Andrew’s Reviews > Soul Economy: Body, Soul, and Spirit in Waldorf Education (CW 303) (Volume 12) > Status Update

“It will do no good at all if teachers enter the classroom with a morose demeanor—one that, even in early life, leaves deep wrinkles carved on their faces. Teachers must know how to act with a tremendous sense of humor in the classroom. They must be able to become a part of everything they encounter in the classroom. Teachers must be able to let their own being flow into that of the children.”

“The effects of living in a world as described by a purely materialistic view, and its intentional influences on people, would make a real person suffer the worst kinds of neurasthenia and hysteria. One could never be free of all the surrounding inferences.” Well that’s Everything Now.

"Although this may sound like an exaggeration, in my opinion a person who has not learned to distinguish rye from wheat cannot be considered a full human being." O, Dr. S. But I love these inflammatory pronouncements.

Students must not become estranged from contemporary life to the extent that they can only criticize what they meet outside."

However imperfect life may be according to abstract reason, we must nevertheless be able to play our full part in it. Waldorf students — who have probably been treated more as individuals than is usually the case — have to be sent out into life; otherwise, having a Waldorf school makes no sense at all…

"It is too easy to criticize life today. Most people meet unpleasant aspects of life every day and we are easily tempted to make clever suggestions about how to put the world in order. But it is completely inappropriate to educate children so that, when they leave school to enter life, they can only criticize the senselessness of what they find…

…In fact, if one teacher were to copy another, the results could be entirely wrong. There is a good reason that our school is called the "Free Waldorf School." This is not just because of our independence from the state system, but the name very much reflects the atmosphere of freedom that pervades its entire make up."

The intersection of freedom and standardization is interesting.

…I've visited parallel classes as the spiritual guide of the Waldorf school (the large numbers already require parallel classes), and when I saw how the teachers each treat the same subject and very individual ways, I never object or insist that they all follow the same set courses. Even when two versions of the same subject appear contradictory externally, each may nevertheless be correct in its own way...

...The important thing is that teachers can each carry within themselves a true picture of the human being; if this picture is present to their inner eyes, they will do the right thing, although outwardly each teacher may act in very different ways.

"We cannot truly serve the art of education unless we approach the growing human being with real insight. One could even say that the teachers are free to approach subjects in their own individual ways, since, in any event, they must prepare their subject material according to what they have learned from life...