehens aus dem Erfassen der Menschenwesenheit, Dornach, 1979], 7 lectures given in Torquay, 1924, GA 311; The Education of the Child and Early Lectures on Education, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996 [Die Erziehung des Kindes vom Gesichtspunkte der Geisteswissenschaft, Dornach, 1978].

But let us now consider the position Waldorf teachers are in as a result of acknowledging this principle of natural authority and trying to apply it to its fullest extent. They depend on not having this natural authority undermined in any way. We must keep in mind that at the age when the change of teeth is taking place, even in families in which a lack of harmony prevails between the child and the parents, the child is inwardly close to the parents. This closeness is so strong that it basically outshines anything else that comes under consideration with regard to the being of the child at this age. This means that even if a child confronts his or her parents with antipathy, to use a severe term, a totally unshakable authoritative relationship to the parents is present subconsciously. I can present this only briefly here, but the matter can be verified in all its details. A true psychology, a true study of the soul, teaches us that even when children come into conflict with their parents and home when they are losing their baby teeth or in the years just after that, they are actually totally under the authority of the parents in the subtle, subconscious psychological layers of their being. And who would wish it otherwise? This is simply the relationship nature provides. If I were to depict the course that humanity’s evolution would follow if this were not the case, it would make a horrible picture. This means, however, that in their now completely different field of activity, where teachers are no longer examples to imitate but speakers who use their authority to present what enters the child, teachers must take a more subtle approach in influencing what the child has become in his or her inmost being as a result of parents and home. There is no other way of responding to the individuality of a child with your authority than by being able to link up fully consciously with what the child has become as a result of parents and home. The instinctive result of this in the Waldorf teacher is an inner urge to establish a connection to the parents.

There is a very specific reason why this urge develops. The spirit of Waldorf education is not a one-sided one; it encompasses the spirit, the soul, and the body equally. It would be a total misunderstanding of the spirit of Waldorf Education to believe that the physical aspect, whether in a healthy or an unhealthy state, is in any way underestimated in comparison to the spiritual aspect. The spirit of Waldorf education takes into account the whole human being in a child. But because it takes the whole human being into account without actually having the whole human being—it only has the child during school hours and perhaps for a short time before and after—it must experience an inner need to be in the closest possible contact with the parents, with the home in which the child spends the rest of his or her time.

It really is true with us—and I have often said this, particularly within the Waldorf School itself—that an educator does not need to be afraid of large classes. To set up small classes for pedagogical reasons means to count on a pedagogical weakness. That is not what is going on here. If it were desirable to work toward having smaller classes in the Waldorf school, the reason for it would be so that the teacher would have more possibility of establishing a connection to the parents of all the students in the class. That is what the teacher must do, out of the whole spirit of the Waldorf school.

But let us consider something else, since I am only trying to highlight a few of life’s stages. Those who can observe children in real life find that there is an extremely important point in life between the ages of nine and ten, approximately. You can see this point approaching; a certain inner crisis makes its presence known. It is not that the children start asking especially rational questions, but this crisis becomes evident when otherwise lively children start to hang their heads, when quiet ones become loud, when they give evidence of all sorts of unhealthy conditions, and so on. What is going on here is that in the child’s subconscious—and a great deal in the being of a child is in the subconscious rather than in consciousness—a question appears, a question that is not formulated rationally, but is active only in perception: Is the natural authority that has given me what is true, good, and beautiful up to now, is the natural authority that is the personification of truth, goodness and beauty, actually that? The doubt need not be expressed out loud, but it is there; it infuses the life of the child in the way I have described.

At this stage in a child's life, it is important for the teacher to have a healthy, independent gift of observation in order to find the right word and the right way of acting. Many things are needed—tact, instinct, intuition. Then you will be able to do something at this point in the child’s life that will be of wideranging significance for the entire earthly life that follows. If you find the comments, the actions and the relationship that can confirm for the child in an individually appropriate way that he or she was right in seeing a natural authority in you, then you have done something out of your inmost soul to become a true benefactor of that child.

Lucky the person who after this point around the ninth or tenth year can continue to look up to and respect an authority as a matter of course! No individual can become a free being in the course of his or her life without first learning, before entering puberty, to arrange life in accordance with how a highly respected person acts. To submit out of inner instinctive freedom in this way, to face such a person, recognizing that it is right to do as he or she does—that is what starts to make something out of the potentials for freedom that are concealed in a person.

In short, we as Waldorf teachers must maintain our natural authority in all respects and in the most subtle way. How can we do this? It is possible if our interaction with parents arouses the feeling in them that it is all right for them to influence their children to see the natural authority in the teacher. This may sound trivial, but it is true: Waldorf teachers should never pass up the opportunity to show themselves to the children’s parents in their true colors, so that the parents know who they are dealing with. This can sometimes be done in five minutes. The parent’s tone of voice, the nuance of each sentence they speak about the school, should be directed toward supporting natural authority in school. The connection between school and home cannot be close enough.

Still a third thing: If you have in front of you two, three or four sets of curricula and school regulations, all of them very cleverly thought out, then you know what you have to do. You have the curriculum, you have the regulations; that is what you have to do. But that is not how things are in the Waldorf School. If we are thinking in the spirit of the Waldorf School, it is right to think that some things must be different than they are in public education. Many people today cannot grasp that. And cleverness is so prevalent in our times. I cannot emphasize enough how clever people in our times are in comparison to other times. But it is just this rational cleverness—and I mean this quite seriously.

I am not being ironic—that commits the greatest stupidities. Nevertheless, people are clever, and this is expressed in a great variety of ways. If thirty people sit together and plan a school reform, it can be so clever that it cannot be disputed. And then lay thinkers can say, “That’s brilliant, it would be impossible to create better schools than these people have done with their points 1, 2, 3, and 4.” But just try to take it further, and look at the schools that have been created through those points 1, 2, 3, and 4. The principles are very clever, the statutes and paragraphs are very clever, but you cannot do anything with them in real life. The only way to do anything in real life is to feel life itself pulsing within you and to create out of this pulsing life.

This is where Waldorf teachers stand: They have no statutes and paragraphs, but only advice and suggestions which they must shape according to their own individualities. If you prescribe strictly what teachers have to do in school, then they should all be just alike. Just think of the consequences of that. If the regulations were seriously enforced, if we were to put into effect these very well-meaning abstract pedagogical principles that hold that there is only one way of teaching, then you would no longer be able to tell one teacher from another. You would meet one teacher and think it was some other one, because they would both be teaching according to the same abstract principles. But teachers are human beings. They are individuals. And they can only work if they can put themselves into it with the full independence of their being. Only then can they be really effective. But then they have to know life. You can only work in real live if you allow life to affect you. But what kind of life do you encounter in school? The parents’ life as it continues to work in the children. Our teachers are steered away from paragraphs and principles toward the real, immediate life of the children. This must flow into our methodology, into how we arrange all of our teaching.

So, ladies and gentlemen, if you could be a fly on the wall and listen in on our teachers’ meetings sometimes, you would hear how all the details of home are actually being taken into account and how intimately they are discussed with regard to how they shed light on the children. And if you were that fly on the wall, you would also find out that these teachers’ meetings are an ongoing learning process, that our educational practices are constantly evolving toward higher and more subtle effectiveness. It cannot be different if the school is meant to be a living organism, rather than a dead one. This means that the Waldorf School, because it calls itself an independent school, is an institution whose innermost being points to parents and home with regard to understanding the child as a total being.

Let us say that we get to know a child who is lacking in intellectual ability. That can happen. And there are many ways in which a lack of intellectual ability can be corrected, can be developed into something better. But we need a point of departure. Let us say that we get to know the child’s father and mother, and they are very intelligent. It does sometimes happen that children who are not intellectually gifted have very intelligent parents. It can also be just the opposite, that parents who are not intellectually gifted have highly gifted children. In any case, we will learn a very great deal about alleviating the child’s lack of intellectual ability if we look at the parents whom the child imitated up to the change of teeth. If we do so, we will find not only a theoretical explanation, but also suggestions for implementing what we have to do about it. The emotional life plays a very significant role in children of school age. It even plays into morality in that it receives the good only through sympathy for the good in the teacher. Children’s emotional life becomes transparent when we can see through their feeling into their parents’ particular variety of feeling life. This applies equally to the life of the will.

People whose intelligence tells them that an individual must be like this and such because that is average and proper human nature need not consider the parents. However, if we know that things and beings have origins, if we look to the source rather than to something abstract, then we must consider the child’s parents and home.

Waldorf education leads us along the path toward reality because it tries to live and breathe the spirit of reality, a spirit that is in accordance with nature and in accordance with the soul. And this path toward reality leads away from school and toward the parents’ home. This is the reason behind everything that can awaken the teacher’s interest in the parents and the parents’ interest in the teachers in the school. The parents’ evenings that are organized by the Waldorf School are there in order to create a bond between school and home. What we do in these parents’ evenings is meant to allow the parents to see the attitude and soul-constitution of the faculty.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the practical implementation of what is ultimately present as the highest—I cannot say principle, but the highest view in the spirit of Waldorf education. Out of the depths of their inner soul life and out of this spirit of Waldorf education, Waldorf teachers must realize that the parents are entrusting the school with the most precious thing they have when they send their children to us. These parents have had many experiences in life; perhaps they have been tested by life. This does not mean that they wish their children to remain untested, but they do wish them to be spared some of the difficult experiences that they themselves had to go through. For this and many other reasons, parents attach a great deal of hope to the moment when they entrust their child to a school. Out of the whole spirit of Waldorf education, our teachers know what is being entrusted to them. On the basis of views such as those I have characterized, they would like their effect on the children to be such that when the children are released from school and return to their parents, the parents can say, “We knew it all the time, ever since we first saw the school, that our hopes would be fulfilled.” However, this is not a conclusion they can come to at the last minute when their children graduate. It can mature gradually only through the interaction between school and home.

Thus, we can turn our backs on many different educational experiments, and even on well-intentioned pedagogical ideals, and turn to the spirit of Waldorf education, realizing that there is an extremely healthy instinct at work in children being together with their parents, and that it must therefore also be healthy for the school to grow close to this relationship by finding the right way to approach the parents.

Among the many things that the Waldorf School aspires to, which can all be characterized by saying that this school wants to rise above abstract principles and cleverness to a reality that is full of life, the main thing is that the Waldorf School wants to find a way to the most life-filled reality in the child’s existence. And in the existence of the small child, the child of school age, this reality is the parents.

This school with its spirit wants to be, not a school of theories, abstractions, and inflexible theoretical principles, but one full of life and reality. That is why it tries to find its way into the reality of the parents’ home.

Der Verkehr Des Lehrers Mit Dem Elternhause Im Geiste Der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik

Vortrag, Gehalten An Der Vierten Ordentlichen Mitgliederversammlung Des Vereins «Freie Waldorfschule»

Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden! Von denjenigen Gesichtspunkten, von denen die Waldorfschule ausgeht, führt nicht nur ein, sondern es führen viele Wege wie von etwas heute der Menschheit und insbesondere dem sozialen Leben unnatürlich Aufgedrängtem zu etwas Natürlichem, zu etwas, was sozusagen von der Menschennatur in ihrem weitesten Umfange gefordert wird. Und ein solcher Weg soll gezeichnet werden in den Bemerkungen, die ich mir der heutigen Versammlung vorauszuschicken erlaube, der Weg von dem Lehrer zum Elternhaus.

Man kann sagen, dieser Weg sei eigentlich ein selbstverständlicher. Und doch, meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, der Weg, den die Lehrer und Erzieher brauchen zu dem Elternhaus, wurde nicht nur, wird nicht nur zuweilen recht schwer gefunden, sondern es gibt auch sehr, sehr bedeutsame pädagogische Anschauungen, in denen auf diesen Weg zum Elternhaus keine Rücksicht genommen wird. Ich brauche da nur zu erinnern an etwas, was im Laufe der deutschen Geistesentwickelung erlebt worden ist als ein Größtes: das Auftreten Johann Gottlieb Fichtes auf jeglichem Gebiete. Aber wir wollen heute nur sprechen von seinem Auftreten auf pädagogischem Gebiete. Er hat ja in einer der schwierigsten Zeiten des deutschen Lebens seine «Reden an die deutsche Nation», diese eindringlichen Reden an die deutsche Nation gehalten, in denen er darauf aufmerksam machte, wie eine Gesundung, eine Wiederbelebung des deutschen Daseins kommen müsse nach schwerer Erniedrigung 1806 durch die Erziehung. Und man kann sagen: über die Erziehung hat Johann Gottlieb Fichte, einer der edelsten Deutschen, die allerschönsten Worte und auch die allerbedeutsamsten Worte gefunden. Allein er betrachtete es wie ein Grunderfordernis für die Durchführung seiner pädagogischen Intentionen, daß die Kinder dem Elternhaus entnommen werden, daß sie gewissermaßen zusammengepfercht werden in besondere Erziehungsanstalten, die von einem allseits geschlossenen Staat allein nach starren Prinzipien geleitet werden. Aber wir haben ja auch nachher die mannigfaltigsten Erziehungsexperimente erlebt, in denen Kinder in besonderer Lage an besondere Orte gebracht werden sollen, um eine sachgemäße Erziehung zu haben. Und wir haben insbesondere im Laufe der Entwickelung der Menschheit zahlreiche Beispiele, wo ein solches Herausnehmen der Kinder aus dem Elternhause als notwendig gefordert wird.

Obzwar die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik mit ihrem Geiste glaubt, mindestens ebenso eindringlich und ebenso aus den Tiefen der Menschenseele heraus zu wirken wie die mit wenigen Strichen gekennzeichneten Erziehungsversuche, so schlug doch dieser Geist der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik von Anfang an eine ganz andere Richtung ein. Dieser Geist der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik ging nicht von Äußerlichkeiten aus. Er sagte nicht, man solle dieses oder jenes in sozialer Beziehung für die Kinder herbeiführen. Er sagte nicht, man solle die Kinder in diese oder jene Verhältnisse, herausgerissen aus ihren gewöhnlichen Verhältnissen, bringen; sondern der Geist der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik war von Anfang an ein rein methodischer, ein rein pädagogisch-didaktischer. Die soziale Lage, die Verhältnisse des Lebens, so wie sie sind, so werden sie hingenommen. Und alles, was erreicht werden soll durch die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik, wird angestrebt aus inneren geistigen Gründen der Pädagogik selber. So daß man etwa sagen kann: Wenn irgendwo durch die soziale Lage, in der sich das Kind befindet, oder durch andere Vorbedingungen, Schwierigkeiten der Erziehung da sind, so werden diese von dem Geiste der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik eben als ein Schicksal hingenommen, und es werden eingerichtet Methodik und Didaktik so, daß aus dem Geiste, aus der Handhabung von Erziehung und Unterricht heraus die Schwierigkeiten besiegt werden, und zwar in möglichst auf das einzelne Kind gehender, individualisierter Art. Dadurch steht aber eine solche Institution, wie die Waldorfschule, mitten darinnen im sozialen Leben, wie es ist. Und in diesem sozialen Leben ist es nun einmal so, daß wenn man es mit einer Schule zu tun hat, die im heutigen schulpflichtigen Alter das Kind aufnimmt, also mit sechs oder sieben Jahren, so empfängt man das Kind aus dem Elternhause, und da wir kein Internat haben, so bleibt das Kind für die Zeit, die außerhalb der Schulzeit liegt, dem Elternhause und seiner Sorgfalt erhalten. Damit ist von vornherein die ganze Richtung, die Erziehung und Unterricht in der Waldorfschule nehmen müssen, hingeordnet auf ein Zusammenarbeiten mit dem Elternhause, das aber insbesondere, wie wir sehen werden, bestehen muß in einem Zusammenfühlen, Zusammenempfinden und Zusammendenken auch mit dem EIternhause. |

Es ist ja gewiß vor vielen von Ihnen dasjenige, was Lebensepochen im Dasein des Kindes sind, öfters schon auseinandergesetzt worden. Diese Lebensepochen im Dasein des Kindes, es sind ja ihrer insbesondere zwei, drei, welche unsere Pädagogik angehen. Die eine beginnt mit der Geburt und endet mit dem Zahnwechsel, die zweite beginnt mit dem Zahnwechsel und endet mit der Geschlechtsreife, die dritte geht darüber hinaus bis ungefähr zum einundzwanzigsten Lebensjahre. Jede dieser Lebensepochen des Kindes zeigt uns sozusagen, wenn wir nur unbefangene Sinne haben in bezug auf die Dinge, wie sie sind, das Kind in einer ganz anderen Seelenverfassung und auch in einer anderen körperlichen Verfassung. Aber wir wollen zunächst die Seelenverfassung ins Auge fassen.

Das Kind bis zum Zahnwechsel ist durchaus darauf angewiesen, alles, was es sich erzieherisch aneignet, sich anzueignen durch Nachahmung. Was man dem Kinde vormacht, das wirkt auf das Kind wie ein äußerer Reiz, der unmittelbar die ganze körperliche Organisation - an der einen Stelle mehr sichtbar, an der anderen Stelle weniger sichtbar — zum Nachahmen des Eindrucks aufruft. Wir brauchen ja, um das zu erhärten, nur die schwerwiegende Tatsache ins Auge zu fassen, daß die Muttersprache vom Kinde ganz und gar durch Nachahmung errungen wird. Da geht die Nachahmung tief in die menschliche physische und seelische Organisation hinein. Da muß berücksichtigt werden, daß irgendein Laut, der gesprochen wird, in seiner Vibration, in seiner Wellenbewegung von dem Kinde noch viel intensiver empfunden wird als das später im Leben der Fall ist. Und alle Einstellung des Kehlkopfes, alle innere Durchseelung der Organe beruht selbst in der Sprache, wenn die Muttersprache in Betracht kommt, auf Nachahmung; und so alles im Leben des Kindes bis zum Zahnwechsel.

Heute, wo durch ein Mißverständnis oder durch zahlreiche Mißverständnisse, in unserer sonst so bewundernswerten naturwissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung große Irrtümer hervorgerufen werden, heute redet man vielfach davon, daß diese oder jene Dinge, die das Kind sich erwirbt in der ersten Lebensepoche bis zum Zahnwechsel hin, auf Vererbung beruhen. In dieses Fach Vererbung wird ja heute so viel, so viel hineingeworfen. Dem Kinde gegenüber beruht dieses Sprechen von Vererbung nur darauf, daß diejenigen, die davon sprechen, keinen richtigen Beobachtungssinn haben. Sonst würden sie herausfinden, daß im Grunde genommen vieles von dem, was heute der dunklen mystischen Vererbung zugeschrieben wird, eigentlich gesucht werden muß in der klar überschaubaren Nachahmung, zu der das Kind hinorientiert ist.

Aber bedenken wir, wie eng gerade das seelische Leben, das sich heraushebt aus diesem ganzen Nachahmungsleben, wie eng dieses seelische Leben dadurch, daß das Kind ein nachahmendes Wesen ist, mit dem elterlichen Leben zusammenwächst. Gerade wenn man recht einsieht, wie stark die Neigung zum Nachahmen beim Kinde ist, so bekommt man im eminentesten Sinn die heiligste Scheu und die tiefste Schätzung für dasjenige, was der Zusammenhang des Kindes mit den Eltern ist. Und sieht man gar im Sinne einer anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft auf das, was alldem in den geistigen Weltenzusammenhängen zugrunde liegt, dann sagt man sich erst recht: der Mensch kommt ja, da er, bevor er sein physisches Dasein antritt, ein geistiges Wesen ist, der Mensch kommt ja, trotzdem er ein freies Wesen ist, für die verschiedensten Gestaltungen des Lebens - ich sage nicht Verrichtungen, aber Gestaltungen - mit einem ganz bestimmten Schicksal in das Erdendasein hinein. Schaut man auf der einen Seite darauf, wie sich dieses Schicksal mit einer inneren Gesetzmäßigkeit aus den oft kleinsten Erlebnissen des Kindes herauszieht bis in das reife Alter, ja bis in das höchste Alter hinein, sieht man auf der anderen Seite, wie das Kind zusammenwächst mit den Eltern dadurch, daß es ein nachahmendes Wesen ist, sieht man dieses wirklich mit allen zugrunde liegenden geistigen Zusammenhängen an, dann bekommt man Empfindungen, die einen, man darf schon sagen, religiösen Charakter haben gegenüber dem, was man in dem Kinde gegeben hat, wenn man es als Lehrer oder Erzieher zur Erziehung, zum Unterrichte empfängt. Und man eignet sich gerade durch die fast religiösen Empfindungen eine starke Neigung dazu an, recht genau zu kennen: wie hängt das Kind, das uns im schulpflichtigen Alter übergeben wird, mit dem Elternhause zusammen?

Da darf man das Folgende sagen: Es sind wahrhaftig nicht theoretischpädagogische Erwägungen, es sind nicht abstrakte, prinzipielle Grundsätze, welche den Weg vorzeichnen sollen für den Geist der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik zu den Eltern der Kinder hin, sondern es ist etwas Lebendiges, wie alles in der Waldorfschule etwas Lebendiges sein soll. Es ist etwas Lebendiges; es ist das lebendige Bedürfnis des Waldorfschullehrers, nicht nur das Kind im Geiste vor sich zu haben, sondern von jeder Seelenäußerung, die das Kind ihm entgegenbringt, von jeder charakterologischen Triebfeder, von jeder in kindlicher Art wirksamen Impulsivität, ja, von jeder Miene, von jeder Geste, von jeder Handbewegung den Weg zu finden vom Kinde zu den Eltern. Man wird als Waldorfschullehrer befestigt in der Erkenntnis des Kindes, und die braucht man vor allen Dingen, wenn man das Kind so erziehen will, daß man die Impulse zu seiner Erziehung von seiner eigenen Natur abliest. Man wird vor allen Dingen befestigt dariinnen, das Kind in der richtigen Weise anzuschauen, wenn man hinschauen kann auf die dahinterstehenden Eltern. Und das ist nicht bloß dann so, wenn ein absolut harmonisches Verhältnis besteht zwischen dem Kinde und den Eltern. Im Leben zeigt sch ja das, was herauswächst aus dem Zusammenleben des Kindes mit den Eltern, in der allermannigfaltigsten Weise. Gewiß, wir sehen auf das Schicksal eines Kindes mit innerem Glücksgefühl, mit tiefer innerer Befriedigung hin, wenn das Kind die Möglichkeit hat, in einem völlig harmonischen Verhältnisse mit musterhaft gearteten Eltern zu leben. Aber darf man nicht auch eine Gegenfrage dem gegenüberstellen? Sieht nicht derjenige, der das Leben, das gegenwärtige Leben, das geschichtliche Leben unbefangen betrachtet, sieht nicht der, wie gerade die größten Geister, nicht nur die Genies des Verstandes, sondern auch die Genies der Tugend und des moralischen Handelns, oftmals hervorgegangen sind aus harten Disharmonien zwischen Kind und Eltern? Der Waldorfschullehrer muß sich gewöhnen, nicht Kritik zu üben an dem Verhältnis zwischen Kind und Elternhaus, sondern es objektiv hinzunehmen, weil er gewissermaßen von der Bekanntschaft mit den Eltern ein Licht ausgehen sieht, das ihm die Eigentümlichkeiten des Kindes beleuchtet.

So ist es nicht ein Grundsatz, nicht irgendein pädagogisches Prinzip, das den Waldorfschullehrer auffordert, den Weg zu den Eltern zu finden, sondern das innerste Bedürfnis des Herzens, wie überhaupt die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik in ihrem innersten Wesen eine Herzenspädagogik ist.

Sehen wir nun auf etwas anderes hin. Sehen wir darauf hin, wie einen Teil desjenigen, was früher einzig und allein die Eltern besorgt haben, für das volksschulpflichtige Alter nun der Lehrer übernehmen muß, Wenn das Kind in die Volksschule hereintritt, steht es im Zahnwechsel. Etwas zu früh werden die Kinder heute in die Schule hereingebracht; das wirkliche Volksschulalter beginnt eigentlich erst mit dem Zahnwechsel, aber darauf kommt es ja weniger an. Wenn das Kind nun in die Schule hereingeschickt wird, dem Lehrer übergeben wird, so muß er einen Teil der Erziehung übernehmen, der aber dadurch seinen besonderen Charakter erhält, daß das ganze Seelenleben des Kindes, die ganze seelische und geistige Verfassung des Kindes auch mit dem Zahnwechsel sich wandelt. Das Kind ist fortan kein nachahmendes Wesen mehr, obwohl sich das Nachahmungsprinzip noch einige Jahre in die Volksschulzeit fortsetzt. Aber im wesentlichen ist das Kind kein nachahmendes Wesen mehr, sondern es ist ein Wesen, das nun gereizt wird, sozusagen angeregt wird durch dasjenige, was ihm im Bilde, ich möchte sagen, in entsprechender künstlerischer Gestaltung desjenigen, was wir an das Kind heranbringen wollen, entgegenkommt. Das Kind ist jetzt nicht mehr geneigt, mit dem ganzen Organismus sich nachahmend hinzugeben an das, was ihm vorgelegt wird, sondern das Kind geht über zu dem selbstverständlichen Autoritätsprinzip. War es früher der Wille, der in der ganzen kindlichen Organisation dem Vorgelebten nachahmend folgte, so ist es jetzt das Gefühl, das Gefallen oder Mißfallen findet an dem, was der Lehrer im Bilde, aber auch im Bilde seiner ganzen Persönlichkeit, seines eigenen Handelns, in der Gestaltung seiner Sprache und so weiter vor das Kind hinstellt. Und nicht eine willkürlich eingesetzte, sondern die selbstverständliche Autorität muß in der Schule walten zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife.

Wer das nicht zugibt, der kann eben nicht den Blick hinwenden auf die Entfaltung des ganzen menschlichen Lebens. Man sagt so leicht, alles müsse Anschauungsunterricht sein. Gewiß soll gar nichts gegen den Anschauungsunterricht eingewendet werden, aber der Anschauungsunterricht soll nicht ein Mittel sein, alles Erziehen und allen Unterricht zu trivialisieren. Man kann nicht das Prinzip haben, alles herunterzudrücken auf das Niveau, auf dem das Kind schon steht. Es kann sich nur darum handeln, dasjenige, was es unmittelbar durch die Anschauung fordert, in anschauliche Vorstellung zu kleiden. Aber man nehme ein Verhältnis des religiösen, des sittlichen Lebens; wie soll man da einen Anschauungsunterricht machen? Aber abgesehen davon, das Kind fordert durch seine innere Seelenwesenheit, daß etwas deshalb für es wahr ist, weil der in selbstverständlicher Autorität sympathisch empfundene Erzieher es wahr heißt. Das Kind empfindet, daß etwas schön ist, weil die selbstverständliche Autorität es schön findet; das Kind findet, daß etwas gut ist, weil die Autorität es gut findet. In dieser Autorität ist verkörpert das Wahre, Schöne und Gute. Und schlimm ist es für den Menschen, wenn er aus Prinzipien, aus abstrakten Geboten heraus, aus allerlei Verstandesgesetzmäßigkeiten heraus sich aneignen soll eine Empfindung für das Wahre, Gute, Schöne, bevor er es sich angeeignet hat im richtigen Kindesalter - und das ist das Alter zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife — dadurch, daß es ihm verkörpert in einem Menschen entgegengetreten ist. Wir sollen zuerst gelernt haben, etwas ist wahr, weil eine verehrte Persönlichkeit es wahr heißt, bevor wir die innere abstrakte Gesetzmäßigkeit des Wahren einsehen, die eigentlich auf uns erst wirken kann, wenn wir über das Geschlechtsreifealter hinaus sind.

Sie werden mir nicht zumuten, daß derjenige, der vor mehr als dreißig Jahren seine «Philosophie der Freiheit» geschrieben hat, eine Lanze brechen möchte für das Autoritätsprinzip, wo es nicht hingehört. Aber das Autoritätsprinzip, wie es die kindliche Natur selber fordert, das gehört unbedingt in die Volksschule hinein. Da wird der Lehrer mit seinem Verstande, mit seinem Herzen, mit seinem Gefühl, mit seinem ganzen Menschentum Richtschnur für das Wahre, Gute, Schöne, wie das Kind es annehmen soll; es entsteht ein menschliches Verhältnis bis in die Gestaltung des Wahren, Guten und Schönen. Das alles ist ja genauer ausgeführt in den verschiedenen pädagogischen Schriften, in denen man über die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik lesen kann.

Aber nun bedenke man, in welcher Lage der Waldorfschullehrer dadurch ist, daß er dieses selbstverständliche Autoritätsprinzip anerkennt und in seiner ganzen Ausweitung üben will. Er ist darauf angewiesen, daß in keiner Weise diese selbstverständliche Autorität durchbrochen werde. Nun muß man bedenken, selbst in denjenigen Familien, in denen zwischen dem Kinde und den Eltern Disharmonie herrscht, ist dennoch gerade im Lebensalter, wo der Zahnwechsel auftritt, ein inniges Zusammengewachsensein des Kindes mit den Eltern vorhanden. Ein Zusammengewachsensein, das so stark ist, daß es im Grunde genommen überstrahlt alles übrige, was für die Wesenheit des Kindes in diesem Lebensalter in Betracht kommt. Damit ist aber auch dann, wenn das Kind etwa durch die Verhältnisse, sagen wir selbst das schwerwiegende Wort, mit Antipathien den Eltern gegenübersteht, in dem Unterbewußten ein zunächst ganz unerschütterliches Autoritätsverhältnis zu den Eltern vorhanden. Hier kann ich es nur anführen, aber die Sache kann in allen Einzelheiten bewiesen werden. Eine richtige Psychologie, eine richtige Seelenkunde lehrt, daß selbst dann, wenn die Kinder im Lebensalter des Zahnwechsels und in den folgenden Jahren bewußt im Widerspruch zum Elternhaus sich entwickeln, sie in den feineren, aber unbewußten seelischen Adern ihres Wesens ganz und gar unter der Autorität der Eltern stehen. Wer wollte das anders wünschen? Das ist einfach das naturgegebene Verhältnis. Würde ich schildern, welchen Gang die Menschheitsentwickelung nehmen würde, wenn das nicht der Fall wäre, wir würden ein ganz greuliches Bild dieser Menschheitsentwickelung bekommen.

Aber damit ist ja gesagt, daß der Lehrer auf dem ganz anderen Gebiet, auf dem er wirken will, jetzt nicht als Vorbild, sondern als Vorsprecher, als derjenige, der in seiner Autorität angibt, hinstellt dasjenige, was in das Kind dringt, wie der Lehrer, ich möchte sagen mit einer feineren Art der Wirksamkeit herankommen muß an dasjenige, was das Elternhaus aus dem Kinde bis ins innerste Wesen hinein gemacht hat. Man kann gar nicht anders in seiner Autorität dastehen gegenüber der Kindesindividualität, als wenn man anknüpfen kann in vollbewußter Weise an das, was das Kind durch das Elternhaus geworden ist. Das ergibt wiederum instinktiv im Waldorfschullehrer den innersten Drang, mit den Eltern in Beziehung zu treten.

Und dieser Drang wächst aus einem ganz bestimmten Grunde heraus. Der Geist der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik ist kein einseitiger; er umfaßt den Geist, die Seele und ebenso die Physis, das Körperliche. Es wäre ein vollständiges Verkennen des Geistes der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik, wenn man glauben wollte, daß das Physische dabei, und zwar in seinen gesunden und kranken Zuständen, irgendwie gegenüber dem Geistigen unterschätzt würde. Mit dem ganzen Menschen im Kinde rechnet der Geist der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik. Da er mit dem ganzen Menschen rechnet, aber nicht den ganzen Menschen hat, sondern das Kind nur hat in den Schulstunden und vielleicht in wenigem, was sich daranschließt, muß er das innere Bedürfnis haben, mit dem Elternhause, das das Kind in der anderen Zeit hat, in innigstem Kontakt zu stehen.

Wahrhaftig, bei uns ist es so, daß das wahr ist, was ich oftmals gesagt habe, besonders im Kreise der Waldorfschule selber: vor Klassen mit einer großen Schülerzahl braucht sich der Pädagoge nicht zu fürchten. Aus pädagogischen Gründen kleine Klassen einzurichten, rechnet mit einer pädagogischen Schwäche. Darum handelt es sich nicht. Wenn es in der Waldorfschule wünschenswert sein könnte, kleinere Klassen anzustreben, ist das aus dem Grunde, damit der Lehrer die Möglichkeit hat, für alle seine Schüler den Weg zum Elternhaus zu finden. Und den muß er finden! Den muß er finden aus dem ganzen Geiste der Waldorfschule heraus!

Aber betrachten wir noch etwas anderes. Ich will nur einige Etappen hervorheben. Derjenige, der das Kind im Leben beobachten kann, findet so ungefähr zwischen dem neunten und zehnten Lebensjahr einen außerordentlich wichtigen Lebenspunkt. Man sieht ihn herannahen. Eine gewisse innere Krisis macht sich da geltend. Nicht als ob das Kind besonders verstandesmäßige Fragen stellte, aber die Krisis deutet sich dadurch an, daß sonst lebhafte Kinder kopfhängerisch werden, stille Kinder laut werden, daß die Kinder allerlei krankhafte Zustände zeigen und so weiter. Da handelt es sich darum, daß im Unterbewußtsein des Kindes - unendlich viel ist ja in der Wesenheit des Kindes im Unterbewußten, nicht im Bewußtsein — eine Frage auftritt, die aber nicht verstandesmäßig formuliert wird, sondern nur im Empfinden lebt: Die selbstverständliche Autorität hat mir angegeben bisher, was wahr, was gut, was schön war; diese selbstverständliche Autorität ist die Verkörperung von Wahrheit, Güte, Schönheit; ist sie es auch wirklich? Der Zweifel braucht gar nicht ausgesprochen zu werden, aber er ist da. Da ist er und greift in der gekennzeichneten Weise in das Leben des Kindes ein.

Da handelt es sich darum, daß man gerade in diesem Lebenspunkte, für den man eine gesunde, freie Beobachtungsgabe haben muß, nun auch das richtige Wort, das richtige Verhalten findet. Mannigfaltiges ist notwendig. Der Takt, der Instinkt, die Intuition müssen es geben. Dann kann man in diesem Lebenspunkte des Kindes etwas tun, was für das ganze folgende Erdenleben von einer ungeheuer weittragenden Bedeutung ist. Findet man die Bemerkungen, die Handlungen, das Verhältnis, wodurch man dem Kinde in seiner Art begreiflich macht: Ja, du hast recht, daß du in mir die selbstverständliche Autorität siehst, -— dann ist man ein aus der innersten Seele heraus wirkender wahrer Wohltäter des Kindes geworden.

Denn wohl dem Menschen, der, über diesen Lebenspunkt hinausgehend, um das neunte, zehnte Lebensjahr herum, zu einer selbstverständlichen Autorität verehrend hinaufblickt! Kein Mensch kann in seinem Leben zu einem freien Wesen werden, der nicht zuerst vor seinem geschlechtsreifen Alter sein Leben hat einrichten gelernt, wie ein hochgeschätzter Mensch sich verhält. Sich unterstellen in dieser Weise aus innerer instinktiver Freiheit, sich so gegenüberstellen einem solchen Menschen, sich sagen: Das ist das Rechte, zu tun, was er tut- das macht eigentlich erst etwas aus den Anlagen zur Freiheit, die der Mensch in sich birgt.

Kurz, wir müssen als Waldorfschullehrer in jeder Beziehung in der intimsten Weise die selbstverständliche Autorität aufrechterhalten. Wie können wir sie aufrechterhalten? Wenn wir durch einen solchen Verkehr mit dem Elternhaus in den Eltern das Gefühl hervorrufen: Wir dürfen auf unsere Kinder so einwirken, daß sie die selbstverständliche Autorität in dem Lehrer, in dem Erzieher sehen. Es kann trivial klingen, aber es ist so: Der Waldorfschullehrer darf es nicht verschmähen, sich den Eltern des Kindes zu zeigen in seiner Wesenheit, das kann man ja manchmal in fünf Minuten, so daß die Eltern wissen, mit wem sie es zu tun haben. Und in dem Ton ihrer Stimme, in der Färbung eines jedes Satzes, der über die Schule gesprochen wird, soll hingewiesen werden nach der selbstverständlichen Autorität in der Schule. Es kann gar nicht innig genug das Band zwischen Schule und Elternhaus geknüpft werden.

Und ein drittes. Hat man ein, zwei, drei, vier Lehrpläne, Schulverordnungen, alles fein klug ausgedacht, vor sich, weiß man ja, was man zu tun hat. Man hat den Lehrplan, hat die Schulverordnung, muß das tun. Aber so steht die Waldorfschule nicht da. Im Geiste der Waldorfschule ist es so richtig, zu denken, daß manches anders sein muß als in der öffentlichen Erziehung. Das können ja heute viele Menschen nicht einsehen. Und in unserem Zeitalter ist ja soviel Gescheitheit verbreitet. Man kann gar nicht stark genug betonen, wie in unserem Zeitalter gegenüber anderen Zeitaltern die Menschen gescheit sind. Nur, diese verstandesmäßige Gescheitheit - ich meine das ganz ernst, ich ironisiere nicht -, diese Gescheitheit von heute macht just die größten Dummheiten. Aber trotzdem, die Menschen sind gescheit. Das drückt sich in der verschiedensten Weise aus. Es können sich heute dreißig Menschen zusammensetzen, die können eine Schulreform ausmachen. Das kann so gescheit sein, unanfechtbar sein. Derlaienhaft denkt, kann dann sagen: Das ist aber genial, bessere Schulen kann man gar nicht schaffen, alsdiemitdem 1., 2., 3.,4.- Aber man versuche nur weiterzugehen und sich die Schulen anzusehen, die man mit dem 1., 2., 3., 4. da schafft. Die Grundsätze, Paragraphen sind sehr gescheit; aber mit denen kann man im Leben nichts anfangen. Nur der kann etwas anfangen, der das Leben selber pulsieren fühlt und aus dem pulsierenden Leben heraus schaffen kann.

So steht der Waldorfschullehrer da: er hat keine Paragraphen, sondern Ratschläge; Ratschläge, die er nach seiner eigenen Individualität gestalten muß. Jeder ist doch ein anderer Mensch. Und wenn man vorschreibt, was der Lehrer in der Schule zu tun hat, in strikter Weise, dann soll jeder so sein wie der andere. Bedenken Sie nur, zu welcher Konsequenz das führt. Wenn das ernst genommen würde, daß die Paragraphen streng durchgeführt würden, die bestgemeinten pädagogischen abstrakten Grundsätze durchgeführt würden, wonach die Leute der Ansicht sind, daß es nur einerlei gibt, wie man zu erziehen und zu unterrichten hat, dann könnte man den einen Lehrer nicht mehr von dem anderen unterscheiden. Dann würde man dem einen Lehrer begegnen und würde sagen, es sei der andere, weil er ganz nach denselben abstrakten Prinzipien erzieht und unterrichtet. Aber der Lehrer ist ein Mensch. Der Lehrer ist eine Individualität. Und er kann nur wirken, wenn er sich als Mensch einsetzen kann mit der vollen Selbständigkeit seines Wesens. Nur dann kann er wirklich wirken. Dann aber muß er das Leben kennen. Man kann im Leben nur wirken, wenn man das Leben auf sich wirken läßt. Aber was hat man in der Schule für ein Leben? Die Fortsetzung des elterlichen Lebens im Kinde. Von den Paragraphen, Grundsätzen wird der Lehrer verwiesen auf alles dajenige, was unmittelbares Leben des Kindes ist. Das muß einfließen in Methodik, in die Handhabung des ganzen Unterrichtens und Erziehens.

Daher, meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, wenn Sie ein Mäuschen wären und manchmal zuhören würden bei unseren Lehrerkonferenzen, so würden Sie hören, wie da tatsächlich mit allen Einzelheiten Abrechnung getrieben wird, und wie intim zuweilen dasjenige besprochen wird, was aus dem Elternhaus herein auf das Kind hinleuchtet. Und weiter würden Sie erfahren, wenn Sie ein solches Mäuschen wären und zuhören würden, wie diese Lehrerkonferenzen ein fortwährendes Lernen sind, ein fortwährendes Entwickeln der Pädagogik zu immer höherer und intimerer Wirkung hinauf. Es kann gar nicht anders sein, wenn die Schule ein lebendiger Organismus und nicht ein toter Organismus sein soll. Und so ist gerade die Waldorfschule, weil sie eine freie Schule sich nennt, eine solche Institution, die durch ihr iinnerstes Wesen den Weg zum Elternhause weist in bezug auf die ganze Wesenheit des Kindes.

Man lernt ein Kind kennen. Es hat, sagen wir, mangelhafte intellektuelle Fähigkeiten. Das kommt ja vor. Ja, mangelhafte intellektuelle Fähigkeiten können auf die mannigfaltigste Weise verbessert werden, entwikkelt werden zum Besseren. Aber man muß Anhaltspunkte haben. Sagen wir, man lernt den Vater oder die Mutter kennen; die sind sehr gescheit. Es kommt ja auch vor, daß intellektuell unbegabte Kinder sehr gescheite Eltern haben. Es kann auch das Gegenteil der Fall sein, daß intellektuell unbegabte Eltern sehr intellektuell begabte Kinder haben. Aber in jedem Fall wird man ungeheuer viel lernen für die Behebung von Mängeln an intellektuellen Fähigkeiten, wenn man auf die Eltern hinschaut, die das Kind bis zum Zahnwechsel nachgeahmt hat. Dadurch wird man nicht nur eine theoretische Erklärung finden, sondern man wird eine Anleitung finden zur Handhabung dessen, was man zu tun hat. - Und das Gefühlsleben, das noch ins moralische Leben herüberspielt, das das Gute nur aus der Sympathie mit dem Guten im Lehrer erhält, das Gefühlsleben, das gerade im schulpflichtigen Lebensalter die bedeutsamste Rolle spielt, dieses Gefühlsleben, wie klärt es sich auf, wenn wir durch das Fühlen des Kindes hindurchschauen auf die besondere Art des Gefühlslebens der Eltern! Ebenso ist es mit dem Willensleben.

Wer aus seiner Gescheitheit heraus weiß, der Mensch muß so und so sein, weil das die richtige durchschnittliche Menschennatur ist, der braucht ja nicht auf die Eltern hinzuschauen. Wer aber weiß, daß die Dinge aus ihrem Ursprung und die Wesen aus ihrem Ursprung hervorgehen, wer nicht auf ein Abstraktes hinschaut, sondern auf den Ursprung hinschaut, der muß auf das Elternhaus hinschauen.

Weil die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik den Geist der Wirklichkeit, den Geist des Naturgemäßen, den Geist des Seelengemäßen atmen will, deshalb führt sie auf den Weg der Wirklichkeit. Und dieser Weg der Wirklichkeit weist zurück aus der Schule ins Elternhaus. Daher geschieht ja auch alles, was das Interesse der Lehrer an den Eltern, der Eltern für den Lehrer der Schule erwecken kann. Die Elternabende, die von der Waldorfschule abgehalten werden, sind dazu da, um ein Band zu knüpfen zwischen der Schule und dem Elternhaus. Und das, was auf diesen Elternabenden getrieben wird, soll dazu geeignet sein, die Eltern anschauen zu lassen, namentlich welcher Gesinnung, welcher Seelenverfassung die Lehrerschaft ist.

Das, meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, ist die praktische Durchführung desjenigen, was ja schließlich als oberstes, ich kann nicht sagen, Prinzip, sondern als oberste Anschauung beim Geist der WaldorfschulPädagogik vorhanden ist. Aus tiefstem innerem Seelenleben heraus muß sich aus diesem Geiste der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik der Lehrer sagen: Die Eltern übergeben der Schule das Teuerste, was sie haben, in ihrem Kinde. Die Eltern haben mancherlei im Leben erfahren. Sie möchten, weil sie selber vielleicht geprüft sind im Leben, sie möchten zwar nicht, daß das Kind ungeprüft bleibe, aber doch, daß ihm manche harte Erfahrung erspart bleibe, die sie haben durchmachen müssen. Aus diesem und vielem anderen heraus knüpfen sich ja viele, unendliche Hoffnungen des Elternhauses an den Augenblick, wo das Kind der Schule überliefert wird. Aus dem ganzen Geiste der WaldorfschulPädagogik weiß der Lehrer, der Erzieher, was ihm übergeben wird. Und er möchte aus solchen Anschauungen heraus, wie ich sie charakterisiert habe, an dem Kinde so wirken, daß er, wenn er das Kind aus der Schule wieder herausläßt und die Eltern einen neuen Entschluß fassen müssen und es wieder aus der Hand des Lehrers entgegennehmen, daß er hören könnte von den Eltern: Wir wußten es ja immer, als wir die Schule angesehen haben, unsere Hoffnungen mußten erfüllt werden. - Dieses Urteil kann sich aber nicht im letzten Augenblick bei der Reifeprüfung bilden, das kann sich nur bilden, wenn es heranreift an dem Umgang der Schule mit dem Elternhause.

Und so kann man von mancherlei Erziehungsversuchen, ja sogar von pädagogisch großartig gemeinten Idealen wegblicken, auf den Geist der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik hinblicken und kann sich sagen: Es ist doch ein ungeheuer gesunder Instinkt, der sich auslebt in dem Zusammensein des Kindes mit den Eltern; es muß daher auch ein Gesundes sein, wenn die Schule in dieses Verhältnis hineinwächst dadurch, daß sie den Weg findet zu den Eltern hin.

Unter den vielen Dingen, die in der Waldorfschule angestrebt werden und die alle dadurch zu charakterisieren sind, daß man sagt: Die Waldorfschule möchte über abstrakte Grundsätze, über Gescheitheiten zur lebensvollen Wirklichkeit hin -, ist vor allem dieses, daß die Waldorfschule den Weg finden möchte zu der allerlebensvollsten Wirklichkeit im Dasein des Kindes. Und diese Wirklichkeit im Dasein des kleinen Kindes, des schulpflichtigen Kindes, sind die Eltern.

Weil diese Schule mit Ihrem Geiste eine Schule sein will nicht der Theorie, nicht der Abstraktion, nicht des steifen, theoretischen Prinzips, sondern des vollen Lebens, der vollen Wirklichkeit, sucht sie den Weg in die Wirklichkeit des Elternhauses hinein.

The Teacher's Communication with Parents in the Spirit of Waldorf Education

Lecture given at the fourth regular general meeting of the “Freie Waldorfschule” association

Ladies and gentlemen! From the perspectives on which Waldorf education is based, there is not just one path, but many paths leading from something that has been unnaturally imposed on humanity today, and in particular on social life, to something natural, to something that is, so to speak, demanded by human nature in its broadest sense. And such a path is to be outlined in the remarks I would like to make at today's meeting, the path from the teacher to the parents' home.

One might say that this path is actually a matter of course. And yet, ladies and gentlemen, the path that teachers and educators need to take to the parents' home has not only been found to be quite difficult at times, but there are also very, very significant pedagogical views that do not take this path to the parents' home into consideration. I need only recall something that has been experienced as one of the greatest events in the course of German intellectual development: the appearance of Johann Gottlieb Fichte in every field. But today we want to talk only about his appearance in the field of education. In one of the most difficult times in German life, he gave his “Addresses to the German Nation,” these powerful speeches to the German nation, in which he drew attention to how a recovery, a revival of German existence, must come about through education after the severe humiliation of 1806. And it can be said that Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of the noblest Germans, found the most beautiful and also the most significant words to describe education. However, he considered it a basic requirement for the implementation of his educational intentions that children be taken from their parents' homes and, in a sense, crammed into special educational institutions run by a closed state according to rigid principles. But we have also seen a wide variety of educational experiments in which children in special situations are to be taken to special places in order to receive an appropriate education. And we have numerous examples, especially in the course of human development, where such removal of children from their parents' homes is considered necessary.

Although Waldorf education, with its spirit, believes that it has at least as powerful an effect on the depths of the human soul as the educational experiments described above, this spirit of Waldorf education took a completely different direction from the outset. The spirit of Waldorf education did not start from external factors. It did not say that this or that should be brought about for children in social relationships. It did not say that children should be brought into this or that situation, torn from their usual circumstances; rather, the spirit of Waldorf education was from the outset a purely methodological, a purely pedagogical-didactic one. The social situation, the circumstances of life, are accepted as they are. And everything that is to be achieved through Waldorf education is pursued for inner spiritual reasons inherent in the pedagogy itself. So that one can say, for example: if there are difficulties in education due to the social situation in which the child finds itself, or due to other preconditions, difficulties arise in education, these are accepted by the spirit of Waldorf education as fate, and methodology and didactics are arranged in such a way that the difficulties are overcome through the spirit and practice of education and teaching, in a manner that is as individualized as possible for each child. As a result, an institution such as the Waldorf school stands at the center of social life as it is. And in this social life, when dealing with a school that accepts children of compulsory school age, i.e., six or seven years old, the child is received from the parental home, and since we do not have a boarding school, the child remains in the parental home and under their care outside of school hours. This means that from the outset, the entire direction that education and teaching in the Waldorf school must take is oriented toward cooperation with the parental home, which, however, as we shall see, must consist in particular of feeling, thinking, and acting together with the parental home.

Many of you have certainly already discussed what the stages of life are in a child's existence. There are two or three stages of life in a child's existence that are particularly relevant to our pedagogy. The first begins at birth and ends with the change of teeth, the second begins with the change of teeth and ends with sexual maturity, and the third extends beyond that to about the age of twenty-one. Each of these stages of a child's life shows us, so to speak, if we are open-minded about things as they are, that the child is in a completely different state of mind and also in a different physical condition. But let us first consider the state of mind.

Until the change of teeth, the child is completely dependent on acquiring everything it learns through imitation. What is shown to the child acts on the child as an external stimulus that immediately calls upon the entire physical organization — more visibly in some areas, less visibly in others — to imitate the impression. To confirm this, we need only consider the serious fact that children acquire their mother tongue entirely through imitation. Imitation penetrates deeply into the human physical and mental organization. It must be taken into account that any sound that is spoken is perceived by the child much more intensely in its vibration, in its wave motion, than is the case later in life. And all the adjustments of the larynx, all the inner soulfulness of the organs, are based on imitation, even in language, when the mother tongue is considered; and so everything in the child's life until the change of teeth.

Today, when misunderstandings, or rather numerous misunderstandings, are causing great errors in our otherwise admirable scientific view of the world, there is much talk of this or that thing that the child acquires in the first phase of life, up to the change of teeth, being based on heredity. So much, so very much is thrown into this subject of heredity today. With regard to children, this talk of heredity is based solely on the fact that those who talk about it do not have a proper sense of observation. Otherwise, they would discover that, basically, much of what is today attributed to obscure, mystical heredity must actually be sought in the clearly comprehensible imitation to which the child is oriented.

But let us consider how closely the soul life, which stands out from this whole life of imitation, how closely this soul life grows together with the parental life because the child is an imitative being. Precisely when one truly understands how strong the child's inclination to imitate is, one gains, in the most eminent sense, the most sacred reverence and the deepest appreciation for the child's connection to its parents. And if one looks at what underlies all this in the spiritual world in the sense of anthroposophical spiritual science, then one says to oneself all the more: since human beings are spiritual beings before they enter physical existence, and since they are free beings, they come into earthly existence with a very specific destiny for the most diverse forms of life — I am not saying activities, but forms. If, on the one hand, we look at how this destiny unfolds with an inner regularity from the often smallest experiences of childhood into mature age, even into old age, and on the other hand, if you see how the child grows together with its parents because it is an imitative being, if you really see this with all the underlying spiritual connections, then you get feelings that have, one might say, a religious character towards what you have given to the child when you receive it as a teacher or educator for education and instruction. And it is precisely through these almost religious feelings that one acquires a strong inclination to know quite precisely: how is the child who is entrusted to us at school age connected to the parental home?

The following can be said: it is truly not theoretical pedagogical considerations, nor abstract, fundamental principles that are supposed to chart the course for the spirit of Waldorf school pedagogy towards the children's parents, but rather something alive, just as everything in the Waldorf school should be alive. It is something alive; it is the Waldorf school teacher's living need not only to have the child in front of them in spirit, but also to find the way from the child to the parents in every expression of the soul that the child shows them, in every characterological motive, in every impulsiveness that is effective in a childlike way, indeed, in every expression, every gesture, every movement of the hand. As a Waldorf school teacher, one becomes grounded in the knowledge of the child, and this is what one needs above all else if one wants to educate the child in such a way that one reads the impulses for its education from its own nature. Above all, one becomes grounded in seeing the child in the right way when one can look at the parents behind them. And this is not only the case when there is an absolutely harmonious relationship between the child and the parents. In life, what emerges from the child's coexistence with its parents manifests itself in the most diverse ways. Certainly, we look upon the fate of a child with inner happiness, with deep inner satisfaction, when the child has the opportunity to live in a completely harmonious relationship with exemplary parents. But should we not also consider the counterargument? Does not the person who views life, present life, historical life, impartially, see how the greatest minds, not only the geniuses of intellect, but also the geniuses of virtue and moral action, have often emerged from harsh disharmony between child and parents? The Waldorf school teacher must accustom himself not to criticize the relationship between the child and the parental home, but to accept it objectively, because he sees, as it were, a light emanating from his acquaintance with the parents that illuminates the peculiarities of the child.

It is not a principle, not some educational principle, that prompts the Waldorf school teacher to find a way to the parents, but the innermost need of the heart, just as Waldorf school education in its innermost essence is an education of the heart.

Let us now look at something else. Let us look at how part of what used to be the sole responsibility of parents must now be taken over by the teacher for children of compulsory school age. When children enter elementary school, they are in the process of changing teeth. Children are brought into school a little too early today; the real elementary school age actually begins with the change of teeth, but that is less important. When the child is sent to school and handed over to the teacher, the teacher must take over part of the education, which, however, takes on a special character because the child's entire soul life, the child's entire mental and spiritual constitution, also changes with the change of teeth. From then on, the child is no longer an imitative being, although the principle of imitation continues for a few years into elementary school. But essentially, the child is no longer an imitative being, but rather a being that is now stimulated, so to speak, by what meets it in the image, I would say, in the corresponding artistic design of what we want to bring to the child. The child is now no longer inclined to devote its entire organism to imitating what is presented to it, but instead moves on to the natural principle of authority. Whereas previously it was the will that followed what was modeled in the whole childish organization, now it is the feeling that finds pleasure or displeasure in what the teacher presents to the child in the picture, but also in the image of his whole personality, his own actions, in the formation of his language, and so on. And it is not arbitrary authority, but natural authority that must prevail in school between the change of teeth and sexual maturity.

Those who do not admit this are simply unable to see the development of human life as a whole. It is so easy to say that everything must be visual teaching. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with visual teaching, but visual teaching should not be a means of trivializing all education and all teaching. One cannot have the principle of reducing everything to the level at which the child already stands. It can only be a matter of clothing what the child immediately demands through observation in vivid mental image. But take a relationship of religious, moral life; how can one teach this through visual instruction? But apart from that, the child demands through its inner soul that something is true for it because the educator, who is perceived as a sympathetic authority, says it is true. The child feels that something is beautiful because the natural authority finds it beautiful; the child finds something good because the authority finds it good. This authority embodies the true, the beautiful, and the good. And it is bad for people if they are supposed to acquire a feeling for the true, the good, and the beautiful out of principles, out of abstract commandments, out of all kinds of intellectual laws before acquiring it at the right age in childhood — that is, between the change of teeth and sexual maturity — by encountering it embodied in a human being. We should first have learned that something is true because a revered personality says it is true, before we understand the inner abstract lawfulness of the true, which can only really affect us when we are past the age of sexual maturity.

You will not expect me to believe that someone who wrote his “Philosophy of Freedom” more than thirty years ago would want to take up the cudgels for the principle of authority where it does not belong. But the principle of authority, as demanded by childlike nature itself, definitely belongs in elementary school. There, the teacher, with his intellect, his heart, his feelings, his whole humanity, becomes the guiding principle for the true, the good, and the beautiful, as the child should accept it; a human relationship develops that extends to the shaping of the true, the good, and the beautiful. All this is explained in more detail in the various educational writings in which one can read about Waldorf school pedagogy.

But now consider the position of the Waldorf school teacher who recognizes this self-evident principle of authority and wants to practice it in its full extent. He is dependent on this self-evident authority not being broken in any way. Now, one must consider that even in families where there is disharmony between the child and the parents, there is still a close bond between the child and the parents, especially at the age when the teeth are changing. This bond is so strong that it basically outshines everything else that is relevant to the child's being at this age. This means that even if the child, due to circumstances, faces antipathy towards the parents, there is initially a completely unshakeable relationship of authority towards the parents in the subconscious. I can only mention this here, but the matter can be proven in every detail. Proper psychology, proper soul science, teaches that even when children consciously develop in opposition to their parents' home during the age of tooth replacement and in the years that follow, they are completely under the authority of their parents in the finer, but unconscious, spiritual veins of their being. Who would want it to be any other way? This is simply the natural relationship. If I were to describe the course that human development would take if this were not the case, we would get a very gruesome picture of this human development.

But this means that the teacher, in the completely different field in which he wants to work, now presents himself not as a role model, but as a spokesperson, as the one who, in his authority, indicates what penetrates the child, like the teacher, I would say with a more subtle kind of effectiveness, must approach what the parental home has made of the child down to its innermost being. One cannot stand in one's authority before the child's individuality other than by consciously building on what the child has become through the parental home. This in turn instinctively gives rise to the innermost urge in the Waldorf school teacher to enter into a relationship with the parents.

And this urge grows out of a very specific reason. The spirit of Waldorf education is not one-sided; it encompasses the spirit, the soul, and also the physical, the bodily. It would be a complete misunderstanding of the spirit of Waldorf education to believe that the physical, in both its healthy and unhealthy states, is somehow underestimated in relation to the spiritual. The spirit of Waldorf education takes into account the whole human being in the child. Since it takes into account the whole human being, but does not have the whole human being, but only has the child during school hours and perhaps in a few other contexts, it must have an inner need to be in close contact with the parental home, which the child has at other times.

Truly, in our case, what I have often said, especially within the Waldorf school community itself, is true: teachers need not fear classes with large numbers of pupils. Setting up small classes for pedagogical reasons implies a pedagogical weakness. That is not the case. If it might be desirable in Waldorf schools to strive for smaller classes, it is for the reason that the teacher has the opportunity to find the way to the parental home for all his or her pupils. And he or she must find it! He or she must find it out of the whole spirit of the Waldorf school!

But let us consider something else. I just want to highlight a few stages. Anyone who observes children in life will find that between the ages of nine and ten, there is an extremely important point in their lives. You can see it approaching. A certain inner crisis makes itself felt. It is not that the child asks particularly intellectual questions, but the crisis is indicated by the fact that otherwise lively children become listless, quiet children become loud, children show all kinds of pathological conditions, and so on. What is happening is that in the child's subconscious — there is an infinite amount in the child's subconscious, not in their consciousness — a question arises that is not formulated intellectually, but lives only in feeling: The self-evident authority has so far told me what was true, what was good, what was beautiful; this self-evident authority is the embodiment of truth, goodness, beauty; is it really so? The doubt does not need to be expressed, but it is there. It is there and intervenes in the child's life in the manner described.

The point is that at this particular stage of life, for which one must have a healthy, free power of observation, one must now also find the right words and the right behavior. Many things are necessary. Tact, instinct, and intuition must be present. Then, at this stage of the child's life, one can do something that is of enormous significance for the whole of their subsequent life on earth. If one finds the remarks, the actions, the relationship through which one makes the child understand in its own way: Yes, you are right to see in me the natural authority, — then one has become a true benefactor of the child, acting from the innermost soul.

For blessed is the person who, going beyond this point in life, around the age of nine or ten, looks up to a natural authority with reverence! No one can become a free being in their life who has not first learned, before reaching sexual maturity, to arrange their life in the way a highly esteemed person behaves. To submit oneself in this way out of inner instinctive freedom, to stand before such a person and say to oneself: What he does is the right thing to do — that is what actually makes something of the predisposition to freedom that a person harbors within themselves.

In short, as Waldorf school teachers, we must maintain our natural authority in the most intimate way in every respect. How can we maintain it? By communicating with parents in such a way that we inspire them to feel that we can influence their children to see the natural authority in the teacher, in the educator. It may sound trivial, but it is true: Waldorf teachers must not shy away from showing themselves to the child's parents in their true nature, which can sometimes be done in five minutes, so that the parents know who they are dealing with. And in the tone of their voice, in the coloring of every sentence spoken about the school, reference should be made to the natural authority in the school. The bond between the school and the parents' home cannot be strong enough.

And a third point. If you have one, two, three, four curricula, school regulations, all carefully thought out, then you know what you have to do. You have the curriculum, you have the school regulations, you have to do it. But that is not how the Waldorf school works. In the spirit of the Waldorf school, it is right to think that some things must be different from public education. Many people today cannot understand this. And in our age, so much cleverness is widespread. One cannot emphasize enough how clever people are in our age compared to other ages. But this intellectual intelligence – I mean that quite seriously, I am not being ironic – this intelligence of today is precisely what causes the greatest stupidity. Nevertheless, people are intelligent. This is expressed in many different ways. Today, thirty people can get together and decide on a school reform. It can be so intelligent, so indisputable. A layman might think, “That's brilliant, you can't create better schools than that with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th...” But just try to go further and look at the schools that are created with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. The principles and paragraphs are very clever, but they are of no use in real life. Only those who feel the pulse of life itself and can create from that pulsating life can do something with them.

This is how the Waldorf school teacher stands there: he has no paragraphs, but advice; advice that he must shape according to his own individuality. After all, everyone is a different person. And if you prescribe what the teacher has to do in school in a strict manner, then everyone should be the same as everyone else. Just consider the consequences of this. If it were taken seriously, if the rules were strictly enforced, if the best-intentioned abstract educational principles were implemented, according to which people believe that there is only one way to educate and teach, then it would no longer be possible to distinguish one teacher from another. Then one would meet one teacher and say it was the other, because he educates and teaches according to the same abstract principles. But the teacher is a human being. The teacher is an individual. And he can only be effective if he can engage as a human being with the full independence of his being. Only then can he really be effective. But then he must know life. One can only be effective in life if one allows life to have an effect on oneself. But what kind of life does one have at school? The continuation of the parents' life in the child. The teacher is directed by paragraphs and principles to everything that is the immediate life of the child. This must be incorporated into methodology, into the handling of the entire teaching and education process.

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, if you were a fly on the wall and sometimes listened in on our teachers' conferences, you would hear how every detail is discussed and how intimately we sometimes discuss what shines through from the parental home onto the child. And if you were such a little mouse and listened in, you would also learn how these teachers' conferences are a process of continuous learning, a continuous development of pedagogy toward ever higher and more intimate effects. It cannot be otherwise if the school is to be a living organism and not a dead one. And so, precisely because it calls itself a free school, the Waldorf school is an institution that, through its innermost being, points the way to the parental home in relation to the whole being of the child.

You get to know a child. Let's say they have poor intellectual abilities. That happens. Yes, poor intellectual abilities can be improved in many different ways, developed for the better. But you have to have some points of reference. Let's say you get to know the father or mother; they are very intelligent. It also happens that intellectually untalented children have very intelligent parents. The opposite can also be the case, that intellectually untalented parents have very intellectually talented children. But in any case, one will learn an enormous amount about remedying deficiencies in intellectual abilities by looking at the parents, whom the child has imitated until they lost their baby teeth. This will not only provide a theoretical explanation, but also guidance on how to deal with what needs to be done. - And the emotional life, which still spills over into moral life, which receives goodness only from sympathy with the goodness in the teacher, the emotional life, which plays the most significant role precisely at school age, this emotional life, how it becomes clear when we look through the child's feelings at the special nature of the parents' emotional life! The same is true of the life of the will.

Those who know from their intelligence that human beings must be this way or that way because that is the correct average human nature do not need to look to their parents. But those who know that things arise from their origin and beings arise from their origin, those who do not look at abstractions but look at the origin, must look at the parental home.

Because Waldorf education wants to breathe the spirit of reality, the spirit of what is natural, the spirit of what is appropriate for the soul, it leads to the path of reality. And this path of reality leads back from school to the parental home. That is why everything is done to awaken the interest of teachers in parents and of parents in the school's teachers. The parents' evenings held by the Waldorf school are there to forge a bond between the school and the parents' home. And what is done at these parents' evenings should be designed to allow the parents to see what kind of attitude and state of mind the teachers have.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the practical implementation of what is ultimately the highest, I cannot say principle, but the highest view in the spirit of Waldorf education. From the depths of their inner soul, teachers must say to themselves from this spirit of Waldorf education: Parents entrust the school with the most precious thing they have, their child. Parents have experienced many things in life. Because they themselves may have been tested in life, they do not want their child to remain untested, but they do want to spare them some of the hard experiences they themselves have had to go through. For this and many other reasons, parents have many, endless hopes for the moment when their child is handed over to the school. From the whole spirit of Waldorf education, the teacher, the educator, knows what is being handed over to him. And based on the views I have characterized, he wants to influence the child in such a way that when he lets the child leave school and the parents have to make a new decision and take the child back from the teacher's care, he can hear the parents say: We always knew, when we looked at the school, that our hopes would be fulfilled. However, this judgment cannot be formed at the last moment during the final exams; it can only be formed when it matures through the school's interaction with the parents' home.

And so one can look away from various educational experiments, even from pedagogically grand ideals, and look at the spirit of Waldorf school pedagogy and say to oneself: It is an immensely healthy instinct that is lived out in the child's relationship with its parents; it must therefore also be healthy when the school grows into this relationship by finding its way to the parents.

Among the many things that Waldorf schools strive for, all of which can be characterized by saying that Waldorf schools want to move beyond abstract principles and clever ideas toward a vibrant reality, the most important thing is that Waldorf schools want to find a way to the most vibrant reality in the child's existence. And this reality in the life of the small child, the school-age child, is the parents.

Because this school, with its spirit, wants to be a school not of theory, not of abstraction, not of rigid, theoretical principles, but of full life, of full reality, it seeks the path into the reality of the parental home.