The Kingdom of Childhood Lecture 6 in Essays

This lecture is dedicated to a rough outline of methodology to accomplish the objectives defined in the previous lectures. Namely, this lecture is about the how in bringing experiences to children that they can then practice becoming aware of in their bodies and feeling life.
Wet-on-wet watercolor painting is given especially high praise by Steiner for early childhood development. This method of painting necessarily eradicates lines and outlines; because the color disperses to all directions as soon as brush touches paper, there is barely definition to be observed. The technique to achieve a sense of subject, background and foreground is accomplished only through use of color- by varying intensity, concentration or shade. This method of painting most closely represents how we perceive the world through sight. Lines and definition do not exist in our sight perception! Only contrasts of color, shade, depth, and so on.
As children experiment with the watercolors, they gain sensory experience of it’s impact both on themselves and on the creative process.

Pg 97 Quote: “I want to show that there is something that should be present in the child at a higher stage, this feeling of well-being at the inward flow of sound.
Imagine what would happen if the violin could feel what is going on within it! We only listen to the violin, it is outside of us, we are ignorant of the whole origin of the sound and only hear the outward sense picture of it. But if the violin could feel how each string vibrates with the next one it would have the most blissful experiences, provided of course that the music is good. So you must let the child have these little experiences of ecstasy, so that you really call forth a feeling for music in the whole organism, and you must yourself find joy in it.”
Music has perhaps since the dawn of humanity been known to affect the human being in profound and beautiful ways. Music, Steiner says, is a principle and favored method of bringing the experiences of joy, ecstasy, or inspiration to the child. Younger children should be exposed to specially chosen pieces which can be enjoyed without too much introspection or thought; and older children should be encouraged to become aware of how music brings out these experiences within them.
For musical education, Steiner recommends the wind instruments as they so closely represent the musical instrument of the human being; the voice. Wind instruments have a double benefit of improving breath control, clarity of voice, and discipline. The next type Steiner recommends are the string instruments which can be felt producing their music directly through hands, fingers, and the chest. Steiner advocates that the piano be reserved for older children.

Language, letters, grammar, writing and reading, according to Steiner, are useful insofar as children are encouraged to express and experience them in the real world. We look up at a gorgeous, clear and expansive sky and we might saw “Ahh!” the first letter in the alphabet. The feeling of “Ahh” is awe, or very closely resembles the sound of “A”.
The feeling of vowels, is to be regarded as internal experiences and the feeling of consonants is, roughly, external things. A review of the suggested curriculum for teaching language isn’t in the purview of this series; but the underlying purpose and objective of the Waldorf method of education. So, finding ways to bring a child to the experience of a letter can be a challenging and invigorating process, but well worth the effort in terms of benefit.
Pg102 Quote; “So the whole language is built up in the vowels out of a feeling of inner astonishment, wonder, self-defense, self-assertion, and so on, or out of a feeling of imitation in the case of the consonants. We must not drive these feelings out of the children. The children should learn to develop the sounds from the external objects and from the way their own feelings are related to them. Everything should be derived from the feeling for language. In the word “roll” the child should really feel: r, o, l, l. It is the same for every word.”

Pg105 Quote; “the child feels a very strong impulse to express its inward experiences as activities of will in its own body. This can be seen in the very early years when the child begins to laugh and cry, and in the various ways in which feelings are expressed in the face.”
Dancing, acting, playing out of inner feelings all come very naturally to the child. Meaning is embedded in movement- just as meaning is embedded in words and music. “Speech has laws, and so has eurythmy.” -Eurythmy is Steiner’s word for dancing to meaning. Posture, stance, expressions, movement, tempo, can all be used to express meaning with the human body without ever saying a word.
Steiner defines eurythmy as being different from gymnastics- and from the sporting kind of exercises one might do to become competent at a skilled physical endeavor. The purpose of eurythmy is expression.