History of Freinet Pedagogy The centenary of the birth of C lestin Freinet (1896-1966) provides a fitting occasion to remember the principal features of his pedagogy. It is also an appropriate moment to question the myths created by his followers and to resituate Freinet within the European New Education movement ("L'Education Nouvelle"). This article first appeared in French preceding a bibliography of recent publications in English, German and French and a list of international contacts.
Summary 1. Freinet Techniques 2. The Essential Concepts of Freinet Pedagogy 3. The Left Critique of Freinet Pedagogy 4. The Freinet Myth and the Influence of the New Education movement 5. Conclusion 6. Adresses and contacts 7. Bibliography
1. Freinet Techniques C lestin Freinet was born on October 16, 1896 in Gars, a small French village close to the Italian border. Unable to finance his secondary school studies, Freinet graduated with a school-leaving certificate from a junior high school. With this certificate he could go on to qualify as an elementary school teacher but was not eligible for admission to a university. At the age of 18, however, Freinet was conscripted into the army during the First World War. Within three years he had been seriously wounded at the front. A lengthy convalescence meant that Freinet did not start his career as a teacher until 1921 in Le Bar-sur-Loup, a little village in the coastal Alps near the Mediterranean. Freinet joined the anarcho-syndicalist teachers' union of the time, where he was an activist in the oppositional group associated with the communist party. It was probably at the urgings of his wife Elise that he became a member of the French Communist Party in 1927. His publications constitute a radical critique of the traditional public education system. Freinet's approach was not only theoretical and political but also very practical since he integrated his ideas into his daily work in the classroom.
In October 1924 Freinet introduced the technique of Learning Printing Technique. This meant that the children used a printing press to reproduce texts that they had composed freely. The pupils wrote down their own personal adventures, the incidents that they had experienced inside and outside the classroom, and so on. Usually these texts were then presented to the class, discussed, corrected and edited by the class as a whole before being finally printed by the children themselves working together. Freinet called this approach Free Writing ("Texte libre"). Later these texts would be assembled to create a Class Journal ("Livre de vie") and a School Newspaper ("Journal scolaire"). From 1926 on, the productions of his class, particularly the School Newspapers, were regularly exchanged with other elementary school classes in France, whose teachers were also involved in innovative teaching. Freinet calls this the technique of School Correspondence ("Correspondance scolaire"). Later, this correspondence would spread throughout the world. The French teachers who used Learner Printing and others who were beginning to make and use movies and sound recordings with their classes came together in 1928 and founded the Public Educators' Co-operative (Coop rative de l'Enseignement La c, C.E.L.), soon to be known as "Freinet Pedagogy" or the "Freinet Movement". From 1932 they edited a magazine "The Proletarian Educator" (L'Educateur Prol tarien). Since the thirties, the Public Educators "Co-operative has produced booklets based on pupils" research projects as documents for classroom use by others, because these teachers considered traditional school-books to be old-fashioned, academic and out of touch with reality. This collection of booklets is called the Working Library (Biblioth que de Travail) and can be added to the Class Library ("Biblioth que de classe") along with other documents, files and books. But Freinet also encouraged children to conduct their own Field Investigations ("sortie-enqu te") and research. This meant that his pupils regularly left the classroom in order to observe and to study both their natural environment and their local community. Back in the class, they presented their results, printed out texts, produced a journal and then sent all this material to their counterparts in other schools. These opportunities for child-centred learning and independent enquiry are organized according to a Work Schedule ("Plan de travail") in which the students set out their plan of work for a certain period. The Work Schedule is discussed and evaluated together with the teacher.
The Public Educators' Co-operative also initiated Self-Correcting Files ("Fichier autocorrectif") including hundreds of worksheets for such fundamental skills as grammar, spelling, math, geography, history, etc. Pupils use these files individually according to their needs and whenever they want to improve their performance. The overall co-ordination of class activities, and any problems affecting individual children or groups of children are regularly discussed and resolved in the Classroom Assembly ("R union coop rative", "Conseil") which consists of all the children in the class and the teacher. Freinet's philosophy of education disturbed the local school authorities of Saint-Paul (his second school) and they tried to have C lestin Freinet moved to another school-district. Freinet refused to be transferred and left the public education system. In 1935 he founded an independent school nearby in Vence. There, Freinet applied and developed his techniques until 1940, when he was sent to an internment camp by the Vichy Government as a political agitator. Later released for compassionate reasons (his weakened state was related to his war wound), he was placed under house arrest in the Alps, where he eventually joined the resistance movement in 1943.
2. The Essential Concepts of Freinet Pedagogy During his periods of detention at the time of the Second World War Freinet wrote his core works on pedagogy. The most important concepts are the following: - Pedagogy of Work ("P dagogie du travail") - meaning that pupils learned by making useful products or providing useful services. - Co-operative Learning ("Travail coop ratif") - based on co-operation in the productive process. - Enquiry-based Learning ("T tonnement experimental") - trial and error method involving group work. - The Natural Method ("Methode naturelle") - based on an inductive, global approach. - Centres of Interest ("Complexe d'int r t") - based on children's learning interests and curiosity. Freinet's school reopened in 1945 and his movement underwent a revival culminating in the founding of the Cooperative Institute of the Modern School (Institut Coop ratif de l'Ecole Moderne - I.C.E.M.) in 1947 whose role is to develop ideas for pedagogical resources and activities. The tasks of the Public Educators' Co-operative were then limited to the production of the actual pedagogical material such as the printing press and accessories, the Self-Correcting Files, the Working Library, etc.
3. The Left Critique of Freinet Pedagogy : 1st Wave Between 1950 and 1954, Freinet was vigorously attacked by intellectuals of the French Communist Party, who accused him of - promoting a notion of school based on an outmoded rural ideal, - downplaying the role of the teacher, - stressing process rather than content, - exaggerating the importance of children's spontaneous behaviour thereby reinforcing principles dear to bourgeois individualism.
In other words, the Communists criticized Freinet for creating illusions in teachers' minds, who are being encouraged to believe that they can change the realities of school life in a world dominated by capitalism. Closer scrutiny, however, now suggests that this conflict is better understood as a power struggle between the Freinet Movement and the Communist Party for the allegiance the unionized teachers. In the 1960s Freinet dwelt mainly on programmed learning and the expansion of his pedagogy to the secondary school level. He died in October 1966 and was buried in the little cemetery of Gars, his birthplace.
4. The Freinet Myth and the Influence of the New Education movement Freinet educators have subscribed to certain myths about Freinet, some of which were nourished by the accounts of his life written by Elise, his wife and lifelong partner. It is generally believed, for example that Freinet's war wound lay at the root of his efforts to radically change his teaching methods. Since he was unable to keep speaking for very long, he had to invent Co-operative Learning and Child-Centred Techniques. Some of his followers see him as a pedagogical genius who created all of his techniques out of thin air. The reality, of course is much more complex. Freinet must be seen in the context of the international New Education movement. Here, for example, are some of the pedagogical practices that were already known before Freinet :   School printing to reproduce pupil's texts were used by several teachers in the 19th century (Dumas in Paris, 1730; Oberlin in the Vosges c. 1800 and Robin at Cempuis, c. 1900).   Already in 1921 the Polish pedagogue Janus Korczak was using School Newspaper as an educational tool. The pedagogical concepts which Freinet referred to and which he studied thoroughly are the following (brief summary):   The Centres of Interest arose from a critical dispute between the Belgian psychologist Ovide Decroly and the U.S. philosopher John Dewey with his Project Method.   Freinet's Co-operative Learning techniques were partly inspired by the studies of Ovide Decroly and the Swiss psychologist Edouard Clapar de.   Enquiry-based Learning method was related to the Functional Pedagogy of Edouard Clapar de and the Genetic Psychology of Jean Piaget (i.e. the construction of learning through experience).   The Work Schedule is close to the Dalton-Plan developed by the U.S. teacher Helen Parkhust.   Self-Correcting Files came about after an encounter with the Winnetka-method pioneered by U.S. school-inspector Carl Washburne. Indeed, the first math files of the Freinet Movement are an adaptation of Washburne's Self-Correcting math programs. Freinet's pedagogical theory is not only based on the above mentioned practical techniques, but may also be seen in a larger philosophical and political context still, in the crucible of the New Education movement.
Pedagogy of Work Freinet's approach to Learning through Work may be contrasted with the concept of the German Georg Kerschensteiner, the Russian Pavel Petrovic Blonskij and the Swiss educator Adolphe Ferri re. Kerschensteiner wanted to educate working-class children with manual work because he believed that a more abstract approach to learning would not fulfill the socially relevant virtues of behaviour and performance. While Blonskij tried to integrate school into factories in order to enable children to deal with a modern industrial culture, Ferri re placed greater emphasis on a spiritual approach through which the child's energies should be channelled and nourished. Freinet's concept of Learning through Work focuses on work as the process of spontaneous re-organization of life in school and society. According to him, work is the basis of every human activity, indeed of the very development of a human being. Therefore productive work is an ongoing principle of teaching and learning. While the children are developing their texts with the techniques of Learner Printing, and producing their journals, exhibitions, and so on, they are in a constant learning process. This concept also distinguishes Freinet from the proponents of creative pedagogy popular in the USA.
Co-operative Learning Freinet's emphasis on Co-operative Learning was rooted in his own experiences as a founder of agricultural co-operatives. He was also aware of British experiments with school communities. At the same time he participated in debates about the French organization called Central Office of School Co-operatives (Office central de la Coop rative scolaire   l'Ecole), founded by B. Profit in 1923, and which still exists.
Natural Method The Natural Method is a general learning theory based on the empirical tradition of sensational and associational psychology in the 19th century. It is also influenced by German "Gestalt-Psychologie". This method implies an intuitive and direct perception of the learning object, which activates the basic sensorial functions. Therefore, this deductive procedure allows us to integrate abstract notions. The Natural Method is applied to reading, writing, and basic math. In this context, printing is an appropriate technique for a global as well as an analytical approach to the development of language. The conclusion is that the real genius of Freinet lies not so much in the creation of the above techniques but in the synthesis and articulation of these various approaches and procedures. Most of the well-known educators of the New Movement wrote their most influential expository works between 1900 and 1930, and the foundation of their experimental schools dates back to the period before the First World War. Freinet was a late comer to the New Education scene. He founded his own school in 1935 and wrote his core works during the Second World War. However, the scientific epistemologist Thomas Kuhn believes that newcomers like Freinet, often have the opportunity to stimulate paradigm shifts and create new theories. This may also explain why Freinet is less well-known than the major figures of the New Education Movement. He published his major works at a time when the impetus of New Education was slowing down. Sp cialists of the New Education Paradigm;
Born/Died; Name; Ctry; Main Works; Important Moments in Career 1854-1832 G. KERSCHENSTEINER.i.KERSCHENSTEINER; Ger 1899-1920 Inspector: 1895 1859-1952 J. DEWEY.i.DEWEY; USA 1900-1916 University professor 1884 1859-1909 F. FERRER.i.FERRER; Spain 1900-1912 School founded: 1901 1859-1933 B. OTTO.i.OTTO; Ger 1901-1914 School founded: 1906 1860-1923 H. GAUDIG.i.GAUDIG; Ger 1904-1923 University professor: 1923 1861-1925 R. STEINER.i.STEINER; Ger 1919-1924 School founded: 1919 1868-1919 H. LIETZ.i.LIETZ; Ger 1911-1917 School founded: 1898 1870-1961 P. GEHEEB.i.GEHEEB; Ger Schools founded: 1906-1910 1870-1952 M. MONTESSORI.i.MONTESSORI; Italy 1910-1930 Children's house: 1907 1871-1932 O. DECROLY.i.DECROLY; Belg 1914-1930 Medical Institute: 1901 1873-1940 E. CLAPAREDE.i.CLAPAREDE; Switz 1909 1875-1961 G. WYNEKEN.i.WYNEKEN; Ger 1913 School founded: 1910 1879-1960 A. FERRIERE.i.FERRIERE; Switz 1920-1928 1984-1952 P. PETERSEN.i.PETERSEN; Ger 1927 University professor: 1923 1888-1939 A. S. MAKARENKO.i.MAKARENKO; USSR 1933-1935 Camp: 1920 1889-1968 C. WASHBURNE.i.WASHBURNE; USA 1926-1932 School programs: 1925-30 1896-1966 C. FREINET.i. C. FREINET; France 1946-1950 School founded: 1935
Specialists of other paradigms 1904-1990 B. F. SKINNER.i.SKINNER; USA 1938-1957 1896-1980 J. PIAGET.i.PIAGET; Switz 1947-1953 1879-1962 H. WALLON.i.WALLON; France 1934-1942 1984-1973 A. S. NEILL.i.NEILL; GB 1960-1970 School founded: 1921 A Child-Centred Pedagogy
The New Education has to be seen in the Romantic tradition of the philosophy of education. These educators recommended a return to the origins of childhood which is regarded as "innocent" and full of promise. The effort to adapt the child to modern, industrial society through school is essentially an act of corruption. Only "natural education" offers a way to resolve these problems by introducing community-based activities such as manual labour and craft work. They are considered as more healthy and formative. Freinet's pedagogy stands in this tradition when he praises manual work and puts children's needs and desires above all. This concept stopped him from taking into account the studies on childhood which were realized in the 1920s, such as those discussed in the German review Zeitschrift f r psychoanalytische P dagogik (Review of Psychoanalytical Pedagogy). This apparent ignorance of new developments in educational though led to a severe crisis within the Freinet Movement during the 1960s. On two separate occasions, in 1964 and 1966, Freinet was to expel members of the Paris branch of his movement.
5. Conclusion Nevertheless, Freinet's commitment to a radical political philosophy meant that he did not drift into the reactionary tendencies that typified many of his many of his contemporaries inside the New Education movement. From the beginning of his professional life, his main interest always was to improve the social and cultural situation of working-class children. Instead of waiting for a broader revolution he believed that changes are possible in classroom right now. Nowadays Freinet pedagogy is still a very strong, international movement covering the whole range of school levels from kindergarten to university and adult education. The numerous celebrations of the centenary of Freinet's birth bear eloquent testimony to the enduring relevance of his pedagogy in today's troubled times.
France Institut Cooperative de l'Ecole Moderne (I.C.E.M.) 18, rue Sarrazin F-44000 NANTES Tel.: 0033-2.40.89.47.50, Fax: 0033-2.40.47.16.91 Publications de l'Ecole moderne fran aise (P.E.M.F.) F-06376 MOUANS-SARTOUX Cedex Tel.: 0033-4.92.92.17.57, Fax: 0033-4.92.92.18.04 Magazine: Le Nouvel Educateur Secteur Langues / I.C.E.M. D partement de Langues B t. 336 Universit  de Paris-Sud XI F-91405 ORSAY Cedex Tel.: 0033-1.69.15.73.09, Fax: 0033-1.69.15.73.85 Magazine: Tracer Germany P dagogik-Kooperative e.V. Goebenstr. 8 D-28209 Bremen Tel.: 0049-421-34.49.29 Magazine: Fragen und Versuche Arbeitskreis Schuldr ckerei (Deutsche Gruppe der Freinet-P dagogik in der F.I.M.E.M.) c/o Eberhard Dettinger Rathenaustr. 21 D-70191 Stuttgart Tel.: 0711-256.81.82
Magazine: AKS - Information
Internet - Website of the French Freinet Movement http://www.freinet.org/icem - Website of the International Freinet Movement F.I.M.E.M. (F d ration Internationale du Movement de l'Ecole Moderne): http://www.freinet.org - Website of the French Freinet Movement in Brasilia : http://www.rio.com.br/~eric/fre.htm - International Freinet listserv : freinet@cru.fr - International Freinet-class listserv : acticem@cru.fr - Coordination of the listserv : Bernard Monthubert, France bernard.monthubert@freinet.interpc.fr
Rudolf Steiner was born in 1861 and died in 1925. In his autobiography, he makes quite clear that the problems dealt with in The Philosophy of Freedom played a leading part in his life.
His childhood was spent in the Austrian countryside, where his father was a stationmaster. At the age of eight Steiner was already aware of things and beings that are not seen as well as those that are. Writing about his experiences at this age, he said, ". . . the reality of the spiritual world was as certain to me as that of the physical. I felt the need, however, for a sort of justification for this assumption."
Recognizing the boy's ability, his father sent him to the Realschule at Wiener Neustadt, and later to the Technical University in Vienna. Here Steiner had to support himself, by means of scholarships and tutoring. Studying and mastering many more subjects than were in his curriculum, he always came back to the problem of knowledge itself. He was very much aware: that in the experience of oneself as an ego, one is in the world of the spirit. Although he took part in all the social activities going on around him - in the arts, the sciences, even in politics - he wrote that "much more vital at that time was the need to find an answer to the question: How far is it possible to prove that in human thinking real spirit is the agent?"
He made a deep study of philosophy, particularly the writings of Kant, but nowhere did he find a way of thinking that could be carried as far as a perception of the spiritual world. Thus Steiner was led to develop a theory of knowledge out of his own striving after truth, one which took its start from a direct experience of the spiritual nature of thinking.
As a student, Steiner's scientific ability was acknowledged when he was asked to edit Goethe's writings on nature. In Goethe he recognized one who had been able to perceive the spiritual in nature, even though he had not carried this as far as a direct perception of the spirit. Steiner was able to bring a new understanding to Goethe's scientific work through this insight into his perception of nature. Since no existing philosophical theory could take this kind of vision into account, and since Goethe had never stated explicitly what his philosophy of life was, Steiner filled this need by publishing, in 1886, an introductory book called The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception . His introductions to the several volumes and sections of Goethe's scientific writings (1883-97) have been collected into the book Goethe the Scientist . These are valuable contributions to the philosophy of science.
During this time his thoughts about his own philosophy were gradually coming to maturity. In the year 1888 he met Eduard von Hartmann, with whom he had already had a long correspondence. He describes the chilling effect on him of the way this philosopher of pessimism denied that thinking could ever reach reality, but must forever deal with illusions. Steiner was already clear in his mind how such obstacles were to be overcome. He did not stop at the problem of knowledge, but carried his ideas from this realm into the field of ethics, to help him deal with the problem of human freedom. He wanted to show that morality could be given a sure foundation without basing it upon imposed rules of conduct.
Meanwhile his work of editing had taken him away from his beloved Vienna to Weimar. Here Steiner wrestled with the task of presenting his ideas to the world. His observations of the spiritual had all the exactness of a science, and yet his experience of the reality of ideas was in some ways akin to the mystic's experience. Mysticism presents the intensity of immediate knowledge with conviction, but deals only with subjective impressions; it fails to deal with the reality outside man. Science, on the other hand, consists of ideas about the world, even if the ideas are mainly materialistic. By starting from the spiritual nature of thinking, Steiner was able to form ideas that bear upon the spiritual world in the same way that the ideas of natural science bear upon the physical. Thus he could describe his philosophy as the result of "introspective observation following the methods of Natural Science." He first presented an outline of his ideas in his doctoral dissertation, Truth and Knowledge , which bore the sub-title "Prelude to a 'Philosophy of Freedom'."
In 1894 The Philosophy of Freedom was published, and the content which had formed the centre of his life's striving was placed before the world. Steiner was deeply disappointed at the lack of understanding it received. Hartmann's reaction was typical; instead of accepting the discovery that thinking can lead to the reality of the spirit in the world, he continued to think that "spirit" was merely a concept existing in the human mind, and freedom an illusion based on ignorance. Such was fundamentally the view of the age to which Steiner introduced his philosophy. But however it seemed to others, Steiner had in fact established a firm foundation for knowledge of the spirit, and now he felt able to pursue his researches in this field without restraint. The Philosophy of Freedom summed up the ideas he had formed to deal with the riddles of existence that had so far dominated his life. "The further way," he wrote, "could now be nothing else but a struggle to find the right form of ideas to express the spiritual world itself."
While still at Weimar, Steiner wrote two more books, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom (1895), inspired by a visit to the aged philosopher, and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), which completed his work in this field. He then moved to Berlin to take over the editing of a literary magazine; here he wrote Riddles of Philosophy (1901) and Mysticism and Modern Thought (1901). He also embarked on an ever-increasing activity of lecturing. But his real task lay in deepening his knowledge of the spiritual world until he could reach the point of publishing the results of this research.
The rest of his life was devoted to building up a complete science of the spirit, to which he gave the name Anthroposophy . Foremost amongst his discoveries was his direct experience of the reality of the Christ, which soon took a central place in his whole teaching. The many books and lectures which he published set forth the magnificent scope of his vision. From 1911 he turned also to the arts - drama, painting, architecture, eurythmy - showing the creative forming powers that can be drawn from spiritual vision. As a response to the disaster of the 1914-18 war, he showed how the social sphere could be given new life through an insight into the nature of man, his initiative bearing practical fruit in the fields of education, agriculture, therapy and medicine. After a few more years of intense activity, now as the leader of a world-wide movement, he died, leaving behind him an achievement that must allow his recognition as the first Initiate of the age of science. Anthroposophy is itself a science, firmly based on the results of observation, and open to investigation by anyone who is prepared to follow the path of development he pioneered - a path that takes its start from the struggle for inner freedom set forth in this book.
Michael Wilson, Clent, 1964. From the introduction to The Philosophy of Freedom
This essay was written during 1919. In the Collected edition of Rudolf Steiner's works, the volume containing the German texts is entitled, Aufsatze Uber die Dreigleiderung der sozialen organismus und zur Zeitlage 1915-1921 (Vol. 24 in the Bibliographic Survey, 1961). It was translated from the German by E. Bowen-Wedgewood; the translation was revised by Frederick Amrine.
The aims Emil Molt is trying to realize through the Waldorf School are connected with quite definite views on the social tasks of the present day and the near future. The spirit in which the school should be conducted must proceed from these views. It is a school attached to an industrial undertaking. The peculiar place modern industry has taken in the evolution of social life in actual practice sets its stamp upon the modern social movement. Parents who entrust their children to this school are bound to expect that the children shall be educated and prepared for the practical work of life in a way that takes due account of this movement. This makes it necessary, in founding the school, to begin from educational principles that have their roots in the requirements of modern life. Children must be educated and instructed in such a way that their lives fulfill demands everyone can support, no matter from which of the inherited social classes one might come. What is demanded of people by the actualities of modern life must find its reflection in the organization of this school. What is to be the ruling spirit in this life must be aroused in the children by education and instruction.
It would be fatal if the educational views upon which the Waldorf School is founded were dominated by a spirit out of touch with life. Today, such a spirit may all too easily arise because people have come to feel the full pan played in the recent destruction of civilization by our absorption in a materialistic mode of life and thought during the last few decades. This feeling makes them desire to introduce an idealistic way of thinking into the management of public affairs. Anyone who turns his attention to developing educational life and the system of instruction will desire to see such a way of thinking realized there especially. It is an attitude of mind that reveals much good will. It goes without saying that this good will should be fully appreciated. If used properly, it can provide valuable service when gathering manpower for a social undertaking requiring new foundations. Yet it is necessary in this case to point our how the best intentions must fail if they set to work without fully regarding those first conditions that are based on practical insight.
This, then, is one of the requirements to be considered when the founding of any institution such as the Waldorf School is intended. Idealism must work in the spirit of its curriculum and methodology; but it must be an idealism that has the power to awaken in young, growing human beings the forces and faculties they will need in later life to be equipped for work in modern society and to obtain for themselves an adequate living.
The pedagogy and instructional methodology will be able to fulfill this requirement only through a genuine knowledge of the developing human being. Insightful people are today calling for some form of education and instruction directed not merely to the cultivation of one-sided knowledge, but also to abilities; education directed not merely to the cultivation of intellectual faculties, but also to the strengthening of the will. The soundness of this idea is unquestionable; but it is impossible to develop the will (and that healthiness of feeling on which it rests) unless one develops the insights that awaken the energetic impulses of will and feeling. A mistake often made presently in this respect is not that people instill too many concepts into young minds, but that the kind of concepts they cultivate are devoid of all driving life force. Anyone who believes one can cultivate the will without cultivating the concepts that give it life is suffering from a delusion. It is the business of contemporary educators to see this point clearly; but this clear vision can only proceed from a living understanding of the whole human being.
It is now planned that the Waldorf School will be a primary school in which the educational goals and curriculum are founded upon each teacher's living insight into the nature of the whole human being, so far as this is possible under present conditions. Children will, of course, have to be advanced far enough in the different school grades to satisfy the standards imposed by the current views. Within this framework, however, the pedagogical ideals and curriculum will assume a form that arises out of this knowledge of the human being and of actual life.
The primary school is entrusted with the child at a period of its life when the soul is undergoing a very important transformation. From birth to about the sixth or seventh year, the human being naturally gives himself up to everything immediately surrounding him in the human environment, and thus, through the imitative instinct, gives form to his own nascent powers. From this period on, the child's soul becomes open to take in consciously what the educator and teacher gives, which affects the child as a result of the teacher's natural authority. The authority is taken for granted by the child from a dim feeling that in the teacher there is something that should exist in himself, too. One cannot be an educator or teacher unless one adopts out of full insight a stance toward the child that takes account in the most comprehensive sense of this metamorphosis of the urge to imitate into an ability to assimilate upon the basis of a natural relationship of authority. The modern world view, based as it is upon natural law, does not approach these fact of human development in full consciousness. To observe them with the necessary attention, one must have a sense of life's subtlest manifestations in the human being. This kind of sense must ran through the whole an of education; it must shape the curriculum; it must live in the spirit uniting teacher and pupil. In educating, what the teacher does can depend only slightly on anything he gets from a general, abstract pedagogy: it must rather be newly born every moment from a live understanding of the young human being he or she is teaching. One may, of course, object that this Lively kind of education and instruction breaks down in large classes. This objection is no doubt justified in a limited sense. Taken beyond those limits, however, the objection merely shows that the person who makes it proceeds from abstract educational norms, for a really living an of education based on a genuine knowledge of the human being carries with it a power that rouses the interest of every single pupil so that there is no need for direct "individual" work in order to keep his attention on the subject. One can put forth the essence of one's teaching in such a form that each pupil assimilates it in his own individual way. This requires simply that whatever the teacher does should be sufficiently alive. If anyone has a genuine sense for human nature, the developing human being becomes for him such an intense, Living riddle that the very attempt to solve it awakens the pupil's living interest empathetically. Such empathy is more valuable than individual work, which may all too easily cripple the child's own initiative. It might indeed be asserted -- again, within limitations -- that large classes led by teachers who are imbued with the life that comes from genuine knowledge of the human being, will achieve better results than small classes led by teachers who proceed from standard educational theories and have no chance to put this life into their work.
Not so outwardly marked as the transformation the soul undergoes in the sixth or seventh year, but no less important for the art of educating, is a change that a penetrating study of the human being shows to take place around the end of the ninth year. At this time, the sense of self assumes a form that awakens in the child a relationship to nature and to the world about him such that one can now talk to him more about the connections between things and processes themselves, whereas previously he was interested almost exclusively in things and processes only in relationship to man. Facts of this kind in a human being's development ought to be most carefully observed by the educator. For if one introduces into the child's world of concepts and feelings what coincides just at that period of life with the direction taken by his own developing powers, one then gives such added vigor to the growth of the whole person that it remains a source of strength throughout life. If in any period of life one works against the grain of these developing powers, one weakens the individual.
Knowledge of the special needs of each life period provides a basis for drawing up a suitable curriculum. This knowledge also can be a basis for dealing with instructional subjects in successive periods. By the end of the ninth year, one must have brought the child to a certain level in all that has come into human life through the growth of civilization. Thus while the first school years are properly spent on teaching the child to write and read, the teaching must be done in a manner that permits the essential character of this phase of development to be served. If one teaches things in a way that makes a one-sided claim on the child's intellect and the merely abstract acquisition of skills, then the development of the native will and sensibilities is checked; while if the child learns in a manner that calls upon its whole being, he or she develops all around. Drawing in a childish fashion, or even a primitive kind of painting, brings out the whole human being's interest in what he is doing. Therefore one should let writing grow out of drawing. One can begin with figures in which the pupil's own childish artistic sense comes into play; from these evolve the letters of the alphabet. Beginning with an activity that, being artistic, draws out the whole human being, one should develop writing, which tends toward the intellectual. And one must let reading, which concentrates the attention strongly within the realm of the intellect, arise out of writing.
When people recognize how much is to be gained for the intellect from this early artistic education of the child, they will be willing to allow art its proper place in the primary school education. The arts of music, painting and sculpting will be given a proper place in the scheme of instruction. This artistic element and physical exercise will be brought into a suitable combination. Gymnastics and action games will be developed as expressions of sentiments called forth by something in the nature of music or recitation. Eurythmic movement -- movement with a meaning -- will replace those motions based merely on the anatomy and physiology of the physical body. People will discover how great a power resides in an artistic manner of instruction for the development of will and feeling. However, to teach or instruct in this way and obtain valuable results can be done only by teachers who have an insight into the human being sufficiently keen to perceive clearly the connection between the methods they are employing and the developmental forces that manifest themselves in any particular period of life. The real teacher, the real educator, is not one who has studied educational theory as a science of the management of children, but one in whom the pedagogue has been awakened by awareness of human nature.
Of prime importance for the cultivation of the child's feeling-life is that the child develops its relationship to the world in a way such as that which develops when we incline toward fantasy. If the educator is not himself a fantast, then the child is not in danger of becoming one when the teacher conjures forth the realms of plants and animals, of the sky and the stars in the soul of the child in fairy-tale fashion.
Visual aids are undoubtedly justified within certain limits; but when a materialistic conviction leads people to try to extend this form of teaching to every conceivable thing, they forget there are other powers in the human being which must be developed, and which cannot be addressed through the medium of visual observation. For instance, there is the acquisition of certain things purely through memory that is connected to the developmental forces at work between the sixth or seventh and the fourteenth year of life. It is this property of human nature upon which the teaching of arithmetic should be based. Indeed, arithmetic can be used to cultivate the faculty of memory. If one disregards this fact, one may perhaps be tempted (especially when teaching arithmetic) to commit the educational blunder of teaching with visual aids what should be taught as a memory exercise.
One may fall into the same mistake by trying all too anxiously to make the child understand everything one tells him. The will that prompts one to do so is undoubtedly good, but does not duly estimate what it means when, Later in life, we revive within our soul something that we acquired simply through memory when younger and now find, in our mature years, that we have come to understand it on our own. Here, no doubt, any fear of the pupil's not taking an active interest in a lesson learned by memory alone will have to be relieved by the teacher's lively way of giving it. If the teacher engages his or her whole being in teaching, then he may safely bring the child things for which the full understanding will come when joyfully remembered in later life. There is something that constantly refreshes and strengthens the inner substance of life in this recollection. If the teacher assists such a strengthening, he will give the child a priceless treasure to take along on life's road. In this way, too, the teacher will avoid the visual aid's degenerating into the banality that occurs when a lesson is overly adapted to the child's understanding. Banalities may be calculated to arouse the child's own activity, but such fruits lose their flavor with the end of childhood. The flame enkindled in the child from the living fire of the teacher in matters that still lie, in a way, beyond his "understanding," remains an active, awakening force throughout the child's life.
If, at the end of the ninth year, one begins to choose descriptions of natural history from the plant and animal world, treating them in a way that the natural forms and processes lead to an understanding of the human form and the phenomena of human life, then one can help release the forces that at this age are struggling to be born out of the depths of human nature. It is consistent with the character of the child's sense of self at this age to see the qualities that nature divides among manifold species of the plant and animal kingdoms as united into one harmonious whole at the summit of the natural world in the human being.
Around the twelfth year, another turning point in the child's development occurs. He becomes ripe for the development of the faculties that lead him in a wholesome way to the comprehension of things that must be considered without any reference to the human being: the mineral kingdom, the physical world, meteorological phenomena, and so on.
The best way to lead then from such exercises, which are based entirely on the natural human instinct of activity without reference to practical ends, to others that shall be a sort of education for actual work, will follow from knowledge of the character of the successive periods of life. What has been said here with reference to particular parts of the curriculum may be extended to everything that should be taught to the pupil up to his fifteenth year.
There need be no fear of the elementary schools releasing pupils in a state of soul and body unfit for practical life if their principles of education and instructions are allowed to proceed, as described, from the inner development of the human being. For human life itself is shaped by this inner development; and one can enter upon life in no better way than when, through the development of our own inner capacities, we can join with what others before us, from similar inner human capacities, have embodied in the evolution of the civilized world. It is true that to bring the two into harmony -- the development of the pupil and the development of the civilized world -- will require a body of teachers who do not shut themselves up in an educational routine with strictly professional interests, but rather take an active interest in the whole range of life. Such a body of teachers will discover how to awaken in the upcoming generation a sense of the inner, spiritual substance of life and also an understanding of life's practicalities. If instruction is carried on this way, the young human being at the age of fourteen or fifteen will not lack comprehension of important things in agriculture and industry, commerce and travel, which help to make up the collective life of mankind. He will have acquired a knowledge of things and a practical skill that will enable him to feel at home in the life which receives him into its stream.
If the Waldorf School is to achieve the aims its founder has in view, it must be built on educational principles and methods of the kind here described. It will then be able to give the kind of education that allows the pupil's body to develop healthily and according to its needs, because the soul (of which this body is the expression) is allowed to grow in a way consistent with the forces of its development. Before its opening, some preparatory work was attempted with the teachers so that the school might be able to work toward the proposed aim. Those concerned with the management of the school believe that in pursuing this aim they bring something into educational life in accordance with modern social thinking. They feel the responsibility inevitably connected with any such attempt; but they think that, in contemporary social demands, it is a duty to undertake this when the opportunity is afforded.
--When the Intellect travels on wings of Goodness, Beauty, & Truth, it can reach new heights --
THE WALDORF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DAY --
The uniqueness of the Waldorf curriculum lies primarily in how and when the children are taught, rather in what is taught. In presenting material, first comes the encounter; then encounter becomes experience; and out of experience crystallizes the concept. Perception, feeling, idea: three steps in a genuine learning process that prepares the intellect for the abstract and conceptual thinking which will become possible later, in adolescence.
Waldorf Schools are organized to make the relationship between student and teacher as fruitful as possible. In the elementary grades, this is accomplished by the unique Class Teacher/Main Lesson system. Each morning the children spend the first period of the day -- the two-hour Main Lesson -- with their Class Teacher. During this time when young minds are freshest, they will intensively study a block from one of the core subjects. In this way the rhythm of the day begins with work which requires the most attention, and each academic subject can receive special focus during the course of the year. The Class Teacher has time to enter each subject in depth and to approach it in a variety of ways -- time to enliven each topic with poetry, painting, modeling and drama. Thus, intellectual learning is always combined with artistic, rhythmical and practical work. After about a month, when one topic has been fully explored, a new Main Lesson block is introduced.
Subjects which require regular repetition in shorter lessons (foreign languages, for example) occupy the later part of the morning. Afternoons are devoted to activities that are more social in nature: games and sports, painting, handwork, and gardening. Boys and girls learn crocheting and knitting, simple sewing and woodwork. There is a wonderful coordination and harmony of subject material throughout the Waldorf curriculum. What is being taken up in each Main Lesson block appears in subtle ways in the activities of the afternoon. The challenges of handwork and the fine arts are treated not as separate, unimportant "options" or "electives" but as vital parts of a complete education.
Two great rhythms work concurrently in the Waldorf grade school: the daily rhythm of lessons, and the rhythm of seasonal festivals celebrated throughout the year. The student of this age needs the ordering quality of rhythmic activity in order to develop the security and confidence necessary for academic achievement and self-disciplined work habits.
The close community relationship established between a class and its teacher in the main academic subjects is balanced by lessons taught by subject specialists, so that the children have a healthy experience of many different adults. Subjects such as foreign languages, music, eurythmy, handwork and physical education may be taught by class teachers with the necessary skills, or by other specially-trained teachers.
EXAMPLES OF A STUDENTS WORK
The daily Main Lesson is concluded with work in the Main Lesson Book. The student writes and illustrates a main-lesson-book through the course of each main lesson block, gaining much practice in handwriting, grammar, art, and composition along the way. The enthusiastic pride children take in creating their books shows how joy in learning has been preserved and promoted.
If you would like to see more samples of Main Lesson books and other curriculum work, you are very welcome to visit a Waldorf School near you. (See "Directory of Waldorf Schools in North America" for the address of the nearest school).
WALDORF EDUCATION ---- GOODNESS, BEAUTY, AND TRUTH
Parents can provide nothing of more lasting value than an education which develops their child's full human potential. Waldorf education emphasizes disciplined creativity, wonder, and reverence and respect for nature and for human existence.
A comprehensive academic, artistic, and physical education program presented in a supportive, structured and non-competitive environment is meant to help parents develop a child who will be balanced in feeling, with initiative in action and clarity in thought. We aim to strengthen the child to meet not only the challenges of school, but also those of life.
Waldorf is a successful holistic education model designed to provide the right stimulus a the right time and allow each child's abilities to fully unfold. The early childhood, elementary and high school curriculum, working out of the philosophy and methods of its founder, recognizes that as children pass through three distinct developmental stages, specific forces and capabilities are at work...and so children have very particular needs from the adults around them. In extremely brief terms, this approach could be described as follows:
In the first seven or so years, the child seeks to see that the world is a place of GOODNESS , and will learn primarily by imitation and through activity. This is why Waldorf Nursery/ Kindergartens emphasize creative play as vital early foundation for creative thinking.
In the next developmental phase (leading up to puberty) the child most naturally learns through BEAUTY , from adults who merit being authorities. This is why storytelling and art are employed as teaching vehicles throughout the elementary curriculum.
And then, entering into the third developmental stage and ready at last for true independent thinking, the teenager naturally begins a quest for TRUTH .
"In linking their curriculum and schooling toward children's developmental stages, Waldorf schools seem to have a unique sense of what children are ready for." They "promote creativity and critical thinking in an interdisciplinary fashion...exactly the direction public education needs to move." --Jack Miller, professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
"A great deal is said today about the need for engineers and for scientists, and the point of view is taken that if you have better science courses and specialize sooner in the scientific branches of knowledge, you are going to get better scientists. I think that the best scientist is the best and most creative thinker and the task of education is first to educate human beings who then become scientists." --Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf Education
"The true aim of education is to awaken real powers of perception and judgment in relation to life and living. For only such awakening can lead to true freedom." --Rudolf Steiner
THE WALDORF EDUCATION MOVEMENT AROUND THE WORLD
Founded in Europe in 1919, Waldorf Education now includes schools on every continent and has grown to become the world's largest independent, non-denominational school system that goes through all the grades. By the end of the 20th Century there will probably be about 1000 Waldorf Schools.
A system that recognizes and meets the need for strong development of the intellect, Waldorf is committed to excellence in all basic academic skill. It provides a full introduction to the classics, foreign languages, history, geography, mathematics, science... the subjects today's child needs as a foundation for tomorrow's complex and challenging civilization.
Even though every Waldorf School is independent, all share a core of curriculum, methods and beliefs, including the idea that a fulfilled and creative life involves considerably more than mental development or the ability to earn a living. Important as these things are, every child also needs the balance provided by strong and healthy development in the life of will (the ability to get things done) and in the life of feeling (emotions, aesthetics, social sensitivity).
Waldorf's time-tested pedagogy is designed to address the whole child: HEAD, HEART, and HANDS . It stimulates the mind with the full spectrum of traditional academic subjects. It nurtures healthy emotional development by conveying knowledge experientially as well as academically. And it works with the hands throughout every day, both in primary academic subjects and in a broad range of artistic handwork and craft activities.
Waldorf Schools strive to awaken and ennoble capacities, rather than to merely impose intellectual content on the child. Learning becomes much more than the acquisition of quantities of information... learning becomes an engaging voyage of discovery of the world, and of oneself.
A Waldorf Education is meant to be the beginning of a life-long love of learning.
"Those in the public school reform movement have some important things to learn from what Waldorf educators have been doing for many years. It is an enormously impressive effort toward quality education, and schools would be well advised to familiarize themselves with the basic assumptions that underlie the Waldorf movement." --- Ernest Boyer, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
"Being personally acquainted with a number of Waldorf students, I can say that they come closer to realizing their own potential than practically anyone I know."
Joseph Weizenbaum, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; author, "Computer Power and Human Reason"