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There are a variety of viewpoints concerning the relationship of Anthroposophy to Steiner/Waldorf education and as a parent it can be hard to work out just what is going on in this respect. The following thoughts are just my own understandings based on a Steiner training and a number of years experience as a parent in Steiner/Waldorf Schools.
KARMA IN THE CLASSROOM
This may seem an odd concept to many parents and yet it appears to be the foundation stone in a Steiner/Waldorf School. However, the word Karma tends not to be mentioned in a Steiner/Waldorf Prospectus.
Karma as a fundamental aspect of Steiner/Waldorf education is, to my awareness, not given public attention in either the schools themselves or the promotional material on websites. There are references to "head, heart and hands", educating the whole child and the spiritual but not even a broad overview of this core belief. Given that this is a critical influence on the decisions made by the teacher about the children both as individuals and as a group, this strikes me as a serious omission.
I have seen this lead to deeply distressing scenarios in schools, particularly (but not exclusively) where the parents themselves are not Anthroposophists. Parents can find themselves caught out, confused or indeed amazed by a teacher's apparent complacency about issues such as poor learning, innappropriate social behaviour and bullying. Teachers, whose role it appears, is to enable Karma rather than stifle it, seem to find it difficult working with Rudolf Steiner's views to make decisions about when, or indeed if, they should intervene.
When these inevitable problems of school life occur they are sometimes not handled in the expected fashion or with practical constructiveness and accountability on the part of the teachers. It is not unusual for parents to feel that their concerns are viewed as invalid or an unwelcome interference and indeed they may well have been excluded from information and decisions made about their own child (In Child Studies for example). It is my view that this goes beyond being accidental or due to time factors and into the realm of a conscious sense by Steiner/Waldorf teachers that they have a superior understanding of the child which is not to be exposed to the scrutiny of parents. Unless parents have the right to know what is taking place with their child and the absolute ethos of the people teaching them they are disempowered and may find themselves unable to fulfil their responsibilities toward the well-being of their children. Not through any kind of neglect I must add but because without knowing what is being said or done with one's child, it is nearly impossible to make sense of the situation. There are many parents who feel that due to this "unspoken agenda" their children have suffered emotional and educational damage and that it has been a painful experience for the family.
Anthroposophy seems to me to be primarily about the development of the human soul through successive incarnations. Rudolf Steiner described in his view of the human being an evolution of soul-consciousness through epochs spanning thousands of years. He devised the Waldorf Education curriculum to (among other things) reflect and follow this evolution.
However, because he regarded the child as having come from the divine world, having established it's destiny in a pre-earthly decision making process based on experiences in previous incarnations, Rudolf Steiner also viewed the relationship between teacher and child as having special intent. He saw teachers as having both a superior understanding (through Waldorf pedagogy) and a key role as a guide to the child's soul/spirit development. It is therefore considered both the child's and the teacher's destiny to be together in the Waldorf classroom. Steiner determined that children needed to be educated in a certain way in order to be best able to fulfil their destiny and enable the soul development steps to be taken in each lifetime. He designed Waldorf Education for this express purpose and it continues to be the underlying belief system of Steiner/Waldorf Schools today.
The aim of the following article is to make it unequivocally clear that Rudolf Steiner's concept of Karma is used by teachers . This applies whether the setting is a Steiner/Waldorf School, a Camphill School, or other Anthroposophical institution. It is my belief that parents have the right to make up their own minds whether or not they would like this to be the basis of their child's education.
Child Development 1
The Path to Birth
Ref: The Study of Man p.17
"Who are you?" "What do you need to do?"
Inward questions about each child. Then leads to "Who am I?" "What do I need to do?"
We must be come more and more conscious of the other end of man's birth.
Continue the work that higher beings have done before birth.
Celebrate and acknowledge spirit in matter.
Can I help? What are the obstacles?
Reincarnation and karma.
Know thyself- what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses?
Acknowledging and helping weakness is an important part of loving.
I am not only an earthly being but am a spiritual being.
As Waldorf KG teachers-
We acknowledge the child's spiritual nature.
We embrace reincarnation and karma in our view of the child.
Our work rests on an understanding of Child Development.
Death and Rebirth- See drawings in notes.
When asleep EGO and ASTRAL leave body, held by a fine spiritual thread. We remain alive because etheric and physical are still there.
In death etheric goes too. Separation of etheric and physical marks death.
After death etheric body continues carrying with it all unconscious memories of the earthly life.
For 3 days the astral, etheric and ego stay together. During that time there is a reliving in reverse of all that has happened in a pictorial form.
KAMALOCA happens next.
Experience our life in a reverse direction from the other person's point of view. Cleanse yourself by empathy with the other person.
After Kamaloca the astral can leave and the etheric.
The ego then passes through experiences in the spiritual world.
From looking at the past it turns to face the future.
TURNING POINT (Cosmic midnight hour) ¼ way through death and rebirth.
The ego looks at the possibility of rebirth.
What causes a child to be born? There is a sense of needing to be reborn. An image of ideal man grows from the contact in the spiritual world, there develops a hunger to be born again.
"A glimmer of light appears from the future" RS
The ego is driven towards rebirth by a longing for the ideal.
In accordance with the needs of karma we make certain choices.
The ego resolves to compensate.
There is a picture of all that will be.
It is only on earth that we can truly progress-we have free will.
We stand responsible for the effects of our choices.
The child wills himself to be born. (The child has chosen the parents, time, place and circumstances in which to be born).
Recommended book "A Path to Birth" Stanley Drake
A narrowing of consciousness down into a human form.
The Study of Man Rudolf Steiner
Lecture 1 (p17)
"We live in a time when this appeal to human egoism must be combated in every domain, if the life of mankind is not to decline further and further on its present downward course. We must become more and more conscious of the other end of man's development on earth, namely birth. We must consciously face this fact: that man evolves through a long period between death and a new birth and that then, within this evolution, he reaches a point where he dies, as it were, for the spiritual world—where conditions of his life in the spiritual world oblige him to pass over into another form of existence. He receives this other form of existence in that he lets himself be clothed with the physical and etheric body. What he has to receive by being clothed with the physical and etheric body he could not receive if he were simply to go on evolving in a straight line in the spirit world. Hence although from his birth onwards we may only look upon the child with physical eyes, we will all the time be conscious of the fact—"this too is a continuation." And we will not only look to what human existence experiences after death,i.e. to the spiritual continuation of the physical; but we will be conscious that physical existence here is a continuation of the spiritual, and that we, through education have to carry on what has been hitherto been done by higher beings without our participation. This alone will give the right mood and feeling to our whole system of teaching and education, if we fill ourselves with the consciousness: here, in this human being, you, with your action, have to achieve a continuation of what higher beings have done before his birth."
The Study of Man (p16)
"You will have to take over children for their education and instruction—children who will have received already (as you must remember) the education, or mis-education given them by their parents. Indeed our intentions will only be fully accomplished when we, as humanity, will have reached the stage where parents, too, will understand that special tasks are set for mankind to-day, even for the first years of the child's education. But when we receive the children into the school we shall still be able to make up for many things which have been done wrongly, or left undone in the first years of the child's life. For this we must fill ourselves with the consciousness through which alone we can truly teach and educate."
Roy Wilkinson
Rudolf Steiner on Education A Compendium (p 20/21)
"The teacher is working towards the future. He has to develop wholeness within himself and relate to the child- something which he can only achieve by acquiring a proper knowledge of living human nature. He is not called upon to teach the world outlook which spiritual science gives, but he can allow it to inspire him and fructify his own thinking and then maybe he will not clog children's minds with dross which hinders their future enlightenment.
What is it then that spiritual science has to offer?
Spiritual science explains how supersensible forces are at work in nature and in the cosmos. It provides an explanation of world evolution which satisfies the demands of science and religion.
It gives knowledge of man, of his divine origin and of the essential being behind the exterior form.
It deals with questions of existence before birth and after death, together with those of karma and destiny. It points to the individual's ages involvement with the whole of the rest of mankind and the universe and brings him to realise that his own acts have a cosmic, universal significance.
It shows how supersensible forces work in the bodily organisation and how, particularly in childhood, they manifest at different times.
It looks at life as a whole in the realisation that influences in youth have their effect throughout life, even to the extent that wrong educational practices lead to physical illnesses in later life.
It analyses the temperaments of children and explains how to deal with them. It points to the effect of the teacher's temperament on his pupils.
It relates the manner of teaching and choice of subjects to chronological age.
In the light of human development it points to the tasks of education at the present time."
See also page "Warm & Wooly" for further observations.
Pubished 02/02/06
Revised 25/04/07
