Pedagogical
Contact person for the Pedagogical Section is Neil Carter: waldorf@clear.net.nz
Copies of the Journal for Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner Education are available at $10 per issue (discounts for bulk orders are available by contacting Neil Carter)
Available for purchase:
Vol 10.1 January 2008
Vol 9 June 2007
Extracts from Journal for Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner Education Vol 9 2007
------Pedagogical Section Work in New Zealand
In New Zealand, conversations took place between individuals and in groups for a number of years;
then, following two years’ preparatory work and study by several groups nationally, Dr Zimmermann
acknowledged the establishment of the New Zealand Initiative Circle in 1998. The original coordinator
was Ineke van Florenstein Mulder, until 2006.
Since 1999, individual Initiative Circle members have organised several Conferences, published three
books, and have regularly produced the Journal for Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner Education , now done in collaboration with the Circles in Australia and Hawaii.
Neil Carter, as the present coordinator in New Zealand, has joined the ‘New Zealand Steiner Teacher
Education’ group (NZSTE) established by the Federation of Rudolf Steiner Schools in New Zealand.
This group gives support to the Taruna one year Steiner Teacher Diploma, the two year In-service
Certificate Courses for Waldorf teachers, and the Auckland University of Technology Degree Courses
in early Childhood and Primary Education — offering both Bachelors and Masters Degrees.
It has been a very positive step that the Section and Federation now collaborate in the area of Waldorf
Teacher education in this way.
A pre-requisite for being an Initiative Circle Member in New Zealand is to also be a member of the
School of Spiritual Science, as explained above. The Initiative Circle also organises meetings — open
to any Waldorf teacher interested in the work — usually during Anthroposophical or Educational
Conferences. At these meetings the purpose of the Pedagogical Section and the results of activities
such as publishing, research, collaboration with other educational organizations, etc, are shared. We
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consider that any Waldorf Teacher actively working out of anthroposophy in their work may identify
themselves as ‘co-workers’ of the Pedagogical Section if they so wish.
In conclusion
We hope that as more teachers become involved on the one hand, in the work of trying to bring their
insights into a spiritual scientific relationship, and on the other hand, in the fruits of their meditative
work into the active work in the classroom, that the Pedagogical Section will evolve its form as a
place where we can develop enough strength in our own individual artistic striving to bring newness
to the work, and enough humility that we can admire and appreciate the strivings and insights of our
colleagues, as we work together at this task that is greater than us all.
Steiner (1995), Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, translated as Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path Hudson, NY, Anthroposophic Press
(the above is an extract from an article by Neil Carter, Peter Glasby and Alduino Mazzonne)
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Volume 9 (June 2007)
PARZIVAL ~ the Journey of Adolescence
by John Wulsin, Green Meadows School, Spring Valley, New York, USA
(reprinted by permission of the author and editor of Renewal, 15.1 2006)
‘Parzival’, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s great medieval epic, offers a portrait of the journey through
adolescence. It is the story of a youth who leaves home, wanders the land, causes much mayhem and
sorrow, but who learns compassion and wisdom and becomes in the end a true knight and King of the
Holy Grail. Studied intensively in the eleventh grade of the Waldorf School, the epic offers insights
into the development of the adolescent through the four years of high school.
Adolescence: Preparing for the Higher Self
In its first seven years the young child devotes most of its forces to forming its physical body, the
instrument with which it will live its life. The young child is a being primarily of action, of willful
limb activity, reaching, playing, working, running in the world. In the second seven years, between the
change of teeth and puberty, the child develops especially the heart and lungs — the rhythmic systems
of the body — and the habits and patterns that it will carry through life. The child between seven and
fourteen learns primarily through the realm of feeling, which is the reason the Waldorf pedagogy
during this period emphasizes the arts.
In adolescence, the period between fourteen and twenty-one, the metabolic system fully develops and
the young person soon becomes capable of reproduction. The legs and arms grow to their full length.
Only after puberty does the capacity for rational, reflective thinking emerge and develop. The aim of
education in the Waldorf high school is twofold: to help this new ability to think rationally to develop
harmoniously in relation to the physical body and to the etheric, or life-formative body; and to have it
serve the full emergence of the Ego, or higher self, that occurs around the age of twenty-one.
Parzival (I)
The epic begins with the young Parzival living with his mother, Herzeloyde, in the forest of Soltane.
Herzeloyde, a queen whose husband King Gahmuret has died in far off lands has raised Parzival in the
forest to keep him from the world of knights, castles, and battles. Parzival is a sensitive soul who can
be moved to tears by the songs of the bird, so protected that he does not know his real name, only his
mother’s nicknames for him, ‘Bon Fils, Cher Fils, Beau Fils.’ The boy though sees a group of knights,
is captivated by their splendour, and resolves to go off to find King Arthur and become a knight. His
mother hopes to make him a laughing-stock — so that he might be sent packing home by the first
person he meets — and so equips him with a nag and a sack-cloth costume. Herzeloyde tells Parzival
that he is a prince who has been deprived of two kingdoms and offers some parting advice: to greet all
people politely, listen to grey (old) men, kiss a woman and win her ring. As the young man rides off
Herzeloyde collapses and dies of grief.
Parzival soon bungles into an encounter with a beautiful lady named Jeschute and, although he
ravishes her larder rather than her body, he causes her to be disgraced in the eyes of her husband.
Parzival meets next his cousin Sigune who tells him his true name which means ‘right through the
middle.’ At last he reaches King Arthur’s court. At the court is a woman unable to laugh until she has
seen the future greatest knight of the land, and a jester who is unable to speak until he has seen the
same. When Parzival enters, the one laughs and the other speaks. Parzival slays a Red Knight who
wants to depose Arthur, dons the knight’s red armour and rides off on his red horse in search of
adventure.
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The Ninth Grader
The ninth grader entering the wide world of high school is not unlike Parzival riding off into the
forest. For every child, adolescence is a movement from the sphere of the mother into the sphere of
the father, and there occurs, whether he or she realizes if or not, a kind of sorrow-death in the mother.
Like Parzival the ninth grader is gawky, a bit foolish in garb, armed with motherly advice and a
willful heart, but still naïve. [Because of the ninth grader’s awkwardness of body and soul and the
resulting self-consciousness, they are sometimes not required to put on a class play for the public.]
Like Parzival with Jeschute, the ninth grade boy understands little of the mystery of women; and the
ninth-grade girl, although she is typically far ahead of the boys in the class in emotional development,
also is struggling in her soul life with new feelings, impulses, desires. Like Parzival, the ninth grader
has lost the two kingdoms of early childhood and youth, and may leave a childhood nickname behind
in favour of his actual birth name.
Just as Parzival has a high ideal — to become a knight — but acts thoughtlessly and recklessly in
killing the Red Knight for his armour, the ninth grader may find his impulsiveness overcoming his
idealism. Parzival giving his horse free rein and allowing it to take him where it will is a picture of the
adolescent unconsciously allowing his destiny to unfold.
The teachers observe the ninth-graders just as the knights and ladies at the Round Table observe
Parzival. They recognize the awkwardness and foolishness of their students but at the same time they
try to see the true, higher self and the future destiny behind the untidy façade of adolescence. Teachers
can be moved to joyfulness of soul and to an awakening of mind by a glimpse of the true being of
their students.
Parzival (II)
Parzival gallops off wildly, not knowing how to check the speed of his mount. He meets a greybearded
man, Gurnemanz, and from him learns the knightly skills of horsemanship, swordsmanship,
and jousting, as well as the chivalric code of courtesy. Gurnemanz counsels Parzival not to ask too
many questions, to have mercy with opponents in battle, and to remember that husband and wife are
one. Parzival does not accept the hand of Gurnemanz’s daughter, Liaze, offered in marriage, and rides
off to prove himself. He comes to a castle where the beautiful Condwiramurs, Queen of the city of
Pelrapeire in Brobarz, is besieged along with her subjects. Parzival defeats but does not kill the two
leaders of the enemy forces and, discovering the joys of love with Condwiramurs, joins with her as
husband with wife. But he soon leaves wife and kingdom though in search of his mother.
The Tenth Grader
The tenth grader, like Parzival during his time with Gurnemanz, wears a white inner garment
reflecting the pure life-forces of childhood, yet wears on the outside foolishness, and a scarlet longcoat
showing an emerging, rich soul-life. Tenth graders learn to pace themselves, to rein in the
galloping horse, in school work and in social life. They learn the ways of the world, the codes and the
procedures, attaining a poise, a balance, that echoes the harmony of Ancient Greece, an important
element in the tenth grade year. With this poise comes a growing self-awareness and awareness of
others, with the desire to treat others with consideration and kindness, and to make amends for errors.
The tenth graders prove themselves, sometimes in challenging situations — as students in a foreign
country, on sports teams, in model United Nations forums, and in community service projects. They
become more skilled and courteous in relation to the opposite gender. They attain a level of
accomplishment and confidence, believing ‘I can manage what high school asks of me.’
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Volume 9 (June 2007)
Parzival (III)
Giving his horse free rein, Parzival finds himself at Munsalvæsche, the castle of Queen Repanse de
Schoie. There, King Anfortas, suffering from a wound that will not heal, is kept alive by the Holy
Grail. The king gives Parzival, now famous as the Red Knight, a sword. However, the young man
does not ask the question that would have saved the king, does not ask ‘What ails thee.’ The next
morning, Parzival finds himself left alone in the castle. As he departs, a squire at the drawbridge
reprimands him: ‘You goose! If only you had asked the question!’
Parzival then again encounters his cousin Sigune. When she learns that he has asked no question of
the tormented king, she calls him a ‘wolf,’ says he has lost his honour, and sends him off in disgrace.
Next Parzival again meets Jeschute and her unforgiving husband. Jeschute calls Parzival the ‘source
of all her suffering,’ and the young man, repenting of his folly, vows to right the wrong he had done to
her. Parzival defeats her husband Orilus in combat and then convinces him with a sacred oath that
Jeschute is innocent. Parzival recalls sadly, ‘I was a mere fool then, not a man, and not yet grown to
wisdom.’
Although it is May, the time of Pentecost, snow has fallen and a goose wounded by a hawk has left
three drops of blood on the snow. The three drops of crimson blood remind Parzival of his wife
Condwiramurs and he stares entranced at them. King Arthur and his entourage are nearby seeking
Parzival and manage to release him from the spell of Lady Love and bring him back the court of the
Round Table. Arthur announces that Parzival will become a knight of the Round Table but is
interrupted by the arrival of the ugly sorceress Kundrie. She asserts that Parzival is unworthy, that he
failed to pose the question that would have saved Anfortas, and that he is no better than ‘an adder’s
fang.’ Humiliated, Parzival immediately vows to pursue the Grail single-mindedly and renounces God
for disgracing him.
The Eleventh Grader
The journey of eleventh graders is usually the loneliest of all. They wrestle with the painfully
agonizing question, ‘Will I ever be whole, and if so, when?’ Yet in this loneliness they may gain a
glimpse of that future experience of self-awareness and self discovery in which they can say ‘Here I
am, in my essential being.’ In the Grail Castle there is suffering but also the mysterious, evernourishing
Grail itself, which will in time give the experience of the true and higher self, the ‘I am.’
Eleventh-graders learn that they must act as an individual and decide alone what they will speak and
what they will do. If they blindly adhere to another person’s principles, just as Parzival followed
Gurnemanz’s advice, they will not be sensitive and flexible enough to respond to the sufferings of
others. Thought, feeling, and willing — the three activities of the human soul — will remain at an
animalistic level of the goose, the wolf, and the serpent.
Like Parzival, the eleventh grader has a growing consciousness of the importance of setting things
right, of repairing the effects of one’s mistakes. Also, at this time the developing soul can become
capable of mature love for another. With a now-mature physical body and a developed thinking
ability, the eleventh grader is capable of deeds that will receive recognition and honour. But with that,
as in the case of Parzival, there is always the possibility of criticism and attack from without (and
within). Eleventh graders may, like Parzival, feel they have lost their way or been betrayed. But even
in this case, the instinct to persist, to make oneself whole and the world also whole, which is evident
in Parzival’s commitment to seek the Grail alone, will assert itself in the healthy teenager.
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Parzival (IV)
Parzival wanders alone for four-and-a-half years in search of the Holy Grail. Once more he encounters
Sigune who, reconciled to Parzival because of his suffering, points him in the direction of the Grail
Castle. Parzival’s horse brings him to the cave of the hermit Trevrizent, and the young man says
simply, ‘Sir, Give me counsel. I am a man who has sinned.’
The holy man tells Parzival of Lucifer’s fall from the heavens, of Cain’s murder of Abel, and of the
community of the Holy Grail. Parzival also learns from the hermit that the Red Knight whom he killed
was his own cousin Ither, that Trevrizent is his mother’s brother, and that she, Herzeloyde, died when
Parzival had left her. Parzival confesses that it is he who failed to ask the critical question of Anfortas
(brother to Herzeloyde and Trevrizent). Parzival does penance for fifteen days to make up for his sins.
There are many more wanderings, including the diverse adventures of Gawan. Parzival inadvertently
enters into combat with this beloved friend, but fortunately discovers the mistake before it is too late.
In a battle with a splendid stranger, Parzival is nearly overcome for the first time in his life. He
discovers that he has been fighting his own half-brother, Feirefiz, the most powerful knight in the
Moorish East, a man both white and black. A transformed Kundrie appears and says that Parzival has
been blessed, and has been summoned to become Lord of the Grail.
Accompanied by Feirefiz, Parzival enters the Grail Castle, sees the long suffering Anfortas, and asks,
in a most intimate way, ‘Uncle, what troubles you?’ Anfortas is immediately restored to health, and
joy is restored to all in the Grail Castle and to the whole kingdom of the earth.
Feirefiz, wishing to be able to behold the Grail, is baptized and marries Repanse de Schoie, the Queen
of the Grail. They return to the East and their son Prester John founds a Christian kingdom there.
Sigune, Parzival’s cousin, now is allowed to die and join her beloved Schionatulander in heaven.
Parzival becomes Lord of the Grail, and is reunited with his faithful beloved and wife Condwiramurs.
The Twelfth Grader
The twelfth grade Waldorf curriculum deals with a maturing process that doesn’t culminate until
about the age of twenty-one. Thus Parzival’s solitary wanderings in the wasteland for four-and-a-half
years is a picture of that arc of time from age seventeen (the twelfth grade) to twenty-one. As Parzival
is finally able to say, ‘I am a man who has sinned,’ so too the senior student is usually increasingly
able to take full responsibility for his actions.
Parzival was instructed in the great events and processes in human history. The Waldorf twelfth grade
curriculum deals with the contemporary world, but also looks back at all of history and at human
evolution and cultural development. The teachers and other adult guides, much like the forgiving
Sigune, grant to the twelfth grader a clean slate and new possibilities, regardless of the limitations or
failings of earlier years. Parzival’s battles with Gawan and Feirefiz can be seen as gaining wisdom of
heart from the one and a powerful will from the other. This is a time when the young person must
work to develop the intellect, the feelings, and the will in a balanced way.
The twelfth grader, with his or her developing soul capacities, can become more open to the
individuality of another person. Like Parzival, able to recognize and empathize with Anfortas’
suffering, the twelfth grader may be able to see and to treat others in the school community —
teachers, staff, parents, younger students — in a fresh, even healing way. Twelfth graders set the tone
of the school, create the social and moral atmosphere of the community. They can do much to bring
about a healthy school community that will impact the wider world.
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Volume 9 (June 2007)
In the meeting of Parzival and Feirefiz, in the reunion of Parzival and Condwiramurs, and in the
marriage of Feirefiz and Repanse de Schoie, are portrayed the reconciliation of East and West, of
Muslim and Christian, of black and white, of male and female — ultimately the coming together of all
opposites. If the twelfth graders can carry this impulse of reconciliation and of love into the world,
then Waldorf Education will have fulfilled its purpose.
Editorial note: a former colleague in Christchurch, Dr Elisabeth Meyer, a scholar of the Middle
High German in which Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote the story of ‘Parzival’, suggested to me
that the crucial question ‘oeheim, waz wirret dier?’ could also be translated as ‘uncle, what confuses
you?’ ~ John Allison
AWAKENING THE SPIRITUAL POWERS OF THE HEAD, EDUCATING THE WILL
~ Preparing for the World Teachers’ Conference in April 2008
by Christof Wiechert, Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland
(reprinted with permission from the Journal of the Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum, Dornach,
Switzerland. Issue 29, Christmas 2006)
In the announcement in issue 28 of the Journal of the Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum, we
pointed to the three tasks which are provided for future teachers at the end of the Study of Man:
Imbue thyself with the power of imagination,
Have courage for the truth,
Sharpen thy feeling for responsibility of soul.
In these three admonitions the beautiful, the true and the good may be recognised as three basic
attitudes. At this point we can experience how close pedagogy is to general human nature, which
Steiner describes as the field of activity for the Anthroposophical Society. Then there was an account
of how the beautiful, imagination, is placed in the middle between the true and the good, between
truth and responsibility. It is not hard to recognise how the soul forces of thinking, feeling and willing
shine through these three qualities. In the last World Teachers’ Conference in 2004 we concerned
ourselves with feeling, with the beautiful, with imagination, in fact. Now we intend to turn our
attention to the question of thinking and of willing in education. In order to establish a basis for this
we need to pose the question about the relationship of body, soul and spirit within the human being.
Let us consider the threefoldedness of man in a completely general way. We can say thinking is bound
to the head more than anything else. How does the head formation of the small child present itself?
We have this powerful experience of a new-born baby, how relatively complete, how developed, how
sound the head strikes us as being. All the rest is still like an appendage. It is this fact that is pointed
out in the Study of Man, when the head is portrayed as being ‘wholly body’. It is a body, in which the
soul is concentrated but still completely in a state of half awareness or dreaming, whereas the spiritual
part is still in the night of unconsciousness. This fact enables the developing child, just because it is
not yet awake in its soul and spirit, to be present with its soul-spiritual nature in its surroundings just
as in the same way the sleeping person’s soul spiritual nature is not present in his body. This enables
the child to enter into a relationship with its surroundings and thus start practising imitation too; this is
a really special learning process, which takes place with the person in a ‘dreaming’ state.
It is different with the rhythmic man. This aspect of the human being, the chest, we must think of as
body-soul from the outset; we should not consider it primarily as bodily nature as with the head, but as
body and soul nature from the start. The child still has the spirit outside itself as in a dreaming state.
In this respect, Steiner gives the kindergarten teachers an important task, which sounds like a riddle at
first: ‘When we observe a child in his early years, we see clearly that the chest organs, as contrasted
with the head organs, are much more awake and more living.’
If we behold the human being in his limb system, then we experience how spirit, soul and body are
interwoven with one another and interconnected, ‘they all flow into one another. Moreover it is here
that the child is first fully awake, as those who have to bring up these lively, kicking little creatures in
their babyhood know very well. Everything is awake, but absolutely unformed. This is the great secret
of man: when he is born his head spirit is already very highly developed, but asleep. His head soul,
when he is born, is very highly developed, but it only dreams. The spirit and soul have yet gradually to
awaken. The limb man is indeed fully awake at birth, but unformed, undeveloped.’
Thus we have to develop the limb man and part of the chest man. Then it is the task of the limb man
and chest man to awaken the head man. Here we come to the true function of teaching and education.
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Volume 9 (June 2007)
‘From this you will see that the child brings something of great consequence to meet you. He meets
you with a perfected spirit and relatively perfected soul, which he has brought through birth. All you
have to do is to develop that part of his spirit which is not yet perfect, and that part of his soul which
is as yet still less perfect. If this were not so, real education and teaching would be utterly impossible.
The thing we can accomplish best in our teaching is the education of the will, and part of the
education of the feeling life.” 1
We may justifiably consider this characterisation as a mighty sea-change in education and in
educational theory, even today. For, how strong is the conviction of people in general that in
education we have to concern ourselves primarily with the head! Learning as a head activity, which
then leads to developing children’s abilities, that is, top-down. Steiner turns it on its head and says
education in the second seven year period goes bottom-up, via the limbs, via the soul. It is through
involvement, through interest that the spiritual powers of the head (Kopfgeist) are awakened.
It really is an awakening and this is shown by the following fact. As a class teacher one will have
‘taught’ many children to read. However, if we look more closely at the process involved, then one
has probably not caught the moment of actual learning with a single child. As a rule what we perceive
is, all at once they can do it. It is an awakening, resulting from an activity, from enthusiasm.
It is a matter of course that this kind of learning holds sway until the moment when the ability to learn
is emancipated through the awakening of the powers of judgement: then the spiritual powers of the
head are awakened and become active themselves. Then the will part no longer stems from the
activating of the human being in his limb system, but rather lives in the will of the active thinking.
This process takes place with the complete change to the third seven-year period but is not completed
as this period begins. It takes time. With one pupil this emancipation of the independent thinking
faculty through the use of the powers of judgement goes quicker, with another pupil it takes more
time. With the one it becomes a really lucid and bright faculty, with another it remains connected to
the warmth processes of the will. This development is the target and focus of the approach, which
Steiner gives us, concerning pupils with rich or poor imaginations: either the thinking, the
conceptualising is more reliant on itself, or else it participates in the warmth processes, in the
circulation.
Now we can put two questions to ourselves if we want to consider these viewpoints in teaching.
The first question would be, “what do the lessons of the child in the second seven-year period look
like? How do we work in accordance with our teaching methods bottom-up and not top-down?”
The second question, which we have already touched upon in part, would be,” what does this mean
for the first seven-year period, what does it mean for the third?”
Formation of the human figure – life development
As for the first question there is a special indication in the above-mentioned lecture. The most
important part of the first seven-year period is the formation of the human figure, which proceeds
from the head, a process which draws to a close with the change of teeth. The body has taken on its
shape, ‘hardened’ by the formative forces, which have been ‘poured into the body’. This human form
will still grow larger, yet in the wholeness of its shape it is present in its conception. The head is not
only the starting-point for nearly all children’s illnesses, it is also the portal through which the
formative forces pour into the body. What significance does that have for education and upbringing in
this period? It means that everything we do with the children, so to speak, is brought towards them
from outside. We do not call upon their inner nature, on their soul life. In the kindergarten the field of
activity is the whole being of the child, but shaping it, forming it, so to speak, from outside. This can
be observed in free play where the outer framework is created. Through the shaping of space and time
conditions are created, by means of which the whole child can be formed, be shaped. It is a holistic
process.
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JOURNAL for Waldorf / Rudolf Steiner Education
Once this is completed, a new development is embarked on, that of life development. This does not
start from the head, but from the chest system of the person. Once the child has reached the stage of
school readiness, the second spurt of growth sets in; it begins to stretch, to grow. This phase of
stretching is followed by a phase of filling out, in short, ‘becoming big’ is a central subject of
conversation at this age. When this phase of growth comes to a temporary halt, around the eleventh or
twelfth year, the children’s approach to learning changes.
If it is the task in the first years of the Lower school not to disturb this growth, then we will notice
how roughly from Class 5 or 6 on a freer approach to learning comes about. The span of interests
increases noticeably and more can be learnt. However, learning is always embedded in the processes
of growing, nourishing, of experiencing the world, of sleeping and waking. All theses processes, all
this breathing, is orientated towards the middle. The human being in his chest system, the being of
feeling, the breathing person, forms the centre and the orientation of child education in this period.
The educator is now working mainly on the inner nature of the child. The child is no longer reached
from without, rather the key to the child lies within, in its inner life; that means not in its powers of
consciousness, but in its ‘powers of feeling’.
Now when the human being in the process of becoming, reaches the third seven-year period and the
powers of judgement start to unfold, a third stage makes its appearance. If Steiner speaks in the abovementioned
lecture about the formation of the human figure and the shaping of life, we could say for
the third stage: the shaping of the soul. In the Upper School the pupil is now seeking the way from
within to without. The teacher ‘calls forth’ this shaping of the soul through the presence of his ego. It
finds its expression through thinking, feeling and willing taking on an increasingly personal character.
These are ideas which provide an orientation. If we are filled with such thoughts, this has an effect on
our every day teaching `life. Now we have a basis which will empower us to ponder the question
about the development of the will and of thinking throughout the various stages of development. This
is to be the object of the next study.
1 Rudolf Steiner (1966), The Study of Man, London: Rudolf Steiner Press (lectures given in 1919 for the first
Waldorf teachers, Lecture 11, Paragraphs 7-9, GA 293, italics by the author, Christof Wiechert)
Education – Health for Life
Education and medicine working together for a healthy development
Edited and co-authored by, Dr Michaela Gloeckler, Stefan Langhammer and Christof Wiechert
Out of the world-wide impulse of the Kolisko Conferences 2006, this conference compendium
developed from one of specific published research to a text which shares the experiences and
thoughts of more than 15 individuals well known in their fields. The driving force for this text
was Dr Michaela Glöckler, a paediatrician who was also a Waldorf teacher. There are 20
chapters, with numerous sub-chapters, the contents of which range from The Task of theSchool Doctor, Gifted Children, Meditations for Teachers, to Projective Geometry. An especially
moving chapter contains questions from teachers, such as ‘How do I love my children,
particularly the difficult ones?’ and ‘Individual support work: at what age can this start?’
The books are in A4 format, 309 pages, with a soft cover and a fold-back fly sheet. For
distribution centres for Australia please see www.koliskochild.com or phone Annette Brian +61
2 9416 2818; for New Zealand and other countries please see www.kolisko.net or phone
Brenda Cook +64 2 74463527
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Volume 9 (June 2007)
EIGHT YEARS OF THE JOURNAL FOR WALDORF/RUDOLF STEINER TEACHERS
Selected References, 1999-2006
Allison, J Encountering the Changing Nature of the Child, Nov 1999 no. 3
Allison, J The Way They Are – The Way We Are, Mar 2000 no. 4
Allison, J The Mystery of Movement, Sept 2000 no. 5
Allison, J Shame and Responsibility, March 2001, no.6
Allison, J Living in Light, Loving the Dark vol 4.1, April 2002
Allison, J Working with the Life Processes, part 1, vol. 8.1, April 2006; part 2, vol. 8.2 Nov 2006
Caris, M Needs of the Modern Child, vol. 3.2, Aug 2001
Carter, N Leadership and Management, vol. 7.1 June 2005
Carter, N Class Six camp at Staveley (mineralogy in class six), vol 8.2 Nov 2006
Clouder, C Norse Myths and Class 4 (Aspects of Waldorf Curriculum, Meeting in Witten, 1998), June
1999, no.2
Clouder, C Moving Forward with Interest – from the International Pedagogical Conference, Easter 2000,
Sept 2000, no. 5
Fairman, E Enlivening the curriculum – practical work in the High School, vol. 8.1 April 2006
Glasby, P & Miller, D Surveying with 10th Class, March 2001, no.6
Glasby, P What is Human in the Practice of Education, vol 3.2, Aug 2001
Glasby, P Adolescents – Relation to the Night and the Senses, vol. 7.1, June 2005
Glasby, P Surveying using Computer Technology, vol. 7.2, Sept 2005
Glöckler, Dr M The Child study, July 1999 Asia Pacific Conference - reported by N Carter
Glöckler, Dr M The Meditative Path, vol. 3.2, August 2001- reported by M Snowdon
Glöckler, Dr M The Heart (from the Asia Pacific Conference 1999), Nov 1999, no.3
Reported by M Bückler
Green, Dr J Upper Schooling, March 2001, no.6
Guttenhofer, Dr P Aesthetic Knowledge as a source for the Main lesson, vol. 6.1, April 2004
Hughes, T Waldorf Education in China, vol. 7.2, Sept 2005
James, V Art - Awakener of consciousness, humaniser of society, vol. 7.2, Nov 2005
James, V Language of the Line, vol 8.2, Nov 2006
Mazzone, Dr A Evolution of Consciousness, Rites of Passage and Waldorf Curriculum, vol 5.2, Nov 2003
Mulder, I Report of International Pedagogical Section Work Week, 1998 in Dornach, March 1999, no. 1
Oswald, F Thoughts on Information and Communication technology, vol 6.1, April 2004
Pewtherer, J A Visit to Waldorf Schools in South Africa, vol. 8.1, April 2006
Riccio, M Did Steiner Want a Seven Grade Primary School, vol 3.2, Aug 2001
Ritchie, Dr D The Nine Year Old, vol 5.2, Nov 2003
Thomson, J Rite of Passage in the Outdoors, vol. 5.2, Nov 2003
Trousdell, I Dr Steiner’s Neglected Story Curriculum, March 2001, no. 6
Turnbull, S The Rate of Learning to read in a Rudolf Steiner School, vol 8.2, Nov 2006
Wagstaff, A Steiner Education and its Management, Problems and Possibilities, part I vol 5.1, part II vol 5.2,
part III vol 6.1, 2003 & 2004
Wright, J Jihad – Holy Struggle or Holy War, vol. 6.1, April 2004
Zimmermann, Dr H What is the Pedagogical Section? March 1999 no. 1
Back copies are available in the Taruna Teachers’ Library, Havelock North, New Zealand and editions from 2002 on can be obtained by contacting waldorf@clear.net.nz
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JOURNAL for Waldorf / Rudolf Steiner Education
RUDOLF STEINER/WALDORF CONFERENCES, TRAINING COURSES, March 2008
24–29 March Educating the Will – Awakening the Spiritual powers of the Head (8th World Teachers’
Conference) at Dornach, Switzerland. Contact: www.paedagogik-goetheanum.ch
July 2008
4–7 July Anthroposophical Society/Sections/School of Spiritual Science Annual Conference at
Michael Park Waldorf School, Auckland, NZ. Contact www.anthroposophy.org.nz
Goethe’s Science of Living Form
The Artistic Stages by Nigel Hoffmann
Adonis Press 2007
ISBN 0-932776-35-3
If you have read Nigel’s essay The Unity of Science and Art in ‘Goethe’s way of Science’ (SUNY
Press 1998) then you will know this book is an essential guide to Goethean practice.