The Renewal of Education: Lectures Delivered in Basel, Switzerland, April 20-May 16, 1920

285 Pages·2002·1.05 MB·German

by  Rudolf Steiner

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THE RENEWAL
OF EDUCATION
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[IX]
THE FOUNDATIONS OF WALDORF EDUCATION
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R S
U D O LF T E I N ER
THE RENEWAL
OF EDUCATION
LECTURES DELIVERED IN BASEL, SWITZERLAND,
APRIL 20–MAY 16, 1920
FOREWORDBY
EUGENE SCHWARTZ
Anthroposophic Press
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Published by Anthroposophic Press
P.O. Box 799
Great Barrington, MA 01230
www.anthropress.org
Translated with permission from Rudolf Steiner, Die Erneuerung der pädagogisch-
didaktischen Kunst durch Geisteswissenschaft(GA 301), copyright © 1977 Rudolf
Steiner–Nachlassverwaltung.
Translation copyright © 2001 Anthroposophic Press
Foreword copyright © 2001 Eugene Schwartz
Publication of this work was made possible by a grant from the Waldorf Curriculum
Fund.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, printed,
electronic, or other, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 0-88010-455-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925.
[Erneuerung der pädagogisch-didaktischen Kunst durch
Geisteswissenschaft. English]
The renewal of education / by Rudolf Steiner ; translated by Robert F.
Lathe & Nancy Parsons Whittaker ; introduction by Eugene Schwartz.
p. cm.—(Foundations of Waldorf education ; 9)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-88010-455-4
1. Waldorf method of education. 2. Anthroposophy. I. Title. II.
Series.
LB1029.W34 S7212 2001
370’.1—dc21
2001001608
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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T C
ABLE OF ONTENTS
FOREWORD BY EUGENE SCHWARTZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
1. SPIRITUAL SCIENCEAND MODERN EDUCATION . . . . . . .17
Basel, April 20, 1920
DISCUSSION FOLLOWINGLECTURE ONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
2. THREEASPECTS OF THE HUMAN BEING . . . . . . . . . . . .37
Basel, April 21, 1920
3. UNDERSTANDINGTHE HUMAN BEING:
A FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Basel, April 22, 1920
4. THETEACHER AS SCULPTOR OF THE HUMANSOUL . . . .68
Basel, April 23, 1920
DISCUSSION FOLLOWINGLECTURE FOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82
5. SOMEREMARKS ABOUT CURRICULUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
Basel, April 26, 1920
6. TEACHING EURYTHMY, MUSIC,
DRAWING, AND LANGUAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
Basel, April 28, 1920
DISCUSSION FOLLOWINGLECTURE SIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115
7. THE PROBLEM OFTEACHER TRAINING . . . . . . . . . . . .121
Basel, April 29, 1920
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8. TEACHING ZOOLOGY ANDBOTANY
TOCHILDRENNINETHROUGH TWELVE . . . . . . . . . .134
Basel, May 3, 1920
9. DIALECT ANDSTANDARD LANGUAGE . . . . . . . . . . . .150
Basel, May 4, 1920
10. SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS IN
HUMANNATURE AND EDUCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167
Basel, May 5, 1920
11. RHYTHM IN EDUCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182
Basel, May 6, 1920
12. TEACHING HISTORYAND GEOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . .198
Basel, May 7, 1920
13. CHILDREN’S PLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215
Basel, May 10, 1920
14. FURTHER PERSPECTIVES AND
ANSWERSTO QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .230
Basel, May 11, 1920
APPENDIX 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245
INTRODUCTION TOA EURYTHMY PERFORMANCE
Dornach, May 15, 1920
APPENDIX 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251
INTRODUCTION TOA EURYTHMY PERFORMANCE
Dornach, May 16, 1920
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265
THE FOUNDATIONS OF WALDORF EDUCATION . . . . . . . .279
RUDOLF STEINER’S LECTURES ANDWRITINGS
ON EDUCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .281
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FOREWORD
Eugene Schwartz
In 1920, when these lectures were given, the Waldorf School in
Stuttgart was barely eight months old, and the educational theo-
ries and methods developed by Rudolf Steiner were hardly known
outside of Central Europe. Far more influential at that time—and
still exerting a powerful effect on educational theories and meth-
ods to this day—were the educational philosophies of John Dewey
and Maria Montessori.
John Dewey’s work in education arose out of his original immer-
sion in philosophy and psychology, and thus manifested a strong
concern for the development of thinking in the child. In formu-
lating educational criteria and aims, he drew heavily on the
insights into learning offered by contemporary psychology as
applied to children. He viewed thought and learning as a process
of inquiry starting from doubt or uncertainty—the so-called
“Problem Approach”—and spurred by the desire to resolve practi-
cal frictions or relieve strain and tension. For Dewey, the scientist’s
mental attitudes and habits of thoughts represented the zenith of
intellectual life, and the cognitive side of education should guide
children toward this goal: “The native and unspoiled attitude of
childhood, marked by ardent curiosity, fertile imagination, and
love of experimental inquiry is near, very near, to the attitude of the
scientific mind.”
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V THE RENEWAL OF EDUCATION
Education must therefore begin with experience, which has as
its aim the discipline and systemization of these natural tendencies
until they are congealed into the attitudes and procedures of the
scientifically minded person. The “Problem Approach,” developed
further by William Kilpatrick of Columbia University’s Teachers
College into the “Project Method,” became the modus operandiof
the progressive education movement, which controlled many of
America’s school systems for two generations.
Maria Montessori, who had been the first woman medical stu-
dent in Italy, approached education with a passionate interest in
the biophysical basis of the child’s will. Soon after her graduation
the young physician worked at the Psychiatric Clinic in Rome,
where retarded and emotionally disturbed children were herded
together like prisoners. She observed that after their meals the chil-
dren would throw themselves on the floor to search for crumbs:
Montessori looked around the room and saw that the chil-
dren had no toys or materials of any kind—that the room
was in fact absolutely bare. There were literally no objects in
their environment which the children could hold and
manipulate in their fingers. Montessori saw in the children’s
behavior a craving of a very different and higher kind than
for mere food. There existed for these poor creatures, she
realized, one path and one only towards intelligence, and
that was through their hands. . . . It became increasingly
apparent to her that mental deficiency was a pedagogical
problem rather than a medical one.
In her renowned school for slum children in Rome’s San
Lorenzo quarter, Montessori discovered that certain simple mate-
rials aroused in young children an interest and attention not pre-
viously thought possible. These materials included beads arranged
in graduated-number units for pre-mathematics instruction; small
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FOREWORD V
slabs of wood designed to train the eye in left-to-right reading
movements; and graduated series of cylinders for small-muscle
training. Children between three and six years old would work
spontaneously with these materials, indifferent to distraction, for
from a quarter of an hour to an hour. At the end of such a period,
they would not seem tired, as after an enforced effort, but refreshed
and calm. Undisciplined children became settled through such
voluntary work. One of Montessori’s early revelations was that,
although wealthy benefactors of the school had given the children
costly dolls and a doll kitchen, her students “never made such toys
the object of their spontaneous choice. ” Healthy children, she dis-
covered, prefer work to play.
The spring of 1920 found John Dewey serving as a visiting pro-
fessor at the National University in Peking, where he lectured
extensively on the philosophy of education and met with such
influential Asian leaders as Sun Yat-sen. Dewey’s educational ideas
were to dominate Chinese pedagogy until the Communist
Revolution. At this time Maria Montessori had risen to a similar
peak of predominance. Just before the outbreak of the First World
War, a Montessori school had been established adjacent to the
White House, under the sponsorship of Woodrow Wilson’s daugh-
ter, and by 1920 Montessori had given training courses for teach-
ers in Italy, France, Holland, Germany, Spain, England, Austria,
India, and Ceylon. Paying her first official visit to England, she was
accorded a degree of adulation usually reserved for royalty.
In the years following World War I, Rudolf Steiner’s influence
spread less visibly, but no less profoundly, than that of his more
prominent contemporaries. By 1920, a host of practical endeavors
were undergoing transformation or renewal through Steiner’s
anthroposophical insights. Every profession or vocation requiring
renewal compelled Steiner to provide new imaginations and inspi-
rations for its practitioners so that they in turn could act with new
intuitions as challenges arose. Steiner’s role as an educator, serving
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