At the Source

At the Source Harlan Gilbert

Harlan Gilbert was born in Chicago. His teaching experience has ranged over all ages: pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school and high school. He has a Master’s Degree in Education and has written and lectured on education and new developments in science and philosophy. He has lived and worked in the United States, England, Scotland, Switzerland, and Hungary. He returned to the United States in 2002 and is presently teaching high school mathematics at a Waldorf school in New York State.

At the Source

The Incarnation of the Child and the Development of a Modern Pedagogy

Harlan Gilbert

PMS 1645 orange black

AWSNA Publications

T h e A s s o c i a t i o n o f Wa l d o r f Schools of North America 3911 Bannister Road Fair Oaks, CA 95628

2

At the Source The Incarnation of the Child and the Development of a Modern Pedagogy

by

Harlan Gilbert

3

Printed with support from the Waldorf Curriculum Fund Published by: The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America 3911 Bannister Road Fair Oaks, CA 95628 Title: At the Source: The Incarnation of the Child and the Development of a

Modern Pedagogy Author: Harlan Gilbert Editor: David Mitchell Proofreader, copyeditor: Ann Erwin Cover: Hallie Wootan Cover Photographs: Larry Canner, Baltimore, MD © 2005 by AWSNA ISBN # 1-88836558-7

Curriculum Series The Publications Committee of AWSNA is pleased to bring forward this publication as part of our Curriculum Series. The thoughts and ideas represented herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent any implied criteria set by AWSNA. It is our intention to stimulate as much writing and thinking as possible about our curriculum, including diverse views. Please contact us with feedback on this publication as well as requests for future work. David S. Mitchell For The Publications Committee AWSNA

4

Table of Contents

Foreword ............................................................................................

9

Preface ................................................................................................

14

Introduction: An Education Based on a Spiritual Element .........

17

Chapter I: THE HUMAN BEING .......................................................... The Nature of the Human Being The Physical Body Life Sentience

20

Individuality Ego Soul Development At the Boundary of the Spiritual World The Void of Consciousness The Path of Spiritual Experience The Nature of Human Development The Factors Determining Human Development Chapter II: DEVELOPMENT .................................................................. The Archetypal Stages of Development The Seasons of Life

39

The Phases of Life The Stages (or Years) of Life About the Descriptions of Child Development

5

Chapter III: THE PREPARATION ........................................................... The Descent out of the Spiritual Worlds The Origin of the Human Being in the Spiritual Worlds

57

The Guardian of the Threshold The Decent of the Sheaths: Conception Chapter IV: THE FIRST PHASE OF LIFE (EARLY CHILDHOOD) .................. The Senses Cultivating the Senses Developmental Stages (I): The Physical Body Formation Rhythm Differentiation Individuation Active Imagination Social Integration Completion Remarks Evolution of Social Experience Outlook The Role of the Formative Forces in Early Childhood Nature Human Activity Cultivating the Earth Nature’s Rhythms Human Ryhthms The Festivals Weather Art Cultivating Soul Capacities Summary

6

68

Metamorphic Imitation The Environment of Early Childhood A Note on Materials and Objects for Use in Early Years’ Environment Chapter V: THE SECOND PHASE OF LIFE (THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS) 106 Memory and Thinking Developmental Stages (II): The Life Organization Transition Rythmic Form Development Differentiation of Form Individuaslized Form Creative Form Interactive Patterned Form Unity of Gestalt The Living Image, Creativity and Authority Judgment Creative Authority Metamorphosis, Rythm and Habit Life Metamorphosis The Three-Day Rhythm Rythmic Experience The Habit Life Chapter VI: THE THIRD PHASE OF LIFE (THE MIDDLE AND SECONDARY SCHOOL YEARS) ..................................................................... 144 Sentience The Transitional Years The Pedagogy of the Transitional Period A Word of Caution Developmental Stages (III): The Sentient Organization Conscousness in the Physical Body

7

Conscousness of the Life Organization Conscousness of the Sentient Organization Conscousness of Individuality Imagination Inspiriation Intuition Ideals and Soul Development Education through Ideals Soul and World Specialization in the High School

Conclusion: The Higher Self of the Child .......................................... 197 Appendices .......................................................................................... 201 Nature Study and Natural Science The Spiritual Worlds Afterword for the Waldorf Movement Endnotes ................................................................................................ 212

8

Foreword The research which led to this book was stimulated by a number of fundamental questions about Waldorf education and child development, some of which follow: 1) If human development proceeds in seven-year cycles, then these seven-year periods must have a meaning and origin. What causes, and what comes to expression in a seven-year developmental period? 2) If the successive years of the Waldorf curriculum are capable of being precisely defined in terms of an appropriate curriculum and methodology, then stages of human development must be equally well definable on a year by year basis. Given the seven-year developmental phases each phase of life must go through seven definable stages of development, each of which corresponds approximately, at least in normal development, to one year of human life. These seven stages must be archetypal in nature, in other words, the physical body, the life and rhythmic organization and the organization of consciousness (as well as the further members of the human being) must all need to go through the same principle sequence of development. At the same time, the expression of these archetypal stages must be radically dependent on the level of organization being developed; otherwise, the first and eighth, second and ninth, and so forth, years of life would show more evident parallelisms than is apparently the case.

9

3) In anthroposophic descriptions of human development, the physical body’s development is generally considered to begin with the child’s birth. Ontologically speaking, this is nonsense; the physical body’s development begins at conception. Taking conception as the true beginning of the child’s first phase of development, however, has significant consequences for understanding the pattern of human life; the first phase of life would then end already when the child is six years (plus three months) old; the second at thirteen years plus, etc. In fact, these ages conform more closely to the actual change of teeth and onset of puberty than do the ages traditionally associated with the first two phases of life. How do the phases of life (in either of these age patterns) relate to the phases of Waldorf schooling: early childhood, the elementary school years, and high school? a) If the physical body’s development begins at conception and lasts seven years, i.e. until the child is slightly more than six years of age, then the Waldorf pupil who begins formal schooling at seven years of age is already almost a year into his or her second developmental period. b) The eight-year class teacher phase clearly goes beyond the limits of a single seven-year developmental phase. Even if the start of formal education is considered to correspond with the beginning of this second phase of life (the traditional Waldorf view, here held to be untenable), this implies that eight years later, when secondary education begins, the child is already one year into the next phase of life. If we count the phases of life as beginning with conception, however, then not only does primary education begin one year into the second phase of life, but secondary education starts only after the child is already two years into the third phase of life. In either case, the last year or two of the class years have the exceptional status of not belonging to the same developmental phase as the earlier years.

10

The natural science curriculum sequence (grade four – animal study, grade five – plant study, grade six – mineralogy) has attracted my attention for some time. Is there any significance to this progression through the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms? Could it be extended meaningfully in any direction? Does grade three’s curriculum and development, for example, correspond in some way to the human or ego world? Could grade seven’s curriculum and development be considered to descend into the sub-mineral realm, e.g. into the realm of chemistry? What happens when this is extended: what lies above the human or ego realm? What lies below the realm of physical forces? Out of such considerations, a seven-fold pattern of development to 1 the middle period of childhood began to unfold: I.

Kindergarten. Highest spiritual world of Intuition, where the archetypes of the crystals (of the physical world) are found. The world of the eternal present, preceding time, the world of the fairy tale with archetypal characters.

II.

First Grade. Spiritual world of Inspiration (breathing, rhythm), where the archetypes of the plants (of the etheric world) are found. Rhythmic development in time begins, the world of the fairy tale with developmental characters.

III.

Second Grade. Spiritual world of Imagination, where the archetypes of the animals (of the astral world) are to be found. When these archetypes descend, they reveal themselves in fables; when the human being rises up above the ego into this bordering spiritual world, he or she becomes a saint.

IV.

Third Grade. The world of the ego, linking spiritual and earthly experience. The ego relates to the spiritual world through monotheism (Old Testament); and to the earthly world as master (care-

11

taker) of the lower worlds (of the animals, plants and land) in farming. The mutual relationship of individual egos expresses itself in a cooperative division of labor (which comes to expression in building). V.

Fourth Grade. The astral world. In outer experience this corresponds to the animal world, in inner experience to Norse mythology (the second rank of the gods). Three-fold division of experience into thinking, feeling and willing (e.g. grammar); division of wholeness of ego experience into parts (e.g. fractions).

VI.

Fifth Grade. The etheric world. In outer experience, the plant world, in inner experience, the post-Atlantean mythologies (of the third rank of the gods). Experience of rhythm and of the living, creative world imbuing all things. Balance and harmony.

VII.

Sixth Grade. The physical world. In outer experience, the mineral kingdom, in inner experience, the world of the senses and the causal laws of the physical world. Experience is now of physically real occurrences (history instead of mythology), of the reality of decay and death. Religious experience is expressed through physical events: the origin of Christianity.

As described above, this sequence of development is particular to the middle phase of childhood. Lying behind this particular character can be discerned an archetypal sequence of seven developmental steps leading from the spiritual worlds to earthly incarnation. How might this sequence might manifest in the previous and following phases of life: early childhood and the teenage years? A description of the developmental stages of childhood year by year from conception up to adult maturity at about twenty years of age arises.

12

In the course of this study, it became necessary to examine also the incarnating child’s preparation in the spiritual worlds, which can be seen as essential a part of the process of incarnation as are the earthly phases of childhood. In the end, the study has grown into an epistemological foundation for an understanding of child development and of the past, present and future possibilities for the development of Waldorf education. As such, it is my hope that it will aid in a deepening of comprehension of the incarnation processes that unfold during childhood as well as in serving as a stimulus to the deepening and renewal of the Waldorf school movement – and of education in general.

13

Preface By its very nature, the full scope of human development escapes our clear and completely conscious comprehension; too much is happening on too many levels under too many influences in too many ways. Any description of this development, and especially a description that does not remain purely empirical but goes on to suggest practical consequences for the healthy cultivation of the developing human being, can only approach the subject from a particular viewpoint. Such is the case with the present work, and it strives to do justice to the viewpoint chosen. Though a general survey of human development is required to give a context, the present work is devoted primarily to the period in a human being’s development when others are responsible for this development, i.e. childhood. A wholly separate work is required to describe the nurturing of adult development through the mutuality of the interpersonal or social realm, and yet another to describe the cultivation of selfdevelopment through the inner, religious, moral or spiritual life. This book is concerned with childhood and thus, inescapably, with questions of upbringing and education. For the purposes of this work, the period of childhood commences when the physical body of the child begins its development: at the moment of conception. Childhood concludes when developmentally the human being no longer need be entrusted to the guardianship of others. The life of every human being evolves through remarkable developments and metamorphoses, which begin in more outward ways as the body takes form and new abilities are achieved, and are followed by changes and growth of a more inward character as capacities of soul and strength of spirit emerge.

14

Much of this work is concerned with a description of the factors determinant and active in each stage of development1 as well as investigations of the methodological principles and thematic content appropriate for each stage. In order for a deeper understanding of the relationship between child development and an educational curriculum to be established, the phases of child development need to be articulated with an equal level of precision and detail as is the curriculum. Simultaneously, each aspect of the curriculum must be understood in connection with the actual developmental stage of the child. The unity of methodological approach, objective subject content and incarnational process must be made apparent. This is the goal of the present book. The present work is only a beginning. In this regard, it is particularly important that the practical examples be considered in light of the principles from which they are drawn; the former only make sense as a (necessarily still imperfect) realization of the latter. The author, accordingly, wholeheartedly welcomes suggestions, criticisms and any helpful contributions to the work begun here. This work is grounded in the fundamental research into the nature of the human being and into human development – especially child development – of Rudolf Steiner. I would like to declare my debt and thanks to the life and research of this founder of a new ‘transcendental science,’ uniting the power of thought and philosophical integrity of the transcendental idealists who preceded him with the practical, world2 oriented nature of modern science. The detailed curriculum indications presented here build not only upon Steiner’s work but also on that of the Waldorf School movement which has pursued his research in the praxis. Neither in the philosophical nor in the practical sections has anything been taken up here, however, which has not been independently worked through by the author, often being extended, modified or recast in the process. My research has led me to differ from Steiner in approach, content and, at times, fundamental understanding. I have no doubt that every

15

genuine researcher will respect this necessity.3 Similarly, this work cannot be regarded as somehow ‘belonging to’ the Waldorf movement. It was written independently of this movement, though by an author with some experience in and around it and who cherishes the greatest hopes for its future. This book is written for all who have to do with children and for the children themselves. Its reception will depend upon the ability of each reader to engage with and to enter inwardly into its (in many respects challenging) approach, not on any previous pedagogical convictions or experience. Above all, the challenge it presents is to see the child and the human being afresh, for what they truly are. May it be of value to the readers who seek it. Harlan Gilbert Vác, Hungary and Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. March 2005

16

Introduction AN EDUCATION BASED ON A SPIRITUAL ELEMENT Ever more people are awakening to the concept of the human being as a spiritual entity, that is, as a being whose origin and reality are to be found in realms beyond the visible and tangible world of which we are primarily aware during our earthly life. Such an awakening can arise in various ways. For some people, it is stimulated through the coming of a child, through experiences which can range from an intimation of a being wishing to come to earthly incarnation to a dawning awareness of the uniqueness of the child’s being through or after the birth itself. Such experiences can be grounds to re-examine out conception of the nature of the human being, which can lead to the perception of each and every human being as concealing an eternal essence within a mortal sheath. The experience of an incarnating child is thus one doorway to awaken to a consciousness of the spiritual reality of the human being. Likewise in a very different way, an encounter with death, illness or accident, sometimes but not necessarily accompanied by experiences of the world beyond the threshold, can awaken such a spiritual consciousness. For those who have such an encounter either directly or through accompanying another, the awareness of mortality ceases to be an abstract concept. Death begins to be a living reality linked to the destiny of an individual human being. This destiny may be perceived to continue after death, as the individuality that has shed its earthly sheath encounters other forms of existence than those which surround us during our earthly life.

17

An unusual life situation (often a crisis) or a deeply significant encounter with another human being can also open a door to the awareness that it is possible to meet in a human individuality a spiritual being and a destiny beyond that which is perceptible to the senses. However such an awareness arises, it has the power to affect the individual’s whole relationship to life. Education, in particular, takes on a completely different significance when it arises out of an awareness that the child before us is a being of body, soul and spirit, an eternal individuality that carries with it experiences from its recent sojourn in the spiritual world. It is a necessary striving for our time to attempt to found an education that does justice to this conception of the child and of the human being by drawing upon all of the levels of human existence in an integrated and integrating preparation for life. Though many contributions to aspects of this task have been made from many sides, the impulse towards a spiritually-based education which reaches all realms of human existence has been largely carried hitherto by Steiner/Waldorf education. This educational impulse is also uniquely comprehensive, comprehensive in that all aspects of the human being – head, heart and hands; body, soul and spirit – are equally cultivated, comprehensive also in that parents and children from all backgrounds and abilities come to the schools and find an education which serves them.4 Furthermore, the fundamental conception of child development upon which such a pedagogical approach can be based has its origins in the work of Rudolf Steiner. For this reason, without implying that the educational impulse that Steiner founded is the sole or, far less, the sole possible carrier of such an approach to the child, or that the schools that seek to realize this impulse achieve perfection in their attempts to serve as such carriers, this study will draw heavily on both Steiner’s description of the human being and of child development and the existing work of the schools founded on this basis. Not every child thrives on such an education, of course. Decisive, however, in both the acceptance of a child into such schools and their

18

success in them is not, as in most school systems, the past condition of the child – past school reports, character, talents, religious or racial origin, financial background – but the commitment to work and develop in the future. If the child is open to the education, then the education is open to the child.5 Practical barriers such as lack of schools, lack of teachers and lack of funds seem to stand in the way of such an education being realized everywhere that it is sought at present. In reality, however, it is only a lack of initiative which can prevent a child from having an education which is comprehensive in the sense meant here. There are many examples of apparently intransigent social, economic or practical barriers to a spiritually based education having been overcome through (initially) little more than vision and will power. These range from the founding of schools and, indeed, whole communities around these schools – e.g. for children in the slums of Sâo Paulo (Brazil) or for families in the disadvantaged ‘neighborhoods’ of Johannesburg (South Africa) – to families providing at home what their children cannot obtain at school. Above all, a spiritually based education calls upon and calls forth forces of initiative and capacities for inner transformation in children, teachers, and parents alike. The real evidence of spirit at work lies in the ongoing process of transformation and development that it stimulates in the individual, the social fabric of family and community and in the institution itself. To these processes of transformation and development, and to the good spirit who guides them, this work is dedicated.

19

Chapter I THE HUMAN BEING THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN BEING For most of human history, human beings have conceived of themselves as including an eternal essence, or spirit; a developing subjective-personal aspect, or soul; and a transient, perishable form, or body.6 Mankind’s self-image is being successively reduced in scope, however. First, it was narrowed to include only an inner consciousness – or psyche – dwelling in a living form – or body.7 It is a revealing fact of history that at the very moment when an awakening to an individual access to ego experience took place, the awareness of a higher realm of spirituality dropped away.8 Mankind’s self-image has been further reduced over the last few centuries to include only a life force invigorating a physical body. It finally reached its narrowest possible limits by being confined to the material-physical body alone. The science of the latter half of the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries expressed the picture dominant at the close of this transformation in man’s self-conception. All of what had previously been considered to be expressions of higher levels of man’s being – life, sentience, soul, self-consciousness (ego) and spirit – were considered by this science to be of purely physical origin in so far as they were acknowledged to exist at all. The Physical Body Contributing to this narrowing of the human self-conception were certain experimental results of natural science, such as those enabling a dead frog’s leg to twitch or memories to be called forth through the

20

application of an electrical impulse to the nerves or brain cells. These results seemed to make a physical basis for consciousness and life plausible and were widely regarded and popularized as the initial stages of a future complete and systematic demonstration of the physical nature and origin of all organic and psychological phenomena.9 This demonstration was never achieved, however. Both within science’s traditional areas and as a result of various new directions of research, our increasing comprehension and mastery of the physical world and its processes have repeatedly shown that the physical body cannot be considered to be the origin of, but only to determine the manifestations of higher levels of being. Science once attempted to deny the very existence of life, consciousness and ego awareness. This having failed, it attempted to show that all these are purely secondary phenomena resulting from the physical conditions. This, too, having failed, it is slowly coming round to attempting to treat these levels of being as phenomena in their own right worthy of scientific consideration. Any description of child development is dependent upon an explicit or implicit image or conception of the human being, in whose development childhood forms but one stage. If we want an accurate and complete picture of what is happening in this development, we must first achieve an accurate and complete picture of the nature of the human being. Science’s increasingly precise description of the physical body offers a great contribution here. Are there further levels of the human being which also need to be considered in order fully to understand human development? Life There is an unfortunately still too often popularized theory that life originally arose from a purely physical origin, e.g. from random combinations of chemicals in a high-energy environment. This has become to some more and more plausible through the results of experiments which

21

simulate such an environment as the earth is postulated to have had in the early stages of life’s evolution. Organic compounds such as amino acids – and even protein combinations similar to very simple genetic material – have been produced in these experiments, thus showing that ‘blind nature’ could, in principle, achieve similar results through random combination. In such experiments, complex pseudo-organic molecules are arrived at through extremely high-energy impulses, that is, from impulses originating from the outside environment. The defining element of the living world, however, is a capacity to develop through an impulse or principle inherent in, i.e. not external to, an organism. Life lies in the capacity to organize material into a developing organism, not in the material which is so organized. The chemical substances that result, however complicated, are only the means by which life operates – or else residues from this life. A living organism steadily increases its complexity from an initial state of virtual formlessness up to that of a highly sophisticated organization through processes such as those of growth, metamorphosis and differentiation. This is contrary to the tendency of the physical world, where disorganization (entropy) steadily increases. When the forces of the physical world take over a material (even if this once belonged to a living organism), the material is subject only to processes of rearrangement or decay. In addition, we find in every organism a typical rhythm of life and manner of growth which no change or exchange of its physical substance can modify into a new and viable pattern. The buttercup may be bred or genetically altered to have a scarlet flower, but will never become a rose; a mouse may be given long ears, but will never be made into even a miniature elephant. It has been one of the greatest achievements of modern genetic science to have discovered through the detailed mapping of the genetic structure that the fundamental determination of an organism’s nature, overall form and manner of growth is not to be found in the genes.10

22

It is clear that life is present in the living organism in a way which in fact forms and develops this organism, in a way which does not derive from, but rather determines the organism’s physical structure and development. If the organizing principle of life is not derived from the physical world, then from where is it originally drawn to imbue the physical form? What happens when a seed germinates or when a plant dies, returning its physical substance to the non-living world? Just as a plant can only grow physically by taking up substance from its physical environment, to which this substance then returns after its death, so must there be an environment of life-substance (formative potential) from which the life organization of an organism is drawn and to which it returns after its departure from the physical form. The mineral world is adequately defined through its physical qualities. The living world demands of us a comprehension of the life-giving, formative principle imbuing the physical expression, without which the organism’s development in time must remain inexplicable and in apparent contravention of all physical law. Sentience Another realm of world evolution, the animal world, appears with the acquisition of sentience. A flower may open its blossom to the sun, but not because it is pleased; sadness and joy, pain and pleasure, will and reflection do not exist in the plant or mineral realms. Entities lacking the capacity for sentience cannot acquire it through anything in the physical or living worlds. However a mineral is formed, and however the plant grows and evolves, and however we encourage and manipulate these forms and this evolution, sentience can neither be found nor awakened in the mineral or plant realms. Sentience is a level of being that arises independently of life and physicality. There are moments – this is especially apparent in the higher animals – when sentience seems to withdraw from the living and physical aspects of an organism. In sleep, for example, a sentient organism’s con-

23

sciousness is seemingly in abeyance, or at least strangely inaccessible. The capacity of the sentient nature to depart from and return to the lifeimbued physical body is further important evidence of the independent nature of the sentient organization; if the latter were merely a product of the lower organizations, so long as these lower organizations were present, so would sentience necessarily be. Even during the times when sentience has seemingly withdrawn from the organism, a creature formed by and for sentience cannot be confused with one equipped only with life and physical form. The sentient nature has formed the physical body and manner of life so essentially and deeply that its influence is apparent even while it is absent. It is the nature of sentience that it transforms the lower organizations in which it lives, not to arise from or be determined by these. We can identify qualities of sentience which are characteristic for every type of animal; thus we have the wily fox, fearful rabbit, voracious wolf, phlegmatic tortoise, and so forth. That these qualities are the result of a determinate organization is shown by the fact that, despite extensive efforts at retraining, such characteristics are only modifiable within the range natural to the species or type, which is very slight in comparison to the differences between species. (Thus, a rabbit brought up as a pet may move about relatively fearlessly in its familiar grounds, but the slightest comparison with the fox or lion reveals the narrow limits of the changes possible in its behavior.) It has been a frequent misconception to assume that the determining organization here is the physical body. In fact, both the animal’s behavior and its physical form are manifestations of the underlying sentient organization. The animal bears a sentient organization, a life organization and a physical body, whereby the latter two (the animal’s life and form) are given shape under the influence of the sentient organization. The sentient organization, too, must be drawn from and return to somewhere. If this is not the world of life or physical being – in which case the sentient organization could not leave for sleep or death, but

24

would necessarily remain bound to the lower organizations – there must be a realm of sentience with an objective reality of its own. Individuality An animal must always remain within the characteristic pattern of its species’ mode of existence, expression, and so forth. In contrast, the human being does not hold to any species-specific lifestyle or pattern of sentience; even the human physical form takes on a far greater range of individual expression than the animal achieves in this realm (this is especially apparent in the countenance). In addition to the wide ranging and highly individual characteristics of each human being, substantial changes in the manner of expression or consciousness, lifestyle and even physical form take place over an individual’s lifetime. These go far beyond what can be attributed to natural ageing processes or what originates from environmental conditions, especially when we compare them with the corresponding changes due to age or environment in the animal realm (which in the mature animal are largely limited to the catastrophic changes at the end of the creature’s life). The human being possesses a unique capacity to evolve in an individually expressive manner: to be self-determining, self-aware and self-creative. Not only can this capacity for self-conscious and creative individuality be found in no other being of the natural world, but it must also be considered to raise man partly out of this world, to be the beginning of a ‘supernatural’ aspect of his being, that is, an aspect whereby man frees himself from his ‘natural’ state and begins to define himself independently of this. Every human being has such an inherent capacity for self-definition: a capacity to individually determine his or her own physical environment, way of life, character and development. This capacity can appear more weakly or strongly but is always distinguishable in the human biography. Just as an animal which ceases to act out of its instinctive nature and begins to make individual choices is unthinkable, so it

25

is unthinkable that a human being could exist wholly upon the basis of this instinctive or natural being, without any influence from the individual nature.11 Of course, each of us is aware of the presence and power of the ‘lower’ nature within us, and that the latter is rarely perfectly in harmony with our attempts at self-definition. It is just this consciousness of disharmony here, implying an ability to distinguish between our ‘natural’ self and self-conscious ego, which makes it evident that the latter are two independent levels of being. The human being is equipped with self-consciousness, a sentient organization, a life organization and a physical body, all of which in combination define his existence. The individual ego does not arise out of the workings of (though it is often limited in its own working by) the lower organizations;12 rather, it gives these their characteristically human form. Ego The ego as an organ of self-consciousness differs in fundamental ways from the lower three members of man’s organization. Each of the lower organizations would of itself remain in its natural condition as a ‘given’ for the human being; each is unable to modify its nature through its own activity and is only changed through influences outside of itself. In contrast, man’s capacity to rise above his or her naturally given existence through self-conscious activity was referred to above. The ego is given as a potential which can take on content through its own activity. Whereas the nature of the lower organizations is to be experienced through or acted upon, the ego is by nature the active agent of experience. The human ego begins as but does not remain a wholly empty subject of self-awareness. Ego activity transforms what it encounters in the realms of sentience, life and the physical world into an individually acquired inner content of experience. I am changed through self-conscious experience (i.e., experience in which my ego is active) in a way which

26

passive experience does not accomplish. Through such self-conscious experience – whether of a bird-song, a gesture, a thought, or any other object of experience – the experience is established as a content of soul life able to be drawn upon independently of outer stimuli. An active experience of the world gives a stable aspect or content to the transiently experiencing ego-individuality. The individualizing agent of experience is the ego; the objective, individualized inner world which results from experience is the soul. The latter is unique to the individuality, unique not necessarily in all of its elements but certainly in the individual ‘gestalt’ which is arrived at. The human being’s individuality thus includes a unique subject of experience and agent of individualization, the ego, and a unique, selfdetermined repository of the content of experience, the soul.13 (When either the ego or soul is mentioned alone in casual discourse, the other element is often implied as well, for they are respectively the active and passive sides of a single entity, the individuality.) At an early stage of our inner development, we still depend largely upon and identify ourselves with the experience which arises through the lower organizations, and has come into existence without our individually conscious contribution or active role, whereas at a later stage we begin to take a self-conscious and active role in and identify ourselves more with the self-determining and self-determined part of our being. Experience leads on the one hand to a greater content of soul – the result of an individuality gaining experience – and on the other hand to an identification with the inner life rather than with outer experience – the result of an individuality developing through experience. Soul Development Various stages of our relationship to the content of our soul life can be distinguished. In the first stage, content is brought into the soul life naively, ‘as found’; impressions from the outer world received are accepted in consciousness directly as they were experienced by the bodily

27

organizations. An inner image of the outer world is achieved here. We may refer to this, the soul’s initial phase of sentience as the condition of sentient soul. In the second stage, the soul content achieved in the first stage is reflected upon and the previously unstructured experiences are brought into interrelationship. In the very act of bringing form to experience, however, the ego actually creates a new soul content, that of the interrelationships established and the form given. This content, the result of a structuring of experience by the active ego according to laws not directly given in the perceptions themselves, is further removed from the original perceptions and has a correspondingly more formal-abstract, less sensory-sentient nature. In other words, the content of the original perceptions is less important at this level of experience, while the formal qualities that can be discovered in and the interrelations that can be established between perceptions (the spheres of art and philosophy, for example) come to the fore. We may refer to this stage when the soul grasps its experience more formally and simultaneously more inwardly as the stage of the rational or artistic soul. In a next and final stage of our relationship to soul experience, the kinds of formal possibilities and interrelationships discovered or developed in the previous stage become of interest independently of the actual content of experience from which they were derived or to which they are applied. Previously, such ordering principles were drawn upon in order to bring form to our soul experience. They now become objects of consciousness in their own right. In reflecting upon these principles, we begin to comprehend the inner laws and nature of our perceptions of the physical, life and sentient worlds. Form and relation as principles wholly independent of the content to which they are applied14 are thus made into new objects of experience. By its very nature, this new content is initially largely or wholly abstract in character, for all that originated through actual experience in the worlds of sentience, life and physical experience has been succes-

28

sively eliminated from it, leaving purely formal qualities. By virtue of this very abstraction, however, the understanding so gained has the possibility of becoming independent of the individual organization of perception and thus objective in nature.15 We may refer to this, the stage when the soul is becoming more conscious of the principles underlying its experience, as the stage of the consciousness soul. At the Boundary of the Spiritual World In the stages of soul development described above, the content of inner experience is progressively refined. Beginning with experience derived directly from impressions of the outer world, an ordering of and reflection on such impressions takes place, followed by a consideration of the principles of both this ordering itself and of human experience. When we begin to reflect upon this process, some aspects of it remain mysterious. First of all, the sense impressions which give rise to naïve experience have their origin in an objective outer world, but what is the origin of the principles which we apply in order to gather together and order these impressions? Such principles are not disclosed through the original perceptions. Nor can they be inherent in a soul life whose initial content is given by these experiences themselves and to which we first give form through these principles. They cannot derive from an ego whose nature is pure activity and which in itself (i.e., independently of that upon which it acts) has neither intrinsic form nor content. The first mystery is thus this: from where do we receive the impulse and principles through which we organize experience? Secondly, certain impressions or impulses that arise in the soul refer to contents which are completely independent of outer experience. These impressions or impulses nevertheless bear within themselves the potential to act as meaningful and transformative agents in our inner life and, through this, in the outer world as well. Such contents include moral principles and spiritual ideals: honesty, uprightness, love, freedom, and

29

so forth. Such principles and ideals, like the principles by which we order experience, are neither disclosed through our outer experience, nor can they be explained as inherent in a soul life that is based on this experience, nor is it evident how a content-less ego activity could generate concrete ideals. The second mystery is thus: what is the origin of ideals and moral principles? It is apparent that in both of these cases we become conscious of elements of experience through our soul life which are not of this soul life. A third, important experience indicative of a realm beyond a soul life based on outer experience requires a separate treatment of its own. The Void of Consciousness Let us recall once more how our relationship to inner experience develops. The starting point of soul experience is an inner, necessarily subjective experience of the outer world. Experience can gradually be purified of its subjective elements and thus become more objective in nature, becoming thereby correspondingly more abstract in character. The ultimate result of the abstraction of all subjective elements from the inner life of the soul is necessarily an objectivity absolutely empty of all content other than formal principles. At the very moment when inner experience becomes completely objective through being purified from all subjective elements deriving from our lower organizations, we are thus left with a consciousness empty of all but abstract principles. These abstract principles only apply to the content already eliminated as subjective, however. If we fail to recognize (or refuse to admit) that they stem from an objective realm of their own, we are left with no content reflective of an objective reality. On the path towards achieving an objectivity of inner life, we are left with an empty consciousness. Is this void of consciousness the ultimate limit of our experience, or can we find our way past this empty condition – not back to the subjective content deriving from our lower organizations but on to achieve a new and objective content of consciousness? If not from the bodily or-

30

ganization or the inner life of soul, from where can such an objective content be drawn? Here we have reached the ‘Cape Horn’ of the exploration of man’s inner life. The systematic inner training of soul life demanded by the development of a scientific consciousness over the last half-millennium has required increasing objectivity and thus a continual abstraction from the subjective richness of experience. Those who have taken this furthest have again and again arrived at the awareness that they reach exactly the null-point or void described above, where there is neither content nor direction left. This has sometimes resulted in extreme reactions: either the ultimate emptiness of existence is raised to a creed and even applied to areas of life where it is not normally experienced (nihilism), or else the fear of objectivity and abstraction as annihilating forces which threaten our sense of or relation to the fullness of the world leads to the rejection of the scientific approach to experience (the ‘back to nature’ movement). Both of these reactions are not only understandable but even have a certain validity in the face of the serious consequences for our inner life of an encounter with this absolute void in consciousness. In the end, however, both reactions lose sight of the reality that this void is but a single moment – the last arrived at position – in a long path of consciousness’ development, both for mankind as a whole and on the path of each individual who arrives at this condition. Only folly or vanity can believe that, because a developmental step is the last one accomplished, it is the last one possible or the ultimate accomplishment in human development. Only fear or false egotism shrinks from letting go of what was attained in the past in order to turn to the requirements of our future development. However much any developmental stage is considered at the time of its appearance to be an ultimate peak of evolution, in hindsight it is seen as simply one stage in an ongoing process, equipped with both predecessors and successors like all the stages before it. So it is with the

31

meeting with the void of consciousness. This experience must neither be deified nor demonized, but simply faced and accepted in its real worth as an accomplishment in the development of consciousness, an experience difficult of achievement and fleeting in character. Every human being who faces this condition inwardly, neither fleeing it nor becoming lost in it, will find that a new direction to consciousness opens up thereby. Through meeting this moment with courage and honesty, an awareness arises of that which has been built up through the process of inner abstraction or purification from all that is subjective in soul life: new powers of soul, the control of consciousness developed thereby and a capacity to overcome the inner passivity of experience which is almost an illness of our times. Above all, that which remains accessible to our consciousness even in this very void is the activity of this very consciousness itself. Consciousness, or the ego, becomes selfaware through discarding all experience that can distract it from itself. When all of its content is lost, it can finally attend to its own nature. The Path to Spiritual Experience We recall that all activity of the subject of consciousness, the ego, transforms experience into soul content as an objectification of this activity. When the ego ceases raising contents of human experience which have been mediated by the lower members16 of the human being into inner awareness and begins to attend to its own activity, this activity begins simultaneously to the creator of and the subject of consciousness. The faculty of transforming experience into soul content, a faculty of creative inwardness, is itself taken as the content of experience when the source of consciousness becomes aware of its own activity. In this condition of consciousness, no organs which would bring a subjective character into perception are interposed between the ego and its object of experience, for the latter is none other than the ego itself. The ego’s self-experience is thus objective in character. This objectivity is not achieved indirectly, i.e. through abstracting experiential (and thus

32

subjective) elements from soul life, but through the innately objective character of the ego’s self-reflective experience. The content of soul experience which thus arises is therefore not abstract in character. This content is an objectification of the ego’s own activity. The ego has hitherto taken that which was mediated by the body or that which is experienced in the soul as the object of its consciousness. Aware all along of that which exists in the worlds of form and inner experience, now it becomes aware of that which exists in another realm. This is the world of creative activity, and the ego’s awareness of this world begins with the awareness of its own creative activity.17 Creative activity is spiritual activity. Through its own self-reflective consciousness, the ego can achieve an awareness that, though it is active in the soul life, it is itself essentially of a spiritual origin and nature. Engaged all along in spiritual-creative activity, now it becomes aware that it does so and that its essential nature is this spiritual-creative activity. Through the ego practicing consciousness of its own, essentially spiritual activity, that is, the activity of consciousness itself, a new perceptive capacity is developed. Perceptions begin to awaken for human consciousness which have their origin neither within this consciousness nor in the soul or lower organizations. The ego that is able to experience its own activity also begins to experience a spiritual world whose origin lies outside its own activity. It becomes aware that, just as our physical body is surrounded by a physical world which exists independently of whether we use our sense organs to perceive it or not, so is our ego surrounded by a spiritual world which exists independently of our perception of it. This recognition only appears strange or impossible when the stage of self-awareness has not yet been achieved. Once we begin to experience our own consciousness in its spiritual-creative nature, the awareness of a spiritual-creative world accessible to inner perception has already been established, and the expansion of this awareness is in many ways less of a step than its foundation.

33

It should be said that the initial impressions of such an objective, spiritual-creative world are subtle and slight. The ego’s initial capacity for attention in self-awareness will be found to be minimal; no greater is its capacity for attention to the phenomena of this world outside of itself. Three levels of spiritual being can be found through self-reflection on the nature of one’s own consciousness; in becoming aware of its own activity, consciousness can focus more upon the content arising, the processes that give rise to this content or the existential being which is capable of entering into such processes and giving rise to such content. These three are simultaneously present to yet distinguishable elements of consciousness. So it is with spiritual perceptions whose origin lies outside of our own consciousness. Initially, we encounter the content of such perceptions; only by seeking what underlies this content do we arrive at an awareness of the processes which give rise to it – which processes are revealed as emanating (originating) from spiritual beings; finally, we become aware of the beings themselves. Three distinct stages of spiritual development can therefore be recognized. The first stage has been described above as the condition when spiritual consciousness arises through self-awareness and enables the ego to begin experiencing in a spiritual world. The next stage of spiritual development requires that the ego extinguish from its awareness the content of the spiritual perceptions arrived at in the first stage (whether perceptions of its own creative activity or that of the spiritual world around it) but continue the activity of awareness in spirit. The ego discovers that a perception of a process of expression remains when the content of what is thereby expressed is extinguished. A second level of spiritual experience, the experience of the inner, expressive life of the spirit, is reached here. A further stage of spiritual development arises when the ego turns its attention from processes of expression to the origin of these processes. Spiritual beings become present to consciousness. The three levels of spiritual existence articulated here – activity, life and being – are mutually distinguishable elements of spiritual life.

34

We can now begin to comprehend what lies behind the two mysteries of soul life mentioned above. (See the section “At the Boundary of the Spiritual World,” in this chapter.) The principles which the soul uses to transform its initially subjective experience of the outer world, on the one hand, and the ideals which it becomes aware of as not originating in either the outer world or the subjective inner life, on the other hand, are both impressions from a world which lies on the other side of the void of consciousness. This is a world of equal objective reality to the outer world of physicality, life and sentience, but whereas we have no direct access to the objective reality of these outer worlds, such an access is possible to the world of spirit. The three realms of the spiritual world correspond to the three realms of the outer world, but whereas the latter’s content is organized and formed, the spiritual realms’ content is that of the creative activity, life and beings which lie behind the organization and forms of what we experience as outer reality. These spiritual realms are as real as those of the minerals, plants and animals, as real as are our physical body, life and consciousness. They are neither abstract nor derived from but rather creative of these more familiar worlds. They are accessible to a consciousness which passes through the gate described above, the gate of the void of consciousness. THE NATURE OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT We have just seen that the human being includes a vast panorama of realms and potentials of being. The questions must be posed: How is it that these realms and potentials develop only slowly over time? How is it that – both for humanity as a whole, over eons of evolution, and for the individual, over the duration of a single earthly life – they unfold only successively and partially instead of being already present in full and complete manifestation at the birth of mankind and of each individual?

35

The nature of the human being is immutable. The capacity to incarnate this nature in the resistant material of its earthly expression is, by contrast, only gradually achieved through evolutionary development. That which is not (yet) present or manifest in this earthly expression is no less a part of the human being’s inheritance for its remaining a spiritual part. Over the course of humanity’s evolution or of an earthly life, successive levels of the human nature are incarnated into earthly forms. That which remains spiritual acts as a sheath around these incarnated forms. Evolution and development appear as the successive transformation of the human potential into incarnated form. Human evolution and development are thus an expression of the integration of cosmic, spiritual realms of existence into earthly reality. In the course of this process, each successive stage of evolution and development builds upon the (earthly) basis created in the previous stages. Human consciousness, for example, depends for its appearance in earthly form on the presence of a physical body and life forces. This principle is valid for smaller steps of evolution and development, as well; each step builds upon the forms built up in the previous steps. All evolution and development are thus the expression of an interaction between the spiritual-cosmic worlds and earthly existence. Time as we know it is also an expression of the relationship between the cosmos and the earth. A year is a cyclic expression of the relationship between the sun and the earth, for example. By their very nature, that is, because they are expressions of the interactions and relationships between cosmic and earthly realms of existence, evolution and development manifest over cycles of time. They follow universal patterns in these cycles. One of these archetypal patterns particularly relevant for the current study is a seven-fold developmental metamorphosis. In order to establish an earthly manifestation of a spiritual principle, seven stages of development are required. These stages are successive steps of incar-

36

nation into an earthly form. We shall examine the origin and nature of this archetypal seven-fold metamorphosis from two viewpoints: its cosmic archetype (see the chapter titled “The Descent out of the Spiritual Worlds”) and its earthly manifestation (see the chapter on “Developmental Processes”). Without understanding the origin of development and the nature of developmental cycles, our understanding of human development can never go deeper than an empirical description of the outer characteristics of this development. Through the approach taken here, the inner nature and motive force of human development and evolution can be comprehended and their outer characteristics given their proper context. The Factors Determining Human Development Human incarnation plays itself out as an interaction between three spheres: the spiritual being seeking to incarnate into earthly form, the earthly hereditary stream that gives continuity to the earthly side of humanity’s evolution, and the mediating environmental influences of the outer world. The spiritual sheaths are an expression of the individual’s spiritual being and the objective nature of the spiritual world.18 The hereditary stream allows this being to link with humanity’s larger evolution through a particular ‘portal’. These two are outside the immediate and conscious influence of human responsibility. This responsibility for human development lies in giving shape to the natural and social environment in order to create a supportive environment for human incarnation. The physical world, life activity, consciousness, individualities and spiritual consciousness that the incarnating human being encounters have a deep and formative effect on the nature of this incarnation. The task of those responsible for such an incarnation – and on this level we are all responsible for the whole development of humanity – is thus to shape all of these aspects into helpful mediators between the individu-

37

al’s spiritual being, on the one hand, and the earthly forms to be established upon the basis of the inherited constitution, on the other hand. This task has general aspects valid for the typical pattern of incarnation during our epoch of evolution as well as particular aspects that vary from decade to decade, from land to land, from people to people and from individual to individual. The provision for human development must evolve with the times, location and cultural tradition as well as adapting to the individual at hand. Any general description of the character of or of ways to provide for this development thus has distinct limitations, for all of the aspects particular to situations and individuals will be absent. This is a limitation on the present work, as well.

38

Chapter II DEVELOPMENT THE ARCHETYPAL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT All form arises through developmental processes. Processes of development have an inherent order or sequence, whereby each takes that which has been achieved by its predecessors to a level that could not have been reached independently of the prior stages of developments. Because the formative world in which developmental processes originate is seven-fold in nature, there are seven fundamentally unique formative processes.19 These are ordered in an archetypal sequence of development. The development of the human being’s earthly life as a whole, as well as each phase of this life, is determined by this archetypal sequence. A general characterization of this sequence in its archetypal form will be helpful before entering into the details of how this archetype is expressed in human and, in particular, in child development. Formative processes are drawn from a realm that manifests in but lies apart from the outer, physical world. The nature of these processes is therefore challenging both to describe and to grasp. Two sets of visual depictions of these processes therefore follow the verbal descriptions below. These depictions will help to convey the formative character inherent in the processes. They are as follows: • A sequence of seven images of the stages of development. These are true to the archetypal character of these processes – and therefore particularly difficult to grasp.20 • A sequence of seven illustrations of the stages of development as manifested in the growing plant. These offer a more concrete image of how the processes appear in a more familiar context.

39

The descriptions of child development that make up the larger part of this book draw extensively on the archetypal pattern to development that will be described in this chapter. The character of the latter will become clearer as it is brought into relation to the various ages and stages of development of the child. In the following descriptions, for each formative process, an impulse to development gives rise both to a characteristic form stage and to a characteristic transformation in the entity’s relationship to the environment.21 These three elements are differentiated typographically in the descriptions below as follows: Impulse to development Form stages Relationship to environment I.

Through an initial process of formative growth, an entity gains distinct existence. It still exists in a condition of intuitive unity with its environment as it is only beginning to establish an independent form.

II.

The second stage in the formative process is one of development and metamorphosis; an extended rhythmic form becomes apparent; there is a rhythmic inspiration from the environment.

III.

The third stage is one of differentiation and organ building (consciousness); the form becomes more clearly articulated; the environment is experienced as a formative influence through image.

IV.

The fourth stage is one of individuation; the form becomes more enclosed and prominently self-defined; independence from the environment is achieved.

40

V.

The fifth stage is one of an awakening of inner activity into selfexpression; the form reaches its highest degree of complexity; the entity attains a capacity for creative activity.

VI.

The sixth stage is one of ordering and balance; the form begins to simplify; it begins to consciously shape its interaction with the environment.

VII.

The seventh stage is one of rigidification,and completion. An objective, unified gestalt is achieved (which in a next stage can become the beginning of the next cycle of evolution); the entity attains purely objective awareness of its environment.

These seven stages can be seen to manifest in all evolution. Though the sequence of the stages is stable, the intensity and duration of each stage can vary considerably. These variations significantly affect the character and development of phenomena. Though such variations are a rich field for research, further exploration of them is far beyond the range of this work.22 The development of an entity’s form and that of its relationship to its environment are in many ways complementary. An entity begins its development with a minimal form (e.g. a seed). As the initial form develops, it normally achieves an ever-increasing spatial extension. Its relationship to the environment, in contrast, begins with a condition of virtually complete unity with its outer surroundings in the widest possible sense (the embryo). As the entity gains increasing distinction and character, the range and intensity of this relationship normally decreases; the entity pulls back from its environment as it grows out into it. In brief summary:

41

Consciousness Form Element Formative Process Environmental Relationship

Periphery

Existence

Formation

Intuitive unity

Concentration Rhythm

Metamorphosis

Revelation

Separation

Articulation

Differentiation

Image

Self

Self-enclosure

Individualization

Independence

Creativity

Complexity

Expression

Sentience

Relation

Interactive pattern

Integrating,

Gesture, rhythm, life

Unifying

Physicality

Consolidation Unity of gestalt

42

(Figure #1) I. Through an initial process of formative growth, an entity gains distinct existence. It still exists in a condition of intuitive unity with its environment as it is only beginning to establish an independent form.

43

(Figure #2)

II. The second stage in the formative process is one of development and metamorphosis; an extended rhythmic form becomes apparent; there is a rhythmic inspiration from the environment.

44

(Figure #3) III. The third stage is one of differentiation and organ building (consciousness):the form becomes more clearly articulated; the environment is experienced as a formative influence through image.

45

(Figure #4) IV. The fourth stage is one of individuation; the form becomes more enclosed and self-defined; independence from the environment is achieved.

46

(Figure #5) V. The fifth stage is one of an awakening of inner activity into self expression; the form reaches a capacity for creative activity through its highest degree of complexity; the entity relates to and is conscious of sentience.

47

(Figure #6) VI. The sixth stage is one of ordering and balance; the form begings to achieve mutual interaction through pattern; the entity becomes aware of and relates to gesture, life, and rhythm and interaction with the environment is achieved.

48

(Figure #7) VII. The seventh stage is one of simplification, objectification, and completion. An objective unified gestalt is achieved (which can begin a next cycle of evolution); a relationship to the physical environment is found.

49

THE SEASONS OF LIFE For a human individuality to enter into earthly incarnation, the individuality must build up a foundation for its presence in all the realms of earthly existence in which it is destined to work: physical being, life and consciousness. An extract from each of these realms must be formed in such a way that it will be accessible to the influence of the incarnating human being. The appropriately organized extract will then be capable of both mirroring the laws and workings of the realm from which it is drawn for the individuality’s consciousness – only thus can this sphere be perceived by the latter – and serving as an expressive vehicle for the individuality in that realm. Without such a mediating organization whose substance is taken from one of the above-mentioned earthly realms, but into whose form the ego can incarnate, we would be both insentient and impotent in the corresponding realm, i.e. incapable of either experiencing or acting.23 The process of establishing these foundational organizations for its consciousness and activity in the spheres of earthly existence is the first task of earthly incarnation. The time of human life devoted to building up these organs of physical being, life and consciousness, during which period the individuality as self-conscious being is not yet present in (has not yet descended into) these organizations, could be said to be the preliminary or preparatory period of human life. This period, which lasts until the completion of these organizations’ development (at approximately twenty years of age) is the first season of life, childhood.24 This first season of life is followed by a time when the individuality progressively penetrates, permeates and individualizes the lower organizations, thus becoming able to experience and work through these organs from within. This is the time of the human individuality’s true presence (as self-conscious being) in incarnation. This period, approximately that of the twenties and thirties, is the second season of life, early adulthood.

50

This is then followed by a third season of life, when the human individuality becomes capable of freeing itself again from these organizations. The individuality accomplishes this in order to perceive and be active from outside of the narrow bounds of its own organizations; this it can now do without losing the capacity to dwell within these organizations. This is a period of life which is dependent upon individual initiative; not everyone who ages necessarily accomplishes the development natural to this period of life. This is the time commonly known as the ‘middle age’ of life, approximately that of the forties, fifties and early sixties. The final period of life, when the organizations themselves break down or lose their capacity to be effective agents of the individuality, already belongs in a certain sense to the preparation for re-entering the spiritual worlds. In this sense, it can be reckoned more appropriately as a transition to a new development than as a season of earthly life.25 This is the period of ‘old age’, normally beginning after retirement (i.e. after the separation from earthly tasks). It generally begins in the middle sixties and lasts until the end of life. There are thus distinct seasons of life: childhood, adulthood and middle age, followed by the transition time of old age. To recognize the different qualities of the human individuality’s presence in each of these seasons of human life is a great challenge for our time (which tends to expect both children and middle-aged members of the community to behave as if they were in early adulthood). In the first season of life, the quality of consciousness and capacity for activity depends upon the extent of the various bodies’ or organizations’ development. During this period, the progress of formative processes largely outside the individual’s control determines the stage of evolution of earthly consciousness. The condition of being dependent upon the progress of external formative processes for one’s development is the condition of childhood.

51

In the second season of life, the extent to which the individuality explores, masters and individualizes the nature, limitations and possibilities of the previously established bodily forms determines the quality of consciousness and capacity for activity; this is the season of the evolution of the soul. The awakening to one’s own condition is stimulated to a significant extent through social encounters; such encounters also work to transform the individual’s relationship to his or her own lower organizations. In this period of life, the individual’s development is bound up with that of the surrounding community. This condition of development being dependent upon a transformation in the relationship to the lower organizations is the condition of (early) adulthood. In the third season of life, during which the individuality can progressively free itself from the constitutional conditions imposed upon it by the lower organizations, the progress of this process of liberation determines the individual’s evolution. This demands a process of selftransformation. In this stage of life, the individuality must transform its own being; neither natural evolution nor social context can accomplish this. Development being dependent upon inner, self-transformation is the condition of final maturity. THE PHASES OF LIFE Within each of the seasons of life, distinct phases of human life can be described as follows:

The phase of building up the physical body The phase of building up the life organization The phase of building up the sentient organization

52

The phase of developing soul experience (the sentient soul) The phase of forming soul experience (the rational or artistic soul) The phase of becoming conscious of soul experience (consciousness soul) The phase of developing spirit consciousness The phase of developing spirit life The phase of developing spirit being In the human being’s overall development, each of the phases above corresponds to an archetypal step of development. (The three phases of early adulthood are three separate moments in the process of individualization.) We can thus describe seven steps of human development as follows:

Archetypal Process

Level Development

Formation

Physical body

Rhythm, growth and metamorphosis

Life and rhythmic organization

Differentiation and consciousness

Consciousness or sentient organization

Individualization

Ego and soul development

Inner activity and self expression

Spirit Self or Consciousness

Ordering and balance

Spirit Life

Objectification and completion

Spirit Being

THE STAGES (OR YEARS) OF LIFE Each of the above-mentioned members of the human being must itself be established through a development consisting of these same archetypal seven processes. The physical body, for example, must itself

53

first be established, then grow and develop, become differentiated, individualized, and so forth; so with each of the other members of the human being. Within each of the phases of development mentioned above, there are therefore seven stages. Examples of such stages of development are the initial formation of the physical body, the individualization of the carrier of consciousness, the creative unfolding of the rational soul, and so forth. To avoid confusion here, the term ‘phases’ will be used consistently to refer to the whole period of development for any single member of the human being, while the term ‘stages’ will be used to refer to the individual steps of development within these larger periods. Each stage of development is the expression of one cycle of the cosmic-spiritual world’s coming into relationship with the earthly world. For this reason, each lasts approximately one year.26 Each developmental phase consists of seven developmental stages and therefore lasts approximately seven years. ABOUT THE DESCRIPTIONS OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT We can only comprehend the phenomenon of human development when we can grasp the unity of its underlying principles and its perceptible revelation. These phases and stages are not abstractions, but describe real forces active and clearly perceptible in the development of the child. Each child’s development can be seen to be a particular manifestation of the universal principles that these phases and stages express. On the one hand, the underlying principles of human development articulated here can serve as a significant help in comprehending a given child’s development. Experiencing actual children in their development, on the other hand, can aid greatly the comprehension of the archetypal principles articulated here. Two tendencies in present day child care result from a lack of understanding of the environment’s mediating role in the formative process. One is to allow influences into the child’s environment without re-

54

gard for the child’s developmental age, generally under the pretext that the child is thus ‘free’ to choose or absorb that which he or she needs or prefers. The very nature of childhood, however, is that there is no choice here while members of the child’s being are still in a formative stage which is itself influenced by the environment, influences from the child’s environment enter directly into this formative process. If these influences are inappropriate, the child’s development will be damaged, sometimes severely. Only after the conclusion of each formative stage does the child become capable of filtering influences in the corresponding realm of its being. A second, polar tendency is to overprotect the child from elements which would indeed have been detrimental at earlier phases of the child’s development even after the child has acquired the necessary independence at a given level of his being. Independence, like any other faculty, is only cultivated and strengthened through successively more challenging practice, and tends to atrophy or remain immature if the child is ‘shielded’ from any possibility of making use of it. The needs of childhood change with the developing child. What makes up appropriate (and inappropriate) environmental or pedagogical conditions necessarily evolves with these changing needs. Accompanying the following descriptions of child development are therefore descriptions of appropriate environmental and pedagogical supports for each stage of the child’s development. To avoid misunderstandings, it should be emphasized that factors which are mentioned as gaining a particular significance at a given stage are generally not wholly irrelevant earlier on. Until they achieve an independent life in the child’s consciousness, however, these elements work chiefly through factors that have already become formatively active in the child’s experience. It is described below, for example, how the child normally wakes up to the various roles in life27 (for example, of the mother as wife, mother, professional, and so forth) during a certain stage of development. Such roles remain in themselves essentially irrelevant to

55

the younger child, say an infant, but are perceived through their effects on his or her care, i.e. through the changes in the rhythms of life and the sensory environment which result. An older child, on the other hand, will develop a direct awareness of and relation to the mother’s roles per se, i.e. aside from their consequences in his care. This interplay of later developing elements through the earlier ones should be kept in mind for a thorough understanding of the following descriptions. At the same time, elements which first develop their true significance in any particular stage generally continue to be of importance in later stages. Though sensory experience is mentioned as developing as an important factor in the beginning of life, it continues to be of central importance right through earthly life! Though an element may be chiefly or only mentioned when it begins to take on an especial importance for child development, its significance for development does not end with that year.

56

Chapter III THE PREPARATION THE DESCENT OUT OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS There is an aspect of the child’s being that does not come to full manifestation in the visible forms that develop but rather expresses itself in the fact and process of development itself. The development of the child is not driven forward by, but rather limited by the already achieved state of the outer organizations. For example, the cause of the physical body learning to stand upright, speak, express an individual identity, etc. cannot be found within this body, though the potential to achieve these capacities must exist within it. What is the stimulus towards unfolding successive development stages, if this does not arise from within these outer organizations? How is it that the potential for future developments lies latent in the child’s organization well before these developments have begun? The Origin of the Human Being in the Spiritual Worlds Human existence moves from life on earth through the portal of death into an existence in the spiritual worlds, and through the gate of birth back into a new life on earth. That this is so cannot be proved theoretically; it is the unfolding of the child’s being that makes us aware of its origin in another sphere, and the inwardness of the aged person that makes us aware of an immortal existence independent of the earthly garment. The capacities that the one brings with show evidence of previous experiences on the earth; the unfulfilled tasks that the other bears away give reason to conclude that a future return is a necessary sequel to the present life.

57

It is not the intention of this work to trace the ultimate origin or the final goal of this cycle of being – which is itself continually modifying its character as the human being evolves – but to describe its nature in the current epoch of human development. We will begin this description with the moment when a human being, still in the spiritual worlds between death and a new birth, begins preparing for the next incarnation. The decision to begin such a preparation is made during the soul’s sojourn in a spiritual realm whose characteristic consciousness28 is of an intuitive unity with all being. In this realm, the individuality does not initially differentiate its own existence from that of the beings around it. At the moment of turning towards a new incarnation, however, spiritual beings begin to gather a first differentiated sphere of being as a sheath around the soul being prepared for incarnation. This sheath is of vast dimension29 and still hardly differentiated from the realm around it. Within this sheath, the consciousness of the human soul in this realm begins to take on a certain (though still slight) independence from the world of being which surrounds it. Through the dawning of the independent consciousness stimulated by the formation of this first sheath, however, the soul on the path of incarnation begins to lose its previously direct experience of the beings around it, beginning to experience instead that which emanates from them as a revelation of their being, their ‘shining countenance’. This is the second realm of spiritual existence, where the essence of being has slipped behind a veil for the soul’s (itself now veiled) consciousness and only the emanation of beings can now be perceived. In the first phase of its passage through this realm, the soul, though it now differentiates its own being from the world of beings surrounding it, still experiences the emanation of all other beings directly, i.e. as if this were its own selfemanation as well. This stage of spiritual experience is characterized by the deepest comprehension of and empathy with the nature of all beings that is pos-

58

sible while maintaining an awareness of experiencing beings independent of oneself. (In the preceding condition of intuitive unity, there was yet more identification but no awareness of being a separate being: identification rather than empathy.) After a time, the spiritual beings who reign in this realm begin to gather a second sheath around the soul on the path towards incarnation. This second sheath lies within the first sheath in a denser form; that is, it is less transparent to the revelation of beings which emanates throughout this world. The soul’s own emanation gradually lights up within this sheath, dimming the experience of that of other beings. The soul thus becomes aware of its own emanation as distinct from that which it experiences as coming from its surroundings. In both the aforementioned realms (as well as in those which are to follow), those spiritual beings which are more closely connected with the human individuality, and especially those who have tasks related to the formation of the sheaths in the particular realm in which it finds itself at any point of the passage into incarnation, are experienced by the incarnating soul more directly and as being closer to it, while others are experienced more weakly and distantly. As the incarnating soul’s consciousness dims to the revelation emanating from the surrounding beings, it becomes increasingly aware of their inner activity. This is the third realm of spiritual existence, where the creative inwardness of the beings around it is experienced as if this were the soul’s own inner activity – as in one sense it is, for the soul has not yet developed an inner activity of its own independently of what it experiences from its environment. In this realm the incarnating soul experiences a participation in the cooperative endeavor of all beings. It is a realm of tremendous inner creativity; this activity consists of formative impulses creative of inner images; these images themselves have the power of being active. Spiritual beings active in this realm of inner formative, creative activity now begin to form a third sheath around the human soul. Though

59

this sheath lies somewhat closer and more impermeably around the soul than did the previous sheaths, it is still quite open and transparent in character. Through the formation of this sheath, the soul’s image or experience of the activity of the beings surrounding it gradually dims, while the soul itself begins to be able to exert an inner creative, formative activity of its own and to experience this as belonging to itself. The incarnating soul begins to experience the beings of the realm in which it finds itself now as centers of consciousness or intelligences existing like a starry world within itself and filling its inner being. This is the fourth realm of spiritual being, the realm of ego awareness. The spiritual beings responsible for this realm now begin to gather a fourth sheath around the incarnating soul. Thereby, the soul’s experience of this inner world begins to change. It loses the experience of centers of self-consciousness making up its inner being and begins to experience its own conscious individuality. It thus becomes aware of itself as an independent center of consciousness amongst other centers of consciousness, which are now experienced as being outside of itself. The incarnating soul does not experience an independent will, but is simply aware for the first time that it is conscious. As its experience of the ego world around it diminishes, the incarnating soul begins to become aware of an inner realm of surging sympathy and antipathy. These surging forces attract and repel the soul. At first ceaselessly subject to these impressions, the soul expands under the influence of sympathy flowing towards it and contracts under the influence of antipathy repelling it. In this realm of cosmic soul substance, the sympathies and antipathies of the future incarnation are prepared and thus the basis laid for an interest in the surroundings in the life on earth. The spiritual beings who reign in this realm begin to gather a fifth sheath around the incarnating individuality, which thereby begins to be able to experience the soul qualities coming from its surroundings without itself expanding and contracting in response to these. Such expan-

60

sions and contractions as now take place are expressions of its own forces of sympathy and antipathy. These it experiences within this new sheath, which lies within and is denser and more opaque than the previous sheaths. As this sheath continues to form, the soul loses its experience of the surrounding cosmic soul substance and begins to experience the formative activity exerted by spiritual beings, a formative activity which streams outwards from them into the environment. This is the sixth realm of spiritual being, whose outwardly creative activity differs from the earlier (third) realm’s activity of building inner imaginations. Initially, the incarnating soul experiences this all-pervading formative activity coming from the surrounding beings as if it were its own activity. Gradually, the spiritual beings who are responsible for this realm begin gathering another sheath around the soul, lying within and more dense or resistant than the previous sheaths. This allows the soul to experience the formative activity of the surrounding beings as external to itself. The soul’s own formative activity also begins to stir in this sheath; this activity begins to work into the surrounding environment. In this realm, the human soul thus develops an experience of creative activity. As the influence of the formative activity surrounding it diminishes, the incarnating soul begins to experience the dynamic structure of the physical cosmos (the fixed stars and planets) as its own inner world. This is the seventh realm of spiritual being. For the soul it is as if the entire cosmos is its own physical body, and the evolution of the cosmos is experienced as its own evolution. From this physical cosmos, a seventh and last sheath is now gathered, a microcosm of this physical macrocosm, denser than the previous sheaths (that is, less permeable to higher spiritual realms) but not yet filled out with matter. At a certain point this sheath ceases to follow the changes in the external cosmos and takes on more of a fixed structure. The incarnating soul thus begins to lose the immediate experience

61

of the dynamic nature of the physical cosmos; only an image of this cosmos remains imprinted in this sheath. The physical cosmos itself begins to be experienced as a world apart, while the soul begins to experience within this sheath a physical being of its own. The period of sheath formation is completed as this spiritual-physical sheath unites with the earthly stream of heredity. The period of earthly incarnation follows, when the sheaths must be transformed into physical bodies. The Guardians of the Threshold We have traced the path of the soul towards incarnation, beginning with that moment between death and a new birth when the soul turns toward a new incarnation. In order to fully understand the descent towards incarnation, the time of the soul’s ascent through the spheres of the spiritual world must also be considered: the events between the moment of death and the above-mentioned midnight hour. In the course of the ascending journey, the soul passes through all the same spheres of the spiritual world as on the incarnating path, but in the reversed sequence. In each sphere of this ascent, the soul encounters a being which has the task of holding back whatever aspects of the soul’s nature that are insufficiently ripe to be brought into the higher realms of the spiritual world. These aspects are condensed into a kind of seed-form, an extract containing the essence of that part of the soul’s development in the given realm that must now be left behind. The soul thereby is able to receive impulses for its development from higher realms unencumbered by the limitations that these negative or unripe aspects of its development would have put upon it, had it carried these with it into the higher spheres. As the soul descends again towards incarnation after the midnight hour, it will re-encounter in each spiritual sphere the being who guarded these seeds while the soul has spent time in higher realms of spiritual existence. These guardians of the human being’s development now have

62

the duty to give these seeds of the past back to the soul descending towards a new incarnation for transformation. Other beings in each spiritual realm have the task of gathering together an archetypal representation or microcosm of the given realm into a sheath for the incarnating soul, a microcosm completely independent of the incarnating soul’s particular nature and past development. If this microcosm of the spiritual world were to become the soul’s sheath, as these beings intend, this sheath would be formed entirely according to the objective conditions prevailing in the spiritual world at the moment of the formation of this microcosmic representation. The soul would then appear in incarnation in a manner untouched by its previous development and solely devoted to serving the objective needs of the spiritual world. The beings who work together in each realm are represented by a particular being who serves as the guardian of the spiritual world’s objective course of development. This being can be called the Greater Guardian (in contrast with the being who has preserved the lower form of the human being, which can be called the Lesser Guardian). As the Greater Guardian comes forward, the soul experiences the whole glory of each spiritual realm (in miniature) in the microcosm before it. In the strongest possible terms, the Greater Guardian presents to the soul the obligations and goals through which the soul’s future life should serve the world’s objective needs and development. The soul’s whole being yearns for the glory of the sheath before it and for the fulfilment of the cosmic goals. However, the Lesser Guardian also comes forward, bringing the seed of what is left unredeemed from past lives. The soul recognizes this seed, which it experiences as being as dark and dismal as the microcosmic sheath before it is glorious, as a part of its own being which it once left behind. The Lesser Guardian speaks earnestly to the soul of the necessity to transform what is now being carried over from the past. The soul is faced with the sobering task of taking up and transforming its own undeveloped nature.

63

There is now a kind of exchange or conversation between the Lesser Guardian, whose duty it is to ensure that the soul takes up again the destiny which it created in its previous existence, and the Greater Guardian, representing the beings who have gathered a microcosm of the spiritual world intended as a sheath for the soul. Both guardians seek to influence the formation of the incarnating soul’s spiritual sheath. For any soul with a significant number of past incarnations, aspects of the soul as conditioned by its past nature are inevitably irreconcilable with the more objective needs of destiny presented by the Greater Guardian. Thus, the requirements of transforming that which is borne over from the past and the destiny that the spiritual world would require from the future life are to a certain extent mutually incompatible. Would the Lesser Guardian succeed in forming the incarnating soul’s sheath from the seed of past development, human beings would need to devote an ever greater part of each earthly life to transforming their relationships to and past destiny with those individualities, cultural streams, and so forth, that they had already met in past lives simply in order to work through what remained unresolved from these previous encounters. Ever fewer new destiny-building encounters would be possible. The end of this development would be a kind of war of all against all, in that each individual would be unable to creatively engage with – or, indeed, have anything but antipathy for – others’ destinies. If, on the other hand, the Greater Guardian succeeded in giving the wholly objectively formed sheath to the human soul, the world development would indeed be furthered by the soul’s incarnation, but the individuality itself would no longer be able to develop, to experience an individuated consciousness. Such undeveloped qualities as souls previously possessed would remain and thus accumulate in the spiritual world. These qualities would become increasingly dominant. The microcosms of these realms formed by the Greater Guardian would have to include these negative qualities as well.30 While attempting to fulfill the objective tasks of destiny, souls would actually begin to be increas-

64

ingly influenced by the accumulating negative qualities without being able to become conscious of this. A steadily darkening and increasingly subjective spiritual world would result, and the domination of this spiritual darkness would make the fulfilment of earthly tasks increasingly more and more difficult and eventually impossible for any soul entering incarnation. Two demands are thus made here upon the human soul: that it take up its individual destiny in order to transform it, and that it serve the spiritual world’s plan for world destiny. At this crux, it is possible for another soul present in the relevant spiritual realm (whether on the ascending or descending path) to come forward: another soul who is willing and able to take upon itself an aspect of the first soul’s destiny while still fulfilling the claims of its own destiny. Only through the soul which offers its help in this way sacrificing some element of its own potential future development can it take up another soul’s tasks, however. Through this sacrifice, it can help the first soul to devote itself to overcoming its own limitations, and yet to fulfill the objective tasks of world destiny. Likewise, this first incarnating soul may be called or may step forward of its own accord to take up tasks of another soul’s destiny in the service of the objective world development so that in the coming life this other soul may fulfill or resolve aspects of its individual karma which would otherwise not be addressed.31 Three aspects of destiny are thus united in the sheath-building process: • universal karma as a microcosm of the spiritual sphere brought by the Greater Guardian, the star path of destiny, • individual, unresolved karma from past lives brought by the Lesser Guardian, the moon path of destiny, • and the sacrifices of those souls who take up the task of serving as another soul’s guardian – and thus become in a sense the equal of the other two guardians in this sphere, the sun path of destiny.

65

Which of these elements will dominate in a given incarnation depends upon many factors. The sheath formed as a result of these factors is thus complex. It will have aspects where it is denser, harder and more resistant to spiritual influence – where past development has created karmic knots or inner challenges to be overcome – and aspects where it is more finely spread out and receptive. The form of the resulting sheath can be imagined as that of a maple seed pod, with thickenings where the harder seeds sit and flowing translucent wings where it is more open and permeable. This is, of course, only an analogy; a spiritual sheath is of a different nature than the matter out of which a plant is formed. THE DESCENT OF THE SHEATHS: CONCEPTION Conception is a complex event that extends over a considerable period of time. The higher sheaths normally begin to descend long before the time usually associated with conception, uniting themselves with the mother’s being and carrying to her extraordinary reserves of love and cosmic wisdom. This wisdom becomes evident through the preparations she undertakes for the event. The child’s higher sheaths also seek to include and unite with the father’s being. A unique, especially spiritual love ignites between the parents. It is this love that brings the parents together inwardly and outwardly during this preparatory period.32 Through the sheaths that link them together in the spiritual worlds, the parents are united during this time of preparation leading up to conception. These spiritual influences through the presence of the child’s sheaths are given form as a conscious deed when the parents join together in the act of conception. At this moment, the child’s ego-sheath joins and intermingles with the united ego-spheres of the parents.33 This condition normally lasts a relatively short time, and the parents’ egos regain their normal condition of mutual independence fairly quickly. The father’s ego separates from the intermingled state, while the child’s ego-sheath remains with the mother’s being for

66

the duration of the pregnancy and beyond, the separation following the birth being a gradual one. The spiritual world responds to the human deed by allowing the processes of fertilization to take place. The sentient sheath then begins descending and uniting itself with the mother’s being, more particularly with the womb, preparing for the anchoring of the fertilized egg to the womb wall. Under the influence of this sheath, the growing organism begins to develop the three characteristic tissue layers which become the basis for the development of the limb-metabolic, rhythmic and nerve-sense organizations. The life sheath descends next, bringing about the formation of areas of more differentiated organization as a preliminary stage to actual organ formation. Finally, the physical-spiritual sheath, which has lingered longest in the spiritual worlds, descends; at this time, the growing organism begins taking on the human form, including the typically human differentiation and organization along the up-down, right-left and front-back axes. At this stage, the sheaths’ organization of the individuality incarnating is completely united with the organism in the mother’s womb and the full process of conception is concluded.

67

Chapter IV THE FIRST PHASE OF LIFE: EARLY CHILDHOOD THE SENSES We experience the physical world through the gate of the senses. During the child’s incarnation into the physical body, one of the most important factors in the child’s development is therefore the relationship to sensory experience. There are several distinct realms of experience in the physical world that the various senses open up to us. The conditions of our own physical body, our interior physicality, are revealed through the senses of balance, movement and well being. The sense of balance refers to the objective orientation of the physical body in the three directions of space.34 The sense of movement refers to the internal movements of the body.35 The sense of well being refers to the physical state of stress or relaxation, tiredness or freshness present in the body.36 Taken together, these express the physical body’s orientation in space (balance), transformation in time (movement) and condition of consciousness (well being). Other senses tell us of conditions in the outer world. Different possibilities of experiencing the world are offered by each of the following physical states: solid, liquid, gaseous, warmth, light and sound. The sense of touch reveals the conditions at the boundary where there is mutual contact between our physical body and the outer physical world, where something resistant (i.e., solid, or at least viscous) in the outer world is encountered and held back at our outer boundary layer (the skin). The senses of taste, smell, warmth, sight and sound depend upon something of the outer world (of a liquid, gaseous, warmth or light nature, respectively) not just touching this boundary but actually permeating it and

68

entering right into us. They reveal the conditions prevailing in the outer physical world and are progressively freer of our inner physical conditions. The sense of sound actually takes us to another boundary, for something of the inner nature of the outer world – of the sounding body – is conveyed to us here: though a hollow and a solid piece of wood are indistinguishable to the senses of touch, sight, and smell, they sound quite differently when tapped. The less familiar, ‘higher’ senses progressively leave behind the outer aspect of the outer world and penetrate further into its inner nature. We perceive, for example, the communicative nature of a musical motif or of words of a language even when the music or language is unfamiliar to us. The perception of an inherent significance is independent of the understanding of the significance. This is as true for natural phenomena as for human communication; in the act of perception we can already recognize a bird song or even the ‘gestalt’ of a tree as having a significance differentiated from aural or visual ‘noise’. Even if we do not comprehend the language, the bird song and the tree are recognizably ‘words’ of nature. This is the activity of the sense of significance or – as it is usually called – word. In a purposefully constructed object (e.g., a bird’s nest or a hammer), we perceive an inherent thought,37 and indeed independently of whether we can clearly articulate this thought or not. It is for this reason that archaeological artifacts, however simple, are readily distinguishable from purely naturally occurring objects (assuming that the artifact has not been reduced by time and wear to the extent that it has taken on its natural character again). The thought which has created an artifact as a sense-perceptible image of itself lies inherent in the physical object and is thus accessible to sense experience through the sense of thought. Finally, we can recognize the imprint of an ego through our sensory experience. For example, it is possible to distinguish through the sensory perception alone whether a person is inwardly awake in what he or she is saying or doing. Through the same sense, it is distinguishable

69

whether a clay pot or a picture is a mechanical reproduction or an original artistic work; the sense of ego can perceive in the penetrated form the imprint of the ego. The sense of ego is the culmination of the possibilities of sense experience of what is implicit in the outer world. The senses of ego, thought and communicative significance (or word) (and to a certain extent the sense of sound as well) reveal that which is implicit in the outer world.38 The senses of sound, sight, warmth, smell and taste (and to a certain extent the sense of touch) reveal that which is explicit in the outer world. The senses of balance,39 movement and life reveal our inner physical condition. Cultivating the Senses In the first seven years of life, the young child is incarnating into sense experience and thus into an experience of the physical world. The pedagogical task of these years is to a significant extent that of cultivating the child’s sense experience. This can be done in various realms. The world of nature offers rich experiences to the lower senses of movement, balance, touch and life, as well as to those of the middle realm, the senses of taste, smell, warmth, sight and sound. All artistic experiences enliven the middle senses; this is, however, somewhat modified by and dependent upon the individual nature of the art. Dance, the process of creating an artistic physical environment, and modelling (sculpture) work strongly with the lower senses of touch, life, movement and balance. Painting, drawing and decoration emphasize the senses of sight and taste (it is here especially that we use the phrase ‘in good taste’). Music, poetry and story emphasize sound, word and thought; eurythmy40 links these higher senses (and the sense of ego) with the senses of movement, balance and life. Social life, also capable of being raised up to an art, cultivates the higher senses of word, thought and ego. Cultural forms have evolved in part to balance sense experience. We can discover this influence in many realms. In social encounters,

70

which in themselves tend to emphasize the higher senses, food and drink as well as a more general attention to the well-being of the guests are given such a prominent role in order that the lower and middle senses not be neglected. The art of higher cultures brings elements of motif and significance into the visual arts (which otherwise tend to live in the lower and middle senses) and elements of movement, life and balance into the auditory arts (which otherwise tend to live in the middle and upper senses). The example of eurythmy was already mentioned above as connecting the upper and lower senses; when the visual element also plays a strong role (through the experience of color and light), the middle senses are strengthened. Similarly, nature, whose native wildness speaks strongly to the lower senses, gains perceptibly in elements accessible to the higher senses when brought under cultivation. Experiences of nature, art and social life are especially important for maintaining good health for both mother and child in these first years when they include balanced elements from all the senses. Extremes in imbalances in sense experience can lead to either a dependence upon or a compulsive avoidance of certain kinds of sense stimulation. When we can be actively creative in the sense world – whether in nature, art or social life – the experience is all the richer. The will engagement involved in tending a garden, painting or singing, or caring for family or friends involves a deep penetration of the ego into sensory experience, whereas more passive sensory experiences – for example, walking in nature or enjoying the arts – primarily play into the feelingsoul life. Wholly unconsciously absorbed sensory experiences, on the other hand, have their effect primarily upon the life forces; how differently we wake after sleeping in the countryside amongst wild flowers and under the stars than we do in a noisy, urban environment! When the human being’s ego and consciousness are actively engaged with nature, art and social life, the former can be transformed and even healed by the balancing effects which these can bring to sense experience. This is as true for the child as for the adult; even though the child’s higher

71

members are not yet in incarnation, the vessel being prepared for these can be made healthy and strong. In any case, the young child will tend not to accept passive experiences; a healthy drive for the will to be active in the body is part of this stage of incarnation. Thus, active engagement with the world is essential in the first seven years. Activity united with sense experience – aesthetically cultivated activity in the physical world – is a guiding ideal for both mother and child during this first phase of the child’s upbringing.

DEVELOPMENTAL PHASES (I): THE PHYSICAL BODY First Developmental Stage: Formation The formation of the physical body is the expression of the descent of the physical sheath, which contains an individualized spiritual image of the physical macrocosm (see the chapter “The Guardians of the Threshold”). This physical sheath begins to be transformed into a physical body, using the materials of the inherited body as a basis and in conjunction with the influences from the environment. The physical body begins its life and development in a state of unconscious unity with its environment. This comes to immediate expression in the embryonic germ’s absolute unity with the mother’s being; in this stage of life, the child has neither an independent existence nor an independent experience. In the course of the child’s development while still in the womb, the sense organs are established. Sense impressions initially penetrate directly into the child’s organism; this can be seen in the embryo’s reactions to sensory stimulus. During the prenatal period, the mother protects the child from too direct contact with such stimuli; with birth, the sense organs must take over this task. By creating a barrier to and thus

72

halting the influx of experiences from the physical environment, the sense organs enable these experiences to become conscious, rather than directly penetrating into and forming the child’s physical being. Thereby, the child arrives at an awareness that it exists in the physical realm, that it has a body. Even before the child is born, the lower senses of movement, balance, life and touch awaken and are active. The child begins to become aware of the physical world through the interior of its own body (and in the interior of the mother’s body)! Through the sense of touch, a first contact is made with the world outside the body (still the interior of the mother’s womb). In the case of the middle and higher senses (vision, hearing, taste.), only what is mediated through the mother comes to the child. By the end of, or shortly after the end of the prenatal period, the sense organs have essentially reached their full functional development, whereas the rest of the physical body (including the tissues which support the sense organs)41 requires further influences from higher levels of man’s being in order to achieve their full development. By the end of this stage of development, the physical body has received its essential form, which will now form the basis for all of the rest of the child’s development. All of the essential elements of the adult physical body are at this time already astonishingly clearly established, though they will of course continue to develop. Upbringing during and immediately following the pregnancy Though all twelve senses – flavors and smells, sights and sounds, movement and balance, touch and life, warmth, word, thought and ego – should play a rich and balanced role in the mother’s (and thus the child’s) life during pregnancy, experiences of the lower senses are particularly important for the child. As mentioned above, these are especially stimulated by experiences of the natural world. It should not be underestimated how much of what the mother experiences is shared by

73

the child. An appreciation of the sense world and a love for cultivating the physical environment is thus the greatest gift the mother can give the child now. Towards the end of this year, the physical body has built up enough of an independently sustainable existence to be able to leave the protection of the mother’s womb, which offered an environment suitable for a being without its own protection from environmental influences. Especially in the months directly following the birth, however, the outer environment should be shaped with an equal degree of protection and care as the womb offers, for the child must master the leap to unmediated sense impressions which its expulsion from the womb precipitates. Thus, the child should experience the protective presence of the mother essentially continuously during this time.42 In the past, the mother was given a period of protection to enable this to happen (as well as to regain her own strength). The child’s physical body achieves the independence required to be able to meet the outer sensory environment without this protective presence by the conclusion of the first year of life, counting from conception. It should perhaps go without saying, but of course a lifestyle which is healthy for the mother now is important for the child’s well being as well. Attention to her own changing needs, especially those of her physical body, is actually another way of cultivating the physical environment of the child! Second Developmental Stage: Rhythm The second stage of the physical body’s development begins with or shortly after the birth of the child.43 During this phase of life, the child is no longer completely receptive to and in as complete a state of unity with his environment as he was in the womb. He receives impressions from the beings around him and takes these in as he does his breath or his milk, to be digested

74

before being absorbed. He also begins to perceive his body more clearly, thereby becoming aware of his own expressive activity. While the child was still in the womb, the life processes of circulation, breathing, digestion, and so forth, were essentially effected and supplied by (or at least supported by) the mother’s organism. The organic activities of digestion, breathing, and circulation now are anchored in and guided from within the child’s physical body: he takes his first breath, takes in nutrition which he must digest, and so on.44 The child begins to experience the flow of these life processes, which form a basis for the later incarnation of the life and formative organization. Such processes are essentially rhythmic in nature. Some of these rhythms have shorter cycles (e.g. circulation and breath) while others have cycles that last an entire day (e.g. the liver and sleep and waking rhythms). Over the course of this first year after birth, these cycles become independent of environmental influences. At this stage, the child’s environment works directly and formatively into and through the life processes, thus stimulating the child’s organic activity and movement organism. Sense impressions continue to work formatively on the physical body as well. This stimulates, for example, the production of sounds; these remain expressions of the organic activity and do not yet belong to the realm of language proper. The experience of the uprightness of those around him stimulates the child to imitate this; he thus spends much of this year gradually raising himself up, achieving thereby a successively more upright posture.45 Balance and movement in the physical realm depend upon being able to maintain an inner dynamic balance between the organic impulses which urge the young being in one direction or another. Achieving balance between and control over the organic activities is thus a prerequisite for the achievements of standing and walking. It is also a year of the child-finding a relationship to the human beings around him and learning to identify them through their manner of expression. The child begins to recognize various people through their

75

looks, manner of speech, and so on. (The mother is initially identified differently, out of the state of unity already established in the first stage of life within her womb; this gradually yields to an identification of her through her manner of expression.) Upbringing during the first year after birth Now that the mother’s bodily rhythms no longer surround the child, the child’s rhythmic-organic life begins to develop independently of the mother’s organization. The pre-natal rhythms were active without the mother’s conscious effort. These must now be replaced in the child’s life by consciously cultivated, healthy daily rhythms46 . Thus from the very beginning, rhythms of eating, sleeping, etc. take on such an importance. These rhythms must now take hold in the child’s physical body. If rhythms are imposed too strongly from the environment, so that the child’s body’s attempts to establish a rhythmic pattern are ignored or overwhelmed, the rhythm-building aspect of the child which is now incarnating is prevented from taking hold of her own physical body through this realm. This creates later hindrances for the incarnation of the life organization, which is now being prepared in the establishment of the rhythmic-organic life. If, on the other hand, the child’s whims or transitory expressions of need are exaggerated in importance and unduly attended to, again a rhythmic life cannot be established in the physical body, for in this case the attempts of the child’s organic-rhythmic organization to establish a stable rhythm are continually disturbed by its own physical organization, or more precisely, by the reactions of adults to this. The rhythmic organization’s attempts to create and maintain a stable rhythm must thus be given form and strengthened in a balanced way, neither imposing a fixed rhythm or following the child’s demands slavishly. Over the course of this year of life, the sphere of those who care for the child normally begins to open out to include a larger circle, often the whole household, whereas in the period spent in the womb, and generally in the initial period thereafter, essentially the whole burden falls on the mother. All of those responsible should join together to bring a rhyth-

76

mic-ritual nature into the life and care of the child, thus stimulating the child’s own rhythmic experience. From changing a diaper to singing a lullaby, from arranging a table decoration to bathing the baby, such rhythmic, regular elements strengthen the child’s incarnation at this time. Such elements as little songs and verses, especially when accompanied by rhythmic movements, begin to cultivate the child’s life forces. Third Developmental Stage: Differentiation The child now incarnates into the three systems of the limb-metabolic, circulatory and breath (rhythmic), and nerve-sense spheres. The environment is now held back and experienced in these spheres, giving rise to a conscious repertoire of activities, emotions and concepts in a form still bound to their bodily expressions.47 Linguistic expressions in the child’s environment will begin to be connected to these first conscious experiences; language thus awakens imitatively in connection with them. The development of language also requires the coordination of the breath (will-metabolic pole), larynx (feeling-rhythmic pole) and mouth (thinking-conscious pole) which is now possible in this stage of development. It is important for the healthy development of both the intentional, feeling and conceptual as well as the linguistic capacity of the child that the natural and human environment offers a sufficient range and quality of experiences which stimulate the child’s activity on all these levels. The coordination, sensitivity and comprehension which develop from such experiences provide the basis for the later incarnation of the sentient organization. Upbringing for the one- to two-year-old child The will stream begins to incarnate into the child’s physical body. The will of the child was previously chiefly an expression of his own organic activity, and even here required fulfilment by those around it

77

(to bring food, change a diaper, fetch a toy, lift him up, and so on). This organic activity now recedes in importance and an independent life of will develops, while at the same time the child’s physical body begins to be capable of executing his will for the first time: to move about, fetch what is wanted; in a late stage, even to control the bladder. The pedagogical task is thus to shape the environment in such a manner that the child’s will can effectively work through the physical body. A spectrum of tasks in the physical world48 (cooking, gardening, building, repairing, handwork and crafts), on the one hand, and a provision for the unfolding of some sort of imitative activity by the child, on the other hand, are key elements in encouraging the healthy development of the child’s will life from this stage on. Example and imitation should play principal roles here. The young child takes up and imitates inwardly all that takes place in his environment. He then seeks to give this inner impression outer expression. In other words, the child will seek to engage in activities stimulated by inner impressions of the activities which he experiences. The healthy child’s will thus needs no more stimulation than the experience of such activities taking place around him already provides;49 there only needs then to be a concrete possibility for the child to actually live out his imitative will, i.e. time, some sort of materials (the child is usually not particular; materials drawn from nature’s rich store are particularly suitable) – sometimes a minimum of attention from the adult will also be required to facilitate matters. The child chiefly imitates the will life of those around him. In all inner life, however, there is a fine will activity which plays into the life of feeling and thinking. The child imitates such will elements in these realms as well: sympathies or antipathies, for example, or connections made between concepts will be picked up even though the underlying feelings and the concepts themselves may not be understood yet. Stories drawn from simple events in the real world may now be introduced to enrich and deepen the child’s experience. These should be examples of life meaningful to the child and worthy of forming the concepts of life that will live in him in the years to come.

78

Fourth Developmental Stage: Individuation Up until now, the warmth of the environment has worked directly and formatively into the child’s being without the child becoming conscious of the state of her own warmth organization.50 This applies to the inner warmth which surrounded or came towards her from the environment as well. During the fourth year of the physical body’s development, the warmth coming towards the child begins to be met and checked by the child’s own warmth organization. The latter begins to gain in independence from the environment. Through this, an awareness of the condition of her own and the environment’s warmth or coldness arises. This differs from a sense perception of warmth (‘this feels hot, this is cold to the touch’), which is already present in the first year of life. The child is now not incarnating into the physical sense of warmth, but into the warmth organization which permeates all of her being. She is now capable of maintaining this and being conscious of its condition. This awareness does not yet differentiate clearly between that which is included in the sphere of the child’s warmth of soul (which may include the mother, a doll, and so forth) and the more limited sphere of physical warmth (which is limited to the immediate environment of the physical body). Not only the child’s own possessions but the physical world in general is experienced in association with ownership. This is not merely a conceptual linkage, but an actual experience of a real ego presence in that which a person has permeated her identity. In permeating the entire body, the warmth organization mediates an experience of self connected with the physical body. The child becomes aware of the physical body as the center of her individual being and experience. The self-consciousness, or ego experience, that develops at this time and that is mediated by the child’s (inner and outer) warmth-body forms the basis for the later incarnation of the adult ego.

79

The awakening to this experience of ego first results in the child being able to say ‘no’ to others and then in her being able to say ‘I’ of herself. These are two distinct stages of individuation: finding the boundary between oneself and the outer world and finding one’s own identity. The child now becomes able to differentiate her personal sphere from that of others. The child begins to experience her own physical body as her ‘home’. She should thus begin to be able to feel ‘at home’ outside the house, in a variety of environments, as long as she feels well in her own body in the situation. Previous to this stage of development, an adult who represented ‘home’ to the child was needed to carry the experience of being safe and ‘at home’ for the child when outside of the physical home. Upbringing for the two- to three-year-old child Up until now the child’s sense of personal self has been closely associated with her perceptions, activity and stream of will. This now begins to change; the child begins to experience her individuality as associated with the body and thus as stable in the midst of the flux of changing impressions and expressions. To meet this awakening individuality of the child with recognition and warmth is the new pedagogical task. The child’s bodily-based ego awareness is very connected with her experience of warmth. Warmth allows her to permeate the physical body with ego awareness; inner and outer coolness mean that the ego is unable to permeate the body. Thus, both kinds of warmth must continue to be brought to the child while recognizing and acknowledging the very individuality and independence that are developing thereby, for the child will increasingly wish to establish her own definition of the appropriate nature and quantity of soul and bodily warmth. When the adult’s own ego is healthy and balanced, the child’s dawning recognition and establishment of the boundary between the adult and herself – as expressed in the above-mentioned ability to say ‘no’ on the one hand and ‘I’ on the other hand – need not be problematic. Room

80

for the assertion of independence can be given without allowing the child to intrude upon one’s own individuality (or that of others). Experiencing other ego-conscious beings in the environment stimulates the ego experience. A child primarily exposed to an environment lacking in ego experiences will not be able to properly discover her own nature as a self-conscious being. In earlier times, this was discovered with children brought up by wolves; now this applies to children ‘brought up’51 by television and other media, as well as to situations where the parents themselves lack a clear ego center due to dependencies or other conditions. A child of this age will look for an ego presence in all that she experiences: in the dog, the flower, the stone, and so forth. This is quite healthy! Of course, the human being has an ego which is incarnated in the physical body, whereas this is not true of other beings. A true and healthy picture of the ‘ego’ of the beings of nature working in from around rather than within their physical forms can be given through descriptions of elemental beings such as the gnomes, flower fairies, and so on. For man-made objects, on the other hand, the ego experience lives through experiences of their manufacture. The child can be shown or told how they have been made in order to have a picture of the human ego and activity which has formed these. Machines and technology present a special challenge, as these are hardly appropriate to the years of early childhood. When encounters with these cannot be avoided, it is best that the child be able to experience the human being who is responsible for controlling these, or at least to comprehend that someone is responsible for them. In a certain sense, the locomotive driver is the ‘ego’ for the locomotive.52 As a result of differentiating her individuality from her activity, the child now becomes conscious of taking on a role. She begins to say, ‘I am the builder boy now’, or ‘I will be the cook’, rather than simply building and cooking. To cultivate this experience, the child should experience a range of life roles in the environment. This can be through the parent or other household members as they take on their various

81

roles in life, of course, but it is especially important to meet a variety of individuals in their occupational role at this time: the baker, the farmer, the builder, and so forth. To support the experience of the body as a ‘dwelling’ that is now developing, there should be the opportunity to build little houses into which the child can withdraw. Simple materials which the child can manipulate herself are generally best for this, though help from the adult in building ‘her house’ will generally be sought at first. The child will now usually like to hear stories about herself or about other individuals whom she knows. These may be taken from times past or even simply drawn from what she did that day. Such stories strengthen the memory and individuality of the child. In one sense, the four stages of the child’s physical development described above constitute a time when the most fundamental and important basis for the human being’s life is being established. This period begins with conception and ends approximately three years and three months after birth. Hindrances arising from an inappropriate outer environment during these first years can result in the ego’s being too weakly anchored in the lower organizations and thus being unable later to take hold of its life on earth. A lack of love for the child’s being, on the other hand, though all outer necessities may be provided, can result in the ego losing its experience of itself as a cosmic being, connecting only in an materialistic way with its earthly existence. Fifth Developmental Stage: Active Imagination In the next stage of development, the child incarnates into the image activity, the creative sphere of his being. The pictorial or image quality of the world, which has previously been directly formative in the child’s being, begins to be held back by the child’s forces. Inner pictures or representations begin to unfold for the child of the intention behind the outer deeds, the feelings

82

behind the outward emotions and the thought life behind the concepts that he experiences. Not only human beings, all of nature – even inanimate objects – begins to be experienced inwardly and imaginatively as expressing such intentions, feelings and concepts. These experiences form the basis for the later development of the faculty of creative imagination as an organ for comprehending the world. The sentient qualities that others have linked with objects are now experienced through the objects. Bad language and other precocious behavior arise at this time as a result. In the child’s dream-like consciousness, images received from the environment flow into and out of the child’s own intentional activity, emotions and concepts. He weaves together with the environment in the inner light of imagination. An essentially artistically expressive life that comes alive through such varied modes as social experience, movement, verse and story, song, drawing, painting and modelling, house building, and so forth, unfolds out of this creative inner world of imagination. It is a phase where life and art are self-expression. It is the creative process which is essential here; the results obtained remain largely a somewhat incidental expression of this process. Upbringing for the three- to four-year-old child Until this stage elements of imagination and creativity entered into the child’s life unconsciously through imitating others’ activities. Outer experiences were transformed pictorially and imaginatively into inner images, then reconstructed or dramatized in outer activity in a similar pictorial, imaginative way. The resulting imitative behavior could easily appear hilarious or peculiar to an adult by virtue of the remarkable transformation between the original activity and the child’s reconstruction. The intensity of the child’s inner experience of the environment now begins to diminish; simultaneously, the environment begins to be more clearly perceived. Outer activity begins to be experienced as lacking in inner life unless it is transformed or illumined by a consciously intro-

83

duced imaginative or creative element. Imagination and creativity thus need to be much more consciously given now as stimulus in the child’s environment. For example, when washing up, whereas the child may have simply imitated this before, a picture can be given to enliven the activity for the child: the child can help to bathe the china family: the big daddy and mummy plates, the little boy and girl plates, all the plate family gets a good bath. Similarly, fairy tales begin to be experienced by the child much more deeply, whereas up until this age nature stories or stories drawn from daily life are much more interesting for the child. Passive experiences of formative activity were hitherto sufficient to stimulate the child’s own formative forces. Now, however, this stimulus is increasingly dependent upon the child living or creating out of what is received by way of formative impulses. The imitative faculty must now be nurtured and protected. This is not to say that the child should be induced to imitate. By its very nature, imitation must arise from within; it can be encouraged and directed through the manner of what is or is not presented53 but should not be forced. It should be kept in mind that the manner and speed with which what has been received comes forth transformed varies widely between children. The task is to make it possible for what is experienced to be expressed in activity. This implies that outer stimulation must be kept moderate in quantity. If the child goes from one attraction (or distraction) to the next, there is never a time for the necessary free expression of what arises thereby in the child’s inner formative force activity, for it becomes dammed up under the pressure of the continual stream of new experiences. Time for free play in an environment that the child can shape imaginatively should be balanced with times of positive formative influences. This can include play outside, and indeed in all weathers; if the child can come into creative, imaginative interaction with sun, wind, rain, cold, and snow, this builds a tremendous capacity for creative interaction with the many moods that the world will present him with in later life.

84

Similarly, provision for free artistic expression should be balanced with times when appropriate style and content can be imitated from an adult. The receptivity for imaginative pictures opens up greatly at this age. If given a sufficiently wide and rich variety of appropriate and imaginative experience in its environment, the child will truly ‘light up’ inwardly at this age. It is not primarily the outer experience but the depth and richness of inner content which is important now: meaningful work and expressive, descriptive language54 build the forces of the child in these spheres. Through such experiences, the child begins to unfold an independent life of imaginative play. Whereas her play remained more of a direct imitation of experiences from the environment before, or was dependent upon the guidance of older children or adults, her own imagination now begins to be a source of creative impulses for activities. Imaginative stories such as fairy tales may now be brought. These should be simple in nature, consisting largely of single imaginative pictures. Sixth Developmental Stage: Social Integration True social life can now begin to develop. Sociability is the ability to reach out to others who are experienced as being different than oneself. In the previous phases, all ‘socializing’ was mediated through a responsible adult or an outer activity. Now the child begins to be able to directly relate to others out of a social consciousness. The child now begins to become conscious of the rhythmic, ordering principle of its environment and being. Previously this realm of rhythm and order (the musical quality of the world) worked directly, formatively and unconsciously into the child’s being; now these elements begin to be consciously experienced and mastered. This leads to a change in the child’s expressions in the world; the child begins to cre-

85

ate not only out of the process of fantasy but also to create composition, rhythm and order in her physical world. A variety of moods, lifestyles and daily rhythms becomes a normal and healthy extension of the child’s life and capable of being integrated into the child’s consciousness. Pattern and rhythm appear in the child’s work and play. Experiences of a breadth of such rhythms, moods and ordering qualities leads to the child’s life organization becoming free from the organic activity of its physical body. If the physical body’s influence is not overcome at this time, a fixation on a particular pattern of activity or ways of ordering the world will tend to arise. If the child’s environment is too fixed in this sense (always fixed rules for games, a monotonous rhythm of life or a lack of breathing between kinds of experiences), the child will tend to remain dependent on the environment for a sense of order. If the environment is too disordered, on the other hand, the child will fail to incarnate properly into this sphere of its own being, and thus be unable to properly differentiate order and disorder or discern rhythm and composition in the world in the very broadest sense. Upbringing for the four- to five-year-old child The child can be given increasing scope to create little rhythmic parts of her day. Just as a physical environment that she could freely rearrange became important earlier, so it is with the fabric of her time now. She can bring order and rhythm to her work and play now; scope for this is important. The child’s social integration was previously largely unconscious. Common activity could have been important: if she felt a part of the activity taking place, she felt integrated into the social milieu as well or even when playing completely on her own, she often felt socially a part of the larger context. True social interaction, sociability and an awareness of the substance of social relations begin at this stage of development. Opportunities for social interaction begin to take on an importance in themselves for the child. Times for play with similarly aged children

86

may need to be arranged now (in large families a certain amount of this will happen in the family naturally). At the same time, larger social contexts cease to be overwhelming, and the child begins to be able to contribute to rather than only draw upon the social fabric. A kindergarten (or similar provision) now begins to be of intrinsic value due to the experiences which it can provide. The quality of the sensory environment, the rhythmical quality of the daily and seasonal experiences, the activities provided, the role models met and the imaginative and creative stimulus received are all extremely valuable aspects of a good kindergarten. These could all, in principle, be achieved at home by a sufficiently talented and energetic parent55 but the range of social experiences which a kindergarten can provide is extremely difficult to offer in a home environment. (See below for a description of the kindergarten environment.) Social interactions can begin to enter into stories. An example might be The Golden Goose, which describes three sons who go into the forest (the last being the simpleton) and their relative success with the little man they meet there. Seventh Developmental Stage: Completion The child now begins to perceive unity, ‘gestalt’ and the wholeness of being itself. He thus begins to comprehend the world as being made up of complete entities – and to comprehend his own wholeness in this sense as well. A sense of completeness – of wanting to bring what he is accomplishing to a proper conclusion – develops for the first time. The child no longer solely experiences the world as being in flux, as coming into being; he can now experience it in its finished states or conditions, as well. An ability to generate unified, complete and finished forms is found. The skeletal forces (not the bony structure, but the forces underlying this) are taken hold of at this time; these are experienced as a source of

87

life and as a revelation of complete form by the young child.56 The experience of the whole physical body as an interconnected entity and of the completed forms of objects leads to an expansion of practical capacities: crafts and accomplishment in general become much more important in the child’s life. Upbringing for the five- to six-year-old child The children become aware of the objective forms of the world and seek to achieve a corresponding quality and completion in what they do. An image of what they would like to create generally precedes and is the stimulus for creative activity, whether in craft work or play. Thus, it now becomes appropriate to show examples of what can be aimed at, rather than simply demonstrating the activity itself. A significant increase in practical capacity is generally experienced at this age; the children can become true helpers in a much more substantial and systematic sense than before. More activities and creative possibilities need to be provided now; these should still arise naturally from life and contribute to the world around the child. Crafts activities will still depend upon imitation, but a wide range of these will help to develop fundamental skills in the physical world and a will that is creatively directed outward. Tasks set also play an important role in stories for the child of this age (for example, the miller’s daughter who must spin the straw to gold). Social life now needs to be given more form. In fact, the children will themselves begin to create more form even in their play: hierarchies become apparent, rules are laid down, and so on. To meet this need in the children, the social experience can begin to be more organized: games have a place now next to the songs and verses with movement, finger games, and times for free play. The presence or absence of order in general also becomes more clearly experienced by the child at this time. A comprehensive sense of order to the day and to life in general becomes more important for the children; if this is lacking, it can affect their ability to order experience inwardly.

88

REMARKS The Evolution of Social Experience in the First Phase of Life To summarize the evolution of the child’s social experience over the course of early childhood: Pregnancy: Social life is experienced in a shared physical existence. st 1 year: Social life is experienced through shared rhythms. 2nd year: Social life is experienced through shared consciousness and language. rd 3 year: Social life is explored through self-assertion. 4th year: Social life is found in imaginative play. 5th year: Social life is found in interpersonal interaction. 6th year: Social life is found in a clear social order. Outlook In the next phases of life, the life and consciousness organizations, soul and spirit of the incarnating individuality will modify the physical body considerably, often transforming what was built up in the first phase of life or what remains from the inherited physical organization in order to make a suitable vessel for themselves. The first stage of this process occurs as the child’s life sheath begins to be transformed into the life body, in the process of which it must overcome the physical body and inherited form. This begins with the change of teeth.57 THE ROLE OF THE FORMATIVE FORCES IN THE FIRST PHASE OF LIFE During the period while the child is still in the womb, astonishing and decisive steps in the formation of the physical body are accomplished. After birth, this process continues, its pace slowly ebbing from that of the embryological period until the physical body has achieved the greater part of its development and growth by the end of early childhood.58

89

During early childhood, the child’s formative forces are working directly into the child’s physical body to stimulate and direct the processes of growth and transformation which are occurring. This formative process takes place, of course, wholly outside of the child’s conscious awareness; this contrasts with the more conscious development of the physical body (e.g., through practice and exercises) possible in later childhood and adulthood. The need for the physical body to take on its fundamental formation completely independently of the conscious awareness or participation of the child is striking. All growth processes, especially rapid ones, are accompanied with proportionate growth pains. Were the child to be conscious of the formative and growth processes active in its being, the suffering would be unimaginable. On the other hand, the complex developmental processes of these first years required to shape, for example, the kidney, central nervous system or venalarterial network could not be accomplished or even followed by human consciousness. The contrast with what we are able to manage in later years by way of conscious physical development – primarily limited to the development of fine and gross muscular capacity – is blatant. This extraordinary quality of fine detail required of the formative process in the first years of life is only possible through the child’s formative forces being in a nearly complete state of unity with, and nearly wholly devoted to building up, the physical body.59 The child’s formative force body is also not yet clearly differentiated from the formative forces working in from the environment, environmental influences which effectively unite with the child’s own formative forces. Through becoming integrated into these, they exercise a significant role in the physical development of the child, directly influencing the growth and development of the physical body. The formative environment thus affects the development of both the creative-formative capacities and the physical body. From conception onwards, ongoing experiences of the formative activity of nature and of the human being are central for the healthy development of the

90

child in the early years and provide the basis for the later healthy functioning of the adult in many realms. The formative environment is exceptionally manysided. Various formative influences in the child’s development will be examined here. Nature Such of nature’s formative activity as the child may experience in its environment is taken up directly into and works with the child’s formative forces. Nature’s activities of growth, metamorphosis, expansion, contraction, and so forth, are imitated and expressed in a free way; these experiences develop into fundamental formative capacities which can also be applied later in many realms of life. Minerals (stones and crystals), plants and animals should all be present. Various qualities of landscapes are important: hill, flatland and valley; pond and stream; forest and meadow. By coming into natural contact with all of these in various ways, the child’s life organization is stimulated at various levels and in various qualities of its being. A natural environment rich in experiences of nature’s life of growth, metamorphosis and transformation can support the healthy development of the physical body. Walking, playing and working (or just standing or sitting and experiencing) in such an environment brings formative forces that enrich and heal the child’s being. Such experiences should be frequent and regular in early childhood, preferably on a daily basis. Human Activity All human formative activity in the physical world, i.e. all practical work, brings formative forces that stimulate the child’s own formative forces and activity. A young child experiences this activity as immediately as if it were his or her own, gaining facility and developing thereby. Generally, the young child will take up the essential formative quality of the original activity rather than attempting to achieve a similar outer result.60

91

Experiences of practical activities linked with the ability to freely practice the formative qualities thus experienced are one of the most important developmental factors in the child’s early years. The formative capacities acquired in this experiential-imitative way are capable of general, not particular application; the gestures underlying such activities as folding, grinding, cleaning, and so on can be applied later freely transformed in many realms: practically, aesthetically, socially and intellectually, for example. The range of activities experienced through work and play is richest when it includes all four of the archetypal elemental states: earth, water, air and fire. These are implicit in many activities, but the separate stages should be carefully and properly articulated and attended to if the children are to fully experience the many unique formative gestures and qualities that each activity offers. Cooking allows the children to experience a wide range of such processes. Preparing bread, for example, requires milling the flour, mixing the dough, kneading, and baking. Thereby the children meet the contributions of solid, liquid, air and warmth to this process. The preparation of other foods allows the children to experience analogous processes: collecting, chopping, mixing, soaking, boiling or steaming, and so forth. In each case, taking the simplest form of the ingredients as they stem from nature right through to the finished meal gives an extraordinary range of formative experiences. This also integrates the children’s experiences of nature and the human world. This experience of the world as a seamless unity is one of the greatest gifts which a healthy upbringing can offer in this phase of life. Cleaning offers similar cycles of experience. If it is clothes that are cleaned, this ranges from heating the water (an unfortunately rare experience), washing and rinsing the cloth, hanging and drying in the air (or sun) and folding. Fire, water, earth and air are all included here. For dishes to be cleaned, they can be washed, dried and stacked; surfaces (tables, floors, windows) can be swept, wiped or mopped and aired;

92

and so forth. The point is to allow each stage and element of the process to be a distinct experience. It should be noted that such experientialimitative formative influences are not or only minimally provided by the activities offered through ‘educational toys’ (and this includes the Montessori early years’ materials). A mechanical exercise of skills that provides a narrow channel within which the child may repeat a standard repertoire of gestures does not offer an experience of the formative world. The same applies, of course, to electronic and computer games, whether educationally intended or not. Toys can and should be the tools used by the child to express activity, not the stimulus for the child’s activity.61 In this sense, they should be flexible enough to be freely transformed and made use of in many ways by the child. In this way, capacities are developed – capacities which can grow, develop and transform with time – rather than physically oriented patterns of accomplishment trained. Cultivating the Earth Man’s practical activity and nature’s formative activity join together in the cultivation of the earth: gardening, farming, and forestry. Quarrying forms a special area here; every child has a deep relation to digging into the earth, e.g. in sand, mud or clay. Activities in nature give the child the chance to engage in practical work and to experience nature simultaneously. They thus provide central formative experiences. Many modern children (and adults!) have no idea of the origin or nature of the world that surrounds them. All of the materials we use (for food, clothing, shelter, and so forth) are the result of human beings cultivating, harvesting and preparing nature’s resources. Experiences of whole cycles of cultivation, harvest, preparation and use stimulate a deeper experience and comprehension of the essential unity of the environment in which we live. The cultivation of nature can include both gardening and even the care of simple farm animals (though the latter may well present both

93

legal and practical challenges in a formal care environment). Animals should be experienced in an environment that is both natural and healthy for them; in cages indoors, for examples, they are experienced in a distortion of their natural relationship to their environment. A similar case can be made for providing plants with a natural setting. For gardening, the activities include digging the bed (to prepare it), raking it smooth, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting and clearing. From trees, fruit can be gathered, leaves raked and piled, branches gathered and burnt. Bushes can be trimmed, compost spread and so on. Experiences of the whole cycle of growth offer the widest range of formative activities and the most complete awareness of the natural cycle. A variety of flowers, produce, herbs and useful plants can be raised. These will then require further processes of preparation (cleaning, cooking, and so forth). Farming offers another range of possibilities: feeding, milking, cleaning the stables, bringing the animals to pasture and back to the barn. Traditional cultivation of corn or hayfields offers ploughing, sowing, reaping (mowing), turning, drying, stacking and (in the case of grain) threshing and milling. Most of these activities can be cultivated on a surprisingly small scale. For the garden itself, both wild and cultivated areas have their own unique contributions to make. If wild areas cannot be left, at least wild flowers may be encouraged in beds and lawns. A balance between trees, bushes, perennials, annual plants and (preferably meadow-like) lawn offers a range of experiences of nature. There should be the possibility for children to play normally in the natural environment; a certain care for the arrangement and protection of more fragile areas is thus required. The garden has a number of goals to fulfill for the young child: •

94

Does it offer experiences of the seasons? Are there plants that grow, flowers that bloom and fruits that ripen throughout the year (in so far as this is possible given the climate)? At the same

time, can spring’s vital impulse, summer’s fullness, autumn’s ripening and transformation as well as winter’s quiet gathering come to expression? • Connected with this, what activities can the garden offer the young child? Are there bulbs or seeds to be planted, beds to be weeded, fruits to be gathered and leaves to be raked? • What can be grown in the garden that can come into the practical household work: both produce – e.g. fruits, grains, seeds (i.e. sunflower) or herbs for tisanes – and crafts materials – e.g. dye plants, willow or raffia for weaving or branches for cutting and carving • Finally, do the seasonal experience, activities and produce or crafts materials relate to and support the celebration of the festivals of the year? Nature’s Rhythms Rhythm is an expression of formative forces working in time. Nature’s rhythms include those of the day (sunrise-morning-high noonafternoon-sunset-evening-night), of the week, of the month (through the waxing and waning of the moon) and the year (through the seasons). Experiences of all of these cosmic rhythms have a creative, upbuilding effect on the human formative body. However, modern life is becoming more and more isolated from these rhythms. How often do we notice the shifting light of the day, the qualities of the days of the week, the moon’s cyclic influence or even the seasons of the year? For the child such experiences are not a luxury; they are necessary in order to establish a healthy formative sheath. Nature’s rhythms can be experienced in various ways. Activities and meals, for example, can be chosen to correspond to the character of the time of day, the day of the week, the cycle of the month and/or the season of the year. The rhythm of the day includes the awakening of

95

daybreak, morning’s ready activity, the fullness of midday, the completion of afternoon, evening’s quiet and reflective departure. Each day also has its quality: Monday, concentrated potential; Tuesday, expressive energy; Wednesday, lively movement; Thursday, serene accomplishment; Friday, artistic creativity; Saturday, reflection; Sunday, unifying balance. Mood changes through the month: new moon, beginnings; waxing moon, growth and activity; full moon, openness to the influences of the environment; waning moon, inwardness, seeking a new impulse. The seasons of the year have character too: Spring, new life; Summer, growth and fullness; Autumn, ripening and transformation (the leaves turning); Winter, hidden potential. Human Rhythms Human rhythms have an equal influence on the young child. A rhythmic pattern to the day begins with sleeping and feeding for the baby; later, more and more of the day can take on a rhythmic character, e.g., brush teeth, breakfast, wash up, prepare lunch, grace or blessing, lunch, rest, play outside, clean hands, supper, story, prepare for bed, bedtime prayer, sleep. Such a regularly repeated schedule becomes a formative influence. The rhythm of the day can include times of quiet and times of activity, outside and inside times, times of work and times of play; times of structured receiving (hearing stories or taking part in songs, movement or finger games) and times of giving to or exploring the world in free play. If there is a regular rhythm to each day that includes all of these experiences, the formative forces of the child are stimulated to the fullest. Rhythms within activities also bring such a formative influence. Most work was once accomplished through such rhythmic activity: milking, mowing, blacksmithing, shoemaking, and so forth. Other rhythmic activities included dances and children’s games. Such experiences are rare now; all modern activities, from adults’ work and leisure to children’s games, have for the most part become either mechanical (especially where machines are involved) or diffuse and arrhythmic. To bring ac-

96

tivities in a rhythmic way is, however, important for the child. The traditional patterns of rhythmic work can be renewed, for example by having little work songs to accompany each kind of activity. Both the larger rhythms of activities related to the courses of the day, week, month and year and smaller rhythms within these activities stimulate the child’s formative activity and work directly into the physiology of breathing, circulation and general organ activity. The Festivals The festivals of the year unite cosmic and human rhythms; each celebration takes place at the time of a particular configuration of the heavens and is expressed through a special rhythm of human activity. Reuniting with the experience of nature which gives rise to the festival cultivates the child’s formative experience of time and gives a sense of the unity with the temporal environment which can be established only in this way in early childhood. At the same time, the sacral and community aspects of the festivals can be given meaningful expression through appropriate activities and experiences. Finding an expression of each festival that unites the mood of nature with the human and sacral experience and yet is fully poured into a mold appropriate for young children is a special task. Finding a sensory experience of the inner meaning of each festival is helpful for young children. Special activities and foods, but also a special environment expressive of the mood of the festival (e.g. celebrating outside with flowers for summer festivals but in a darkened room with candles for winter festivals) are central to the child’s experience. Weather Nature’s formative forces are also experienced through the weather’s metamorphoses between clear, cloudy, rain, snow and hail; pleasant, cold and hot; calm, breezy, windy and storm. The weather has a direct influence on the young child’s mood: cranky with wind, wild before snow, gay with the sun. This formative activity occurs in a realm

97

between the grand, unchanging cosmic rhythms of time and the earthly forces of growth and metamorphosis revealed in plants, trees, fish, birds and the (land) animals: in the atmosphere. After the first year of life (when children still need protection from the elements), experiences of the whole range of nature’s activities bring differentiation and vitality into the child’s formative organization. Children must be shown how to meet the weather. This includes learning to dress properly for sun (sun hats and cool clothing), rain (raincoats, boots and hats), cold (warm clothes in layers, hats, scarves and mittens) and snow. Art The human being applies himself formatively through cultural activities. Dynamic elements such as movement, speech and song as well as visual elements such as the architectural environment, furniture, garments, cloths and coverings, sculptures and paintings invigorate and harmonize the child’s formative forces. The forms of visual elements should be expressive of inner life and movement, i.e. drawn from the formative world. The artistic influence of simple songs, verses and stories, especially when united with movement expressive of the character of the text or song, bring life, differentiation and character into the child’s formative organization. Culture has as much range of character and as much importance as a formative influence in the child’s life as the weather. Cultivating Social Capacities Yet another formative influence is the cultivation of social capacities. Whether with one child or a group, bringing social impulses to the young child requires enormous formative forces and imagination of the adult. It implies bringing an artistic influence into the social sphere, shaping this into a dynamic and harmonious form. This can range from bringing out a basket of building materials when children are unable to find

98

creative modes of interacting together to informing a table of children that the delicious rolls want to hear their grace sung before they hop out of the basket onto the waiting plates. Experience with the weather is of great assistance here; like the weather, that which is met with in social life is often less to be changed or predicted than to be properly prepared for and creatively engaged with. In a certain way, social life thus combines nature’s weather with human art. All of the aforementioned formative influences will be of great assistance here: practical activities, nature experiences, cultivating the garden, rhythms of nature, rhythms of activity, the festivals, the weather and aspects of the cultural life. For example, the desired mood can often be set for the young child simply through preparing the room accordingly or by bringing an appropriate song, verse or little story. Conventional social forms (manners, etiquette) will be of use here in the early stages, but later on the child should be helped to develop imaginative capacities that can also respond to new social situations. Experiences of weather and artistic experiences (e.g. stories) are particularly effective here. Acquiring such social capacities stimulates the child’s formative organization to be active in the highest levels of its being. Summary The formative activity of the environment stimulates a corresponding activity in the young child’s formative organization. This formative organization or life body works directly into the physical body, shaping the latter and bringing it into activity. The healthy condition and growth of the young child’s physical body thus depends upon a healthy formative environment. Formative activities can be differentiated on the basis of what realm they take place in: •

Those that shape space: Nature’s growth and metamorphosis

99

Work activities and Gardening, farming, etc. (work in nature) •

•

Those that shape time: Nature’s rhythms Work rhythms and Festivals Those that shape consciousness: Weather Art and Cultivating the social life

and on the basis of their origin in nature, human existence or cultural life. (The latter implies a sacral nature.) Formative Experiences in Early Childhood Realm: Nature

Human

Cultural

Expression in: Space

Experiencing nature

Practical work

Gardening

Time

Nature’s rhythms

Rhythms of work

Festivals

Consciousness

Weather

Artistic work

The social realm

100

Metamorphic Imitation Every realm of the young child’s being is still unified with the child’s physical organization and simultaneously receptive to its environment. Thus, not only the formative environment but expressions of soul, ego activity and the spiritual environment also affect the child’s physical existence. The formative forces are most closely bound up with the physical body, and thus have a more powerful and more obvious effect on the child’s being than do the higher influences from the environment. Though the effects of these higher realms may be subtler, they are no less significant for the child’s development. The formative effects of all of these influences are expressed in a kind of metamorphic imitation. In the first few years, the child imitates in a direct, literal and obvious fashion. With the individualization typical of the two- to three-year-old child, a capacity to draw back from outward imitation develops. The environment’s formative influence continues to work into the child’s formative organization, nonetheless, and in the second half of early childhood this is expressed in a progressively thorough and imaginative metamorphosis of what is experienced. Imitation thus becomes ever less literal over the course of early childhood. In other words, imitation takes place on the level of form which the physical body has achieved. Initially, imitation takes place through the physical being of the child being formed in imitation of the mother’s being enveloping it and of the sensory environment of the womb. The imitation of gesture follows in the first year after birth; of concept, feeling or will in the next; of individuality in the third year after birth; of the imagination or creative principle that lies behind the outer actions in the fourth year, and so on. Metamorphic imitation is actually the effective principle out of which the young child takes up his or her environment. It is thus the effective principle on which the upbringing of young children can be based. The moral, religious and spiritual atmosphere surrounding the child, the individualities with whom the child comes into contact, the conditions

101

of consciousness and expressions of soul in the child’s environment, the work and activities which the child experiences (including nature’s formative activity) and the physical environment are not only imitated by the child in his own behavior and expressions in direct or metamorphosed fashion, but even form his physical being and constitution. The upbringing of the child is the result of the formative effects of all of these aspects of the environment meeting the child’s spiritual being and the inherited constitution. The primary task of those entrusted with the care of young children is to shape the environment on all levels so that the formative effects on the child are the desired ones. An awareness of and receptivity to the child’s spiritual individuality and a consciousness of and care for the inherited constitution are prerequisites for accomplishing this task successfully. Though we will briefly return to the requisite consciousness of the child’s spiritual individuality in the conclusion of this book, a deeper exploration of this or of the inherited constitution would go beyond the scope of this book. The Environment of Early Childhood Everything that finds an expression in the sense world is comprehensible to the young child. In the environment of early childhood, then, everything should be given a sense-perceptible form.62 The child experiences the integrated wholeness of life. This can find its expression in the most various ways, e.g. the season of the year and even the day of the week becoming visible in the table arrangement in the activities and in the meal served. The senses should be stimulated not by the strength but by the quality of the sensory impressions. A rich formative environment is health giving and fundamental. The environment should provide an atmosphere of certainty, of clarity and of all-pervading goodness for the children. Art plays an important role in the early years. In painting (using transparent media), modelling (using soft materials) and house build-

102

ing (using easily put together and taken apart elements), the children exercise creative, formative capacities. Experiences of movement, verses and songs are taken up and give richness of gesture and soul expression as well as forming the basis for the study of language and number to build upon in later years. Time is irrelevant in the world of early childhood; the young child lives in the eternal ‘now’. Stories should be told as a unity and may be repeated verbatim each day for an extended period (building the verbal memory); a puppet show is presented as a single unified tableau, with nothing happening hidden from view. From the description of the role of imitation in early childhood, it is clear that the adults responsible for young children do not have the task of teaching them. Instead, their task is to provide an appropriate environment and an example of creative engagement in and transformation of this environment in a way that is suitable to be imitated. The most effective way of raising a young child is not to direct her, but to be an example for her. ‘Do what I do, not what I say’ is the unconscious maxim which the young child follows; yet more deeply, ‘Be(come) what I am.’ The child’s physical body is in the process of becoming, and the whole environment influences this process. It is worth reflecting on the detailed description of the effects of the environment’s formative forces given in an earlier section of this book with this reality in mind, and to reflect as well on the application of this principle to the conditions of soul, the individualities and the religious, moral and spiritual environment which surround the child. A Note on Materials and Objects for Use in the Early Years’ Environment Many practical consequences can be drawn from the above. One of these lies in the choice of materials for the child’s environment. In all that is drawn from nature, a still living connection with the formative force world can be experienced in the physical substance, while the deeds

103

of creative formative forces can be experienced in the form given by nature or human work. On the other hand, synthetic materials originate from the destruction of the organic origin of matter and its reconstitution in a new (chemical) substance in which no elements of the original formative process remain. Synthetic materials are built up solely through technological manipulation without recourse to the world of formative forces. They are thus ‘negative space’ in the formative force world. Matter of natural origin does not fill out all of the physical space which it seems to occupy; the negative space of the formative forces is interwoven with the physical material. The inner structure of natural materials expresses this interweaving. Synthetic materials, on the other hand, fully occupy space; where natural materials ‘breathe’ with their environment synthetic materials are impenetrable. There is a second consideration. In any purely mechanical construction the form of the construction has arisen without any influence from the world of formative forces; only the application of the laws of the physical world, applied through physical means, determine such constructions. Thus, from the simplest mechanical device up to the most complicated technology, no formative influence arises through the experience of such devices. (For the adult, this is not in itself problematic; in a certain sense, a realm of freedom is granted through an object not exerting a formative influence.)63 This lack can be made good by forming such devices in an artistic way. All technology is a shaping of the physical world into a form which is an application of the laws of this (the physical) world. All true art is an expression of principles of a higher world and results in an aspect of the physical world being shaped into a form that corresponds to and is drawn from the living qualities of the formative world.64 Thus, in so far as a mechanical device unites in its form principles drawn from the physical world with those of the formative world, the forces of the latter world are woven into the mechanism.

104

Artistic forms thus work formatively in an analogous way to natural forms; they offer experiences of the world of formative forces linked with the physical world, build up the formative force organization and bring health to the physical body of the young child. (For the adult, art and nature have a similarly refreshing effect on the formative force body, but as this is less deeply connected with the physical body, the effects go correspondingly less deeply. They are nonetheless clearly perceptible and health giving.) Pure art is found where only the formative forces have been considered in shaping a form, where the physical expression has been made over into a complete image of the formative world. Applied art is found where both formative forces and physical forces have found expression in the form of the construction. Technology is found where only the physical forces are determinate. Whereas technology is experienced as a formative vacuum, drawing out the life forces, art and nature work positively and formatively on the young child. Both naturally and artistically formed objects can be brought into the children’s play. Free experiences in nature and with natural objects and substances form the basis for the natural sciences to build upon later.

105

Chapter V THE SECOND PHASE OF LIFE: THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS MEMORY AND THINKING During early childhood, the formative force organization is still intimately bound up with the formation and development of the physical body and thus to sense experience. It is due to the life organization being submerged in the physical body that memory and thinking are rather effervescent in character in the early years; it is as if the impressions which come to expression here arise unexpectedly from invisible depths and disappear equally unexpectedly and mysteriously. In these years memory is still linked to sense perceptions: an object seen or a taste will set off a memory of the last time this was seen or tasted. During this phase of life, memory – as well as thinking, which at this time is largely a correlation of sense experience – thus remain significantly dependent upon the conditions and experiences of the physical body. In later life, this occurs only in exceptional cases of physical or mental illness (e.g., feverish conditions).65 The forms in which memory and thinking are perceived in physically mediated consciousness are dependent upon the mediating sense organs: there are pictorial, musical and verbal memory and thought. When these capacities are mediated by senses such as warmth, smell or taste, they result in experiences that play a large role in social encounters, but the resulting perceptions are less clearly experienced by our daily consciousness. Memory and thinking mediated by still more unconsciously experienced senses such as balance, life and movement are extremely significant for our lives, for much of our habitual existence is dependent upon the exercise of these capacities.

106

With the conclusion of the physical body’s primary developmental phase, the child’s formative organization begins to develop independently of, but still integrated into the physical body. (The first year of this new phase of development is devoted to establishing this free linkage between the two organizations; this is described further in the following chapters.) The formative organization experiences that which takes place in the formative world. This world reveals itself in outer experience through that which is rhythmic in character or which undergoes metamorphosis, among other ways.66 New faculties of memory and understanding develop for the child through the establishment of an independent formative organization capable of perceiving in these realms. Memory can now work through this organization and thus can begin to take up and recall that which manifests rhythmically in time, whether this is the cycle of the year, weekly or daily impressions, the rhythmic patterns of movement, song or verse. The rhythms of recurrent experience are impressed upon the formative organization and thus may be recalled later. That which has (or is given) a rhythmic character and/or is taken in through rhythmic practice is thus most easily remembered in this phase of life. Because the child now experiences the rhythmic passage of time, a rhythmic quality of expression may also now be achieved (e.g. in spoken work or in musical or artistic work). Rhythm is but one portal to the formative organization. Metamorphosis is a second. The formative organization has the capacity to transform impressions or images according to their inner laws, i.e. according to a potential for metamorphosis inherent in the image or impression itself. The child thus now develops the capacity to explore the metamorphoses inherent in a representation or idea. (These metamorphoses are analogous to but not identical with dream experience. They differ in that the child is simultaneously aware of the sensory world and of the interconnections between the image and the outer world of sense expe-

107

rience.67) Such explorations take the form of an image-based thinking that allows the child to explore the ramifications of impressions or ideas through exploring their potential metamorphoses. Material learned through rhythmic practice or which appeals to the child’s image building faculty exercises and develops the formative force organization, whereas material learned in isolation, in an abstract form or through rhythmless repetition is empty of formative content. When abstractions or content of too fixed a character are to be learned, the formative organization must take hold of something that it actually can barely experience. This has a sclerotic effect upon and ultimately weakens the formative forces. Rhythm and metamorphic, image-based thinking are thus the foundation of healthy learning processes during this phase of life. It should be noted that rote memory (recalling literal facts: how large is the North Polar ice cap?), abstract thinking (applying fixed concepts: find the subject of this sentence) and representational image building (substituting fixed images: draw an angel) are simply particular – and particularly sterile – forms of the more general and flexible capacities capable of developing in this phase of life.68 Many educational systems draw primarily upon rote and representation. These do not make use of the faculties of the formative force organization referred to above, however, but result from – and in – the child’s formative forces accommodating themselves to the physical body and thereby being prevented from unfolding their own inherent capacities. It is as if a gifted sculptor were to be set to work hewing uniform stone blocks; the true capacities of memory and thinking are wasted here.69 Such capacities can only unfold gradually; if allowed to do so, they naturally become capable of rote and representation, i.e. of accommodating to the laws of the physical body, by the close of this phase of life. A capacity for rote, abstraction and representation should be the last of the many fruits of the developing memory and image based thinking, developing at the transition to a new phase of life, not their sole possible expression.

108

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES (II): THE LIFE ORGANIZATION The form of the life and rhythmic organization is built up from below upwards, starting with its foundations in the physical body and under the influence of successively higher levels of being. In contrast, the child’s consciousness as experienced through this organization begins with the broadest state of intuitive unity with its environment and incarnates into an ever narrower and more specific condition, ending with a clear awareness of the physical world. The path of consciousness recapitulates the descent through the realms of spiritual existence (as described in the earlier chapter “The Descent out of the Spiritual World,”). In the following, before each description of a stage of development, the corresponding stage of the spiritual path will therefore be briefly summarized. (These summaries appear in italics.) First Stage of Development: Transition (6-7 year old child) The starting point of incarnation for a human being is found at the mid-point of his existence between death and a new birth in the sphere of moral intuition. Here, in the highest spiritual world accessible to human experience, beings are experienced in their essential quality as being, while the ordering of their interrelations appears in an absolute clarity analogous to that which we see in the world of the crystals. In the spiritual world of intuition, however, these interrelations are ordered by an absolute spiritual morality – at this level, spirituality and morality are identical while in the physical world of the crystals it is the absoluteness of the physical laws of the mineral world which determines the form. Being is experienced in its eternal aspect here; it is a realm that precedes time and evolution. During this phase of and especially during this first year of the life organization’s development, the incarnating life sheath must be woven

109

into the already established physical body. The physical body must be adapted to the demands of the newly independent life organization. An anchoring point for this organization has already been established in the child’s physical body through the life processes of the organs. Especially this aspect of the physical body needs to be transformed to enable the life organization and the physical body to interweave at this point where they should be jointly active. The physical body undergoes a subtle qualitative transformation during this stage of development, growing closer to and thereby becoming a more adequate instrument for the formative forces of the organization of life and growth. The child’s formative forces must therefore remain devoted to work on the physical body during this transitional year, and are not yet available for such demands as formal learning make. Healthy thinking and memory do not arise as a result of or manifest in the body’s organic activity. They are, however, capable of imprinting themselves into the bodily processes and of orienting themselves on physical experiences. If the organization of life and growth is inadequately integrated into the physical body at this critical stage, the capacities that depend upon this organization’s formative forces (that is, the child’s thinking and memory) remain inadequately related to the physical world. In this case, the child’s thinking and memory would be insufficiently grounded in outer reality. If, on the other hand, the formative force body were to become too fixed in and thereby dominated by the physical body, the formative capacities would remain excessively dependent upon the physical organism. In this case, thoughts and memories would be too connected with organic processes, arising as a result of these and manifesting through them. Both of these conditions are abnormal. This year thus has the character of a transition year. The actual development characteristic of the independent formative organization is not yet ready to begin; the previous phase of life’s development has

110

concluded. In this year, a transformation of the child’s relationship to the physical world prepares the way for the formative organization’s development proper. Kindergarten for the six-year old child: Methodology Experiential, contextual, informal learning gives the essential basis out of which elements that will later be used in formal learning can now be presented in image-rich, life-relevant contexts. This requires neither abstractions nor an artificially created learning situation, but only a range of experience and practical awareness. If a child has never woken up in wonder to the awareness of a bluetit or to three-ness, animal studies and number work can have no essential meaning for him or her. Through experiences of such elements and their cultural expressions in picture, song and verse, the world of the child is enriched in this year, when the inner world of image and the outer world of image are still united in an immediacy of experience that will soon fade. Experiences of all kinds of formative activity (see the earlier chapter on formative activity) give equally essential building blocks for faculties of learning. Whoever has experienced the formative activities of folding and milling will be able to think with these capacities as well: precise combinatorial and thorough analytical skills are the result of the application of the same formative activities to the conceptual realm as are applied to cloth and grain in the outer realm here. The difference between the pedagogical task of the previous years and of this year lies in the new application of formative experience. Previously, the formative body was submerged in the physical body. The year by year, ever-expanding range of experiences described above70 developed a foundation for all the realms of subsequent experience. Now, experience of the formative world establishes the building blocks for the formative capacities themselves. Images and formative activities experienced now are not absorbed into the physical body’s form, but link

111

the formative body and the physical body through a common vocabulary. The fuller range of common experiences established in this year, the freer will be the future cooperation between these two bodies. Where such links are not established, either the physical body will carry out its tasks without the participation of the life forces, i.e. mechanically, or the life body will engage in its tasks without the physical body being able to follow its movement. The latter situation results in thoughts and inner activity remaining subconscious or inarticulate. Kindergarten for the older child What is (in a Waldorf school) normally the child’s final year of kindergarten has a transitional character. The initial process of forming the physical body has gone through an entire cycle of development. Now a process of transformation takes place in what has already been developed under the influence of the incarnating life organization. It becomes less important to give the fundamental environmental experiences that the child needed for the incarnation of the physical body and more important to give the child opportunities to transform the physical world. One way that this can be accomplished is through craft work, for example through simple woodwork or handwork projects. In so far as possible, these should still begin from the material’s natural origin and carry right through to a finished project, thus offering an overview of the whole series of processes required to achieve a given end. The children will also seek to accomplish transformations of the world in their free play, often through larger, more ambitious projects (e.g. digging a pond in the garden or building a tree house). They are seeking to achieve a fundamental rearrangement of the physical world to make room for a new dynamic of life. The child has a freer relationship to and more of an overview of the physical world’s rhythms and of time. He or she begins to be able – and usually to want – to play a part in shaping these rhythms. Children of this age no longer require a direct example to imitate and can thus be

112

called upon to be independently responsible in areas of life with which they are already familiar. They will often undertake caring for younger children, tidying up, cooking or building, for example, on their own initiative and without asking for help. Though the class may still be treated as a unity, it is to be expected that children of this age will be exercising increasing initiative. Giving scope for this within a highly formed environment encourages the free development of the life body in healthy connection with the physical body. Nature stories and fairy tales can begin to include transformations.71 The Grimms’ story Mother Holle is appropriate for this age, for example. Second Stage of Development: Rhythmic Form Development (The 7-8 year old child) The next spiritual world to be passed through as the human being descends towards an existence on earth is the world of inspiration, a world where spiritual beings unite the unfolding revelation of their being in a complex, evolving harmony (the harmony of the spheres). Time and evolution now begin. All development and evolution, including the archetypes of the plant world and the life forces, derive from this realm. A large part of the formative forces are finally now freed from the task of providing for the fundamental development and transformation of the physical body (a portion is still needed for the ongoing maintenance and growth of the physical organism). These forces can now be applied to the outer world, where they are able to remold, transform and internalize experiences through memory and image-based thinking. These capacities enable both a delving down into the physical body, imprinting it through their formative activity, and a rising up to receive new formative impulses from the sheath of consciousness provided by the environment and by the higher spiritual sheaths. This alternating of

113

in-breath (from the surrounding sheath of consciousness) and out-breath (into the physical body) remains characteristic for the rest of this phase of development. It is important to realize that the capacities of memory and thinking are experienced by the child as mediating factors, not as static entities, in these middle years of childhood. The content of these is inherently flexible and metamorphic. External demands such as formal learning presents can now begin to be made on these capacities without drawing away that which is essential for the healthy formation of the physical body and for the proper integration of the life organization into its physical vessel. This is the appropriate time for the entry into the first school year.72 First Grade: Methodology All of education is oriented towards learning about reality of one kind or another. The expressive qualities present in the elements of various levels of reality are now appropriately explored in the most manifold ways. Rhythm is a keynote of the year, and should pervade all of the children’s classroom experience. The children are brought into rhythmic movement boththrough games, songs and poems, and through a rhythmic alternation between the presentation of material by the teacher, practice periods and individual work. Learning takes place through the child making a rhythmic contribution to the whole group. First Grade: Curriculum The first stage of formal learning is largely involved with becoming familiar with conventional symbolic representations. Writing, reading and number work, for example, depend upon learning such representations. The origin of such symbols is as depictions of actual beings of the natural or spiritual world. Writing is introduced as a visual depiction of the oral language. Each sound of our language is represented by a particular visual form which

114

is (or was originally) related to both its auditory and inner character. This relationship comes to expression in the words in which the sound appears: S in swan or snake, B in baby or basket, and so forth. Initially, images in which such sounds come to expression (e.g. the swan or basket) can be introduced and explored; the simpler and more symbolicabstract visual forms of the letters used in our present written language can then be derived from these images. The unified experience of sound, visual image and meaning which stood at the origin of all written language (the hieroglyphs) thus becomes the children’s entry to learning the sounds, visual images and meaning of our present language. The children can practice speaking through artistically constructed verses. These can be connected to the learning content, stories told, and so forth. They may initially emphasize single sounds and can gradually become more and more challenging. In speech, experiences of the various rhythms are also important. Children should experience such verse forms as the iamb, trochee, and anapaest, walking and speaking verses and singing songs using these rhythms. Content brought in one lesson or one part of a lesson should ideally be experienced by the children as a metamorphosis or extension of that brought in another lesson or another part of the lesson. The visual form, numeric quantity and character of the numbers were also originally all experienced as a unity. For the children now, inner experiences of unity, duality, trinity, and so forth, can first be awakened and explored. The visual forms of at least the simpler numbers are generally related to the numbers’ qualities, for example: |

one

three

__ __

__ __ __

two

__

four

Numeric processes can be introduced in a similar way, first as activities (of corresponding beings: the patient gatherer, the sympathetic giver or sad loser, the restless multiplier and the fair, exact divider).73 These

115

then flow into the visual images and the practise of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, culminating in the written forms of number problems. The formal study of nature (drawing principally on elements found in the local surroundings and with which the children should have become familiar in the preceding year) begins. It is not yet appropriate for this study to have a theoretical character, nor should it be an attempt to represent precisely the outer forms found in the natural world. For the child of this age, all of nature is still experienced as ensouled. The beings of creation express and reveal themselves in mutual conversation. Stories which reveal the qualities expressive of these different beings of nature should be brought forward in imaginative pictures that bring out such qualities, these parallel qualities that come to expression in the human being (e.g. the shy violet, the radiant sunflower). The living atmosphere of the earth should also be woven into such stories through elements such as the sun, clouds, winds and rain. The children naturally experience that all of being is conversing together. Out of a unified experience of the inner characters of stones, plants or animals and their outer expressions, nature’s beings can be explored. These beings remain connected to an outer and inner context, i.e. embedded both in their natural environment and their characteristic qualities, both of which can come to expression through story or image. The children are now experiencing a world which enters into both time and development, and is spiritually one step closer to the familiar human world. Tales can be brought to the first grade that evolve and develop in both plot and character; this differentiates them from the static, archetypal situation of the kindergarten fairy tale.74 In painting, the effects of the colors can be explored, first alone and pure, then in various combinations. Simple stories (e.g. about how the red gave the yellow courage) can motivate such color explorations, or the soul image of a fairy tale can be painted (a pure gold can be used to

116

represent the princess, a dark blue the dragon holding her in, a strong red the prince seeking to save her). Drawing will begin with simple expressions of stories (e.g. the sun in the sky) to develop technique and a rhythmic style; this can then become progressively richer in content and character. Drawings can be approached as an expression of a soul-imbued reality; the quality of the color and form employed here is intimately related to and determined by the soul experience of the child. It belongs to the cultivation of inner and outer experience to work out of pure colors, and not to muddy these, and to use areas of color rather than solely lines or outlines.75 The result can be cultivated as a kind of drawn painting. Line drawing can be practiced as a separate, rhythmic discipline to explore how movement results in form. This can begin with the most basic elements of form, the straight line and the curve, and extend these through various rhythmic patterns and metamorphoses into a larger form language. In modelling, the polar character of the concave and convex form should be explored first, deepening these through metamorphosis and rhythmic development. In music, singing in unison in the children’s range should be cultivated. Simple instruments can be brought, and various pentatonic ranges and simple rhythms explored. In eurythmy, rhythmic movement is emphasized. Experiences of breathing movement through contraction and expansion are appropriate.76 These can be metamorphosed freely and rhythmically according to the verses and music accompanying the movement. Simple forms and rhythms can be practiced (circles, squares, figures of eight). The sounds should all be introduced. Artistic experiences should integrate soul and outer experiences. For example, tasks for form drawing and modelling can best be brought through an imaginative introduction, a story or image. This is the ideal time of life for introducing foreign languages. The child is still capable of imitating the sounds, rhythms and character of

117

these languages during the first three years of this phase of life. These can best be introduced through a natural experience of language in context, e.g. through verses, songs, stories and games which weave through the world as it can be brought into the classroom. In handwork, rhythmic work is introduced – knitting above all, but various other possibilities can be included: braiding, for example. Simple stitches can be practiced in sewing, as well. A rhythmic style of work is the aim. An artistic and imaginatively expressed spiritual, religious and moral element should live in the form and inner being of all that is offered.77 Third Stage of Development: Differentiation of Form/Image Consciousness (The 8-9 year old child) The human individuality descends further towards the earth and enters the world of formative imaginations. This is the realm of the creative impulses which shape worlds. These are the impulses which take sentient expression in the soul as desire, joy, anger, fear, and so forth. The world of imagination which is characteristic of the current stage precedes an individuated, clear ego consciousness. Thus, such formative impulses are still experienced by the child in half-conscious fashion, as impressions comparable to impressions of color, tone or weight in the sense world, rather than as inner soul experiences. The child’s consciousness is not isolated from the creative impulses of the surrounding world; beings are still experienced as mutually interpenetrating. The life and rhythmic body now begins to be more articulated, that is, to take on a differentiated structure. A palette or repertoire of formative activity out of which the child can consciously bring forth different qualities develops.

118

Second Grade: Methodology Overall, the first three years of the life organization’s development are characterized by a receptivity to what comes from the surrounding world, but the child in this stage of life is already significantly less receptive to the formative environment than was the case in the preceding two years. By beginning from learning with the whole group and then introducing successive stages of differentiation into groups, the children are called upon to become increasingly active. The children should now always understand the meaning of what they are writing and speaking (in the first grade, it is sometimes enough if they understand that they are practicing writing). This holds for other subjects, as well. More and more care should be brought into a differentiated understanding of nature. The tree should begin to be a birch, rowan or oak, rather than something that represents all of them. Gestures and characteristics of the animals can be brought to consciousness (not intellectually but through movement, drawing, and so on.) The children should have an increasing consciousness of the natural environment of the local area, and their dynamic activity should be brought into their artistic expression in language, drawing, music, and so on. Second Grade: Curriculum A human being in contact with the world of archetypes lying just above the world of normal ego consciousness can rise above his or her separate ego, becoming saintly. The archetypes of the animals also emanate from this world. Thus, a human being unconsciously influenced by this world can fall into a one-sidedness which is characteristic of the animal realm. This one-sidedness then has something archetypal, but also something animal (beastly) about it. Legends of the saints and animal fables bring out these two possibilities, respectively. Both saint and animal are in contact with the realm above the human realm: the one rises up to this realm, the other de-

119

scends from it. It is this archetypal quality which one seeks to express in the second grade. The detailed study of the actual life and activity of foxes, mice or ants, for example, or a more biographical approach to the life of the saints, both belong to a later stage of the child’s development. The visual aspect of language, the word in its written form as an entity independent of the sound, begins to be accessible to the children. Cursive writing (writing a word as a single form) and conventional spelling can be introduced. In painting the mood of an image or story is depicted through the play of colors. Handwork brings consciousness into the rhythmic work through more complicated knitting patterns (e.g. with changes of stitch to create patterns) and the introduction of the more flexible crochet. Weaving can be introduced. In eurythmy, the sounds can be deepened and made more conscious, e.g. larger and smaller gestures for them and gestures in various regions (above, below, in front, behind). Movements of different qualities, e.g. through the elements (fire, air, water, earth) should be practiced. Dividing into separate groups (with the same or analogous movements, however) can be begun. Spirals, e.g. question and answer forms, should be emphasized. Fourth Stage of Development: Individuated Form/ Ego Consciousness (9-10 year old child) On the path towards incarnation, the human individuality is now ready to enter into an earthly existence from the ‘Paradise’ of the spiritual world. He or she gains an individual ego, a sense of self as separate and different from other beings, who are now observed more outwardly and clearly rather than experienced inwardly and in more dreamlike fashion. The ego has chosen tasks for this incarnation and thus faces the reality of human work on earth, and the neces-

120

sity of cooperating with the other beings on earth, as well as being for the first time capable of acting independently of the spiritual beings which weave earth’s destiny. The human being is born as an earthly individuality. This individualization now takes place in the life sphere. The life body begins establishing its independence from the surrounding environment. As it does so, the receptivity to image and gesture (more precisely, to the realm of formative activity) which characterized the preceding years fades, while the child’s objectivity and self-sufficiency in this realm increase. Awakening to individuality, the child becomes much more aware of the origin of influences from the environment. The particular qualities of each person’s nature become associated with their origin in a unique identity, on the one hand; in nature, the mystery of activity without apparent originating individuality calls for explanation, on the other hand. The question of the origin of the world (as formative activity) arises in various forms. Thus it is that the child becomes more sharply conscious of the formative activity of those around him or her (as well as his or her own manner of life and expression). Self-consciousness becomes associated with the rhythmic and life organization. The actual content or activity of the life body at this time remains largely dependent upon what has already been and what continues to be absorbed from the child’s surroundings, though now more consciously and selectively. The life sheath has been building the child’s life body into an image of what was formed in the spiritual worlds; it must make use of such images, gestures and descriptions as are available to the child in its environment. These are then incorporated into the child’s life of gesture, memory, living thought and imagination. The life body is thus a result of its sheath’s choosing among and giving form to the available formative substance, whereby originally inherited structures provide a starting point. This process thus depends upon a sufficient quality and range of formative substance – activity, imaginative pictures, and so forth – being available in the child’s environment, in order that the sheath can shape these into a self-sufficient formative organization.

121

Third Grade: Methodology New questions arise for the children: ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Where do I come from?’ ‘Where does the world come from?’ Children now look to experience that the teacher’s authority draws upon a higher source and is not merely an expression of earthly personality. The children may and should now be called upon individually to show their mastery of skills. They must now be able to master material independently. Third Grade: Curriculum We have arrived at the experience of ego in the realm of the formative forces (i.e., the realm of image). The monotheistic God is the image of spiritual existence at the ego level is brought alive through the stories of the Old Testament beginning with the creation; the experience of God as an inner unity, single and universal, corresponds to the inner experience of the ego which awakens at this time. Starting with the story of the creation of man, the Old Testament goes on to describe the stages of human development, the reception of laws governing human interaction and actions on the earth and the building of an earthly spiritualphysical house, the temple. It thus gives an awareness that the human being is of divine origin and is guided by God in his relationships with his fellow men and women as well as with the realms of nature. Man’s practical work on earth is a central theme of the year; the various aspects of building an earthly house, on the one hand, and of cultivating the earth, on the other hand, are characterized in the Building and Farming main lessons. In building, the differentiated work of the various trades and the need for a conscious cooperation between them are emphasized, while in farming the contributions and roles of the animals, the plants and the land itself are brought out, drawing attention to how the farmer, the human being, stands in the position of being able to properly guide and harmonize their interrelationships. Each realm of nature is separate from

122

but depends upon all the others (e.g. the land on the animals for manure, the plants on the soil for their growth, the animals on the plants for their food). At the very moment of becoming aware of himself as differentiated and separate from his fellow-beings, which is the ego experience in the third grade, man is thus linked ‘horizontally’ to his fellow human beings through the cooperative relationships between human beings in building and ‘vertically’ to the other kingdoms of nature through his organizing and harmonizing activity in farming. The study of grammar, which is an experience of the ego in language, can begin; focusing on syntax the children should begin to acquire a feeling for the structure of sentences that lives in the language. The parts of the sentence must be comprehended (actor, activity, object acted upon, as in “God created the heaven and the earth’). The cultivation of clearly articulated speech belongs to this experience as well. Appropriate punctuation can then be derived from the relation of the breath to speech. Here, as everywhere in this phase of the education, images of the activity of the elements treated (e.g. parts of speech and punctuation) rather than static definitions are brought. (Old Testament) God (Building)

Other trades

Human being

Other trades

(Building)

Animals Plants Land (Farming}

123

In painting, more objectivity can enter as the children begin to depict objects found in the outer world in a more clearly formed way, a definite step beyond the soul-expressive quality that was previously apprropriate. In handwork, embroidery can be introduced, for example covering a small felt ball (which can also be made by the children). Initial clay pottery experiences such as simple pinch pots may be offered. In eurythmy, the forms for I, you and he/she/it are introduced. More complicated forms, especially the ‘harmonious 8' form (or other forms where the children must alternate crossings) can be practiced, stimulating more individualization. In tone eurythmy, the gestures for pitch may be introduced. Fifth Stage of Development: Creative Form (10-11 year-old-child) Upon descending from the ego into the sentient body, we enter into an element where consciousness is split into the realms of willing, feeling and thinking. In the sentient organization, archetypal qualities originating in the realm of imagination take on fixed forms. In the sentient body, these qualities are translated into soul forces. The same qualities come to expression in nature in the animal world, whereby each animal is an image of one of these archetypal qualities realized in physical form. In the now independent life organization, enduring complexes of formative pattern can develop. The life organization begins to take on a more fixed character; elements from the environment are less readily absorbed, or rather need to be consciously assimilated. This tendency will become more pronounced over the next years.78 The child’s own creative (formative) powers begin to be more active thereby.

124

An increasing differentiation in the formative force organization allows for an increasingly differentiated experience of gesture and image. In particular, memory, thinking and imagination become more clearly distinguished from one another. These three qualities or expressions of the life organization are connected both with the past, present and future, as well as with feeling, thought and will, respectively. The life organization is experiencing the world’s sentience. This is connected with an increasingly conscious experience of the animal world. Fourth Grade: Methodology The children can begin to become independently creative; this can be facilitated by working in small groups (e.g. composing poems expressive of various animals). The teacher will normally begin to encounter the image of more intensive soul forces of the children during this year, just as an image of awakening egos was encountered in the third grade. Their thinking, feeling and willing can be called upon to enter into the work correspondingly more intensively. This continues to be through artistic, imaginative and rhythmic expression rather than by making demands on their intellect, capacity for judgment or drive towards accomplishments, which belong to the next phase of life, and for which a preparation is being undertaken now in the formative force organization. The qualities of a theme, which previously were experienced unconsciously through the style and manner in which subjects were brought, may be brought out more consciously now (for example, through coming to a characterization of the various figures that play a role in Norse Mythology). Fourth Grade: Curriculum In the fourth grade, the children’s attention is drawn to man’s differentiated nature as head, middle (rhythmic) and limb being and then to how different animals each emphasize one of these aspects. The animals’ forms, lives and habits are characterized as vividly as possible.

125

In rhythmic work, movements of the whole body, the legs and the hands may be differentiated, for example by walking and clapping different rhythms simultaneously. A corresponding three-fold division of man’s soul being – between thinking, feeling and willing – underlies the mythology of the Norsemen. This is expressed, for example, in the struggle of the Aesir (the beings of beauty and harmony) to hold their kingdom against the dwarves (the beings of one-sided cleverness) and the giants (the beings of one-sided strength), or in the demonic beings which are exaggerations of each of these aspects: the half-deathly Hella, the Serpent Jormungand and the Fenris Wolf. The Norse mythology is a mythology of the gods of the sentient world. The year as a whole is characterized by the step from the wholeness of the unified ego to the multiplicity and richness of the sentient realm, from the single God of the Old Testament to the multiplicity of the Norse Gods. In language, we can take hold of this same theme through grammar by examining the parts of speech: the words of will or action (verbs), feeling or description (adjectives) and thinking or objective character (nouns). The speech of the children can be developed from being clear on to being lively. In mathematics the step is made from whole numbers to fractions, while in the social relationships there is usually a step from the wholeness of the class to the building of cliques. In environmental studies (what used to be called home surroundings), a more differentiated awareness of the geography of the local area can begin to be awakened (e.g., where the various families of the class or school live, the various histories, and economic life of localities in the surrounding area, and so forth). In handwork, cross-stitch can be practiced and patterns designed by the children. This picks up the consciousness of the previous year and brings it into a flowing, imaginative dynamic. Stepping consonance in poetry and thinking, feeling and willing forms should be practiced in eurythmy. Group work with differentiated movements can be introduced.

126

Sixth Stage of Development: Interactive, Patterned Form (The 11-12 year old child) The incarnating human being’s consciousness descends next into the realm of the life forces, the source of health and well being. We come into a more vegetative, dreamier consciousness. Rhythm, grace and harmony are experienced in the world around us and in ourselves. We are gently aware of the up-building growth forces at work within us. Flow, pattern and rhythm are experienced as creative process. Sleep life changes as the bridge to the sleeping physical body is now made, where the life forces are still active when the higher bodies withdraw. In waking life, we have the experience of levity, of the ability to run, leap and climb. The realm of the life forces brings experiences of balance and harmony, joy of life and the feeling that the children have one foot still in the heavens and the other on the earth, like the plant with its roots in the earth, its flower in the heavens, and the rhythmically developing leaves in between. The child’s formative forces encounter the formative forces of the environment, e.g. of the plant world and all that metamorphoses. The activity of the world is experienced now as a play between processes which build up forms and those which break them down again; the life body is differentiating itself from and thus experiencing life processes outside of itself. A kind of harmony between inner and outer experience thus exists, giving rise to a sense of being in balance with the world. What the child now expresses is no longer primarily an echo of outer stimulation, but a true revelation of his or her own inner being. Fifth Grade: Methodology The experience of formative qualities building up the world should be cultivated. ‘All that is, is flux.’ The children’s own movement belongs to this; imaginations should flow into outer movement, experi-

127

ences of the world into imaginations. The realm of interrelationship (whether this is between people or in other realms) can now be brought to consciousness. The children's attention can constantly be drawn to the processes of growth and metamorphosis that underlie all existence. Fifth Grade: Curriculum Stories are drawn from this consciousness of the formative world bordering on the physical realm: the Indian, Persian, Egyptian and Greek mythologies. These stories of the gods of the formative world are very different in character from the Norse mythology. The experience of moving between active and passive moods (the two modes of giving and receiving) can be explored in the English lessons, as well as communication (letter writing) and reporting indirect speech. The realm of growth and life itself is explored in the plant realm: the growth processes and the metamorphoses of organic form which take place within the single plant as well as in the evolution from the most primitive fungus up to the noble tree. Geometry is explored through rhythmic constructions, still primarily executed freehand (i.e. without the use of mechanical instruments). Painting on a color wash background and other simple layered techniques can be introduced. In handwork, soft garments which mold to the body’s form can be knitted: socks, mittens or even gloves would be appropriate. Embroidery should be pursued in decorative forms. In eurythmy, transformations of geometric forms may be begun (e.g. the triangle and pentagon translations). Active, passive and being verbs may be introduced. In tone eurythmy, facility in walking rhythms should be cultivated and the scale experienced as out-breath (beginning from the tonic up to the fourth) and in-breath (from the fifth to the octave). This experience can then combine with the sense of pitch to give the gestures for the tones.

128

Seventh Stage of Development: Unity of Gestalt (12-13 year old child) Incarnation into the physical body is characterized on the one hand by an awakening to the clarity of sense-experience, and on the other by a capacity for clear logical thinking. Death is encountered as an inner experience, for the physical body is the bearer of death. In the next phase, the life body, whose essence is formative activity, is confronted with the lifeless, formed world in a way which no longer focuses on the activity which works formatively in this realm. The child’s perception begins to awaken to the physical world’s finished forms. Sense perceptions light up in clear consciousness for the life organization. Because it no longer experiences the outer world’s formative activity, the life organization can tend to become static now; it can only overcome this by actively exploring the relationships and evolutions underlying and revealed by sense perceptions in the physical world. The life organization remains passive when confronted with the lifeless world of objects. Not entering actively into sense experience, but simply receiving both sense experience without applying thought or imagination to this, gives rise to a materialistic experience. Materialism is a state of passivity reflective of a life organization dominated by the physical world instead of being awakened by it. At the end of the life organization’s phase of development, the child thus stands at a decisive crux. The outer world is no longer stimulating the child’s life forces into inner activity. Will the child become inwardly passive as a result? Will he or she seek for artificially intensified stimulation in the outer world (e.g. through media, drugs or eroticism)? Or will a capacity for an inwardly motivated interest in the sense world be discovered, making use of the newly developing forces of consciousness?

129

To develop an inner life in the face of the loss of the experience of a living, spirit-filled world is one of the greatest challenges of human development. This is the challenge presented in the conclusion of this phase of development. Incarnation into the physical body is characterized on the one hand by an awakening to the clarity of sense-experience, and on the other by a capacity for clear logical thinking. Death is encountered as an inner experience, for the physical body is the bearer of death; this experience has the character of an image, for it takes place in the formative organization, the bearer of images. Sixth Grade: Methodology Images of the fixed, physical world can now be employed and cultivated. Working from direct observation of this world becomes appropriate for the first time. Previously, observation was stimulated by the material presented; this now begins to reverse itself. Sensory observation in all respects is to be cultivated. In this year, there is a culmination of a rhythm that started with the imitation of work in the kindergarten (this echoes on into the crafts and gardening in the first and second grades) and was transformed in the third grade into building up an inner picture and imagination of practical work (partly achieved through actually experiencing the activities). This image building echoed on into the fourth grade (traditional work of the region) and Five (the geographical distribution of different crafts, farming and industry over the country). In the sixth grade, now, practical (and hard physical) work is required of each individual in order to accomplish practical tasks: gardening, woodwork, etc.; this requires different forces than the appeal to the imagination of the younger years. The last years gave an image of various forms of work. In the sixth grade, the actual accomplishment (and thus the quantity of work) begins to play a role as well. The introduction at this time of more physical gymnastics and sports is appropriate.

130

Sixth Grade: Curriculum Science in the sixth grade concentrates on describing what we can experience of the world through the senses. Awakening the children to how much sense impressions – acoustical, tactile, visual, olfactory, and so forth – can reveal of the world around us is an entire path of discovery of its own. Plenty of time can be given to exploring the manifold impressions before beginning to order the experience. How the outer world creates that which we experience even in the simplest of sense perceptions becomes a fascinating question, for example, how various sounding bodies produce tones, how water reflects and refracts images. These investigations should be descriptive rather than theoretical in character. First we have to come to know the physical world, to build a clear image of its character. In the next phase of life, an understanding of how this character arises can be built up. Mechanics, optics and acoustics, on the one hand, and mineralogy, on the other hand, are investigations of the properties of the physical earth. These can be explored through observation of the characteristic phenomena of each. We begin the study of history, the description of events as they took place in the physical world, leaving behind the world of mythology. The history of the first investigations of the laws and logic of the known physical world, on the one hand (e.g. Archimedes and Aristotle), and the progressive conquest of its territories, on the other hand (e.g. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar) are described. In English, the mastery of practical vocabulary (business descriptions) and of the conditions under which something can be realized (subjunctive mood) are appropriate. In handwork, work to precise form is introduced. Shoes and slippers are ideal for this. Making book-covers could also be introduced. In eurythmy, rod exercises should be practiced. Concrete and abstract nouns may be introduced. The bar line may be introduced in tone eurythmy.

131

Toward the end of this phase of development, the children’s consciousness has narrowed to the physical world, actually the realm of death. They are increasingly caught up in sense experience and their physical bodies. What will they find here that can guide them further? Either a new impulse will appear to turn them towards regaining a consciousness in and of other layers of being than just the physical, or they might descend yet further, yet deeper than the physical world. Mankind’s evolution has indeed taken both of these paths. In order that mankind, having lost all its earlier awareness of higher worlds, can find the way back up, a guiding impulse must be found in physical existence itself. In order to make this possible, a spiritual being carrying this impulse entered the physical world, the realm of death. This is the turning point to a new consciousness: the Mystery of Golgotha, and this event must find an adequate expression in the sixth grade. THE LIVING IMAGE, CREATIVITY AND AUTHORITY In this phase of life, the child’s sentient organization, which is the bearer of the capacities of thinking, feeling and willing and also of judgment, is not yet independent of either the lower organizations or the surrounding environment. The child therefore does not receive impressions from the world of consciousness (sentience) directly, but rather mediated by the life organization. These impressions are borne upon formative experiences such as image-based thinking and rhythm. Artistic impressions are especially effective mediators of sentient content; thus, story and verse, music, pictures, artistic movement, costume and the decoration of spaces all belong to the basic and essential pedagogical tools of the elementary school years, as they provide especially effective impressions in this phase of life. Whatever content is to be brought in this phase of life only works pedagogically if it is translated into imaginative or rhythmic form. Concepts brought as abstractions, for example, are in a deeper sense meaningless to the child. Children can, indeed, be brought to memorize (at

132

least the verbal forms of) such concepts and to apply them to practical exercises, but this is for the formative body the equivalent of what child labor in a sweatshop, factory or field is for the child’s physical body. Actual understanding is achieved neither through mechanical application, no matter how much this is practiced, nor through memorized abstractions. Concepts clothed in imaginative pictures stimulate the child’s own formative-creative activity. They are ‘digestible’ by the formative organization, i.e. are transformed into nourishment for the child’s life forces and live as inner pictures capable of growth and metamorphosis. Above all, they are taken up much more deeply into the child’s memory than concepts barren of such an imaginative garment. Since all of our concepts of the world are in reality the result of ongoing metamorphoses in human understanding, as opposed to being final truths, such a presentation allows the child to take up concepts in a way that is appropriate to this continually metamorphosing understanding, stimulating its capacity rather than hardening it to a collection of gathered stones of knowledge. An example will be useful here. It was once considered that the sun went around the motionless, flat earth. Later, Galileo and Copernicus showed that the earth was round and circled around the motionless sun. Still later, it was shown that the earth and sun went around a common center, i.e. that the earth went around the sun and the sun around the earth simultaneously. Einstein then showed that it is equally meaningful to say that the earth stands still while the whole universe turns around it as that the sun stands still or that both move; furthermore, that the space in which the earth exists is itself curved. To teach any of these descriptions as a dogmatic truth conveys a deep misunderstanding of how we form concepts of an essentially dynamic world open to multiple levels of interpretation and various viewpoints. A similar principle applies to the education of the feeling life in this phase of childhood. Feelings clothed in imaginative pictures stimulate

133

effective yet flexible impressions in the formative organization, nourish the formative forces and metamorphose to meet new demands. A story about a tender little seedling hiding from the trampling giant’s feet will awaken more sensitivity in young children to the spring flowers just coming up underfoot than a thousand appeals to their conscience. This is an age of life where a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Such images then awaken and enrich the whole feeling life, giving it more range and intensity. The will life, too, is far more susceptible to the living image than to abstract instructions. Telling children a story about a local potter digging the clay in his garden, carefully sieving it and shaping it into a pot, baking it in a hand-built stone kiln and then, with trepidation, opening the kiln to see if the pot has survived the delicate process of firing will give far more stimulus to their pottery than a thousand admonitions or dry instructions as to how to sieve the clay properly and how to form a proper bowl. Such images bear impulses of will into the formative life of the child in such a way that these impulses can live in manifold fashion, metamorphosing to meet new needs. They nourish the child’s whole life of will, not just the particular activity at hand. In these years, images are bearers of soul forces for and to the child. All the images that are brought to or that come to the child must therefore be carefully examined as regards the concepts, feelings and will impulses that they convey. In every age and culture, the need has existed to provide worthy teachings with an equally worthy imaginative garment. Folk stories and mythologies arise out of this impulse. Like each age of childhood, each age of civilization and culture has its own unique character. Stories and mythologies drawn from a given age or culture will best suit the stage of childhood that includes a comparable developmental task.79 The stock of material available here is vast and rich. To draw upon existing material alone is inadequate, however. It is also necessary to consider what is to be brought by way of content and

134

to create new material to suit the needs at hand. This applies to the presentation of curriculum material, to meeting the social situation of the class, bringing in current events, or any other realm. The ability to give such content an imaginative sheath capable of bearing it to the children and living in them in a healthy way belongs to the pedagogical tasks of this phase of life. The art of pedagogy is the essentially creative and artistic faculty of transforming conceptual content, feelings or will direction into a form that appeals to the imagination and memory. At the same time, the soul content of the images that children receive from much of the modern world must be faced. It is apparent that the entertainment and marketing industries are directly or indirectly responsible for an astonishing portion of the experience and images of many children today. To exclude images bearing ugly, false or vicious thoughts, feelings or will impulses, is, unfortunately, also a necessary pedagogical task of this time stage. Unattended, such images distort the inner life of the young child. Where they come to children, their effects can only be mollified by putting them in a larger context that sets them in a truer and healthier light, as a dissonance in music can be given a context in which it serves the whole. Judgment The faculty of judgment also has its seat in the sentient organization. It has already been mentioned that the sentient organization is not yet independent either of the lower organizations or of outer influences during this phase of life. Thus it is that the child’s judgments arise as expressions of either what lives in these lower organizations or what has been taken in from the environment rather than as an independent faculty. A child in this phase of life will ‘judge’ what an appropriate lunch is either on the basis of what he or she longs for, perhaps a candy bar or through having been effectively impressed with the importance of a certain diet (e.g. to eat a good main course before the dessert). There is not yet an ability to evaluate a situation and to make a considered

135

judgment independently of these influences of the lower organizations and the environment. All that is a matter of judgment must, like the rest of soul content, be conveyed through an appeal to the imaginative or rhythmic forces of the child if it is to be effective. It thereby also remains flexible enough so that the impulses so given metamorphose to meet new needs and situations rather than being clung to or rejected in later years as stones of the soul. Creative Authority When a child perceives a capacity to comprehend the world in terms of its soul content – to understand the concepts inherent in it, the feelings appropriate for it and the will impulses effective in it – and yet to translate this content into images that are meaningful and enlivening, faith and love for the individual exhibiting this capacity are awakened in the child’s being. Such an individual exercises an inner, creative authority by weaving a world appropriate to the child, the substance of which carries impulses necessary to the child’s development and growth, yet the form of which corresponds to the current level of development. The appropriate form evolves with the stages of this developmental phase. For example, an appeal to practical activities is a more appropriate and natural bearer of pedagogical content during the earlier stages (say, for the six- to eight-year-old child). An appeal to artistic and social experience is appropriate to all of this, the middle phase of childhood, but especially so to its middle stages (say, for the seven- to eleven-yearold child). An appeal to reflective capacities is more natural and appropriate to its later stages (say, for the ten- to twelve-year-old child). Naturally, something of all of these aspects will appear in all of the stages, but the balance will shift with the progress of the child’s development. In every case, however, the effective path of pedagogy is by way of the living image and rhythmic experience.

136

METAMORPHOSIS, RHYTHM AND HABIT LIFE IN THE SECOND PHASE OF LIFE Just as the physical world is experienced through the physical body’s senses, so is the formative world perceived through the life body’s organs of perception. The formative organization perceives in time. These perceptions come to consciousness as experiences of phenomena such as rhythm and metamorphosis. In the first phase of life, the child lives in the condition of continuity characteristic of the physical world. The adult brings rhythm and metamorphosis into this world, but the child does not experience these directly. The young child experiences that things have recurred or changed but cannot yet come to an independent experience of rhythm or processes of metamorphosis. Actual experiences of the formative world, begin with the second phase of life.80 Metamorphosis Over the course of the day, week, month and year81 – indeed over the whole of the elementary school years – the sequence of experiences should be a transformative, metamorphic one. Pedagogically, this implies that the teacher should remain (and transform) with the class throughout this period (corresponding to grades 1–6) in so far as this is possible. Generally, such important elements of the child’s life as the parents, teachers, home, community, and so on, work formatively for the child in this phase of life when they combine continuity with development. Processes of metamorphosis will inevitably lead to outer changes over time. When these changes can be experienced by the child as the result of a process of transformation, they can be (and can be accepted as) effective and meaningful. It is also beneficial to focus on a single, central subject or theme over a period of time and thereby bring both content and approach through a process of transformation until a natural conclusion can be drawn. (See below for more about the appropriate period for such a subject block.) A significant portion of each day can be dedicated to this central

137

theme in various ways. Other subjects and lessons can then be coordinated with this main theme. For example, the songs, artwork and mathematical tasks might all relate to the geography lesson at hand. To shape the sequence of subjects (say, over the day and week) and the succession of content within a given subject over time thus becomes a primary task and challenge. The Three-Day Rhythm The principle of metamorphosis also applies to the form in which material is given. For each single component of a theme (a particular moment in history or process in mathematics, for example), a phase of introduction to the material is necessary. The first day, for instance, can be dedicated to calling up an image of the material to be brought in the children’s inner life (e.g. through an imaginative presentation). The next stage is to evaluate how much of a feeling for the material has been achieved. This material can then be explored and deepened, e.g. through questions, conversation, or an artistic activity. Opportunity is given for the children to deepen their inner connection with the particular aspect at hand and to anchor this in their memory. This is best done on the second day, when the memory is still fresh. In the last stage, the material can be articulated in a clear form through practical exercises (e.g. in the case of a new principle of grammar or mathematics) or by giving the chance to the child to express the subject in an appropriate form (e.g. in an essay or written summary). This can normally be accomplished on the third day. In each of these stages, the approach is oriented around the child’s formative experience. The stages can be characterized as cultivating the image based thinking, feeling and memory, and practical skills and habit life of the child, respectively. The three-day rhythm allows each aspect of a subject to go through the phases of introduction, exploration and final expression. Following this, ongoing practice will usually be necessary; often this can be subsumed into the new content that can be brought

138

if this is indeed a continuation and further transformation of the themes already worked on. Rhythmic Experience Rhythmic forms of experience are characteristic for the life organization. The cultivation of such experiences builds up this organization. This task can be characterized on various time scales: The year. At the beginning of a school year, normally the autumn in the Northern hemisphere, new initiatives and fresh directions can be presented. Over the winter, subjects can be deepened and practiced. Spring is a natural time for bringing subjects into practical manifestation and completion. Summer affords occasion for a glance back at the fruits of the year, rounding off and celebrating the achieved development. The year is the cycle of building up the physical world. It thus plays a stronger role in the younger years, but is nonetheless to be considered in this phase of life as well. The month. The (lunar) month is the cycle of creation in the formative world. It is the time that it takes to build up a new habit or to anchor a memory, for example. Work with a given theme is most effective when developed over a period approximately corresponding to a month’s time. It is then natural for the child to turn his attention to another theme, and to exercises different capacities, which are then fresh. Block teaching is thus natural to this phase of life, when it is the habit life and memory that is being educated. The week. The pattern of experience over the week is influenced by the rhythm of developing a subject (see “The Three-Day Rhythm”). This is perhaps the most significant aspect of a weekly rhythm in these years. A weekly rhythm is natural in which conscious practice maintains the material between sessions, for example, a weekly music lesson with daily practice in between. For the child of this age, such consciousness generally cannot be maintained independently, but a well-developed

139

habit may substitute for this to a certain extent. In addition, where consciousness needs to be brought to the habit life (for example through a practice session to see that habits have not been lost or a practice of skills that are in any case generally exercised daily), a weekly rhythm can be appropriate. For ongoing learning, it is not an effective rhythm at this age. It comes into its own in the middle and secondary school years, however. The day. The day is a miniature lifetime: each day, we come into our bodies anew, live on earth and return at the close to the spiritual worlds from which we came. Each morning we reorient ourselves to the earthly circumstances we find before us, even if these are quite similar to those which we left the night before. Rhythmic activity (e.g. through movement, speech and/or song) and memory practice help to bring the (still waking, i.e. incarnating) child into the physical and formative organizations and readies these for exercise in the course of the day. In the morning, as in the beginning of life, we come into our sense/ nervous system first; perception and thinking are most awake at this time. Thus, a substantial part of the morning can be dedicated to exploring a main theme in varied, balancing ways, including the reception of new material, recall and deepening of the relationship to previous content and the practice or expression of already mastered content in clear form. Each day’s content and approach should be experienced as a metamorphosis of the previous day’s content and approach. The continuity provided for the learning experience of the child by recalling what was brought in a previous lesson before proceeding with new material, and illuminating the connection between the two, strengthens both the memory and the life body. At the close of the lesson, a brief outlook towards the next step has a similar effect, awakening the child’s interest and curiosity. In the middle part of the day, we come into the rhythmic system; artistic subjects are appropriate for lesson times during this part of the day. In the afternoon part of the day, we incarnate into our limbs most strongly. Practical subjects such as crafts and movement work belong here.

140

At the close of the day, we prepare for the return to the night (to the spiritual world). A last content or review to take with us into this time creates an orientation for our return the next day. Such a close to the school day has a real importance during these elementary years. The sense of continuity and transformation is partially dependent upon such a moment. The lesson. A sense for rhythm in teaching must become a tool of the teacher. A natural sense of breathing can be established in many ways, for example, between times when the child is more passively receiving content, times when material is being practiced and times when the child is outwardly and expressively active. Each of these aspects (reception, practice, and expression) can also be given a living, rhythmic form. The more that this can be effected, the deeper these appeal to the child’s formative organization, e.g. the memory and habit life of the child. Just as the state of intuitive unity with the environment was characteristic of the physical body, the state of rhythmic inspiration is generally characteristic of the life body. Throughout the years of this period of life, experiences such as expressive gesture and movement, contraction and expansion, rhythm, and so forth – breathing into and out of the environment in many ways – should be cultivated in order to ensure the healthy development of the life body’s forces.82 It is above all such artistic, imaginative and wonder-filled experiences of life, brought in a balanced way, which build up this body. Most important during this time are experiences of dance, song, playing of instruments, poetry and drama, story telling, painting, sculpture, the artistic creation of spatial environments, and nature experiences. The Habit Life In the second phase of life, much of teaching is dedicated to the establishment and cultivation of habits. Writing, reading and number work, for example, are all founded upon fluently available habits (of converting sounds or, later, words to letters and vice versa; of the re-

141

sults of number combinations, and so on). Other examples include the habits of reading music, of using tools properly, of social conventions in and out of the classroom, of the proper use of grammar, and so on, without end. A child who has not mastered the material through his or her memory or cannot apply this in practice, i.e. habitually, has not learned. The regular and habitual practice of the principles brought is thus a primary task of education at this time. The establishment and cultivation of healthy habits in all spheres of life – work habits, social habits, and personal habits – can be accomplished only through the influence of consciousness from the child’s environment. When a child lives to a great extent outside of this sphere of consciousness (which can only be maintained by those who have already achieved an independent sentient organization, i.e. adults and older children83 ), it is impossible to build up or maintain such a habit life. This has serious consequences for the development of the child’s memory and thinking.

142

Chapter VI THE THIRD PHASE OF LIFE: THE MIDDLE AND SECONDARY SCHOOL YEARS

SENTIENCE The sentient organization’s organs of perception mediate experience of a world higher than that of formative activity, consisting of qualities of consciousness. These qualities of consciousness are not normally experienced directly through the sentient organization, however. Were they to be experienced there, this would be as qualities such as radiant emanation, interweaving reciprocity, or harboring receptivity. (Such qualities are difficult even to express in language.) Instead, their reflection in the physical body is experienced. This is differentiated according to

143

where such qualities are chiefly held back: in the nervous system, the rhythmic system (the circulation and the breath) or the metabolic/limb system. The qualities inherent in the sphere of radiant emanation are primarily held back by the nervous system. Impressions from this sphere give rise to associative thinking, whereby one stream of ideation goes over into another, setting off yet another, and so on. No logical order or sequence is present; analogous qualities give rise to links of association. This contrasts with the kind of thinking that is stimulated by the life organization’s activity, which gives rise to metamorphosing images similar to what is experienced in dreams. When thinking permeates the physical body, fixed concepts associated with perceptions arise. The ego orders thought into logical patterns and sequences. There is one influence on thought that does not arise from any of the human being’s physical attributes. When our thinking meets something of the world that is beyond it, when it cannot grasp an experience through any level of the human being, wonder arises. The sphere of interweaving reciprocity makes an impression primarily on the rhythmic systems of the circulation and breath. Impressions from this sphere give rise to experiences of sympathy and antipathy. Because these experiences live in the rhythmic system, sympathy invariably gives rise sooner or later to antipathy, antipathy to sympathy, back and forth in rhythmic alternation. Feeling manifests through all levels of the human being. When it appears in the life organization, it gives rise to emotions. The life of feeling’s expression in the physical body is experienced as stimulation or quietude (this can be experienced through breathing more quickly or more slowly, more nervously or more regularly, for example). The ego experience of feelings is sensitivity. Here, feeling becomes an organ able to sense the nature of the world around it, not just the inner world of the human being. When our feeling encounters something in the world that calls it out but which it is unable to bring into any of the forms it can

144

take on in the incarnated members of the human being, the boundary experience of empathy arises. The sphere of harboring receptivity is held back chiefly by the metabolic and limb/muscular systems. The impressions of this sphere give rise to experiences of will such as desire, inertia and fear. These experiences have the characteristic that they tend to perpetuate themselves: i.e. desire gives rise to further desire, inertia to further inertia, fear to further fear. The life organization finds expression in the will through the drives. The expression of will in the physical body leads to instinctive responses. The ego gives expression to the life of will through striving towards conscious goals.84 When the will experiences something beyond its capacity to grasp through any incarnated aspect of the human being, an experience arises analogous to wonder but of an active nature. When the active will is slightly overwhelmed by something, when it does not feel itself fully capable of taking hold of the necessity before it but is called to do so, the experience of responsibility arises. Wonder, empathy and responsibility are in so far gifts of grace as they cannot arise in the human being through the activity of thinking, feeling or willing, but only when something larger than the individual’s capacity for this activity nears. Through the transcendental reality of the world descending by grace upon the human being, wonder, empathy and responsibility awaken in thinking, feeling and willing. THE TRANSITIONAL YEARS We have seen that in this phase of development, the sentient sheath begins to incarnate, that is, to build up the next member of the child’s earthly being, the sentient organization. The preliminary phase of this process is devoted to the transformation of the physical body, in the growth of the limbs as well as other changes in the physical organism. The next phase of the process is then devoted to the transformation of

145

the life organization into a suitable vehicle for the sentient organization; this manifests in the hormonal changes which result in the onset of menstruation and the awakening of the sexual drives as well as the development of the secondary sexual characteristics.85 During both of these phases, the sentient sheath itself must also establish as its carrier a body that is capable of integrating with the physical and life bodies. Thus, during the first two years of this third and the physical body phase of development, the sentient organization is still at work building a foundation for its activity in the lower bodies. Only after this preliminary phase, known as pre-adolescence, does the sentient organization become active in its own right through an inner life of sentient experience independent of – yet interwoven with – the physical and life and rhythmic bodies. Thus begins a transitional period. The capacity to experience through the soul organization will only become fully available after this organization has first adapted to and transformed the physical and life bodies in which it must dwell. During the first two stages of this phase of development the child will primarily experience the developing soul-sentient impressions subconsciously, i.e. as transmitted through image and rhythmic experience. Soul experience (an experience of the world’s and the child’s own soul qualities) arises, but only as mediated by the lower organizations; thus, a capacity to attain a clear consciousness of this experience does not yet develop. Only when the sentient organization begins the third stage of its development (forming a consciousness organ) is the child able to be properly aware of the forces waking in him or her. New and powerful experiences begin to arise at this stage, arising from the soul organization but experienced without clear consciousness. For this reason, it is a time of particular danger to the child, who, unless protected, must absorb the powerful soul experiences that the modern world stimulates without yet being able to meet these experiences with a consciousness awake enough to comprehend them.

146

There are thus good reasons for establishing these two years as a separate period of the child’s upbringing. Traditional schooling regards these as ‘swing’ years, either placing them at the end of the primary school (in the ‘8+4’ model) or at the beginning of the secondary school (in the ‘6+6’ model) or even establishing them in a separate middle school (in the '5+3+4' or '6+2+4' models). That all of these models have a justification is evident from the above considerations. In any case, a balance will have to be found between the two possibilities: an extension of the education and upbringing actually appropriate to the previous phase of development, i.e. the primary school years, but which offer a security and protection which is needed for this transition; and an entry into the more conscious experiences of the secondary school years, which respond to the newly developing soul forces. Support must be given to the children to help them understand the soul experiences dawning within them and in the world around them, but in such a way as does not awaken these prematurely, as the forces of modern civilization already tend to do, and which recognizes that their consciousness remains focused on the world they have left, while their experience is already opening to the world they have not yet entered. THE PEDAGOGY OF THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD For transitional years, we can turn to the history of the period when more consciousness was entering human existence, the ‘consciousness soul’ age, when the traditions of the past ceased to be of sufficient inner force to carry humanity. Such changes include the end of the hereditary stream of rulers, the shift to a more conscious religious life (the Reformation), the change in the character and nature of warfare from an encounter of personal courage to a failure of consciousness to deal with the world’s problems, the exploration of those parts of the world lying outside the traditional realm of experience. In short, the Ages of Exploration and Revolution provide a rich content here. The form of the history lessons cannot yet depend upon drawing upon the pupil’s full

147

waking consciousness (clear analytical thought), however, until the soulsentient organization has reached its maturity in the third year of its development. Therefore story and image are still appropriate rather than a more intellectual approach; symptomatic moments of history and representative figures can be thus presented to bring about a transitional stage of historical awareness. The capacity for making judgments is now present, though it remains dreamy and applies more to feelings and imaginative picture than to clear analytical thought, to which healthy awakening comes after this transitional time. In the sciences, to the sense-observation of natural phenomena is now added a history of scientific discoveries, bringing the representative movements in scientific thought and technological discovery in a descriptive or biographical form. (The theoretical or abstract comprehension of these will come in the following years.) The phenomenological approach of the sixth grade is thus applied to what is potentially a more theoretical content in both history and science. In mathematics, a similar departure from the concrete is made through the use of unknowns, the discovery of algorithms and theorems, an approach to such elements as algebra and set theory, while remaining very pictorial in the approach. In languages, the awakening experiences can be approached through the new life of feeling which is already half-consciously aroused through the lyric mood of inner feeling (‘wish, wonder and surprise’ – but not limited to these!) in the seventh grade and the dramatic mood of eighth grade. On the other hand, the will life that is awakening can be ordered through bringing clarity of expression into its formulations. A WORD OF CAUTION Two dangers to the child’s proper development during these years should be touched upon. Firstly, demands made upon the child’s life of soul86 before this has acquired its independence from the lower bodies can draw the forces of consciousness too deeply into these lower bod-

148

ies. This can result in soul experience which remains too bound to the activity of the lower bodies even in later life. Secondly, during these preliminary years of its development the soul organization is still extremely receptive and thus vulnerable to influences from the surrounding environment. Thus, protection from temptations of soul is needed especially during this phase, when the receptivity is much greater than in the fairly innocent phases of life that preceded this. Only after experiences in the soul organization become more conscious, and more fully after the latter attains a significant degree of individualization, does a measure of real independence and an inner capacity for self-protection awaken.87

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES (III): THE SENTIENT ORGANIZATION First stage of development: Consciousness in the Physical Body (13-14 year old) The first stage of the sentient organization’s development is devoted to transforming its relationship to the physical body and thus to establishing a foundation for its workings and experience in the physical realm. The physical body itself also undergoes a transformation under the influence of the newly incarnating soul organization. As in the corresponding stage of the life body’s development, when the incarnating formative sheath transformed the physical body, no actually new physical organs are created under the influence of this new level of being incarnating at this time; rather, what already exists as a basis in the physical body is transformed or refashioned by the consciousness sheath and the beings responsible for this level of development into a more suitable vehicle for sentient life. In particular, there are three organs of

149

the physical body which are especially deeply transformed at this time to serve as the basis for the sentient organization‘s capacities of willing, feeling and thinking: the limbs, larynx and nervous system. Each of these levels must now develop in its bodily basis in order that they may support the new activity of the sentient organization. The limbs grow much longer and develop more strength and agility; this will be used for creative work in the physical world. The larynx develops to allow for a more expressive life of soul in speech and song (this development is particularly obvious in the male). The focus of the nervous system is shifted away from the sympathetic nervous system (characteristic of the first) and the parasympathetic system (characteristic of the second phase of life) over to the central nervous system that now provides a basis for the developing life of thought as a carrier of spiritual activity. The faculty of evaluative judgment begins to be able to be called upon to examine events in the physical world, and a tendency to evaluate all such events subjectively becomes apparent. The organ of sentience penetrating the physical body results in increasing consciousness of and thus in awkwardness or self-consciousness in relating to this body. The body is also rapidly being changed in ways which strongly affect the slowly awakening but still largely submerged life of feeling, which adds to the self-consciousness and awkwardness: the adolescent must become acquainted with his or her body in its new form. This new consciousness of the body is not lost later on, but as the consciousness organization evolves to a form capable of grasping the higher levels of the human being, the physical body’s contribution gradually loses the dominance in sentient life that it tends to exert in this first year.88 Seventh Grade: Methodology The task of the curriculum is to integrate the children’s forces of consciousness into the inner and outer physical conditions that they are meeting. These forces are just beginning to be established, are still largely

150

in a condition of intuitive unity with the world and certainly do not yet make up a formed and articulate vehicle for the child’s awareness. Already at this early stage, however, the child’s new powers of consciousness can be called upon to extend the boundaries of the sense-perceptible world, directing the physical body’s awareness into new realms and illuminating its sense perceptions. The forces of judgment and life of thinking, feeling and willing, though not yet able to be called upon independently, should be appealed to through what the teacher brings to stimulate and guide the development of the newly awakening faculties. The theme of research and exploration, especially into the physical world, is one that can be applied in a variety of areas. Seventh Grade: Curriculum The awakening of consciousness in the physical body leads to the child’s experiences of his or her physical body being separate from that of the rest of the world. On the one hand, attention needs to be transformed from a simple awareness of one’s own physicality to the use of this physicality through both an increase in crafts activities (woodwork, metalwork, pottery, and so on) and movement (games, gymnastics, and so on). On the other hand, the awareness of the outer world’s physicality allows the child to overcome the static and isolated quality to which the physical experience tends. The dynamic of the physical world lies in its interconnections. Thus, from environmental studies beginning with the physical and geological world and its principles, an answer can arise to the first stage of isolation inherent in pre-adolescence: the isolation inherent in the physical body’s separateness from the rest of the physical world. The understanding of the functioning of the physical body can be deepened through a study of health and nutrition. This should include actual experiences, for example of what happens in the digestive system when we change to a primarily sweet or a primarily savory diet; breathing and pulse changes through exercise, the effects of chaotic or orderly sense impressions on our thinking, and so forth.

151

This leads into an awareness of the greater conscious choice which modern humanity has as to its relationship to its environment. Questions naturally arise then as to what physical conditions are actually conducive to the human being’s well-being, i.e. how the physical and sensory environment, how food, water, air, warmth and hygiene influence man’s health. Historically, the human being adapted to the local physical conditions in the various parts of the world where he lived; these outer conditions thus influenced man’s physical appearance, lifestyle and even consciousness. Stories of the time when man still lived in unity with his physical conditions (from the Eskimo to the Andean mountain farmer) are an important part of the year’s theme. Stories of the various races, their physical environments, lifestyles and ways of perceiving the world belong to this period not least because this ‘tribal’ life (including that of the various European groups) began to come to an end with the expansion into global trade and communication which the history lessons of this year cover. The children's desire to become conscious of and explore the physical world determines the principal thrust of the year’s curriculum. This can begin with a study of the exploration and mapping of the physical earth between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Age of Exploration, and thus a study of the physical geography of the continents of the world, including topology and climate, distribution of resources, and so forth. The development of trade between the continents and the corresponding shifts in the economic and practical life of this period are also important themes. The dawn of an independent consciousness in the religious realm is expressed by the Reformation and in the scientific realm by the birth of modern natural science. The latter, as an attempt to penetrate the physical world with consciousness, is particularly relevant for the year. Geology is an especially important theme. This includes a study of mining and natural resources connected with geography, the Age of Exploration and colonization. Simple technological processes, e.g. of

152

refining and developing natural resources (such as metals), belong to this historical period: in chemistry, the investigation of phase transitions89 and the processes of dissolving, crystallizing, and burning; in physics, the practical technology of the production and transport of this time (ships, the physical phenomena of electricity and magnetism, in particular the role of the magnet for navigation), optics (the telescope and eyeglass), mechanics and the acoustics of spaces. The principles by which the sense organs function can be explored now, for example the spiral of the ear, the tactile sense’s differentiated sensitivity, the eye’s color and black and white perception. The theme of acoustics connects with the musical curriculum and leads into principles of musical organization (orchestra, chamber group, solo) and the timbre of instruments. In mathematics, consciousness should be brought to the underlying principles of practical and economic life. This requires a study of positive and negative numbers, the principles of bookkeeping and the use of equations in other practical contexts as well. In handwork, more complicated articles can be made to suit particular forms. An investigation into principles of clothing design, i.e. of suitable wear and tailoring, and an exploration of the development, history and properties of (primarily natural)90 materials for clothing is appropriate. In woodwork, useful tools for the kitchen and workshop can be made in ways which are appropriate to the purposes and suit the hand. Simple joints can be introduced. The expression of experiences of the children’s feeling life, which still principally lives in relation to the outer world (e.g., wish, wonder and surprise), can be cultivated in creative writing. The artistic depiction of the physical world can be mastered: a study of geometric drawing and perspective and the use of light and dark (including on a toned background), Rembrandt and Raphael. Black and white shaded drawing can be introduced. In eurythmy, the rod exercises are important in this year. Tone eurythmy can begin working with the tones, speech eurythmy with the sounds more consciously. Pace of movements can be consciously var-

153

ied: arm movements, movement through the space, and so forth. In games and gymnastics, the more imaginative approach of the previous years can begin to give way to ordered movements developing the will of the child. Conventional gymnastics can be used to develop the mastery of the physical body’s movement in space. Second Stage of Development: Consciousness of the Life Organization (14-15 year old) The consciousness sheath begins to incarnate into the realm of life and rhythm. The child thus becomes more aware of his or her own organic activity. In particular, an awareness arises that he or she experiences his or her own but not others’ organic existence. This is the preadolescent’s second experience of isolation; he or she becomes aware that his or her rhythmic, organic and formative experience is isolated from others. At the same time, this organic activity is being transformed through the sentient sheath, shaping the formative organization into a more receptive vehicle for sentient experience. The changes brought about thereby result in new hormonal patterns, which show themselves in the growth of the secondary sexual characteristics, the onset of menstruation and the awakening of the sexual drive. The female life processes take on a more rhythmic, the male a more continuous character, a difference which also affects the soul life. On the other hand, the sentient organization’s integrating more deeply into the life and rhythmic organization results in the latter becoming much more susceptible and responsive to processes of consciousness – above all to the feeling life. Thus, even fine changes in the child’s feelings begin to affect the life processes (equally finely); this can be

154

seen, for example, in the reactions of the pulse, breathing, digestive system, and even the circulation (e.g., blushing). Beginning at this time, disturbances in the organic realm can often be the result of disturbances in the soul life of the child. In addition, the child becomes much more aware (and often self-consciousness) of his or her life processes and rhythms. Eighth Grade: Methodology The faculty of judgment begins to be able to be called upon to evaluate the rhythms and influences of the formative realm. Thus, not only physical events and characteristics begin to be judged and evaluated, but also the more subtle phenomena the lie behind the outer phenomena: gesture, rhythm, formative activity. At the same time, the effect of consciousness is to dissolve all that is traditional or habitual, all unconscious, rhythmic repetition. (The story of the centipede who was asked how she knew which limb to move next, and froze into immobility, suddenly unable to execute any motion whatsoever, is appropriate here.) It is a pedagogical task to carry out this transformation of the habitual into the realm of conscious awareness and/or choice. If consciousness were to remain excessively bound to the lower bodies, the emotions, desires and impressions of the child (and later adult) would remain excessively tied to and dominated by organic processes or physical conditions, rather than becoming sensitive to and expressive of an independent life of soul. Thus, by the end of this stage, the consciousness organization should be able to penetrate yet remain to a certain extent independent of the life organization and the organic processes. Larger research and practical projects, perhaps calling upon times and resources outside of the normal school hours and conventional teaching staff, can now be accomplished. However, the inspiration, direction and supervision for these projects must still largely come from adults.

155

Eighth Grade: Curriculum A consciousness of the realm of formative process can now be fostered. This will lead to a study of the formation of landscapes, e.g. through tectonic conditions (continental plates, earthquake and volcano) and weather. A more general study of water, e.g., rivers, ocean layers and hydrodynamic, and air, e.g. winds, atmospheric layers and aerodynamics, is appropriate at this time, so that the children can understand how fish, bird, boat and airplane move through these media. The work with landscape and weather leads naturally to an exploration of the environmental conditions for plant growth and plant ecology in the various zones of the world. A consciousness of how plant life varies around the earth should be fostered: e.g. in forest zones, jungle, grassland, and desert. Individual typical plants for various climactic and geological zones can be presented. Wild and cultivated landscapes can be compared, including the relative intensity of cultivation of pasture land, cornfield, orchard and market garden. Composting is an important theme. The subsequent study of photosynthesis in the plant will lead to an exploration of the role of starches, sugars and fats in living organisms, and further to the industrial processes which depend upon these substances (e.g. soap making and oil refining). This study leads physiology and the formative development of the human organism. Anatomy (the sense organs, inner organs, tissue layers and skeleton) can be understood as arising from physiology, i.e. from the formative processes and environmental influences which work together to form the given structures. Parallel to exploring the natural world’s formative activity, the socially transformative processes active in the history of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries are examined. This Age of Revolution brought enormous changes to society, government and concepts of human rights. These resulted eventually in the modern political geography of the world, which the children can now understand as resulting from his-

156

torical process, and to the particular modern civic life and governmental forms prevailing in the children’s own area. At the same time, stories of the various nations of the world (e.g. Chinese, Russian, Maori and Irish) give an image of lifestyles and social structures (including governance and varied principles of human rights) in a world context. The history of revolution can treat first the Industrial and then the subsequent Communications (Information) Revolutions. The former includes the development of steam and internal combustion engines, the industrialization of production from the cotton gin through the assembly line, and modern automatic, robot-driven processes. The social changes involved, such as the development of towns, loss of traditional craftsmanship and the arising of a service-based economy, should not be neglected. The Industrial Revolution’s dependence upon plant sources of power (wood, coal, oil and natural gas) should be brought out. Modern power production (water, air, coal, oil and nuclear plants) and mankind’s progressive liberation from manual labor through the employment of machines are essential and essentially social elements of this period’s transformations. The discoveries of modern times (e.g. vaccinations, genetics, radiation, semiconductors, the Internet, to give just a few examples) must be given adequate historical place; even if a comprehensive scientific understanding is not yet possible for the pupils, a true picture of the underlying processes can always be portrayed. Arising out of the social consciousness developed by the stories of various people of the world, principles of etiquette (the appropriate social behavior in a given context), including forms of social and business correspondence can be explored. This is the appropriate age to consciously grasp the forms considered appropriate to our day and age. Literature explores the lyric form. The use of rhythm and metrics in relation to mood can be actively explored. In mathematics, relationships between multiple variables are explored (solving multiple equations). Loci, two-dimensional geometry on planes and spheres, and the equations which correspond to various geometric forms are further themes.

157

In music, rhythm is an important theme for the year; in addition, multiple-part music, chamber ensembles and music as a social form should be cultivated. The children should become familiar with the classical dance forms so that they can understand the context of the music which makes use of these. This can lead later to the Latin-American dance forms, which are still based on rhythm. The late-twentieth century forms depending largely or solely on beat are not yet appropriate, however. In eurythmy, dance rhythms and movements should be practiced (in conjunction with the music lessons). A review of Apollonian grammar is now due. Interval forms can be introduced in tone eurythmy. Veil painting and shaded drawing (now in color) can be explored in art, and the transformation of a theme from one medium to another, especially of black and white into colored expressions. In handwork, pleats can be introduced into articles of clothing, curtains, and other projects The use of sewing machines as well as appropriate care of garments (mending and washing) can be introduced. The use of machines (saws, drills, and sanders), finishing and polishing can be introduced in woodworking. Various rhythmic forms of corner-joints can be introduced. Coil pots may be made in pottery lessons. Crop rotation and the planting of mutually supportive neighboring species are looked at in gardening. Greenhouses can be introduced. Third Stage of Development: Consciousness of the Sentient Organization (15-16 year old) The preliminary stages of rebuilding and integrating with the lower two bodies are now complete and the consciousness organization can begin its own proper and characteristic evolution. The child’s life of feeling, thought and will begin to become much more conscious as inner and subjective experiences, whereas previously these were experienced both more objectively (as if

158

they were a part of the world, not belonging especially to oneself) and more dreamily. An awareness of the personal nature of these experiences awakens at this stage. This is the beginning of adolescence proper: the awareness of possessing a subjective inner world. The still impressionable sentient organization is not yet able to create its own content, however; this is still chiefly built up out of impressions from the outer world. The young adult can now begin, however, to be increasingly conscious of these impressions and their effects upon the inner life. The standards for the young person’s judgments – which now examine the inner life91 critically as well – still tend to be received, not developed independently. The juvenile openness and playfulness that characterized the middle phase of childhood disappeared during the transitional years, giving way to stances that seem to protect rather than express the child’s real self in these years: silliness, aggression, defensiveness, and so forth. Only intermittent glimpses were available of the child’s real self. Like a husk around the tremendous inner changes occurring during these years, these transitional stances now begin to drop away, revealing the existence of a new, deepened and highly personal inner life of soul formed in the long hidden depths. The feelings that open up at this time lead to strong sympathies and antipathies, desires and fears, and interests and indifference arising and succeeding one another like waves of a turbulent sea. The adolescent needs to gain experience now in how to live with these passions and prejudices of his or her inner life. Fortunately, a new capacity for abstract thinking and analysis becomes available simultaneously. It might be said that passionate identification with and cold distance to experience are in a sense interdependent possibilities for relating to experience. Movement between these (and other) polarities must be practiced by the adolescent. The capacity must be cultivated of finding the balanced middle through exploring the extremes. The capacity to analyze the world of outer and inner experiences is a prerequisite to not being

159

subject to these worlds. This capacity must be developed in the forms of analytic thinking, clear self-expression and practical capability. At the same time, the capacities to consciously project oneself and identify oneself with a situation must be practiced. Through practice, the former becomes possible without cold isolation, the latter without heated passion. The young person must learn to draw upon the inner world of experience in order to live and act in the outer world. Due to the nature of this stage of development, experiences of the individual, subjective inner life cannot yet be brought into relation with the true self or the ego. They are characterized by fluctuating impressionability, whereas the true individuality is characterized by a continuity of self-directed evolution – a distinction which may well be irrelevant to a young person at this stage of development but which should not be forgotten by those responsible for his or her development. At the same time, the genuineness of the inner experience must be respected fully. Ninth Grade: Methodology Out of the chaos that results from the dissolution of all that is traditional or habitual, a new capacity for comprehending and ordering the world begins to be established, a capacity that depends upon penetrating phenomena with conscious awareness. Understanding arises here through an analytic approach. The subjective life of feeling, judgments and the forces of sympathy and antipathy must thus now be recognized and cultivated by lifting them out of their negative forms (pure subjectivity, criticism, emotionality). In order to do this, worthy standards for the awakening inner life must be introduced in the form of ideals which can guide the burgeoning critical faculties. The adolescent must learn how the newly intense experiences of sympathy and antipathy, fear and desire, and criticism and enthusiasm may be experienced and expressed without being overwhelmed by them.

160

Practice in such expression, as well as experiencing how others give voice to such experiences, is invaluable here, especially when these can be given artistic form. The slogan of the 1970s and 1980s, ”the personal is the political” tried to define subjective experience as being by its very nature objective. The underlying intention here is valid: to recognize the potentially objective significance of individual experience and to return the sense of self-worth to the individual that modern science, government and industry have taken from her or him. Personal experience is only potentially objective, however. It is actually only through an essentially artistic process of transformation that the accidental nature of a single individual’s experience can be given an objective form. A work becomes artistic when it succeeds in giving an objective form to subjective experience, thus raising the experience above its own originally subjective nature. This attempt to give objective form to subjective experience is a keynote for this year. The nature and origin of human cultural life should be explored with the goal of giving the children a basis for the understanding of their relation to the various aspects of modern day culture. Experience is articulated by giving it clear expression and especially by exploring its polarities. Sharp contrasts can be cultivated now to the point of finding a resolution out of contrasting extremes; thus does the child’s hitherto relatively undifferentiated consciousness begin to take form. Ninth Grade: Curriculum In literature, the dramatic form can be used to explore polarities of experience. Through the essay form, critical judgments of history, literature and art can be expressed. A critical and more analytic treatment of the subject matter by the teachers is appropriate as well. Media studies, such as how various news sources report an event, are appropriate. A ‘show and substance’ lesson on advertising methods could be included here.

161

The development of modern culture, which is based on articulate consciousness and the capacity for individual judgment, thinking, and life direction, is a central theme of the year. This can be traced beginning with the fifteenth century with the rise of modern natural science, the Renaissance and Reformation and the ensuing changes in religious, artistic and philosophical outlook and culture. A cultural anthropology can be developed. A more rigorous and experimental approach to the sciences can be established now. The scientific developments of the last five-hundred years can be approached now not just historically, but rigorously and analytically, a theoretical foundation being developed out of the observable phenomena. In particular, chemistry can be extended to the chemistry of sentient (animal) life: proteins, ethers and alcohols; this leads into a study of the interaction of physiology and consciousness, including a treatment of the effects of tobacco, caffeine, alcohol and other drugs. The principles underlying modern technology are looked at in physics, establishing a sound understanding of mechanics and heat: for example in the workings of locomotive and automotive engines; and acoustics, electricity and magnetism: for example in the telephone and electric motor. In mathematics, combinatorics and probability are important topics. Algebra can focus on flexibility in dealing with complex equations. The geometry of simple figures can focus on constructions. Ecological studies are extended to the animal kingdom. The interrelation between animal life and environmental conditions of landscape, climate and local flora should be made clear (e.g. the adaptation of species to mountain conditions). A global picture of the geographic distribution of animal life on land and in the oceans can be built up. The migration of species, including of bird life, and the contributions of animal life to pollination and the spread of plant species both play an important part here. Animal husbandry and the cultivation of fruit and nut trees (including grafting) can be practically experienced. The contrast between manure and mineral fertilizers and the use of pesticides

162

and herbicides versus the role of birds and higher insects to destroy pests and of soil building to reduce weeds should be drawn. Drawing should explore the contrasts of darkness and light. Black and white shaded drawing is an ideal medium for this work. Mood may be explored as a theme. It is an excellent exercise to transform such a mood into a painting (to go from a black and white to a color depiction of such a theme). In music, the major and minor and moods in music should be covered. Musical analysis can be begun: what elements contribute to the life of a piece of music? How does it achieve the effects that it has? Weaving, basketry and raffia can be explored in handwork, woodwork in utilitarian objects. Pottery can be introduced, for example building up pots and bowls from rings of clay. Work in copper can also result in making bowls and similar objects. Tone eurythmy work should be on the polarities of major and minor and consonance and dissonance. Thinking, feeling, and willing forms can be introduced in speech eurythmy. The pupils can begin to learn to use the elements of eurythmy in order to express the character of a piece; the analysis of pieces according to mood, rhythm, and sounds begins accordingly. Expansion and contraction should be especially cultivated in this year. Fourth Stage of Development: Consciousness of Individuality (16-17 year old) Consciousness becomes more individualized, enabling the young person’s inner life to develop a corresponding independence from the outer world. At the same time, the awareness of being an individuality through possessing a unique consciousness awakens. A feeling of isolation can arise; on the other hand, the previously experienced need to take up what is seen to be ‘normal’ – in fact, all

163

that belongs to a (peer) group consciousness – can thus drop away as the young person begins to appreciate the uniqueness of his or her own soul life as arising from his or her uniqueness as a human being. (If this awareness does not arise now, a dependence upon a social milieu may endure, or else a tendency to appear exaggeratedly different – an attempt to differentiate oneself through outer show rather than the awakening to the uniqueness of one’s own inner life – may develop.) Confidence in one’s own judgments normally increases, and the young person begins to more clearly distinguish feelings, thoughts and will impulses arising from his or her inner life from reactions to outer circumstance. A growing longing for a sense of direction for one’s own soul life, linked with an increasing sense of responsibility, awakens. The question of and interest in work in the outer world arises again (as it did in the corresponding ego phase of the life body’s development, at nine to ten years of age). Tenth Grade: Methodology With the individuation of the young person’s consciousness comes the question: Who am I as a human being? This question arose during the corresponding phase of the life body’s development. At that time, an image of the human being was given as an answer; now, a consciousness of the nature of the human being must be developed. The central task of the year is thus to develop an understanding of the human being which neither focuses one-sidedly on the bodily aspect of man nor on man’s soul-spiritual nature, but presents both of these from the point of view of ego experience, that is, as a unity. Through the experience of the ego in the organization of consciousness, logical thinking is now a faculty capable of being called upon and trained. This is the faculty that has the potential to overcome the isolation of the subjective quality of consciousness when the latter is mediated through the lower bodies. Through logical thinking, objective, universal contents of experience are reached. A certain one-dimensionality

164

of reasoning is characteristic of this step of development and must be cultivated in this year. By this is meant the capacity to deal positively with aspects of the world where there is a single right answer. In contrast with social, emotional and cultural issues, for example, or when considering living organisms, the non-organic physical world is such an aspect of the world. To give an example well worth cultivating in this year, one is either punctual or not in the physical world, whatever emotional and social issues may be simultaneously at play. The capacity to deal with this realm with precision and accuracy is vital in order to take hold of practical life and responsibilities, and thus must be practiced now. The pupil’s growing independence of judgment must be met with increasing respect over this year. Simultaneously, the young person must learn to recognize and respect the independence of others. The human being’s relation to the outer and inner worlds of experience becomes a theme; this is a year of the young person’s becoming conscious of having such a dual relationship. A greater exposure to the larger world is appropriate at this age, which is the traditional time to enter apprenticeships or to ‘come out’ into society. The young person is learning to meet new impressions with a degree of confidence and independence in and through such encounters. Deeper experiences of work thus begin to be fruitful and important for the child’s development. This represents the engaging of the will (the earthly expression of the ego) to contribute to the world’s future. Whether in more sustained situations (e.g. apprenticeships or after school and weekend work) or more exploratory periods (e.g. sessions of work experience), the opportunity to find oneself by working and taking responsibility for one’s deeds in the world is vital at this time. Tenth Grade: Curriculum One of the central tasks of this year is to awaken the young person’s consciousness of man’s ecological responsibility. This will include tracing the history of how – originally out of religious impulses (from

165

earliest historical times through, for example, the work of the Cistercians in the twelfth and thirtienth centuries) – activity in the outer world was organized to be ecologically and socially responsible, healthy for the soul and fulfilling to the world. Special attention should be given to agriculture in this regard, but many other areas of man’s work and responsibility for the world may be included. The situation of the present day gives ample room for contrast and must be thoroughly represented. A look at the human influence upon the landscape can lead into studying folk architecture in its connection with the landscape, the polarity of village and town, and urban studies. This ecological sense can be carried right through into the will, into practical land work. The subjects of composting and soil science grow out of the cultivation of a responsibility for the earth. A capacity to grasp the outer world in clear consciousness is necessary, not least in order to uphold our responsibility for the earth. Surveying, map making and technical drawing belong here. A study of the earth’s geological formations (culminating in the mountain cross of the world) and mineralogy follow. The awakening of clear thinking is fostered in mathematics by the study of visual proof and theorem, of Cartesian and descriptive geometry and especially of logic, which can be developed as far as Boolean algebra and simple computer programming.92 The study of abstract solid figures such as the Platonic solids is appropriate here. In physics, mechanics and optics are appropriate. The optical principles of photography lead to the chemical principles of photography and inorganic chemistry in general. Acid-base reactions, salts and the role of heat in chemical reactions, including phase change, as well as the principles of the combination of substances in fixed proportions should be covered. Understanding man’s history and development is equally important for this year. A review of the history of man’s progressive individuation from earliest historical times to its culmination at the transition from Greek to Roman civilization should be presented with an

166

emphasis on a clear comprehension of the historical facts and on an understanding of motifs which recur in history (e.g. the balance between the striving for unity and empire on the one hand and that for individuation and independence on the other). The nature of historical documents should be presented. The study of man is a very important subject in this year, whereby man’s anatomy, physiology, psychology and spiritual nature must be presented in a unified picture. A comprehensive exploration of man’s being, balancing all of these aspects, is required here. A brilliant and eminently usable example of this is Steiner’s presentation (in The Study of Man) of the connection of sympathy and antipathy with blood and nerve processes. Out of the study of man as an individual being, consciousness is thus extended in four directions:

Into spiritual experience Systematic thinking, logic, cause and effect

Into the past of social experience History of man’s individuation The development of language and literature

Study of the Human Being Unity of body, soul and spirit

Into the future of social experience Practical work Precision and responsibility

Into earthly experience Ecological responsibility Surveying the earth The laws of the physical world

167

The theme of the individual ego freeing itself from the group-soul consciousness is taken up in literature. Particularly appropriate examples relating to this theme are the Iliad, Nibelungen saga (Gudrun) parts of the Arthurian legends, and the story of Job. Biography is an appropriate theme. The expressive depiction of events in history and of natural history should be cultivated as a literary form: excerpts from historical and natural-historical writers can be taken up. The origin of the mother tongue (in English, including Chaucer) and of its grammar belongs here; the latter should now be clearly grasped. The history of the development of language and literature are closely linked to the development of the human ego. Metric and poetic forms should be brought to consciousness, so that the pupils obtain a feel for the nature of and can grasp these. Clear speaking should be cultivated, speech exercises can play an important role, especially in this year. In each of the various artistic faculties, the laws that underlie artistic form should be explored. In the fine arts, this includes composition, color theory and perspective. The history of the depiction of the human figure should be covered and exact observation and drawing from nature emphasized (through to perspective). Music lessons can explore musical motif and the laws of harmony; mastery of an instrument should be emphasized. A step away from the orchestral player experience is made in two directions. On the one hand, the elements of conducting should be covered and experience gained here. At the same time, work on chamber music should be emphasized. In eurythmy, the depiction of musical and poetic forms should be covered. The movements corresponding to grammatical parts of speech belong to this year. Work on duos, trios and quartets may be cultivated. In gymnastics, balance and standing well on the earth should be emphasized. Throwing the discus, ‘Indian’ wrestling (standing foot to foot with contact limited to one hand) and traditional gymnastics, which cultivate orientation in space, are all appropriate.

168

Practical work may include typography and printing, iron work and more precise copper work (for example, making boxes). Carpentry should cover the plumb and the square, the making of joints, and generally working to precise measurements. Tailoring is of great value in this year. A social practice period involving responsibility for the earth, such as on a farm, is very appropriate for this year. A building apprenticeship might be another alternative. The experience of cooperation in work is especially important. Fifth Stage of Development: Imagination (17-18 year old) At this stage the imaginative forces are no longer passively living in images provided by the outer world, but begin to blossom into an inner faculty, an independent creative power capable of entering into the world with new vigor. This creative-imaginative faculty builds upon the clear, logical and exact comprehension belonging to egoconsciousness and practiced in the previous stage of development and develops beyond this to become capable of actively following the transformative and creative processes at work in the world. An understanding of phenomenology and metamorphosis (i.e. of how a single underlying phenomenological principle manifests in various stages and forms) is now possible. This new faculty is not limited to an inner activity in the comprehension of metamorphic processes, but is also capable of engaging in new, creative outer deeds. If allowed to unfold properly, the young person’s creative forces can now become free not only from their bondage to impressions from the outer world, but also from the influences of the

169

lower organizations, of their lower self. This inner, imaginative faculty opens out into the surrounding world, seeking to express itself in creative activity in this world and to shape its environment on all levels. Eleventh Grade: Methodology Having achieved a certain capacity for an analytic approach in the ninth grade and for systematic, logical thinking in the tenth grade, the intellectual clarity already gained is now extended to aspects of the world which require real mobility in thinking: metamorphosis and development of an imaginative nature. This is a step from the somewhat ‘onedimensional’ view of reality cultivated in the tenth grade, which is appropriate where there is truly one right answer, into areas where the point of view is determinate for the answer achieved. Especially important at this time is a move from examining individual themes in any given subject to examining how underlying motifs develop and connect seemingly separate aspects of the subject, for example, how certain patterns of history can be seen to resurface regularly. Such development and metamorphosis is especially characteristic of the living world. An imaginative approach to phenomena is needed to comprehend them in this way. At the same time, new forces of creativity and an increased interest in self-expression naturally unfold now, apparent in newly creative approaches to tasks and an increase of interest in reaching out to take up challenges which require imagination and inner activity. Whether the young person’s imagination and creativity are more artistically, practically or scientifically oriented – and these differences become increasingly apparent – these new inner possibilities must be met with new outer challenges that call upon imaginative solutions and offer new freedoms to exercise creative self-expression. The direction of a pupil’s interests and talents will become increasingly apparent at this age, and a certain potential for increased specialization or depth becomes necessary to offer in order to do justice to each pupil’s capacities.

170

Eleventh Grade: Curriculum Botany can now be approached out of a sense for the living metamorphosis which a plant represents. Comprehending the plant kingdom demands a mobile imagination and flexible thinking in order to grasp the dynamic and interactive interrelation of the parts with the whole (e.g. through following leaf metamorphoses). The transformations implied in the plant’s evolution from the one-celled prototypical plant, itself a miniature universe, through the primitive plant types up to the monocotyledons and dicotyledons is also an important theme. A systematic botany of the lower plants should be built up, including vegetative propagation. An understanding of the interrelation of the parts of the organism and the interaction between cell and organism should be built up (this would include, for example, Spemann’s work on cell differentiation). The interaction of cosmos and earth, for example through a study of biorhythms, water and weather is a theme in its own right; this requires the reintroduction of a certain amount of astronomy, as well. This study can be carried forward into a look at imaginative images of the earth from a spiritual perspective; such sources as Pythagorean thought, American Indian mythology and contemporary research can all play a part here. The life or etheric geography of the earth is another important aspect of this broader look at the earth: how the forces of earth, water, air, warmth or fire, light, sound or rhythm and life manifest in the various regions of the world. The economic, social and cultural contributions of the continents and regions of the world can be covered in this context. A study of plant processes of photosynthesis leads into organic chemistry. The nature of compounds can be understood through investigating the processes that they stimulate or in which they are involved. An example of this is fermentation and pickling (vinegars and alcohols). Beginning similarly from the way in which they reveal themselves in processes and interrelationship, the fundamental types of elements (al-

171

kali metals, noble gases, and so forth) can be described, through which a meaningful (and essentially musical) understanding of the Periodic Table can arise. This is true to our experience, which does not reveal the constitutive elements of objects directly; the latter are discovered only through becoming aware of typically manifesting processes (e.g. oxidation). Electromagnetic and radiation phenomena manifest neither as wave nor as particle and can thus only be grasped imaginatively and phenomenologically; these belong to this year as well. An understanding of modern technology such as radio and television can then be introduced. Semiconductor behavior can be similarly phenomenologically described, and their uses to implement the logic developed previously (i.e. in logic circuits) explored, thus fostering a basic understanding of how computing equipment operates.93 In mathematics we can look at themes such as projective geometry, infinity, counterspace and spherical geometry. The reversal of the conventional point-centered approach into the periphery is an imaginative step that must be paralleled by an emphasis on building inner pictures of the phenomena dealt with; otherwise, the tendency of such phenomena to disappear out of consciousness will dominate. Analytic geometry, or the interrelationship of algebraic formula and visual image, is a central theme of the year. This will include trigonometry and conic sections. Phenomena of water and air movement can be observed and described; the work of Schwenk and Wilkes should be included in the teacher’s preparation in this field. The study of hydrodynamics and aerodynamics leads to a consideration of weather and climate as well as climatic geography of the world. (It is valuable for the pupils to have drawn maps of the world from as many aspects as possible by the end of their school time: physical, climatic, economic, political and cultural maps.) Map projections may be introduced, thus developing an imaginative faculty in geometry and geography.

172

Phenomena of perception are introduced as a study of practical psychology, which continues with a look at memory and imagination and at the soul qualities of thinking, feeling and willing. This study culminates with phenomena of self-consciousness and the human ego. A survey of psychological thought can illuminate how various approaches each cultivate a special focus on one level of the human being’s life: the behaviorists explain everything through human instinct, Freudian psychology through the drives, Jung through images of the unconscious soul life, Maslow through the ego development, Frankl and Lievegoed through spiritual unfolding. This brings us to the creative individual, a theme in its own right. An emphasis on the achievements of great individuals in history and in all of the arts (music, poetry, painting, ad so forth) is appropriate. In literature, biography continues to be an important theme. Central here is the question of character development. The novel is the literary mode that takes the developing individual as its theme; this can be said to have had its origin in the first saga of the developing individual: Parsifal. Romantic poetry is another expression of the subjective individual and should be treated in this year. Creative writing should be fostered. Imaginative devices such as figuration and tropology should be explored. In fact, creative work in all of the arts should be fostered. In painting, color perspective should be developed and free painting cultivated out of this principle. Portraits and busts can be painted and modelled. In eurythmy one can work on an individually expressive style and solos. The musical curriculum explores the expressive medium of the voice, the relation of text and setting (e.g. in Handel and Schubert), culminating in solo song and composition. In both painting and music, the evolution of style through the great masters should be covered (including the relationship between biography and artistic creation). By the end of the year, the pupils should have the widest possible grasp of their own cultural heritage. Conducting can be continued with the emphasis now on the conductor’s individual expression of a piece. The evolution of

173

the cultural position of the arts can be traced from their origin as religious expressions through their use for social functions into their present position of isolation from the rest of life (in museums and concert halls). In history, Rome’s development out of a purely personal, egoistic element (which can be shown in its degeneration through Nero) through the meeting with Christianity, as well as the following development of European civilization through the forces of both challenge and renewal brought by the migrating tribes, should be covered. The rise of Islam, Charlemagne and the monastery movement are important themes: How did these affect the cultural life right through to today? Out of the split between the Byzantine and Roman churches, the Eastern tendency to preserve the cultural heritage can be contrasted with the Western tendency to generate new forms. The lessons should emphasize the evolving cultural impulses, and the resulting political history can often serve to illuminate the cultural developments. In woodwork, musical instrument making is introduced; creative projects using already acquired skills are also appropriate. For the movement curriculum, a liberation from the earth is the theme: javelin, springs, leaps and generally achieving lightness and imagination in movement. Further, a social practice period involved with helping individuals (e.g. the aged, poor, handicapped, drug addicts or prisoners) is very appropriate in this year. Sixth Stage of Development: Inspiration (18-19 year old) The inner life which was first brooding and developing, then seeking to express itself, is now mature enough to look out into the world with interest for what can arise through interaction with (and to recognize the existence of a corresponding fullness of soul life in) its environment. Thus, a step is now made to an interest in genuine mutuality of interaction; a social

174

interest develops. This enables a deepening of conversations, as there is now a genuine, objective interest in others. A new sensitivity to and interest in both the outer world and other people awaken. What makes others do what they do, feel what they feel, think what they think? What are they really experiencing? There is interest in deeper motives and impulses; the basis for empathy is laid here. The young person begins to focus on and be capable of comprehending interrelationships in the world and their creative function, the nature of social interaction and the relationship of the individual to the community, becoming more capable of placing the expressions of beings into the larger context in which they arise or arose. The development of a sense for these interrelationships and for how the world’s expressions arise from them requires a step in consciousness beyond the imagination needed to comprehend individual creativity. There is a broadening and opening of consciousness through expanding the focus from the apparent source of an expression to experience what manifests in the periphery as the origin of and/or a response to this. To hold the original expression and the experienced context in relationship is to sense the processes which bring these into mutual relationship; the consciousness which is able to accomplish this grasps the mutually inspiring cooperation of the world’s beings. This is an experience of the breathing process which takes place and links beings with one another and with their own expressions. In this sense, in order to grasp that which lives (invisibly) in interrelationships between people (this is equally true in phenomena outside the social realm), it is necessary to build up a picture of the individuals (or individual aspects) and all that becomes visible through them, as far as a conscious and an imaginative penetration of the situation can reach. It is then, however, necessary to release this picture of all that is apparent and to allow an impression of what is not apparent to arise inwardly. It is the negative space that is experienced here: not the social life and deeds but the space between these that has called them forth (the social

175

atmosphere). Graciousness, especially but not only manifested in social intercourse, flowers. Twelfth Grade: Methodology When consciousness moves into the sphere of interrelationships in the world and their creative function, an awareness awakens of the realm between, of the space that allows free interrelationships and of what happens in this space. The social environment and the relationship of the individual to the community begin being experienced much more consciously. Integration into the community as an individual, i.e. while retaining one’s individual nature, becomes a theme. The faculty which is needed to creatively penetrate the underlying interrelationships and expressive revelation of creative processes can be called the faculty of inspiration. This goes beyond the dynamic activity of conscious imagination. Conversation itself becomes an event, often a pleasure; the dialectic method (learning through directed conversation) could be said to have its most natural place in this year. Twelfth Grade: Curriculum In the previous year of development, the place of the community and environment in the young person’s consciousness were still largely that of potentially receptive spaces into which the developing individual creativity could radiate, or that of potential sources of stimuli to this individual creative development. The relationship with these was thus of secondary importance to their role in individual development. The pupils’ consciousness wakens now to this relationship between the individual and the surrounding community and environment. This can find a direct expression in the curriculum through historical exploration: the history of social forms, governmental forms and human rights. Here it must be shown how these forms – in fact, the whole relationship of the individual to the community – were first determined by and later grew up out of religious and cultural impulses. The first harbingers of

176

an independent social and rights life arose in Greece. They came to a fuller flowering in Rome and during the Middle Ages, then became present questions in the social and political revolutions of the late eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Various patterns in the evolution of societies can be discovered, e.g. how each civilization goes through a period of initial formation (usually accompanied by a semi-mythological foundation story, e.g. Homer and Virgil), a middle period of stable political forms and a flowering of culture, and a closing period of transition or decay. In addition, the nature of various societies, both of the present day and over mankind’s evolutionary development, should be considered. A comparative study of civilizations, or sociology, arises naturally through this evolutionary element, where it can be clear that various civilizations concentrate or have concentrated on particular elements in mankind’s development, and that such past elements continue to work on in modern cultures. A feeling for the fact that all current forms of government and civilization have grown out of this evolution, and must continue to evolve in order to meet future needs, can be developed in the pupils. The study of political institutions and human rights is part of the social realm here. A look at Lievegoed’s work on developing institutions and an exploration of the impulse for a threefold social order are almost unavoidable here. Social practice in service to another social context (for example, to another culture present in one’s own country or to another country) is extremely appropriate to build upon the wider social awareness. Continuing this theme of relationship, dramatic literature should be studied. Dramatic encounters can be explored in free improvisation (including the work of (Mikhail Chekhov) and the relationship of literature to society explored (e.g. in Ibsen and Anton Chekhov). The drama of Faust is an enormous exploration of the individual and society and can take a central place in the work of the year. In general, in literature and the arts, a shift takes place from the focus on the connection between an artist’s work and biography to that

177

between the work and the larger social and historical context. Interrelationships between philosophical or social movements and the arts – e.g. Brunetto Latini and the artists of the Renaissance – and mutual contact and interplay between the arts – e.g. painting a musical impression (Kandinsky, Klee) or composing a visual impression (Handel, Skriabin) – can be explored. In music, a feeling for the interaction of musical elements in determining style should be developed (Bach, Beethoven and Bartok). Group improvisation can be explored fruitfully. Eurythmy could be said to come into its own during this year. More ambitious pieces may be explored now, whereby an awareness of the whole group is especially to be cultivated. Choreography may arise through mutual improvisation or exploration of a piece. In handwork, leatherwork and shoe making can emphasize rhythmic elements. In metalwork, blacksmithing should develop a feel for the look and the sounds of metals at various heats (cherry-red heat, and so on). In general, more ‘musical’ relationships are explored this year, i.e. relationships where rhythm, pattern and interaction come to the fore. In mathematics, the relationship between geometric forms and the mathematical equations which describe these can be brought out, so that a feeling develops for the correspondences or interactions between these two very different ways of presenting the same phenomena. Set theory is extended to include ordered series and limits, out of which the basic elements of calculus arise. Transformations from planar geometry to curved surfaces (e.g. spherical geometry) lead to geodesy and mathematical astronomy. The latter links with optics. In optics, how images arise and are transformed through lens and mirror and phenomena of refraction and dispersion can be covered. The reciprocal relationship of plants with their environment, i.e. for pollination, also belongs to the year. A plant can be understood through picturing the effects of the elements – sun, rain, wind and earth – inter-

178

acting with the seed and the metamorphic principle of the growing organism. This can give rise to an accurate, imaginative picture of the plant’s growth and being up to a certain point. The principle of leaf transformation alone can only go as far as the sepal, however. The development of a blossom can no longer be understood as simply a product of the direct interaction of the elements and the metamorphic principle inherent in the plant.94 An intangible element is actually already present here. The blossom arises as something new out of the plant’s interrelation with insect life, with other plants of the species, and so forth; one could even say that in the blossom, the plant is ‘inspired’ to create something which goes beyond that which is predictable from the rest of its being. This study of the higher, or flowering, plants leads to genetics in connection with plant and animal breeding: maintenance of a strain or breed, cross-fertilization, hybridization and genetic modification of organisms. The corresponding issues for humanity and for the environment can naturally be included here. Similarly, to comprehend animal existence, a picture of the animal and the elements of its environment alone do not suffice. Something intangible that lives, for example, between the individual animals of a herd, flock, and so on, (with domesticated animals, between animals and their keepers, as well) also plays a significant role in determining their existence. Systematic zoology can be treated out of this awareness of the larger ecological context. A thorough overview of evolutionary zoology is appropriate; out of this and the studies in botany, palaeontology and a study of the evolution of the geological layers of the earth naturally proceed.

179

Seventh Stage of Development: Intuition (19-20 year old) Outer reality now begins to be perceived clearly in its own right (i.e. unmixed with other levels of experience) and thus takes on a much greater significance now for the young person, who, especially during the middle years of this phase of development, has been living to a significant extent in a world dominated by inner experience. The young person’s attention turns to meeting the realities of the outer world. A corresponding openness and interest in how one can serve or find one’s place in the world develops. No longer is the emphasis for the young person on what he or she is becoming, but rather on what potential the context or environment offers for development. A much more receptive attitude begins to show itself. Interest, receptivity and perceptive awareness for the world are thus characteristic to this stage of development. At the same time, the form of consciousness can now achieve an awareness of the essential quality or nature of being as it exists in the world. Apart from their manifestation, i.e. beyond the inner activity, interrelationship and expressions of beings, beings can be recognized in their own right. The young person can thus meet what is literally essential in the world: the agents which are the origin of the phenomena or expressions which have hitherto come to consciousness. It requires an act of will in order to experience being as pure potential, i.e. stripped of all but the inner potency out of which all else arises. Only thereby can consciousness grasp another being and, in grasping it, inwardly unite with it. This is then an experience of intuitive unity whereby one’s one being is not lost, but rather fulfilled by the meeting. At this level of existence, all being is an unrecognized part of one’s own being. Thus an aspect of

180

existence which is also a hitherto unrecognized part of one’s own existence can be recognized and affirmed in the world and in oneself simultaneously. Through the new possibilities for the organization of consciousness, an experience can arise of unity with the greater whole and of the creative being (or beings) which is (or are) at the origin of all that exists: an absolutely non-denominational but essentially religious experience. The faculty of intuition is required to rise to this comprehension of the origin of the world in the creative beings which work within it. Through this faculty, the full reality of the human being can also be comprehended for the first time. This awareness of the nature of being at the origin of existence is the prelude to self-knowledge. This year, as the last when the pupil should still be largely embedded in the group destiny of the class, school community and family, has the potential to form a transition to the fully individual path that begins with the onset of adulthood in the following year. The awakening of interest in and a dawning awareness of one’s own concrete life destiny are characteristic. The latter shows itself most immediately in the question of the path of life after school, a path connected with a fully individualized ego, which (only) now begins to ripen into a concrete answer. Thirteenth Grade: Methodology The student, nearly an adult now, must make a transition to an independent direction in life, with not only confidence but also preparation and capacities in place for the individual’s future direction. This is thus a year directed towards the future; towards the tasks ahead both for the world and for the individual. A sense of culmination is also appropriate. Independent work and motivation are definitely to be expected, as well as the beginning of a sense of responsibility for the direction of one’s own life. In many ways, this should be a year of enabling what the young man or woman wills to happen, of supporting and helping to clarify this will and of giving the foundation that is re-

181

quired for an adult life in today’s world. [In Europe and in Canada many Waldorf schools have a thirteenth year prior to the taking of national examinations (ed).] Thirteenth Grade: Curriculum The young person’s consciousness turns now to the active principles at work in world and human development. In history, the nature and interplay of conservative, progressive and humanistic impulses in various epochs and regions of the world should be the starting point. This can be followed by examining the special contributions of the periods of history and various regions of the world, e.g. how religious impulses and a tendency towards unity, or even homogeneity, arise in the East; social impulses and cooperation develop out of the Center; technological advances and differentiation, even competition, are characteristic of the West; impulses of West and East intermingle on the Pacific Rim. Another example is the North’s tendency towards individuation, abstraction and industrialization vs. the South’s tendency towards community, concrete experience and agriculture. A spiritual history and geography of the world thus arises. Economic history (from the barter economy to globalization) and the structure and evolution of the current world economy should be especially emphasized. Each human being has, however, an individual relationship to all of the above-mentioned spiritual factors, independent of all geographical or historical considerations. A comprehension must arise of how each animal species incorporates a particular form of soul life,95 each type of plant incorporates particular growth forces and patterns and each mineral incorporates a particular physical structure. The human being, in contrast, is an individuated microcosm of all possibility, his evolution continuing from where all of the realms of nature leave off, i.e. in the realm of spiritual or inner evolution leading to self-determination and inner freedom. (Excerpts from Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom may be invaluable here.)

182

On the basis of this understanding, human appearance, habits and gifts can be comprehended as being principally the result neither of forces of heredity nor of influences from the environment, though each of these makes a contribution to the corresponding level of man’s being, but rather comprehended as a garment woven to serve for the current life out of the resources of the past and in order to prepare for and develop into the future (i.e. of the human being as an evolving spiritual individuality) reincarnation and karma. The search for one’s own task in life is intimately connected with an awareness of the task of one’s own time; each of us has incarnated at this particular moment in history in order to play a part in this larger task as well. A study of the unique goals and accomplishments of each historical period – as well as of the tasks of each that remained unsolved, awaiting a future resolution – is essential to a comprehension of our own time’s special tasks. This close link with and transition to the discovery of one’s individual task may well lead to a specialization of needs, depending on whether university entrance exams, a deepening of artistic experience or the mastery of the rudiments of practical or social work, for example, are best suited to prepare the individual for the next phase of life, that of the journeyman. A special topic for the year is medicine (health and illness), exploring the constitutions, temperaments and soul-tendencies. Sclerotic and inflammatory conditions should be touched on. The human immune system is of special interest at this time. In chemistry, processes of annihilation and re-formation should be explored. Warmth processes and the role of hydrogen are particularly suitable topics. In physics, astrophysics, thermodynamics and entropy as well as the contemporary developments commonly known as chaos theory should be entered into. In mathematics, the work with calculus can continue and complex numbers and elementary number theory be introduced.

183

In literature, the novel should be treated from the point of view of destiny (e.g. stumbling blocks and bridges encountered) and the underlying vision of human nature. Contemporary trends in literature can be illuminated from this standpoint. Tolstoy's Resurrection might be an appropriate work. In music, orchestral playing should be cultivated. The composer’s intent should be explored. Conducting – and all music making – may be practiced as the art of bringing the reality of the music into sounding tone. The origin of the tonal system may be reviewed and new tonal systems and musical developments explored. An overview of the expressive character of all the arts is now due: how architecture expresses laws of the physical world (structural laws of support and bearing); sculpture expresses the life nature as form and stilled movement; painting expresses the soul nature out of the realm of color ; music expresses experience in the realm of ego through tone; poetry and literature express a spiritual consciousness (so that meaning is unavoidable here, in contrast to the visual arts and music, where it is essentially a foreign element); eurythmy expresses spiritual life in all these realms; social artistry allows the spiritual nature of the human being its true expression. The capacity to gain an understanding of a topic through a co-operative effort, whereby each contribution is potentially a stage or building stone in the understanding to be achieved, should be cultivated in the pupils. IDEALS AND SOUL DEVELOPMENT There is a fundamental difference between the sentient organization’s perceptions and inner, soul experience. The sentient organization is stimulated by impressions from the physical body’s sense organs, from the life body’s organs sensitive to formative qualities and from its own organs of sentience. In the soul, by contrast, impressions are not bound to the form in which they are received from the lower organizations. Such impressions are merely the raw material out of which the soul can form content appropriate to its own evolving nature.

184

During the phase of life dedicated to the development of the sentient organization, however, the soul has not yet gained the independence from the lower bodies – in particular from the sentient organization – that it will achieve later. What will be accomplished later by way of soul development from within still depends upon help from the child’s environment. Only through such outside influence can the sentient organization be developed into a structure capable of serving as a bearer of a soul itself capable of developing towards ever maturity and objectivity of experience. A significant pedagogical task of this phase of life thus consists of cultivating, developing and refining the manifold experiences rich in sentient content that life brings during this phase of development in order to bring these into a form appropriate for an objectively significant inner life. During the two preliminary stages of development of this phase of life, while the soul organization remains in a preparatory condition, it cannot be approached as directly as is possible once its proper development commences (with the third developmental stage). Thus, during these years the child’s sentient experience cannot yet be appealed to directly, for it remains largely unconscious (and should do so, for its activity and forces are still needed in order to transform the physical and life bodies). What is to be brought for the child’s consciousness will have to appeal to these unconsciously developing sentient experiences through the fully developed and awake image consciousness achieved during the previous phase of development, bearing significance for the new, sentient experience of the child without yet calling upon the child to become fully conscious of this experience. Material which mediates between the child’s awakening forces of consciousness and the life organization’s receptivity to image is thus appropriate. Examples of this are stories that include elements drawn from the kinds of sentient experience now arising for the child and conscious learning that incorporates the kind of descriptive and anecdotal content that appeals to the imagination.

185

Similarly, the capacity to make judgments is rapidly developing during this transitional time, but the capacity to form one’s own judgments properly is not yet present. Thus, the teacher(s) must find ways to bring descriptions or experiences of the world that allow judgment to arise directly, i.e. through the description or experience itself, without a judgment being imposed upon or demanded of the child. It is a delicate balance, as all who have to do with children at this time of life will testify. Above all, the latter must no longer be treated as young children, for a threshold has been crossed, and yet nor should they be treated as if they had already achieved a maturity that will only arise over the course of this phase of development. Once the development of consciousness proper has begun, which generally corresponds with the beginning of secondary school,96 the subjective nature of the newly awakening sentient experience can be explored. Previously, various impressions made upon various members of the class were experienced as aspects of an objective reality. (‘The knight was brave’, ‘the knight was foolish’, etc.) Now, the interest naturally turns more towards the personal content of these experiences. (‘I feel he was brave, I admire him’; ‘I feel he was foolish, I disdain him.’) Personal experience, which still lies strongly in a polarity between sympathy and antipathy, can be developed and explored. In the following stage of development (the fourth, corresponding to the tenth grade or the sixteen-year-old), objective capacities are developed through accurate observation and logical thinking. Objective aspects are refined from inner experience in the simplest realms of the outer and inner worlds. In the final stages of the development of the sentient organization, successively more challenging levels of the realms of nature as well as of inner experience are taken up. Whereas logical thinking is accomplished in the preceding stage, the processes of thinking can become subjects in themselves (along with the plant world) during the fifth stage, the processes of feeling (and the animal world) in the sixth stage, of willing (and the human being) in the seventh stage of this phase of development.

186

EDUCATION THROUGH IDEALS There is a second realm of pedagogical responsibility during this entire phase of development. We have seen (in the chapter on “The Nature of the Human Being”) that impressions from a higher sphere light up in the adult’s soul life, taking the form there of ideals such as truth, justice, equality, love, freedom and brotherhood. These are not abstractions but images of a reality as true and as powerful as the outer, physical world and capable of giving orientation to our experiences and our lives, while only under their influence can understanding become wisdom. History teaches us their power; inspire a people with an ideal and they will transform the world. Whether this is for good or for evil depends not upon the name of the ideal but the true source of its inspiration. The experience of such impressions of a level of creative reality that can form and transform worlds belongs to the human soul’s development. The soul organization depends upon the receipt of such impressions in order that it may later serve as the bearer of a soul awake and receptive to the reality to which these impressions bear witness. Left to its own natural limitations, the sentient organization remains oriented towards experiences of subjective aspects of the human being. Through enabling it to become sensitive to the nature and power of ideals, the developing soul-sentient nature is able to turn towards the surrounding world in a way that does not just seek subjective experience there. Experiences of genuine ideals at this time of life provide the foundation for the adult to be capable of seeking an individual meaning, purpose and orientation in life. If dogmas are brought instead of living ideals, the adult will either cling to these stones in the soul organization or else reject their presence without actually being able to easily remove them. If, on the other hand, genuinely, creatively inspiring ideals are simply completely lacking, the human need for meaning, orientation and purpose in life remains open to manipulation. For this reason, materialistic times and cultures tend

187

to give rise to fanaticism, chauvinism (of nationalistic or other coloring) or ideology.97 Only if ideals are brought as experiences reflecting the living, creative power of the world from which they are drawn can the natural processes of human development allow the world of the child to grow free of the images into the reality of which they are but a reflection. It is thus a pedagogical task of this phase of life to bring such living, creative ideals alive for and in the pupils as lights that may lead them onwards. Ideals must be shown to be capable of permeating all of knowledge and action; they should inspire all of the themes and tasks brought in these years. The essentials of pedagogical methodology in this phase of life can be expressed through these two tasks: for the adult (i.e. self-aware, not merely sentient) consciousness to show how to transform personal experience into objective understanding and capacities, and to bring ideals as winged messengers of a living, spiritual reality capable of giving impulses to and direction for life and of transforming the environment in which we live on all levels. SOUL AND WORLD Beginning in adolescence, the inner life must be deepened and cultivated, the outer explored and understood, and the connection between the two worlds maintained and strengthened. A one-sided emphasis on the inner world is unhealthy; if the fluid, unstable, somewhat arbitrary world of the soul is looked to in order to provide definition, structure and a foundation for the outer life, then a situation of outer chaos, unreliability and dependence is likely to arise. This dependence can lead towards one form or another of addiction. The inner world can productively serve as a source of creative inspiration for the human being’s relationship to and transformation of the outer environment and as a source of insight into and understanding of the buzzing, blooming life of the outer world, but the inner world cannot rule the latter.

188

If the outer world, on the other hand, is looked to as a source of content for the world of inner experience and an answer to the human need for a meaning to his or her existence, then a kind of perpetual dissatisfaction may fill the soul as a result. This can take the form of anger, resentment or harping criticism, for example. This condition can ultimately lead towards despair or even suicide. The beings of the outer world, stone, plant and animal – even more so those of the technological world – are devoid of all capacity to speak any other language than that which comes to expression in their outer existence; they are, in a sense, dumb for us, for they cannot speak the language of the soul. The form of our life and experience is necessarily given by the outer world, the content by the inner world. Though any one subject may seem to draw more upon one of these worlds than the other, e.g. science attending to the outer world, art drawing from the inner, it is the task of the upper school teacher to ensure that a balance is brought about through the whole approach to and style of the lessons. The science teacher cultivates a sense of wonder and love for the fullness of experience that nature generously and copiously offers. Out of the sense of the richness of inner feeling that arises in us when we meet nature’s outer richness, the pupil’s attention can be directed to discovering, through the schooling of their attentive and perceptive faculties, the systematic principles that underlie the natural world. This should always be accompanied by a sense of awe, surprise and grace that such principles are ever again to be found. The children must come to experience that it is not the inner world that gives this order, that it is not a matter of learning abstract theories which are then imposed upon nature or over her rich flux, but that when the human soul offers its careful, attentive awareness to a nature itself devoid of the capacity to become aware of its own being, nature’s own innate but hidden, wise organization can be gradually and ever more precisely perceived and articulated.

189

The art teacher brings a special kind of wisdom to bear in order that the artistic work may flourish as it should. The pupils experience a kind of rigor in the approach whereby they gain a systematic foundation in all aspects of the work: materials, preparation of materials (learning, for example, to make a simple brush and pigments), techniques appropriate to various media, then light, color, form and composition. These examples are drawn from painting, but similar principles apply to the other arts, and all this must be experienced by the pupils as the requisite framework for becoming freely expressive in the various media. However, the outer world – the world of materials, media, technique, and so forth – can never supply the inner content of the artistic work. Only the inner life of soul can give this content. The pupils must come to experience how the inner and outer worlds meet in one way in the arts, another way in the sciences. This requires of the teacher that, whatever subject he or she is bringing, both elements, the world of inner experience and that of outer perception, are given attention. The scientific lessons have to be very artistically composed. The choice of elements or experiments, the order in which these are presented, the whole arrangement must show a certain artistic touch, a love for the subject, not as specialization, but as an approach to exploring the world. The artistic lessons, on the other hand, require a systematic composition of the course of exercises and a clarity of intent behind each individual exercise, leading to the pupils’ increasing capacity to achieve expression and freedom from subjective tendencies derived from habits, conditioning, constitution, and so forth. Through a rigorous schooling towards freedom, this is the path of the arts, whereas science achieves a rigorous, systematic organization beginning with what is an essentially arbitrary relation to raw sense experience. Science brings nature’s wise order into man’s initially chaotic life of soul; art allows the human being to bring something essential of his or her humanity into a natural world otherwise devoid of this quality. The task of art is to humanize the world, that of science to bring the objective cosmic order towards the human being.

190

Science turns its attention towards the earth. Art draws upon the inner life of the soul for its content. Crafts, however, draw their forms out of the spiritual world itself. These forms – whether of a spoon, bowl, vase, clothing or a house – all have their ultimate source in the world of archetypes, in the spiritual world. This awareness needs to be guarded and cherished in the craftwork and nourished through the quality of the work achieved here. Through science, we comprehend the world; through art, we express ourselves in it; through crafts, we become co-creators with the gods, drawing upon the same creative forces as they do: weaving, molding, dissolving, forming, and so on. The importance of the craftwork in the curriculum cannot be overemphasized; through it, the children come nearest to spiritual reality itself. SPECIALIZATION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL Two streams run through all pedagogy: a harmonizing and unifying stream that establishes a common basis of the essentials of education for all children and a differentiating, particularizing stream that meets the needs of the individual child, be it in a support and therapeutic sense, balancing an insufficiency in development in certain areas, or through specialization. From the very beginning of school life, these two elements interweave in pedagogical practice. Incidental assistance from a teacher, parent or another pupil, or a particular exercise given for practice gives a therapeutic element on the one hand. Choices made wherever elements of freedom enter the work in any way and all instruction that takes place in smaller groups or individually (with musical instruments, for example, where the choice of an instrument is already such a specialization), on the other hand, bring differentiation into the common life of the classroom. It is possible to guide a great deal of what particularizes back into the general, unifying stream of education: the various instruments can

191

come together to play in the orchestra, literally and figuratively speaking. Especially after the entry into secondary education, however, the question of specialization looms larger as the shadow of the future decision as to career and life direction (the shadow of adulthood) falls across the child’s development. Looking forward the future choice of direction in life adulthood is a normal and necessary experience, of course, but the shadow should not be confused with the presence itself. In many modern educational systems, children are called upon to determine their direction in life, or this is determined for them at sixteen, fourteen or even twelve years of age in ways that will have lasting consequences for the range of possibilities open to their future choice. Interests and pleasure in particular subjects and disinterest in or discomfort with other subjects are natural enough experiences in school life, though in the early years much of this may be more accurately attributed to the child’s relationship with a teaching style or personality than to the subject itself. Capacities and weaknesses will also become clearer over time. With an eye to the course of human development as a whole, however, it must be kept in mind that the future direction can only begin to reveal itself just at that time when the school years are drawing to a close, and even then mostly in so veiled a way that only much later, looking backward, does the relationship between the directions undertaken in the eighteenth to twentieth year of life and the ultimate direction of the individual’s mature life become apparent. What does this imply for specialization during the school years? First of all, finding practically, artistically and intellectually engaging and challenging aspects of every subject will be of great importance in the high school in order to fully engage all of the pupils. There is a potential gate to every subject for every pupil if this differentiation is kept in mind. The orchestra of the temperaments that is the tool of every teacher of the elementary grades becomes the orchestra of the soul characters, of the thinkers, feelers and willers in the high school. There is a great potential in the high school for special offerings above and beyond what is possible within the normal course of instruction.

192

The learning of a musical instrument as well as many other practical and artistic skills or academic deepening normally takes place in programs which run parallel to the main stream of the education, e.g. in before or after school programs. A considerable amount of the child’s need for differentiation in education (whether it be support and therapy or increased contact with a given area or subject) can be answered through such programs, and certainly from the onset of the third sevenyear phase of life – the phase of differentiation – onward, and ever more strongly as the effects of this differentiation become apparent, for many children, the availability of such additional possibilities will be partially or largely determinate as to whether the school experience is a satisfactory one or not. (Of course, the needs of some children in this respect are met through the informal or non-educational possibilities which their lives include.) For a school to be able to reasonably answer the needs of a broad range of children through to, or at least close to, the end of the school years, not only will there have to be a balance between practical, artistic, social and academic possibilities, but possibilities of deepening the experience in each of these realms must also exist. After all, the young person’s inner life is beginning to become more differentiated and acquires depth, as well; only if this is being met appropriately by the outer world, in particular here by the school, is the development of the individual being properly cultivated. At a certain point, however, it becomes impossible for a school to offer such possibilities in all subjects simultaneously: in blacksmithing and biology, in music and mathematics. The question can be asked: From what age can the child or young person sensibly make a choice in this realm, not merely looking for where most of their friends can be found, to escape a subject they find difficult or tedious, or for a teacher with an appealing appearance or manner, but out of an inner commitment to the subject which will enable them to take on more responsibility for their work? Only when they are capable of taking such additional responsibility is it helpful to give a freedom which can be otherwise abused.

193

When this aspect of the question is taken into account, it becomes clear that specialization within the school program begins to become sensible at age sixteen to seventeen, when the inner capacity for taking such responsibility normally awakens, and is perhaps most sensibly kept as a decision to be made as a fruit of this year in the planning for the following year. (In particular circumstances, earlier specialization may be necessary due to the circumstances of the pupil or the school, of course.) Ideally, as broad a common program as possible should be maintained, certainly including elements of all the areas of education. Specialization should thus be seen as a quite generally necessary differentiation and enrichment of the broad-based central offering of the school, not as an alternative to it.

194

Conclusion THE HIGHER SELF OF THE CHILD At any point in the child’s development, certain levels of the child’s being are already in incarnation, other levels are in the process of incarnating, while yet other levels are not yet ready to incarnate. Much of the work of raising and educating children focuses on nurturing the child as he or she stands before us in incarnation or on the transformative process of helping the child through the current stage of development. The emphasis thus tends to naturally lie on those aspects of the child’s being which are already incarnated or are currently coming into incarnation. Is it possible for the parent or educator to work with those elements of the child’s being which are not yet in incarnation, and if so, in what ways might this be fruitful? Such questions will perhaps be particularly alive in those who cultivate their own relationship to a spiritually or religiously experienced higher existence. They should have an answer here. The aspect of a human being which is not (yet) in incarnation, often called the higher self, remains under the care of spiritual beings, including the guardian angel, in the spiritual world. We are linked with this world unconsciously through our own higher being, the unincarnated aspects of our own self. This link can also be achieved consciously through an expansion of incarnated consciousness to include the spiritual worlds. We are able to reach the higher self or angel of the child through both of these portals; we can perceive in or be illumined by this sphere of being to the extent which we are graced with help from the

195

spiritual world or achieve an inner development capable of experience in this realm. In reality, the two experiences generally go hand in hand: the more we strive to develop ourselves for the sake of others, the more we are graced with help from the spiritual world. Reaching up to the child’s higher self or angel as a source of help in our task in the child’s incarnation can be and is most effective when practiced on a daily basis. Some seek this help only at times of special need, however. In either case, the whole task of raising or educating children is transformed by cultivating the awareness of a link with the child’s higher being and with the spiritual worlds. The ‘single parent’ is a powerful image for our times, not because every parent is single, but because every parent (or educator) today can come to feel himself or herself to be ultimately alone in his or her task. Forming a connection with the higher self of the child on the one hand, and with the helping powers of the spiritual world on the other hand, is the only way to overcome this experience of isolation, for the real isolation we experience is isolation from our own higher self, from the spiritual world and from the spiritual aspects of those around us. An absence of companionship may be experienced as a loneliness of soul. The physical world links us with the incarnated aspects of our fellow human beings. It is not here, however, that contact is chiefly lacking, nor does contact here overcome the deeper source of the sense of isolation. Overcoming our spiritual isolation, our isolation from the spiritual reality of the world, is the task of our times; it is especially the task of those responsible for the children coming into this world. Only through an awareness of both elements of their being, their incarnated and their higher selves, can they be helped to become that which they have the potential to become. The importance of love has not been mentioned yet in the descriptions of the incarnating child, nor that of wisdom or insight. For the young child in the first phase of life, and to a considerable extent all through childhood, love, insight and wisdom can only be effective for

196

and certainly are only appreciated by the child when they are creatively active in forms of experience accessible to the child. For the child, love which does not create a harmonious and healthy sensory environment and rhythms of life, and wisdom or insight which do not flow into imaginative creativity, are barren and fruitless irrealities. Paths must be found and forms built up for wisdom and love to reach and surround the child. This is a path of incarnation for our own higher selves, to bring the ideals which live in us into real existence on earth for the incarnating child. Love and wisdom are like the warmth and light of the sun for the child: the natural elements which the child expects to be surrounded by, which are only noticed when they are absent and for which thanks are rarely given. But when they weave through all of the child’s experiences, when they are at the source of the child’s upbringing and education, what is given to the child is transformed from stones into the bread of life. Our striving to help the child is fructified by an inner awareness of the true source of the being – and thus of the incarnation – of the child in the spiritual world. This awareness can be strengthened and deepened as an effective force in our lives by cultivating it on a regular basis. A moment at the start of the day dedicated to re-establishing an inner connection to the higher source of the child’s or children’s being and to our own higher selves enables us to enter the day striving to be open to the inspiration of and to serve the good forces of the spiritual world. A moment at the close of the day dedicated to reviewing the course of the day and to lifting up our lives into the perspective of our own higher selves and of the higher source of the child’s being enables us to receive in the night that which we need from the good forces of the spiritual world.98

197

For those who wish to cultivate the connection with the spiritual worlds neither as materialist nor as dreamers, meditations such as the following may be used. At night: May the spiritual worlds View what I have accomplished Out of my own powers For the good path of world destiny And perceive therein the will To transform my being Into a chalice for its will.

In the morning: O spiritual worlds, Send insight And strength to fulfill deeds For the good path of world destiny. Inspire my intuition, Invigorate my imagination For work in the world in your service.

198

Appendices NATURE STUDY AND NATURAL SCIENCE There is probably no other area in modern education that receives so much attention as natural science. For this reason, it seems worthwhile to clarify the approach to the study of nature that is appropriate to the course of child development. The child experiences nature in various ways and at various levels according to the developmental stage reached. The pedagogical task is to develop the experience and consciousness that are possible at each stage. It should be especially noted that each successive stage builds upon the appropriate developmental experiences of previous stages. It is harmful to simply transpose a mode of experience appropriate to a later stage of development onto a child who has not yet had the preliminary and necessary development.99 At the beginning and the end of childhood, the experience of nature is least concerned with its outward form. This is so at the beginning of these years because the archetypal qualities that manifest in nature are still experienced. It is so at the end of these years because the enquiring mind is already seeking the underlying principles that manifest in nature. In the middle years, the child focuses on the appearance itself, that is, the earthly or outer manifestation of nature’s being. Experience at the beginning of childhood is thus unconsciously spiritual, in the middle of childhood descends to an earthly consciousness, and at the end is capable of being raised to a consciously spiritual level. Pedagogically, this leads to the following sequence. In the early years, exposure to nature should be intuitive and contextual. In the first school

199

years (including the end of kindergarten), images of nature are given that include the archetypal qualities inherent in the various natural beings: the pure quartz, determined dandelion, shy lamb. In the next few years, nature’s earthly appearance is explored as an image of its higher nature. With the beginning of the phase of development of consciousness or sentience (from thirteen years of age and onwards), the child’s awareness begins with the earthly aspects of nature and builds from this up to a new and more conscious awareness of what lies behind these aspects. This begins with comprehending the interconnections between natural beings, e.g. ecology. Such interconnections are not apparent in sense perception, yet can be made apparent to an understanding experience of nature. In the middle of this phase, man’s responsibility for balancing this ecology through understanding nature’s beings and their development becomes central. In the latter years of this phase (approximately corresponding to the later secondary school years), an analytic, scientific understanding of the principles underlying nature’s phenomena can be explored. This can lead to a deeper sense of the spiritual forces at work in nature when the forces of wonder, empathy and responsibility are awakened. Summary of the stages of nature study or natural science 1st phase: Intuitive Experience: Early Childhood life in and with the beings of nature 2nd phase: Image: KG – Grade 2 the image of the spiritual archetypes of nature’s beings Grade 3 the image of mankind’s stewardship for nature’s beings

200

Grades 3–6

the image of nature’s beings in their earthly expression

3rd phase: Consciousness: Grade 7–9 consciousness for context and significance (ecology) Grade 10 consciousness of the responsible cultivation of nature Grade 11–13 consciousness of morphology and principles (scientific understanding in the classical sense) A special topic within the natural sciences, of particular importance in our times, is that of ecology. In the traditional Steiner curriculum, this is implicitly rather than explicitly dealt with. This gap should be remedied here. Ecological studies Grade

Curriculum

Grade 6

Mineralogy. Basis for further studies.

Grade 7

Geology. Study of mining and natural resources connected with Geography, the Age of Exploration and Colonization. Metals.

Grade 8

Weather, Climate and Plant Ecology. The natural flora of an environment as related to geophysical and climactic conditions. Wild and cultivated landscapes: pasture land, cornfields, orchard and market gardens, including their relative intensity of cultivation. The Industrial Revolution’s dependence upon plant sources of power (wood, coal, oil). Composting.

201

Grade 9

Animal ecology. The interrelationship and interdependence of animal species with each other and with local plant life and geophysical and climatic conditions. Ma nure vs. mineral fertilizers; modern agriculture (pesticides, herbicides) vs. the traditional role of birds and higher insects to destroy pests and of soil-building to reduce weeds.

Grade 10

Human influence upon the landscape. Dwellings of man; studies of folk buildings and their connection with the surrounding landscape. The polarity of village and town. Urban studies.

Grade 11

Systematic plant biology of lower plants. Metamorphosis of parts. Vegetative propagation.

Grade 12

Flowering plants and animals: biology and botany. Genetics in connection with plant and animal breeding: maintenance of a strain or breed, development through cross-fertilization, hybridization and genetic modification. Issues for humanity.

Grade 13

The human being and destiny: the meaning of incarnating into a given physical, social and cultural environment. The nature of our responsibility for the world: we shape the incarnational environment for the next generation.

THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS The exposition in the chapter “The Nature of the Human Being” outlined the processes of the ego’s developing consciousness as it finds its way to spiritual experience. It described a path by which spiritual

202

experience can be found in clear consciousness and without losing the capacity to put these experiences in their proper relationship to the normal consciousness developed on the basis of the world of physicality, life and sentience. It may be helpful to describe the nature and origin of spiritual experience as an objective reality in its own right, independently of the path by which consciousness finds its way to this experience. Such experience depends upon certain transformations of various levels of the human being having taken place; these belong to the objective nature of the experiences and will also be included here. A first spiritual realm is encountered when the ego has transformed the sentient organization into an objective organ of consciousness. This organ can begin to perceive the impulses of the spiritual world as contents of consciousness or sentience analogous to the normal experiences of the sentient organization: impulses of sympathy and antipathy, desire or fear, but also thoughts, will impulses, and so forth. These are understood when they are experienced as objective, that is, arising from sources outside the experiencing human being. Normally, we have no direct experience of such a sentient world outside of our own100 and are therefore prone to bring these new experiences into too direct a connection with or to confuse them with our own inner life. Though they are experienced as vividly as the experiences arising from our own sentient organization, their origin is in the spiritual world. Initially, we know no more than that these experiences are there; we cannot say how they arose and from which source. This realm is sometimes called the Realm of Imagination, for, on the one hand, the formative images which work creatively in the world are active here; on the other, an inner imaginative activity is necessary to bring the ego into sufficiently flexible, living activity to penetrate into this first stage of spiritual experience. In this realm, the ego is for the first time becoming active in relation to spiritual reality. Previously, spiritual reality played into the soul life unconsciously, if at all (just as impressions from the bodily organiza-

203

tions arose in the soul unconsciously during the earliest stage of the latter’s development). As the ego generates new inner content through its activity of consciousness in spirit, a spiritual individuality (i.e. a faculty of individualized spiritual creativity) begins to develop in connection with the incarnated being of man. This newly developing level of man’s being has been given various names: Spiritual Individuality, Spirit (or Spiritual) Self or Spiritual Consciousness. To go further into the realms of spiritual reality is only possible when the experiences of the life organization are transformed into an objective organ for spiritual perception. The perceptions which arise here are different than those which awaken through the transformation of the sentient organ. The ordering and expressive reality or activity, the form-giving and evolutionary expressions of the spiritual world, which work in the spiritual realm similarly to how the life organization gives form and life to physical reality, begin to be perceived. These expressive forces relate to the sentient impressions of the first stage of spiritual experience in that they underlie the latter. To a certain extent, only by setting aside the veil of sentient images can one arrive at the spiritual life-expressions. At this stage, these are experienced as spiritual expressions without an awareness of their true origin (i.e. of what they are expressions). In soul life, they are experienced as comparable to the life principle in outer life: in impressions of growth, metamorphosis, dissolution, and so forth. This realm has been called the Realm of Inspiration, for, just as life infuses or inspires the physical world, so these expressions infuse and inspire spiritual reality. The individuated nature of the human being in this realm is variously named Spiritual Life, Life Spirit, and so on. To achieve the next and last stage of spiritual experience requires that experience in the physical body become transformed into an objective organ of spiritual perception. This transformed organ has its own mode of perception, analogous to that of the sensory world but not arising from the actual physical senses. An awareness of beings analogous to

204

a perception of entities in the outer world arises here. For modern humanity, an objective character can only be attributed to such experiences when such objectivity has been achieved in all three realms of outer existence as well: the sentient, life and physical worlds. So long as subjective elements play into the soul’s experience of and relation to the more accustomed worlds of experience, no objective character can be claimed for spiritual experience; not because such experiences may not arise, but because the soul must first extend its capacity to differentiate objective from subjective elements of its inner life in order to recognize those aspects of its experiences which actually originate in the spiritual world and separate these from subjective elements which have been arbitrarily associated with or added to these experiences. This realm is often called the Realm of Intuition, for consciousness must rise to an identification with the spiritual beings themselves in order to perceive in this realm. This is the realm where the human spiritual faculty which can approach spiritual being directly is formed. The individualized aspect of the human being in this realm is variously named: Spiritual Being, Spirit Man, and so forth. Every part of the human being’s natural constitution consists of an organization differentiated from yet receptive to its environment: the physical, life and sentient organizations. Every part of man’s spiritual nature, in contrast, corresponds to a faculty differentiated from yet active in its spiritual environment: the faculties of spiritual consciousness, spiritual life and spiritual being (or imagination, inspiration and intuition).101 The spiritual environments in which the various spiritual faculties can begin to become active are themselves objective spiritual realms: the realms of spiritual consciousness, spiritual life and spiritual being.102 AFTERWORD FOR THE WALDORF MOVEMENT This work began as an attempt to bridge my perception of a gap that I perceived between the state of understanding of the phases of child development and the pedagogical practice in the Steiner/Waldorf

205

schools. It developed into a larger study aiming to be independent of any particular school tradition, though still drawing richly upon the sources of the Waldorf movement. Pedagogical practice demands detailed concrete curricula and a practical methodology. The current understanding of child development based on Steiner’s research consists primarily of convincing but quite broadly drawn characterizations of the seven-year phases of child development, and secondarily of much more fragmentary depictions of narrower developmental stages within these broad phases. The detailed, year-by-year analysis in this realm which would be required to provide a basis for curriculum development – and which has been achieved in such studies of child development as that of Piaget – has just begun to be studied. Our current understanding of child development from a perspective which unites the spiritual, soul and bodily aspects of the human being is, however, inadequate to serve as a source of such a detailed wealth of pedagogical and curriculum indications as Steiner himself provided, or, therefore, as an adequate source of further pedagogical and curriculum development for schools which seek to work out of such a perspective. To make the seriousness of the situation clear: if we lacked Steiner’s practical curriculum indications, we could hardly work out a detailed curriculum for our schools on the basis of our current level of understanding with the confidence that such a curriculum would be adequate to the task of giving children a comprehensive education; further, such a curriculum would be unlikely to achieve the depth and precision of the detailed curriculum indications which Steiner himself gave. These observations seem important for several reasons. First of all, it seems vital that those teaching out of such a curriculum comprehend what they are trying to accomplish thereby. This depends upon understanding the curriculum’s relation to child development: What is to be nourished or developed in the child through a given subject or methodology? How do the subjects taught in a given year relate to one another?

206

How does the path of development of the child correspond to the path of development of the curriculum? Steiner himself never completely explained from what source he drew his detailed pedagogical indications. This is a pity. Unless documentation exists in the archives of his notebooks and workbooks, we may never know the origin of the curriculum indications which he gave. It remains, then, to try to build upon the basic understanding of child development which he did give in order to make it precise enough to serve as a source of pedagogical practice, and thereby both to deepen our understanding of the sources and meaning of the curriculum as it already exists and to serve as a source of renewal for this curriculum. The attempt has been made here by working from both directions to bridge the gap between existing, rather broadly drawn characterizations of the stages of child development and the extremely well-defined curriculum and methodology of actual pedagogical practice. On the one hand, existing pedagogical indications – largely but by no means exclusively from Steiner – as well as existing school practice, in so far as both of these were known to me, were rich sources of insight but were only taken up here when their relevance was clear, i.e. when I could comprehend how they could be seen to grow out of the understanding of the stages of development described in this work.103 In many cases, of course, such indications and practices themselves gave further stimulus to penetrate deeper or further in my understanding of child development. On the other hand, as the work progressed, the understanding of child development which grew out of this study increasingly became a source of a new relation to the pedagogical indications and practices themselves, many of which were initially (at least to me) unclear or puzzling. I could cite in this respect many examples, e.g. the distinction between the Kindergarten and the first grade fairy tale or the parallel indications that minerals and mankind should be the subjects of the natural history in the tenth grade. In general, let it be said that both the

207

interrelationships of the various subjects given for any given class and the principles behind the sequential development of the individual subjects from year to year have never been clarified.) This growing understanding began to bear fruit in new suggestions for pedagogical practice, many of which are found in this book. It is thus my hope that a good part of what is found in the chapters on the curriculum will either be brought into a new light or even be wholly new in content for its readers. The ultimate goal of this work is to inspire a deeper understanding of the spiritual origin of the child and of child development and through these to stimulate the realization of the principles of the latter for education. In the case of those already active in Steiner/Waldorf schools, a further goal is to free the teacher from the perhaps only unconscious experience of a kind of slavery and inflexibility which can arise when a curriculum – however effective – is not comprehended by those who follow it. If even a few teachers can themselves be creative in this realm, discovering new possibilities for the education of the child out of a new understanding of the nature of the child which this work has helped to fire, then this work will be achieving its deepest purpose. There is no pretense to either comprehensiveness or infallibility in this work. The suggestions made here in the corresponding sections are not an attempt to articulate a model or ideal curriculum, but to show how work with the principles of child development can flow into curriculum development, deepening the understanding of how existing elements connect with the needs of the developing child and stimulating the discovery of new possibilities for meeting these needs. There is an archetypal curriculum which is inherent in the development of the child. Every concrete implementation of an educational curriculum is a translation of this archetypal image into a necessarily fixed and limited form. In the end, every school and every teacher or educator must develop an individual realization of the ‘archetypal curriculum’ inherent in the child’s being, a practical realization of how to meet the develop-

208

ing child’s needs according to the needs and possibilities of the situation.104 The author hopes that this work provides a contribution to this process.

209

Endnotes 1

The stages and years of development can be regarded as being approximately synchronous. 2 The author finds himself in a position analogous to that of the transcendental idealist philosopher F.W.J. Schelling. “The proof of this system should be made not just in general, but through the actual expansion of its principles to include all possible problems…” (Foreward to his System of Transcendental Idealism, translation H.G.) 3 To quote again from F. W. J. Schelling’s preface to his System of Transcendental Idealism. “It is the unique character of transcendental idealism, however, that once it is accepted, it requires that all knowledge arise as it were renewed from its very sources. What has long been recognized as accepted truth must be examined anew, and even if it passes this examination will of necessity come out of it at very least appearing in a wholly new form and gestalt.” (Translation H.G.) 4 The fact that these schools are capable of serving children whose parents come with no particular interest in the spiritual foundations of the school, but are simply searching for a healthy school for their children, is especially significant. 5 The unfortunate reality of the parents’ situation – geographical, financial or spiritual – preventing children who would benefit from Waldorf Education from finding their way to it cannot be avoided. Outer barriers can be overcome; inner barriers are often more challenging. 6 Whereby the body was considered to include both the living nature and the physical-material form. 7 In a transition phase, the psyche or soul was considered to include both a mutable and an eternal aspect, the latter being considered the spiritual element within the soul. This eternal aspect gradually dropped away from or was abandoned in descriptions of the soul. In the sense of the exposition here, the eternal aspect of the soul would now be called the ego, its mutable aspect the soul proper.

210

8

This turning point is given expression in the work of Aristotle, for example. 9 By this time, spiritual phenomena already formed a category for themselves. Especially in the western world, spiritual reality was increasingly denied or else regarded as something wholly separate from and inaccessible to human consciousness (except perhaps in trance or mediumistic states). Fichte and Hegel were perhaps the last philosophers to experience the possibility of human consciousness rising to spiritual experience without recourse to ecstatic means. In the last few decades, of course, an increased attention has been paid to spiritual experience, and a philosophical revival of the question is underway. 10 Such as gene technology wherein, as these lines are written, it is being shown that the human being has but few more genes than a mouse. Thus, the genetic structure is barely adequate to explain the far more complicated physical organism of the human being (for example, the central nervous system) and can not plausibly be associated with elements of life, consciousness or individuality. 11 Except in a pathological state such as a coma, where the individuality and consciousness are unable to unite with the life and body. 12 The terms ‘organization’ and ‘body’ will be used somewhat interchangeably in the following exposition; every organization has a comparatively stable content to which the term body can be applied; every body a corresponding organization. 13 In my understanding, these correspond to Fichte’s subjective and objective egos. 14 Though these are independent of the previously experienced content of the outer world, they are arrived at through and tested by such experiences. Thus, though they are abstract, they describe the conditioning laws of the real and experienced world and are by no means arbitrary. 15 A summary of this section may be helpful. Because we experience the realms of physical reality, life and sentience through our corresponding organizations, this experience is dependent upon the individual bodily nature of these organizations and is thus necessarily subjective. (Each of us has a physical, life and sentient body which experiences the world differently from

211

everyone else.) Subjective experiences are thus the initially available content of soul life. They are taken up into our inner life and, before we begin to reflect upon the relationship of our experience to that of others or to the world outside of ourselves, treated as real (i.e. not distinguished as subjective). This is the naïve state of experience. In so far as subjective content is not distinguished in its subjectivity here, however, the soul life itself takes on the subjective character of its content. With reflection comes insight into the initially subjective nature of our experience and a gradual ability to determine objective soul content and distinguish this from content of a subjective nature. Through increasingly self-reflective activity, man’s soul life is thus capable of evolving from a subjective to an objective treatment of inner experience. The stages of relationship to experience described here are thus a progressive attempt to escape the initially subjective nature of experience; in order to arrive at objective experience, however, successive stages of abstraction from the content of experience are required. 16 Lower members in the sense of their activity being below the level of the ego’s wakeful consciousness. 17 In ancient languages, such as Hebrew, there are distinct words for formative activity, i.e. reshaping already given material, and creative activity, i.e. bringing forth essentially new substance in any realm of existence. This distinction is only partially preserved in modern languages. ‘Creation’ is traditionally reserved to describe the activity of God in bringing forth that which is essentially new. In this sense, the ego here is creative, not merely formative; it brings forth wholly new content as a result of its activity. In the realm of body and soul, the ego only experiences formative activity, whereas in self-experience, it experiences creative activity for the first time. 18 This will be explained in greater detail below. 19 The world of space is twelve-fold in nature, thus twelve possible modes of sensory perception. The world of formative development and time is seven-fold in nature; thus there are seven developmental processes (and seven days of the week). The world of consciousness is three-fold in nature, thus the soul’s articulation into thinking, feeling and willing and the three stages of soul development. The world of individuality is single in nature, thus the ego’s unity.

212

20

These images have been developed by the author in conjunction with the artist Peter A. Wolf. It is only fair to say that, though both author and artist are very familiar with Rudolf Steiner’s seven Goetheanum capitals, and though some correspondences will be perceived with these, the present series originated directly out of the author’s work with developmental stages as described in the present book. Parallels or correspondences between the two series are the result of their common source in this archetypal developmental sequence. 21 An entity’s relationship to the environment can also be described as its condition of consciousness, whereby consciousness must be regarded in the very broadest sense. 22 In child development, as well, a study of this individual variation in the working of the various formative stages can be extremely productive. This study must limit itself to the archetypal pattern of development upon which a general pedagogy can be founded. The realm of special education is a separate but not less important question. 23 My will cannot directly shift the physical matter of a pencil; it can, however, direct the physical matter of my hand – and thus move the pencil indirectly. That the physical body – and the other bodies or organizations – can be organized in such a way that our consciousness and will can perceive and work through them is a great wonder; how this is accomplished cannot be gone into further here. (Cf. the works of J.G. Fichte, where this question is explored in great detail.) 24 Those who may quibble with referring to the whole first twenty years of life as childhood are referred to the opening sentence of Arnold Gesell’s standard work, The First Five Years of the Child (New York, 1940): “In a biological sense, the span of human infancy extends from the zero hour of birth to the middle twenties.” It remains only to add here: and not only in a biological sense. 25 Old age is becoming a season of life in its own right (due to increasing longevity). In some cases, the relationship to one’s own bodily organizations and the outer world remains that of an earlier season of life. This is, however, more of a delayed entry into old age than a separate season of its own. In other cases, the process of dissolution

213

of the organizations is extended. In such cases, the task of preparing the aged for the re-entry into the spiritual world takes on a greater individual and societal significance, but this period still remains one dedicated to this transition. The traditional tasks of this time of age, which were to advise those still occupied with earthly responsibilities from a point of view already more linked with the spiritual world, are hardly taken up today. 26 Cf. The Nature of Human Development, above. 27 E.g., wife, mother, friend, an outside occupation, and so forth. 28 That is, the consciousness conditioned by existence in this realm. 29 Dimension, as a descriptive term derived from sensory experience, is naturally inadequate to describe the nature of spiritual reality. What is meant here is the extent of this first sheath’s inclusiveness, not a physical expanse. All further descriptive terms applied to non-sensory reality in this work are used in such a metaphorical sense. 30 In this way, human beings are mutually responsible for bearing the objective aspects of destiny created by each other. Originally, had human beings not begun to introduce subjective elements into destiny, such a life built out of the objective needs of the world would have been possible. Though individual consciousness would not have existed, neither would have individual flaws; every human being would have lived in perfect service to the will of the spiritual world. 31 Before the Mystery of Golgotha the goal of spiritual progress was to completely free oneself of individual karma. The individual could then live completely out of and in the service of the objective path of world destiny, and was in fact no longer bound to return to earthly existence. The sun path of voluntarily taking on others’ karma interfered with this goal and was a rarity only known and followed by certain exceptional individuals. 32 It is thus challenging to maintain an equal degree of love for the partner after the sheaths are no longer bringing this in such rich supply. It is important that couples understand the reason for the quality of their love changing with the birth of the child; it is the changed relationship to the love-bringing spiritual sheaths that lies behind this experience.

214

33

It is important for the normal (ego-) development of the child that he or she finds both parents’ egos when descending into earthly incarnation. 34 Though centered in the inner ear, the sense of balance is actually sensitive to the orientation of the entire physical body, not just the head. This can be established by first standing or sitting upright and sensing one’s condition of balance and then raising an arm or a leg without shifting the head position from the upright. The sense of balance does not remain static, but communicates the changed orientation of the whole body (despite the organ of balance in the ear remaining in an unchanged position). 35 The sense of movement is sensitive to the elongations and contractions that take place in the body (mainly through the action of the muscles). 36 The sense of well being is sensitive to the chemical changes that result from our inner condition. 37 It might be questioned whether thought can be attributed to an animal such as a bird. An animal cannot think; nonetheless, thoughts are unquestionably determinant in animal existence. The bird’s capacity to be aware of when it is appropriate or necessary to build a nest, to select (even from previously unfamiliar materials) suitable supplies for nest-building and to shape and reshape these rough materials according to an inwardly experienced form principle shows that the bird has a concept of function, form and material which she can flexibly employ. The thought of the bird’s nest resides in the bird’s instinctive nature, but is nonetheless a thought, not (for example) simply a fixed pattern of behavior. The same applies to the bee’s communicative faculty through movement; the underlying concept is fixed but the behavior is not. The underlying concept lies inherent in the bee’s instinctive nature. The movement is always an expression of this one essential thought. 38 The difference between our explicit and implicit experiences in the outer world is that the former refers to characteristics of the substance of the physical world, the latter to characteristics of its form. 39 The sense of balance actually reveals the relationship between our physical body and the outer world, in particular to gravitational pull.

215

40

Eurythmy is an art of movement that draws much more on the higher senses than traditional dance forms, which live primarily in experiences of the lower senses. 41 For this reason, sense organs such as the eye can not be used at their full capacity at birth. The sense organ proper is fully developed, but the surrounding muscles that control the eye’s focus are not yet capable of fully performing their task. 42 This does not imply that the mother must be physically present at all moments. 43 Because the period of pregnancy lasts somewhat less than a year, there is a certain sense in which the first stage of development continues somewhat beyond the birth. Each successive stage could then be regarded as beginning several months later than the dates used here. For simplicity’s sake, the stages have been nevertheless taken here to correspond with the round year. 44 This happens in stages; for example, the digestive system’s development begins with the intestinal activity. At this stage, food passes through the mouth and stomach essentially unmodified. Later, the stomach begins to be active in digestion; this depends upon the organs beginning their activity to supply the digestive fluids. Only at the end of this development does the food begin to be chewed and go through a preliminary stage of digestion in the mouth. 45 This accomplishment depends upon the contributions of both the sense of balance and the experience of the rise and fall of pressure stimulated by the breath in the inner column of fluid which extends from the bottom of the trunk through the spinal column and up to the top of the cranial cavity. The inner ear alone cannot distinguish between a position of the body in which the head is upright but the rest of the body is not and a position of the whole body being upright. The support of the experience of the fluid column is thus necessary to achieve a fully upright posture. 46 For the toddler, daily rhythms predominate, supplemented later by weekly, monthly and yearly rhythms. 47 At a later stage of active imagination, these experiences will be freed from the bodily expressions. 48 Unless the activity takes a sense-perceptible form, the child has nothing to imitate. More precisely, the child will imitate only those aspects

216

of an activity which are sense-perceptible. Intellectual and social life, for example, are largely invisible to a child of this age except as they make use of outer forms (e.g., the tea party). 49 Exceptions occur when the child has had experiences which have dammed up his will or has, for some other reason, an abnormally weak imitative capacity. 50 A younger child will, of course, be more or less comfortable, irritable, and so forth, as a result of the condition of warmth or coldness she finds herself in, but will not be aware of the cause of the state of comfort or discomfort. 51 “Brought down” might be a more appropriate phrase. 52 Situations in which there is no human being responsible for a machine (e.g. in which it is left running unattended) or where the human being who should be responsible has become passive and led by the machine instead of ‘running’ it (e.g. in certain factory environments or, more common today, in which dependence upon media has developed) lead the child to unconsciously experience the machine as if it were an independently willed being; this can in turn lead to an unhealthy relationship or dependency upon technology in later life. 53 Especially effective now is ‘celebrating’ the activity in ways that enhance its appeal to the developing imaginative faculty. Through special songs, verses, artistic arrangements of beauty or verbal images, an activity may engage the child at a deeper level of her being now. 54 Language here should be considered very broadly, i.e. to include all forms of communication: verbal, pictorial, musical, etc. 55 Not every parent will have the lucky combination of time, energy and talent to meet the needs of younger children not yet ready for a formal environment. Various solutions exist – e.g. grandparents, ‘parent and toddler’ groups and small care situations – but more must be found. 56 Only much later, when the bones harden and cease growing, does the experience of the skeleton become one of physical finality or death. 57 Rudolf Steiner puts the change of teeth at the end of the physical body’s development, describing this whole period as a phase when

217

the formative organization is bound to the physical body and transforming the inherited conditions, and the pushing out of the second dentition marks the conclusion of this transformation. The change of teeth certainly begins at the transition between the physical and life bodies’ development, but it clearly belongs to (and by any count continues well into) the years of the latter, rarely taking place to a significant extent and generally not even beginning within the period of the first seven years. 58 Further growth continues to take place, of course, and further developmental changes occur in the physical body. After early childhood, however, these tend to be in more concentrated bursts and associated with particular transformative moments (e.g. puberty). 59 For these reasons, during the period devoted to the physical body’s primary development, it is important that the child’s formative forces not be forced in any way which would draw these forces into the conscious realm too early or too deeply, i.e. through exercises (whether physical, practical or mental), sport or any other kind of training. The formative forces must remain free to fulfill their proper function for this stage of life, the development of the physical body. 60 Only in the final stage of childhood is the outer result imitated; see the previous chapter. 61 The stimulus for children’s activity will be explored further in the next chapter on “Metamorphic Imitation.” The whole tendency to concentrate on educational materials rather than educational processes is similarly flawed. Materials are tools to be employed by, not the source of an effective pedagogy. 62 This is not to say that only that which is sense-perceptible has a place here. That which is not so perceptible in and of itself can be represented in sense-perceptible form. This form should, however, be adequate to the true nature of what is represented. An angel or a gnome should be given a worthy garment. Similarly, to comprehend the nature of electricity, the image of water flowing through pipes can be employed. True images must be found, whatever the phenomena or being. 63 This freedom is itself problematic in a different way; technology is famously morally neutral and thus available to use for good or evil.

218

The moral neutrality here originates from this lack of connection with the inherently and specifically not morally neutral world of formative forces. 64 Art may also express something of yet higher worlds: of the worlds of consciousness, individuality, and so forth. Unless these are translated into a form expressive of the formative force (imaginative) world, such expressions remain symbolic in nature. The symbolic and the artistic are thus in dynamic tension; the one seeks to bring in higher expressions, the other to put all expression in a form which corresponds to its content in a living way. 65 Through such an illness, the novelist Proust’s organization of formative activity, and thus his experience of memory and image, became extremely dependent on sense perception, for example. 66 It will clarify the nature of the formative organization’s experience when rhythm is contrasted with repetitiveness or beat and metamorphosis is contrasted with alteration. Rhythm and metamorphosis arise from the inner nature of the phenomena; beat and alteration are imposed upon phenomena from without. 67 This shows the importance of the first year of this phase of life establishing a free interrelationship between experience in the physical body and the formative organization. If this interrelationship is not properly established, the levels of experience can be either confused with one another or unable to be brought into mutual connection. In the latter case, ideas will no longer be experienced as referring to sense experience, but as a totally unconnected realm of their own. Both of these problems can be perceived when early schooling has suppressed the normal and healthy development of the child. 68 The author has deliberately chosen examples that illustrate the limits of literal recall, abstract thinking and fixed images. 69 In later years, the university or workplace will bewail the lack of creative thinking and useful memory of individuals whose education did not develop these. They can only be allowed to developed by delaying the onset of the mechanical forms so cultivated in the majority of today’s educational systems. A choice must be made here; one cannot press for earlier training of the mechanical faculties and simultaneously hope for a later flowering of the creative faculties. In childhood, the order must be the other way around.

219

70

See “The First Phase of Life,” above. Plot and character development in stories are not yet appropriate, however. 72 There are cultures in which this is somewhat later (e.g. Finland) or earlier (England and Japan). These are exceptions, and the educational experience with early entry into schooling, in particular, rather substantiates the need to wait until the child is developmentally ready. 73 I.e. addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, respectively. 74 The two girls in Mother Holle do not go on a journey of development; at the end they are as they were at the beginning, their nature has only been made visible. Hansel and Gretel, on the other hand, are changed by their trials and come back to a father and home which has also been changed as a result of the experiences of the fairy tale. Therein lie the elements of evolution and development appropriate to the first grade. 75 Outlines as depictions of objects are conceptual additions to the world; they do not exist in the reality that we perceive. Allowing color areas to express the content is more true to both sense and soul reality, which are full and rich in character. 76 The movement itself should breathe in a living way; the child’s breath need not – and indeed should not – be directly addressed. Formative processes are being cultivated, not physical training! 77 A more abstract treatment of these elements belongs appropriately to the third seven-year period of development. 78 The life and rhythmic organization of the animal has a formed, differentiated, pre-determined structure dependent upon the predisposition and nature of the species. In contrast, each human being’s life and rhythmic organization is formed in an individual manner (in addition to the effects of being born into a particular language, culture and land). 79 This is the origin of the indications for story content in the chapter on “Developmental Stages.” 80 The young child experiencing through the physical body has not yet developed an organ to perceive the passage of time (thus the immediacy of the current moment). Only with the independent development of the life organization is such an organ available. 71

220

81

More will be said about the rhythmic aspects of these below. Steiner speaks of this period as being one when ‘breathing’ in all its many forms is the central experience of the child and the most important thing which education can ‘teach’. 83 I.e. children who have already entered the next phase of life. 84 Steiner uses the term ‘motif’. 85 It is especially characteristic of life in the modern world that this development is accelerated and accentuated. Various aspects of soul life are so dominant in our culture that they are constantly being appealed to, e.g. demands on our evaluative faculties and stimulation of the experiences of sympathy and antipathy (often intensified to desire and fear). Children were once kept protected from these elements, exposure to them being allowed to grow gradually with the years. They so flood in on even the very youngest children from virtually every direction of the modern environment that exceptionally few escape accelerated development in this realm. 86 This applies to demands made upon the intellect or independent judgment , for example. 87 This individualization occurs at the midpoint of this phase of development, i.e. at approximately sixteen years of age. 88 See the appendix on gender differences for a comparison of the situation for boys and girls during these changes. 89 Solid – liquid – gas. 90 Synthetic materials were developed during a later historic period; how much they should be introduced already at this stage is a delicate question. 91 The young person’s own inner life and that of others; in dealing with the awakening life of judgment at all of these stages, it is important to bear in mind that the inwardly directed force of self-judgment is as strong as the outwardly directed judgment of that which is experienced in the environment. In an individual case, one or the other of these may seem to predominate, but it may be also that the one or the other is more visible. 92 This can be extended into computer use as appropriate: word processors, the Internet, and so forth. These should, however, be developed out of the principles of automatic logic devices in such a way that the nature, quality and limitations of these applications are un82

221

derstood at the same time as the actual steps of their use are mastered. 93 It is not completely satisfactory that an introduction to computer programming and use (in the tenth grade) proceeds the understanding of the technical workings of the computer, but this is preferable over introducing the one too late or the other too early for the pupils’ development. In any case, practical use of such devices and even the logic of their programming are actually considerably simpler to comprehend than the engineering principles involved in the hardware. 94 This will be clear once leaf metamorphosis is studied in detail. It comes to expression in the impossibility of envisaging the blossom of a (not yet flowering) previously unknown plant by studying its growth pattern. The blossom is always a surprise, somehow going beyond the plant’s previously exposed character. 95 For example, the relationship of the various animal hand forms to the human hand illustrates how the human hand presents an archetypal form out of which various possibilities may develop one-sidedly. The human being, however, remains malleable; the bodily-determined tendencies of the animal remain as soul-tendencies in the human being; the bodily-determined growth forces of the plant remain as potential forces of thinking in the human being; the bodily form of the mineral remains as potential will in the human being. 96 The division of the school years into school levels varies widely. Sometimes there is no provision for a transitional, middle school phase, the child entering the secondary school somewhat earlier; sometimes the middle school includes the ninth school year as well. The considerations here relate to the actual steps of development and are thus obviously independent of how the various school levels are named. 97 The French and Russian Revolutions and the rise of fascism in Central Europe in the 1930s – as well as many American phenomena – can be traced to the materialistic culture that provides a medium in which such tendencies grow out of hand. Lacking a healthy yeast culture, a mass of dough will attract a wild ferment. Just so it is with a society.

222

98

It is possible to confuse these two gestures. The materialist wishes to receive from the spiritual world through gifts of outer life. For a young child, outer gifts are bearers of an inner reality. With the awakening of an independent inner life, outer gifts become at best purely symbolic of, at worst entirely empty of inner reality. For the adult, the gifts of the spiritual world are received in the inner life. Gifts of the outer world are responsibilities that end up being truly gifts only if given meaning through our own inner life. The spiritual dreamer, on the other hand, wishes to serve the spiritual world exclusively through the inner life. In old age or senility, the inner life becomes an objectively experienced world. This is part of the preparation for life after death, when what we know during earthly life as the world of inner experience will surround the soul in another, objective form, as a spiritual reality that makes up the outer life of the spiritual worlds. What we then experience as an inner, subjective life is a transformation of what we know during our earthly life as the outer world. Before this loss of wakeful earthly consciousness, however, the path of service to the spiritual world is trodden through our life in the outer world. Service to the inner life is self-development which can only become true service if it is used to build our capacity to serve others in the outer world as well. 99 This is one of the blatantly ignored principles of education, especially in the natural sciences. The attempt to bring material appropriate at the middle school, secondary or even college level at an earlier – sometimes at the earliest possible! – moment of education signals the complete misunderstanding of child development. Just as a plant which is driven to create fruit or seeds at the earliest possible moment cannot possibly develop its whole being healthily or naturally, but will be stunted in all other realms, so it is with the child. As we spend ever more time with technology and less with nature, the resulting tendency towards accelerated development in the human (and natural) realm will inevitably be ever more in conflict with and at the expense of the child’s (and nature’s) proper and healthy development. 100 For this reason, they are easily confounded with projections of inner experiences. The latter are the result of a soul life which has lost its

223

objectivity; the experiences here can only be discovered by a soul life fully capable of objectivity in normal existence, and which from this extends itself into the spiritual world. 101 It is in the capacity of being active through the individual’s consciousness that these are differentiated from the spiritual sheaths which exist in these realms even for those who have not undergone a spiritual development. 102 Rudolf Steiner uses the terms generally translated as ‘Spirit Self’, ‘Life Spirit’ and ‘Spirit man’. 103 A surprisingly large number of these indications and practices were clearly related to the path of child development described here. 104 In many cases, of course, such practical realizations are already being developed. The questions of how the individual school’s curriculum is being developed and why are often unresolved: it simply happens out of the practical situation. This may be sufficient in the short or even medium term. In the long term, and for the future of education in general, curriculum development must have an ever more conscious connection with the course of child development.

224

At the Source Harlan Gilbert

Harlan Gilbert was born in Chicago. His teaching experience has ranged over all ages: pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school and high school. He has a Master’s Degree in Education and has written and lectured on education and new developments in science and philosophy. He has lived and worked in the United States, England, Scotland, Switzerland, and Hungary. He returned to the United States in 2002 and is presently teaching high school mathematics at a Waldorf school in New York State.

At the Source

The Incarnation of the Child and the Development of a Modern Pedagogy

Harlan Gilbert

PMS 1645 orange black

AWSNA Publications

T h e A s s o c i a t i o n o f Wa l d o r f Schools of North America 3911 Bannister Road Fair Oaks, CA 95628