Kingdom of Childhood Lecture 3 in Essays

General Principles of Waldorf Education

Steiner spends quite a lot of this lecture describing in strictly Anthroposophical terms the process of child development. It is a difficult and unclarifying read, often referring to unseen spiritual and soul forces that he seems to take for granted exist and that there is any empirical evidence for the forces themselves or their effects. Nevertheless after this mystifying explanation, Steiner points out the developmental process of the ego “I” formation at the age of about 9 or 10, and the concurrent ability for self reflection.

Pg 48 Quote; “between the ninth and tenth year human beings come to the point of discriminating between the self as subject and the outer world as object. There is now the distinction between the self and the surrounding world. Up to this time you could only tell fairy stories and legends in which the stones and plants speak and act like human beings, for children did not yet differentiate between self and environment. But now that the differentiation is made, you must bring the children in touch with their environment on a higher level.”
Steiner further uses the point that children without a distinct ability to discriminate between the self and environment should be taught through the liberal use of anthropomorphism; or referring to the child’s own lived experience in order to expose them to different facets of the world. Rocks should be very still, hard, and thoughtful, for example, rather than giving the child a “dry* description of mineral or chemical composition. Steiner points out the meaninglessness of these “dry” descriptions to children under this age.

Pg49 Quote; “It is of great importance that from the tenth year until toward the twelfth year you should awaken these thoughts of plant-earth and animal-person. Thereby the children can take their place in the world in a very definitive way, with their whole life of body, soul, and spirit.”
Further, Steiner warns of the danger of alienating children by using abstract dry instruction. He emphasizes that children are learning through their environment and through their educational exposure where, who, and what they are in the world. Presenting children with isolated phenomena, such as the leaf of a plant to identify, or even the entire plant plucked and dried or an image of that plant stripped of soil and it’s environment, does nothing but show that everything is isolated and alienated from everything else. Steiner admonishes this type of instruction, and instead encourages the educator to present everything in context to it’s environment in which it exists; plants belong to the earth, and even certain types of plants to certain regions of the earth, and so on.
Pg50 Quote; “You cannot put this right coining phrases about educating people rightly; you can do it only if in the concrete details you can find the right way of speaking of the plants in their true relationship to the soil and of the animals in their rightful place by the side of humankind. Then human beings will stand on the earth as they should and will have the right attitude toward the world. This must be achieved in all your lessons. It is not only important, it is essential.”
The attitude of a person in isolation from his environment is withdrawn, depressed, lacking self-esteem. In order to prevent this isolation, Steiner says, we must be always connecting the child to himself and how, through himself, he connects with the world.

Pg52 Quote; “You must teach and educate out of the very nature of the human being, and for this reason education for moral life must run parallel to the actual teaching that I have been describing to you. So now in conclusion I would like to add a few remarks on this subject, for here too we must read from children’s own nature how they should be treated. If you give children of seven a conception of cause and effect you are working against the development of their human nature, and punishments also are often opposed to the real development of their nature.”
Children are empirical and learn empirically; the evidence of this is that punishments do not work. The child may “accept” his punishment, but what he has learned is that you are willing to use force to get what you want, and will therefore fear you. He has learned nothing of objective reality; only how to manipulate violent people. Yet when a child experiences the consequences of his actions through empirical means, such as burning his hand, he learns about the world through his own experience of it and does not burn himself again.
The “concept” of cause and effect that Steiner speaks about in this quote is forced; it is an imposed consequence of punishment or reward, and reveals that the parent/educator is willing to manipulate in order to get what they want. The child observes this and can only internalize the principle and imitate it- to the peril of the parent/educator who seeks to control the child’s behavior. Manipulation is always defeated in reality.
Steiner points to the empirical nature of children and of human beings. In pursuit of education, Steiner tells us to discipline ourselves and subject ourselves to this reality; give up sophistry, manipulation, force, punishments, coercion.

Pg53 Quote; “You should not arouse in the children the idea that staying in to do sums is something bad, but is a good thing to do. That is why the whole class wanted to stay and do sums. So you must not choose punishments that cannot be regarded as such if the children are to be educated in a healthy way in their soul life.”
A beautiful example of sophistic manipulation is that the educator endeavors to teach doing sums as a necessary and ideally fulfilling life skill, yet also wants to use it to punish his charges. Such an individual is viewed as nothing but an authoritative bully without credibility, and he does a lot of damage to the credibility of anything he wishes to teach.

Pg54 Quote; “Teachers must always keep themselves in hand, and above all must never fall into the faults that they are blaming the children for.”
Again, the nature of the child and of the human being, is empiricism. If you want to be respected and regarded honestly as credible, then be respectful and have credibility.
Pg54 Quote; “Now is always fills me with horror to see a teacher standing in class teaching out of a book, or constantly referring to a notebook containing questions to ask the children. The children do not appear to notice this consciously, it is true; but if you are aware of these things then you will see that they have subconscious wisdom and say to themselves: My teacher does not know what I am supposed to be learning. Why should I learn what my teacher does not know? This is always the judgement that is passed by the subconscious nature of children who are taught by their teacher out of a book.”
This quote reminds me comically of the Peanuts (Charlie Brown) cartoons in which the teachers are always unintelligibly droning on in a “waa, waa, waa…” It’s true! Kids do not care about what you are saying if you don’t know what you’re saying.