The Education of the Child - and Early Lectures on Education E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

One of the keys to Rudolf Steiner’s ability to penetrate and accomplish so much in so many different fields lies in the fact that, in addition to possessing profound philosophical, spiritual, and mystical abilities, he was both scientifically trained and an eminently practical person. All his life, Rudolf Steiner was a “doer,” able to take care of himself and those around him. He could size up any task or situation that seemed to call for a response and then act so as to bring it to a successful conclusion in the world. Thus, though endowed with tremendous innate capacities, Steiner was also in many ways a self-made man. Indeed, it was this combination of practicality and hard work together with a rich natural spiritual endowment that enabled him to achieve his mission. “The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science,” the first, longest, best-known, and most loved piece in this book, lays out the implications of this view in a masterly way. Originally given as a public lecture in the Architektenhaus in Berlin on January 10, 1907—the founding lecture of anthroposophical pedagogy—it appeared in written form in the journal Lucifer-Gnosis in April of that year. The other lectures, while allowing readers to come to know Rudolf Steiner better, amplify and extend the ideas contained in “The Education of the Child.” These lectures reveal Steiner’s selfless love for human beings, his idealism, and his practicality, and at the same time provide sustenance, inspiration, and many useful insights for teachers and parents alike.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Part I - The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science

Part II - Teaching from a Foundation of Spiritual Insight BERLIN, MAY 14 , 1906

Education in the Light of Spiritual Science COLOGNE, DECEMBER 1, 1906

Education and Spiritual Science BERLIN, JANUARY 24, 1907

Interests, Talents, and Educating Children NUREMBERG, NOVEMBER 14 , 1910

Interests, Talent, and Education BERLIN, JANUARY 12 , 1911

R U D O L F S T E I N E R

The Education of the Child

and Early Lectures on Education

First digital edition 2018 by Anna Ruggieri

Part I - The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science

Humankind has inherited much from past generations that contemporary life calls into question; thus, the numerous “current crises” and “demands of our time.” How many such matters occupy the world’s attention—social questions, women’s issues, various educational concerns, health debates, questions of human rights, and so on? Human beings endeavor to come to terms with these problems in the most varied ways. There are countless numbers of people who appear with some remedy or program to solve—or at least partially solve—one or another of them. In the process, all sorts and shades of opinions are asserted: extremism, which casts a revolutionary air; the moderates, full of respect for what exists, but trying to evolve something new from it; and the conservatives, up in arms whenever any of the old institutions are tampered with. Aside from these main tendencies of thought and feeling there are all kinds of positions in between. Looking at these things in life with deeper vision one can only feel—indeed the impression forces itself upon one—that our contemporaries are in the position of trying to meet the demands of modern life with completely inadequate methods. Many try to reform life without really recognizing life’s foundations. But those who make proposals for the future must not be satisfied with only a superficial knowledge of life. They must investigate its depths. Life in its wholeness is like a plant. The plant contains more than what it offers to external life; it also holds a future condition within its hidden depths. One who views a newly leafing plant knows very well that eventually there will also be flowers and fruit on the leaf-bearing stem. The plant already contains in its hidden depths the flowers and fruit in embryo. Nevertheless, how can simple investigation of what the plant offers to immediate vision reveal what those new organs will look like? This can be told only by one who has come to recognize the very nature and being of the plant. Likewise, the whole of human life also contains within it the seeds of its own future; but if we are to tell anything about this future, we must first penetrate the hidden nature of the human being. Our age is little inclined to do this, but instead concerns itself with what appears on the surface, and believes it is walking on unsure ground when asked to penetrate what escapes outer observation. It is definitely a simpler matter in the case of the plant; we know that others of its kind have repeatedly borne fruit. Human life is present only once. The flowers it will bear in the future have never been there before, yet they are present within a human being in the embryo, even as the flowers are present in a plant that is still only in leaf. And there is a possibility of saying something of humankind’s future, if once we penetrate beneath the surface of human nature to its real essence and being. The various ideas of reform current in the present age can become fruitful and practical only when fertilized by this deep penetration into human life. Spiritual science, by its inherent character and tendency, has the task of providing a practical concept of the world—one that comprehends the nature and essence of human life. Whether what often passes as such is justified is not the point; what concerns us here is the true essence of spiritual science, and what it can be by virtue of its true essence. For spiritual science is not intended as a theory that is remote from life, one that merely caters to human curiosity or thirst for knowledge. Nor is it intended as an instrument for a few people who for selfish reasons would like to attain a higher level of development for themselves. No, it can join and work at the most important tasks of modern people and further their development for the welfare of humankind.1 It is true that in taking on this mission, spiritual science must be prepared to face all kinds of skepticism and opposition. Radicals, moderates, and conservatives in every sphere of life are bound to meet it with skepticism, because in its beginnings it will scarcely be in a position to please any party. Its promises are far beyond the sphere of party movements—being founded, in effect, purely and solely on a true knowledge and perception of life. If people have knowledge of life, it is only out of life itself that they can take up their tasks. They will not draw up programs arbitrarily, for they will know that the only fundamental laws of life that can prevail in the future are those that prevail already in the present. The spiritual investigator will therefore of necessity respect what exists. No matter how great the need they may find for improvement, they will not fail to see the embryo of the future within what already exists. At the same time they know that in everything “becoming” there must be growth and evolution. Thus they will perceive the seeds of transformation and of growth in the present. They will invent no programs, but read them from what is already there. What they read becomes in a certain sense the program itself, for it bears within it the essence of development. For this very reason a spiritual-scientific insight into the being of humankind must provide the most fruitful and the most practical means for the solution of the urgent questions of modern life. In the following pages we shall endeavor to prove this in relation to one particular question: the question of education. We shall not set up demands nor programs, but simply describe child-nature. From the nature of the growing and evolving human being, the proper viewpoint for Education will, as it were, result spontaneously. …… If we want to perceive the nature of the evolving human being, we must begin by considering hidden human nature as such. What sense observation learns to know in human beings, and what the materialistic concept of life would consider as the only element in human beings, is for spiritual investigation only one part, one member of human nature: that is, the physical body. This human physical body is subject to the same laws of physical existence and is built up of the same substances and forces as the world as a whole, which is commonly referred to as lifeless. Spiritual science, therefore, designates that humankind has a physical body in common with all of the mineral kingdom. And it designates as the