A Deeper Understanding

of the
Waldorf Kindergarten

Articles from the

Waldorf Kindergarten Newsletter
1981 to 1992
VOLUME 2

Edited by Joan Almon

 With special thanks to our European colleagues
who have regularly come to North America to
help us deepen our understanding of the young child.

Copyright 1993 by the Waldorf Kindergarten Association

of North America, Inc.

Third Edition

For permission to reprint or to order, contact:

The Waldorf Kindergarten Association
1359 Alderton Lane
Silver Spring, MD 20906

Reformatted with permission for posting in PDF on the

Online Waldorf Library
of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education
June 2014
 Table of Contents
Section One: The Developing Child
Stages of Development in Early Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Kindergarten Education with Mixed-Age Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
The Significance of Imitation and Example for the Development of the Will . . . . . . 15
Kindergarten Readiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Further Considerations about Kindergarten Readiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Section Two: Etheric Forces and the Young Child

The Birth of the Etheric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Childhood Illnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Section Three: The Young Child and the Spiritual World

How Can We Find a Connection to the World of the Angels? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Continuing the Work of the Hierarchies in the Age of the Etheric Christ . . . . . . . . . 56
The Religion of the Young Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
How Can We Work with the Karma of the Young Child? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Working with the Angels, the Archangels, and the Archai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Walking and the Incarnation of Destiny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
The Wonder of Acquiring Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Section Four: The Sistine Madonna

The Sistine Madonna by Raphael: Is It Appropriate in the Kindergarten? . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Sistine Madonna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Section Five: The Education of the Teacher

Working with an Assistant Who Is Striving to Become a Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Supervising a Student Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
 The Developing Child
Stages of Development in Early Childhood
Tasks and Goals for Parents and Educators
Freya Jaffke
International Waldorf Kindergarten Association
To be able to foster a childs development
rather than disturb or hinder it through faulty
behavior, we must become familiar with and
understand these stages of development. The
following article is written by a seasoned
kindergarten teacher who through long years of
work has been able to condense her observations
into a picture of the developmental stages of
early childhood. Her starting-point is based
on the fact that has been proven by anatomical
research that a childs body inherited from her
parents does not represent a smaller form of the
adult. The childs body is being metamorphosed
toward its own goal. One can clearly see that a
Will, an individuality is at work here which is
not identical to the body that has been inherited.
Three different stages of development during the
years before a child is ready for first gradeup
to the seventh yearare described in Rudolf
Steiners Soul Economy and Waldorf Education,
Lecture VII (Anthroposophic Press, 1986).
For readers who are not familiar with
Rudolf Steiners information regarding human
development, we include a brief introduction of
basic concepts necessary for an understanding.
Steiner observed that the human organism
is divided into three areas. Since the sense
perceptions are conducted through the nerve
system to the brain, Steiner calls this association
of functions centered in the head the Nerve-
Sense System. It is the physical basis for
5
thinking. A second larger area consists of the
connection between the rhythm of breathing
and the heartbeat, in whose subtle variations
the feeling life is manifested. It is called the
Rhythmic System and has its center in the
chest area. The organs of metabolism perform
their work deep in the unconscious. If their
activity is injured, then the human will is
weakened or even disabled. In no other area
does the will impulse live more fully and
with greater strength than in the movement
of the limbsthe spontaneous, willful joy of
movement in young children is a good example
of this. Thus Steiner combines this lower
region and calls it the Limb-Metabolic System.
The life processes of the organism and its
formation cannot be adequately explained by the
chemical reactions of body substances. Expert
anthropologists acknowledge the workings of
formative forces. Rudolf Steiner calls them the
formative or life forces. Their effects in the
shaping of the organism and in the physiological
processes are evident. However, what exactly
is at work is invisible to the external eye and is
revealed only through supersensible methods
of observation, as Steiner describes in the
Fourth and Fifth Lectures of Soul Economy.
He describes how the formative forces are
completely occupied at the beginning of human
life with the forming of the organism. Then, as
the organs draw nearer to their final form, these
The Developing Child

forces are gradually freed up from this task and gradually become more ordered and directed
metamorphose then into spirit-soul forces: those through his tireless will to be active. We see
of memory, imagination, fantasy and the power how he acquires the upright position and
of thought. They all point to a spiritual shaping how he develops a relationship to the worlds
and forming. Thus childhood development equilibrium in learning to walk. We observe
consists essentially in the birth and gradual how from the worldwide language of babbling
unfolding of these forces. a young child finds his way ever more surely
and with greater control to the exact sound of
If we wish to understand a child in the first
his regional language. We see how a much more
seven years of life, we must look very closely at
strongly differentiated and more meaningful
the individual steps of development. Before we
activity develops from the early toddling about
do this though, let us keep in mind the whole
after adults and the beginning imitation of their
situation of the young child at the beginning of
behavior.
life.
We can see through all these processes how
To begin with, three things must coincide
the individuality is endeavoring to work itself
if a birth is to happen. First the two streams of
into the body and to make it its own. All the
inheritance of the parents unite to give the body.
impressions from the environment that meet the
A soul-spirit being, a human individuality then
child also work very closely in this process of
joins with the body.
shaping the inner human being.
For instance, in spite of its outer
The impressions work in from the outside
completeness, this physical body still remains
through the senses. In the young child these are
unfinished in many ways. The individual
digested inwardly by the core of his being, the
inner organs have not yet attained their final,
individuality, in two ways: through the imitated
differentiated forms. In the limb system, we see
behavior and in the development of the yet
a lack of differentiationchaotic, involuntary
unfinished organs.
movements. In the nerve-sense system, the child
is still totally open. The young child is born unprotected into
its new environment. His whole body acts as a
The childs task in the first six to seven
single sense organ serving in an indiscriminate
yearsyears that are his by right for this
way to join the outer world with the inner one.
purposeis to take hold of his inner body and
We can compare it to the eye. The eye itself does
to develop its differentiation until he is ready
not see, it only transmits. We see through the
for school. Thenwhen the process of forming
eyes. Thus the childs body is a sense organ for
the organs is largely finished and only growth is
the individuality, for the spirit-soul being of the
still taking placehis body stands prepared as a
human.
useful instrument. The soul-spirit individuality
that had joined the physical body at birth can, The outer impressions come into the child
after further steps of development, begin to through the senses, while the inner activity
manifest itself fully in an external way through of shaping the organs moves outwards. This
this body without being hindered by it. working together of the outer impressions
and the inner shaping manifests itself in that
How can we observe the joining of the
wonderful power of imitation with which each
individuality to the body? We see how the
healthy child is born. Every observation is first
childs involuntary movements of kicking about

6
Freya Jaffke
taken in deeply, grasped by the will and then,
like an echo, comes forth again in a childs
behavior.
There result from this fact two significant
tasks for parents and educators. The first is a
gesture of protection. Wherever we are able
to do so, we ought to choose carefully out of
the environment the impressions that meet
the child. The child is best surrounded calmly
by happy family sounds of normal speaking
and singing rather than those of uproar and
quarreling. We also ought to protect the child
from every type of technical apparatus such
as radio, television, cassettes, videos, etc. In a
childs room and for cradles and walls of one,
soft color is preferable because of the soothing
effect to the well-meant childrens fabrics and
wallpaper which are covered with flowers and
animals. When riding in the car is necessary, lets
make sure that the child can be seated to have a
view of mother rather than overstimulating the
senses by exposing him to the street traffic.
The second great task consists in guiding
the child step by step into life, allowing him to
learn about life for his whole life. This happens
chiefly by meaningfully and methodically paying
attention to the capability that the child has
brought with himthat of imitationrather
than by means of clever teaching.
This presupposes that when we as grown-
ups make the effort to be good examples of
human beings, that we will have the effect of
awakening impulses in the child through our
activities. For we cannot teach a child to imitate.
This is a matter of the will and must be grasped
by the childs own will. We can be aware of our
own behavior: how we go about our work in
the home and garden, how we speak with other
people, how we care for others, how we arrange
and care for our environment. The child takes
everything deeply into his own bodily formative
processes. Without being able to discriminate
7
Stages of Development in Early Childhood
between meaningful and foolish behavior, he
brings to his own activity what he sees in his
representatives of life, which is the role we take
on in the process of education.
The imitative behavior of the child goes
through three different stages in the first six to
seven years. It is subject to the forces forming
the organs, whichbeginning in the head area
work through the whole body right down to the
tips of the toes. Although they work through
the whole body, they concentrate in the first
stage of life, from birth to about two and a half
years of age, on the forming of the organs in the
Nerve-Sense System. During this time the child
acquires three of the most important human
capabilitiesgaining uprightness in the face of
gravity, walking, and then speech, which is a
prerequisite for thinking. All these capabilities
the child learns exclusively through imitation.
Tragic examples in history have shown that
children do not acquire these human capabilities
when they grow up surrounded only by animals.
This shows clearly that humanity can be learned
only from human beings.
From the Age of Crawling to the Awakening
of the I in the Age of Independence
In what way are children active in this first
stage of life?
As soon as they can barely crawl or propel
themselves forward, they begin to explore their
home environment, and it becomes unsafe.
They follow Mother and want to do everything
that she is doing. With the greatest enjoyment
they clatter together the cooking pots, covers
and spoons, put their hands into the wash
water, pull out the wash and stick it in again,
spreading puddles about. They bustle about
with the broom dispersing the dirt rather than
gathering it into the middle in a small pile; they
eagerly carry things that have just been placed
in a certain spot to some other spot. And all
The Developing Child
this is done with the motto, Johnny, too or
Me, too! They take great joy in moving and
busying themselves as much as possible with real
household items, yet without insight into the
purpose and goal of the adults workwhich,
of course, progresses very slowly. Without
such willing helpers the adult work would
be done much sooner. However, this is true
only from one point of view, for the parent has
taken care not only of the house, garden or
handwork, but at the same time she has also
accomplished educational work. This should
become recognized again much more in todays
educational awareness.
Along with their impulsive engagement with
the environment, there are also moments when
children linger devotedly near Motherfor
example, when she is peeling apples or working
with needle and thread. There are times when
they busy themselves in the play areafilling
up baskets and emptying them, building towers
and knocking them down, singing and pushing
a doll carriage. Here it is important to pay close
attention to the quality of the play materials.
The best objects are those found in nature or
which have been only slightly shaped by hand.
(Toymaking with Children, Jaffke, 1988) In
his close connection with these objects, the
impressions made upon the child will be natural,
organic shapes, and this works to stimulate his
inner organ forming processes. Toys with dead
mathematical forms alone have a desolating and
killing effect upon a childs formative forces.
(The Education of the Child, Steiner)
The child passes through a first real crisis
point when for the first time the feeling of I
is awakened during the Age of Defiance. He
experiences his own will more and more, but
must now learn to bring it into harmony with his
environment. Whereas earlier he always called
out Me, too, now he says, I dont want to.
From the Third to the Fifth Years: Fantasy
and Spontaneous Play
Let us now take a look at the second stage,
the time between about the third to fifth years.
The life or formative forces, which until now
have been at work chiefly in the head region,
concentrate in this second stage in the middle
part of the body, where most importantly
the rhythmical organs (heart and lungs) are
located. At this time, two quite new capabilities
appear in the child, which clearly give him a
new relationship to his environment. These
capabilities are: a childlike fantasy and memory.
Here are some examples of play in children
who have developed in a healthy way:
A four-year-old has small round pieces of
real tree branches in front of him on the table
and he asks me, Do you want soda, beer or
apple juice?
A four-year-old girl takes a piece of bark,
lays two stones upon it and says, I have a ship
with a man at the wheel. Then she comes to my
table and asks, I have brought you some pieces
of chocolate, do you want them? and she lays
the stones in front of me. And now the bark
becomes a roof for a small dwarfs house.
A small bench was first a dolls stove, lay on
its side it became an animals feeding trough,
and upside down it was first a dolls bed, and
then part of a train.
These examples show that children of this
age are capable of changing things in their
environment, using them for different purposes
in certain cases and, with the help of fantasy,
making them into new things. Children see
objects, perhaps remembering them only
vaguely, and their imagination fills in all the
other necessary details. The prerequisite is that
children have already experienced such things
before. If a child has never seen a ship, or only
8
Freya Jaffke
seen one in a picture book, he cannot bring it
into his play.
A characteristic of play at this age is that it is
stimulated by external causes. For this reason, it
is best if the available play materials are capable
of transformation by being incomplete and
simple enough so that a childs imagination,
remembering the details, can transcend
the available objects and fill them in. The
imagination needs this type of activity in order
not to become stagnant. Everything depends on
the inner work.
As the muscles of the hand grow firm and
strong in performing the work for which
they are fitted, so the brain and other organs
of the human physical body are guided into
the right lines of development if they receive
the right impression from the environment.
(Education of the Child, Rudolf Steiner)
It is immediately striking that the play is full
of change. There are always daily events that
are imitated and there are many spontaneous
changesoften without any connection. The
children continuously think of something new.
Many adults who see this may despair and
believe the children are unable to concentrate
in their play. Concentration at this age level,
however, lies in the continuity of play which
between three and five years old is characterized
in this way. To be sure, quite a bit of disorder
and even chaos arise now and then from this
play. But it can be called meaningful chaos for it
continuously effects the children in such a way
that they remain stimulated and interested. By
the fifth year, this already changes on its own.
Of course, after the playtime, the adult will
plan sufficient time to clean up, participating
herself to set an example so that it becomes
an indisputable and joyful habit rather than
a sporadically ordered, almost overwhelming
burden which one faces alone.
9
Stages of Development in Early Childhood
From the Fifth to the Seventh Year: Pictures
from the Imagination and Planned Play
The third big developmental step of the first
seven years begins around the fifth year. The
forces that have been used to form the organs are
being freed more and more from the Rhythmical
System and are now working in the Metabolic-
Limb System. The children are increasingly
capable and dexterous right down to their
fingertips.
Many childrenespecially those who were
able to play in a rich and creative mannergo
through a second crisis in the fifth year. For
the first time they experience a real boredom.
They can stand before you and say, I dont
know what to do. It is as if their fantasy has left
them and suddenly they have no more ideas.
The fantasy needs a rest now and ought not
to be called upon by reminding the child of
yesterdays fine play. We can help to strengthen
it much more by having the child participate
in our own workfor example, peeling apples,
drying dishes, sweeping, baking, sewing. After
a while, sometimes after only a few days, new
impulses for their play arise in the child. A
change has taken place. The stimulus for play
no longer comes so much from external objects,
but it comes now more and more from inside.
This means that now the children have an inner
picture, a picture from their imagination of past
events and they can bring these up in their play
independent of place, time or people.
Five- and six-year-old children love to
crouch together talking and making plans for
their play. For example, they are building an inn
and folded cloths become napkins, menus and
purses. A cold buffet is set up and little woolen
sheep are offered as fish. One child who is selling
drinks has a large log with small branches on it
standing before him (it is his real beer keg),
and he is able to fill an order for any kind of
drink with it. Another time they set up a doctors
The Developing Child
office with needles, stethoscopes, bandages and
a waiting room where the folded cloths serve as
magazines.
Other typical themes of play are: trash truck,
ambulance with a red light, school, carpentry
shop, fire engine, cable-railway, telephone
installation, deep sea diver and much more.
Their play becomes more and more planned.
This does not mean, however, that it cant be
suddenly changed in the middle if one of the
children comes up with a rousing idea.
Children of this age do not need fancier,
more detailed play things. Play materials that
can grow with them are better. Their relationship
to the materials is changing. Before the fifth
year an idea is stimulated by the materials.
After the fifth year an imaginative idea comes
first, then comes an effort to find and make
something acceptable from the play materials
that corresponds to the imagination. Now the
fantasy, which had been so richly developed
before, begins to function again.
Nowadays it is no longer a matter of course
that children can play so spontaneously and
enthusiastically at their corresponding level of
development. This is due less to the children
than to the immense influence from all sides
upon them from earliest childhood on. For
example, fully detailed, technically exact toys
make it difficult for children to be satisfied with
such outwardly simple things as objects from
nature, cloths, wooden branches, etc. A healthy
child would rather be right in the middle of play
than outside as an observer of perfect, technical
instruments. The fascination for such toys is
soon past and leaves behind an emptiness and
longing for more.
One of our most important tasks is
to arrange the spaceat home and in the
kindergartento guarantee the needs of
creative play. Above all this means creating a
10
world suitable for imitation with adults who are
active in a purposeful way, who like to do their
work, and who, at the same time, accompany
the children in their play in a quiet way.
Creative play depends more on a calm, joyful
atmosphere of work than on many clever words,
suggestions for play or instructions of any kind.
The children must be lifted up by the adults
work, they must have a place in it in the broadest
senseeven if they are not directly involved
in the work. This seems like a contradiction,
but it can be experienced by every mother who
brings her mending basket or ironing board
to the childrens room and who radiates calm
and interest while workingor by every father
who goes about his work in the garden, yard or
cellar. The most important thing is the people
who surround the childthat they make life
rhythmical and ordered, that they like to work
and are ready to take on a large part of the work
themselves. The young child is an imitator!
The unspoken reward and thanks for such
efforts come to the adult through children who
are able to play in a fulfilling way and who are
building the basis for later life in these early
stages.
In retrospect, the tasks of the educator
can be discovered easily from all the above
descriptions. If we look at the goals, we can
summarize by saying that nothing more
wonderful can happen in childhood than
that a child is able to grasp completely each
developmental step and pass though it in a
healthy way, and that he is able to practice and
gain strength during each particular challenge.
When the body is completely formed and
accomplishes its first change around age seven,
the child may turn to his schoolwork with the
same joy, strength and enthusiasm for learning
that he showed earlier for play and be equal to
its demands.
Kindergarten Education with Mixed-Age Groups
Freya Jaffke
In this article an example will be given
of how the type of preschool education for
which we aim is feasible, particularly when the
childrens group is composed not only of one
age group (five- and six-year-old children), but
rather of three to four age groups (three-, four-,
five-, and six-year-old children). To what extent
the adult masters the necessary differentiations
of the various age levels and satisfies the different
needs of the children depends largely, to be sure,
upon her imagination and inner versatility.
In such a mixed-age group, the children live
together as in a large family. They learn from
one another and help one another in a way that
is rarely necessary or done among those of the
same age. It is even quite realistic for the three-
year-olds to experience that the six-year-olds
may be allowed to do things that they are not yet
allowed to do; and, conversely, the three-year-
olds are excused from many things that would
not be tolerated with the six-year-olds.
If one wishes to lay a foundation for later
ability in life during the preschool years, one
cannot do better than to have children learn
about the diversity of life. However, it is the
adults task to choose from the fullness of life
what is particularly beneficial for the different
developmental levels of the children. On the
other hand, she will not attempt to introduce
too early certain activities (especially in the
intellectual domain) so that the development
does not proceed in a one-sided manner.
The way a child learns from life reveals itself
in his urge to participate in all activities or events
in his environment, joining in immediately or
carrying them out by imitating them in play.
This is, however, only possible when these
activities can be looked at and experienced in
11
connection with real life. Therefore, it is the
educators duty to include in the kindergarten
plan whenever possible the necessary work of
daily life. Some examples: Houseworkcooking,
baking, washing, ironing, sweeping, dusting,
and flower care; Toymaking and toy careto this
belong, among other things, sawing, rasping,
cutting, gluing, repairs of all kinds, sewing,
and mending; Garden workdigging, sowing,
planting, watering, weeding, mowing, and
harvesting. In addition, there are Experiences on
walks, for example, encountering rubbish trucks,
street workers, woodcutters, chimney-sweeps,
the ironing woman, the workers in the adjacent
nursery.
Nevertheless, the quantity of experiences
is not of primary concern, but rather that the
children can experience the work as well as the
attitude of the people doing the workhow they
perform the various jobs one after the other
and how they work hand in hand helping one
another. All this will be taken by the childnot
with the intellect in an evaluating, critical or
reflective way, but with his entire being which is
so capable of surrendering itself to experiences.
In this way impulses for his own activity and
practice are awakened, and, simultaneously,
the forces that build up and form the body are
stimulated in various ways.
From these developments arise the guiding
principles for the educators methodology in the
preschool years. She herself will work together
with the children in significant, necessary
ways so that the children can take up the work
directly and be imitative in their activity. She
will not, however, teach this information about
life in a scholarly fashion. The aimed-for method
is comprised of a well thought-out and richly
The Developing Child
endowed education of opportunities that,
however, leaves quite open:
1. what the respective child grasps be imitating;
2. how the child imitates the activity, according
to age (from three to six years old);
3. which results will arise from the imitation in
the developmental progress of the individual
child.
It is not necessary to have extensively
prepared activity times in which the children are
restrained and told now and not later, this and
not that, for this long and not longer or shorter,
together with these children and not alone in that
corner. The imitative ability and differentiation
in this respect depend upon quite definite
suppositions:
1. about the way the adults shape the world to
be imitated;
2. about the age of the child within the first
seven years; and
3. about the individuality of the each child.
In the following example of different work
situations (in a group of twenty-three children
from three to six years old), the explanations
should become clear. Such work happens during
the childrens free play time and consequently
becomes an organic part of the daily and weekly
rhythm of the kindergarten.
The gardener gives us a freshly cut birch tree
and from it we want to saw new pieces of wood
for building. The five- and six-year-old boys
immediately take the meter-long pieces of trunk,
lay cloths underneath and push the wood like a
train over the floor and under tables draped with
cloths (tunnels). Other six-year-olds are again
nearby, helping and competing with one another
who can work up the most sweat. After a while,
Jan and Markus, both six years old, begin to
build a railroad through the whole room with
12
tables placed one behind the other. The three-
and four-year-olds, as patient passengers, get
on and off the train at the conductors order.
Suddenly, the big children notice that the saws
noise fits well with their railroad, and so we
agree to be attentive to one another. First we
go slowly, then faster, then slowly again, then a
pause. With great enthusiasm the engineers look
out of their window to the carpenters bench
and follow with close attention how quickly the
saw goes through the wood. Shortly before the
block of wood falls off, it seems that they hold
their breath and in the next moment breathe out
again forcefully shouting out the stations name
with joy. The conductor urges the passengers to
hurry, for he notices that the pauses made by the
saw do not last very long.
Under the carpenters bench eager hands
are gathering the sawdust and pieces of bark.
Markus, four years old, takes it as feed for his
horse; Gernot, four, lets it snow in the room;
Tanja, five, bakes a birthday cake out of it and
decorates it with fruit pits from the store. Next
to the pieces of wood which are yet to be sawed,
Mathias, Aurelia and Susanne, all four years old,
are standing and saying, Here you can make
a bridge out of it, and That would be a good
coffee can, Look, if you saw off some here, it
will be a little house with a chimney, and, That
looks like a dog. They use some longer branches
as a flute, violin and cello and move through
the room playing music with them. Shortly
afterwards, they carry the branches on their
shoulders by twos and offer apple juice for sale
from the buckets hanging in the middle. But
the variety of possible uses for their branches is
still not exhausted. They also serve as walking
sticks, ski poles, and finallyfurnished with a
crocheted bandas bow and arrows.
Georgia, three years old, is standing next
to the carpenters bench with a doll under her
arm. Delighted, she waits anew for each piece of
Freya Jaffke
wood that is sawed off to fall down or to be ably
snapped up by an older child. In between she
brings single blocks to Helge, six, and Michael,
six, who are building in the corner with bark and
big pieces of wood.
After the sawing work is done, the remaining
branches will be dragged outside, the carpenters
bench pushed against the wall, the work things
cleaned up, and the sawdust swept into a pile.
It is now time for the breakfast preparation.
There is muesli, and the apples for it must be
peeled. Stephen, three, stands next to me and
enjoys the long peels which may be eaten.
He then goes into the playhouse and tells the
other children, We have already peeled the
apples. Cornelia and Aurelia, both four years
old, would also like to peel such a long peel but
barely succeed in going once around the apple.
Eventually, they have finished peeling an apple
all the way. Their great satisfaction lasts for
several weeks. They like to imitate this activity
in imaginative play, for example, by wrapping
a crocheted band around a block of wood for
the apple peel and letting a piece of bark be the
knife. The work is quickly finished in this way,
and the imagination has the possibility of using
the same items in another way by letting the
band be the shores of a lake and the bark a little
ship; or the band is wrapped around a big piece
of bark to become a stringed instrumenta
kantalina. Jan, Michael and Antje, all six years
old, notice that I peel the apple in a spiral and
that in this way the peel becomes very long.
They are unable to do it the same way and do
not stop until all the apples are peeled.
During this whole time, Ulrike, six, was
busy sewing. She has put a pin cushion, scissors,
thimble and material scraps into the little basket
and taken it into her house. She has knotted
herself a little doll and, in addition, has sewn
two pillows. She has allowed nothing to disturb
her, not even Dietmar, five, who has requested
13
Kindergarten with Mixed-Age Groups
several times that she try on a pair of fur shoes
in his shoemakers workshop.
This small glimpse into a play and work
situation of a mixed-age childrens group already
shows how differently the individual children
participate in adult work, how they act according
to their age, and how many possibilities
for differentiation can arise. Thereby, three
very different developmental stages can be
recognized, the knowledge of which is a
necessary presupposition for the stimulation of
the children. For playing and being purposefully
active need to be relearned today by many
children, especially when they come into the
kindergarten for the first time at age five and
have not had opportunities beforehand to play
imaginatively.
In the first developmental stage, which is just
ending for many children as they begin their
kindergarten time, a large change in activity can
be observed. They watch, help out, in some cases
let themselves be included in a game by the older
children, and for moments become absorbed
in play to the extent that they forget everything
about them. The activity of the four-year-olds
is also defined by a large change, but now it is
through their developing and often exuberant
imagination. However, a prerequisite for this
is a toy selection that is kept so simple that it
stimulates the imagination as well as allows for
transformation of the toys themselves. After
the fifth year, when the child has more and
more imagination and memory capability at his
disposal, the spontaneous activity is organized
gradually into purposeful activity. When several
children of this older group are together, the
play is mostly a question of a project that will be
logically accomplished. This does not preclude
that spontaneous ideas can arise and totally
change the play situation again and again.
However, the play of these older kindergarten
children is usually goal-oriented and resolute.
The Developing Child

Difficult situations can also be overcome adults for a job. In general, they pay very close
if, as an educator, one bears in mind how the attention to how the adult does his work and
childrens behavior is based on age, which is only try to do it as carefully and as well. For example,
briefly sketched here. This should become clear they fold cloths very neatly or arrange the
in this description of the cleanup after free play baskets in the building or shopping corner. They
time. have an overview of the work sequence and its
logic that they acquire through the repetition
During cleanup time the three- and four-
of doing it again and again during the year, and
year-olds are either busy beside the adults or
they can give a hand independent of the adults.
thoughtlessly busy, for they do not yet quite
Thus, they already fetch the broom and dustpan
understand the correlation and purpose of
for sweeping when the building corner is barely
this activity. In certain cases, with the best of
finished being picked up.
intentions, they move things which have just
been put away in the correct place to another Such differentiations in the various age levels
place. are represented in all activities that take place
in the daily life of the childrens group. Each
The four- and five-year-olds eagerly help
child can normally fulfill the developmental
out, but often make a game out of cleaning up
stages appropriate for him or her in such a
and need much encouragement. When we can
group situation. The modeling effect of the
manage it, it suits the child well if we build a
children on each other in the mixed-age group
picture for him, for example: You can now be
is also invaluable. The concern that perhaps
the farm boy who is bringing all the animals
the five- and six-year-old children would not
back to their stalls form the pasture, instead of
come into their own in a mixed-age group
the abstract order, Now put the animals back
that they would be hindered in their continued
on the shelf. When four- and five-year-olds, for
developmentis only justified when the actual
example, pick up building blocks, fold cloths
group includes more than twenty to twenty-
or bring chairs to their places, it often happens
three children, and when, because of space
that they do it in very creative ways stimulated
limitations, play which requires a lot of room is
by their rich imaginations. The cloths are slowly
not possible. After these outer considerations,
pulled over the edges of the tables or ironed
however, all else depends on the inner activity
with a small, turned-over stool as mother does it
with which the adult carries out her work. For
at home with the iron. The chairs will perhaps be
this is also perceptible to the children and,
carried on their shoulders, because they are just
therefore, is imitable and helps the children
being brought in from the carpenters, or they
learn to evolve their own initiatives.
are pushed in a row in front of them as a train.
The building blocks will be laid, for example, In the later life of the child, much will
on a slope to a basket after being hoisted up, depend upon what type of experiences they
because the cleaners have just become dump encountered in the first six or seven years. For
truck or ship loaders. what is germinated in these early developmental
stages must appear one way or another in a
The five- and six-year-old children can
later stage. Thus, abilities and deficiencies can
already distance themselves from the play and
occur in many areas. For example, a child
accomplish independently a task requested of
who has been allowed, by imitating, to absorb
them. They either choose for themselves an area
purposeful and understandable work from his
that they want to clean up alone or they ask the

14
Freya Jaffke
environment will, as an adult, have a command
over such abilities on an intellectual level; as an
adult, he will have at his disposal logic in his
thinking. All that which a child perceives in the
working adult and can practice by imitating
like consciousness, attention, order, purposeful
results of workis accompanied by intensive
experience. With this, the experiences go into
deeper levels which later can be stirred from the
consciousness and can assist in an independent,
goal-directed shaping of ones life. A child will
be able to follow the teachers words with greater
alertness and concentration if he has had the
possibility in every respect, especially in his
limbs, to attain numerous skills. In this way, the
child will be able to control his movements. He
The Significance of Imitation and Example for the
Development of the Will
Freya Jaffke
This is a summary of the lecture which Freya
Jqffke presented at the North American
Kindergarten Conference at High Mowing School
in August 1989. The summary was written from
her lecture notes and may differ somewhat from
the lecture as it was given.
Today we will talk about the development of
the will, and we will see how important it is that
the child has an example to imitate. We all know
that the child has a great openness and is entirely
a sense organ. All of his sense impressions go
deeply into his body. He cant defend himself
from the sense impressions which flood into
him.
But a sense organ is only an instrument
which can be used by someone. The eye itself,
for example, does not see. Someone must
look through the eye to see. The eye is only an
instrument for seeing. In order to see, the will
15
Kindergarten with Mixed-Age Groups
can then achieve an outer calm and increase
more and more of his inner activity. Of course,
in addition to the capabilities, which, as
indicated, are transformed, there are also some
which intensify in a linear manner.
The work of the adult and the transformation
of the work throughout the childrens play
have been depicted here. The artistic activities
(eurythmy, painting, modeling, music-making),
the storytelling and the outdoor play are, of
course, equally important components in
the total educational work. In each of these
activities there could also be shown both the
specific formative value of the activity and the
differentiations according to age levels.
within the human being must be at work. The
whole physical body is one great sense organ for
the spiritual and soul being of the child, which
came from his pre-earthly existence.
Now we can see two phenomena: First the
child is totally a sense being, and second, the
child is totally a will being. With the will and
through the senses, all the impressions from the
environment are grasped and taken deeply into
the body where they leave their marks upon the
organs. The synthesis of these two phenomena
is seen in the wonderful forces of imitation,
which every child brings with him as a gift
from his pre-birth existence. In the pre-earthly
life the human soul is living among cosmic
beings, is penetrated by them and follows them.
This habit is taken through the gate of birth
into early childhood and is seen in the forces
of imitation. The childs imitation is a double
process: He receives through the senses, and
The Developing Child
grasps and imitates with the will. Rudolf Steiner
describes the development of the will in The
Education of the Child (pg. 41) in this way:
By a right application of the fundamental
educational principles, during the first seven
years of childhood, the foundation is laid
for the development of a strong and healthy
Will. For a strong and healthy will must have
its support in the well-developed forms of
the physical body.
We know that all the organs of the young
child are relatively unshaped. They do not
yet have the physical form which one sees in
the organs of the adult, and the rhythm of
each organ is not yet developed. We must ask
ourselves, How does the forming of the organs
take place and how will they develop their
rhythm and their rhythmical working together?
A seemingly different, but related, question is,
How will it happen that the will of the child
becomes purposeful and orderly? Both happen
primarily through the influences from the world
outside the child, especially through all the
rhythmical events during the day or week which
appear repeatedly at the same time.
Now let us look at the period of the first
three years of life. There we can see that the
child has many possibilities to use and exercise
his will forces, though of course this happens
unconsciously. What a great activity of will
is involved when a young child comes slowly
into the upright and acquires the ability to
walk! Then he follows his mother through the
house working with her, doing some laundry,
cleaning the floor, packing and unpacking her
grocery basket. The more the mother does her
work in good order and without being hectic,
the more the childs will is guided into a strong
direction. In this way, the child no longer moves
chaotically with his hands and feet as he did as a
newborn.
16
Everything which the child does is done
without reflection or consideration. He does
it out of imitation and habit. The quality of
example will determine how habits develop and
in the same way children will experience their
limits. If the adult laughs only when a child, for
example, dumps spinach from his plate onto
the table, or pulls on the tablecloth or the cord
of the iron, then the child learns bad habits and
develops an unhealthy orientation for his will.
Instead of laughing and running after the child,
the adult should think ahead. The adult should
use his imagination or fantasy to divert the child
from those activities which are inappropriate.
The adult should be consequent and follow
through to establish limits. This means that the
adult has to be a representative of everything for
the child, so that the child has a clear orientation
and a sense of reality. It is important that the
child is always surrounded by meaningful will
activities as long as he is unable to guide himself.
The first real crisis occurs when the child
experiences his own will for the first time. Then
he begins to use the word I for himself and
the word no to others. At the same time he
experiences a conflict between his growing will
and the will of those around him. His own will
can show itself only in relation to the will of
the others in his environment. The child has to
slowly learn to bring his will into a harmonious
relationship with the will of those around him.
Here again we can see how wonderful and
healthy are good habits and rhythms in the
childs environment, especially during these
years. They help to overcome many difficult
situations.
During this first period of early childhood,
the will of the child is engaged through a strong
connection to his mothers activities. Now in
the second period between the third and fifth
years of age, the will becomes more and more
connected to the awakening imagination and
Freya Jaffke The Significance of Imitation

begins to work within the childs fantasy. During
this period, his fantasy needs the inspiration of
the objects in his environment. For example, the
child sees a piece of bark and a few stones and
takes it to be a boat with people. He sees a doll
and starts to feed it. He sees a little bench and
uses it as a mailbox. The will within the childs
fantasy is able to transform things, and the child
no longer needs only actual (realistic) objects
in his play. But the object has to be simple
enough to allow space for this creative activity.
The objects in the childs environment spark the
fantasy. The child feels great joy and freedom
through creating new things which for him are
real. An example of how children transform
items from their environment into play materials
is the following: The mother has prepared a large
package, and she puts the leftover piece of string
over the back of a chair. The child ties a wooden
spoon to one end, pulls at the other end and
plays crane.
Between three and five we can see that
the childs fantasy and the childs faculty of
memory appear at the same time. Only things
or events can be remembered which have been
seen before. How does a child remember? How
does fantasy which is the bringing together of a
memory picture and an object actually occur?
And then, how does the child carry this fantasy
into his creative play? The answer is through his
will forces. Without the will forces nothing will
happen. If the will forces are chaotic, nothing
meaningful happens in the childs play. Thus
we see how important it is to care for the right
development of the will.
A healthy and harmonious child always has
new ideas to bring to the same materials or the
same play. She is always active, always busy with
her will. For example, the little bench which
was the mailbox now becomes the manger for
the animals, a bed for the doll, a stove, or many
other things.
We are all familiar with our difficult and
inharmonious children who are not able to play
but like to disturb the others. We also have those
children who dont do anything, but just stand
around looking at the others. They seem to be
apathetic. These children have to experience, for
a shorter or longer time, the meaningful work
of an adult as well as the strong rhythm and the
warm atmosphere of the kindergarten.
Around the fifth year, a second crisis is to
be seen, mostly in the children who until now
were always busy and knew just what to do.
What is happening now? The fantasy apparently
disappears; the will seems to be paralyzed.
Children may say, I dont know what to do
today, or Im bored. A big inner change is
taking place. At this time it is important that
we not appeal to the fantasy forces for they now
need a quiet time. We shouldnt say, Yesterday
you built up such a beautiful landscape, do it
again. Instead, let them do real things, such as
making and sewing a little book for their dolls
with drawings, sewing a little book out of felt for
needles, or sanding a letter opener which you
have just carved.
It is important that all these activities have
a strong connection to the adults work. It is
still the period of imitation, but we can more
and more use words in guiding the child to an
activity. We can ask them to come and help us
in our work, but not with questions! If we want
them to help in the kitchen with cooking and
baking we should say, Come, give me a hand,
rather than Will you give me a hand? After a
short time of such working, new impulses will
arise, impulses for the childs play.
At this new stage of development, around
the fifth year, there arises within the child a
picture or mental image of what she wants to do.
Now the will forces have to join or enter into the
mental image. That needs much effort. The child
is still in the kindergarten, and the play materials

17
The Developing Child
have not changed. When plans arise in the
mental image such as the hairdressers shop, an
ambulance, a fishing boat or restaurant, then the
child needs much well-trained fantasy, trained
during the years before. And the child needs
patience, enthusiasm and staying power. These
are all faculties in which the will works strongly.
Before five the stimulus for play comes from
the outside. A child sees a curved stick and
says, Now I am a chimney sweeper. After five
the child says, I would like to be a chimney
sweeper, and I need a broom with a long
handle. He looks for something similar, sees
feathers, puts them together, attaches a long,
curved ribbon and is happy. Before five, the will
activity works with all that which stimulates the
fantasy from the outside. After five the will forces
have to make an inner effort. The will now joins
together with the mental image and joins also
together with the well-trained fantasy. Thus the
child creates new objects which appear in his
mental image without an outer stimulus.
At this point in the childrens development
we may think that they must do strong physical
work such as sawing, nailing and hammering.
They may do such work, but we shouldnt forget
that the will forces have to be exercised not only
within the muscles, but at this particular period
of life, they also have to grow strong within the
inner being of the child. They are needed within
the mental image.
Here are two examples of play situations
which show you how we can help children
during their play, as of course, children do need
help sometimes. Florian, age 6 years, 4 months,
plays that he is a circus director. He dresses
many children as different animals with various
cloths. He tells them what to do and where to
stay. All of them are happy and follow his lead
for a period of time. When he has no more ideas
and some animals have already left, I tell him,
The circus is now finished and all the circus
18
people must have a snack. Florian replies, Yes,
and then they will pack everything and go to
another town. Oh, yes, this could be my circus-
wagon. It always has a round roof, doesnt it?
The object he points to has previously been
a cage and stood beneath the table where I was
working. He builds up his wagon, then looks
out of his little window at me and says, Oh, I
am already close to the border! Now I am going
to drive into another country and there will be
a large amount of snow, and there one needs a
snow plow. Then he fixes a little wooden dust
pan to the front of his wagon as a snow plow. In
the back he builds up something for spreading
salt. He uses little benches with small holes on
the top for carrying. He stacks them one on top
of the other and through the holes he throws
chestnuts with great joy.
On the next day, Florian again builds up a
wagon, but this time without snow plow or salt
machine. When he is finished he says, Now it
is a locomotive. Then he builds up two more
wagons behind. Other children want to play
with him but do not really know what to do. I
say, One wagon could be for my luggage, and
some porters could come to get my suitcases,
for I have to travel. The other wagon can be the
dining room, for I would like to eat something
during my journey. A great busyness arose
among the children. Some of them carry all
my cases (big logs) to the train. Others set up
the tables in the dining car. I am given a menu
out of folded cloths and have to choose and to
order. Then they bring wonderful dishes and set
my table. I am totally integrated into the play
of the children, although I am still sitting at my
work table. They do not mind at all that I am
not sitting with them in the dining car, as I do
sometimes.
I think we are lucky to have some children
every year who are able to play in such a fulfilled
way. They stimulate the others. Another example
Freya Jaffke The Significance of Imitation

is Simon, age 6, who has built a camping place itself into the atmosphere of activity around
underneath a table. After he is finished, nothing him, which is created by the adult. The child is
more happens. Then I say, In a camping place, totally free to choose his own work. They may
there is always a fireplace where people cook be involved in the work of the adults whenever
their meals. Oh yes, may we get some sticks? possible.
I reply, Yes, take three. They attach the sticks
Another prerequisite for the childrens play
together to make three legs. With red and yellow
is that the adult cares not only for a rhythmical
cloths, they make a fire underneath. A little
arrangement of the day, but also for the rhythm
basket is fixed in the middle of the sticks. It is
of the year in regard to his own working
the cooking pot. They ask for two more sticks,
activities. Without being a pedant he can
put them between two chairs, put big cloths over
repeatedly do some specific task at certain times.
them and make tents. Within the tents they have
For example, in my kindergarten, in the autumn
woolen carpets and cushions. These activities
I am mainly making things for the Christmas
last until cleanup time. Then the boys are a little
Bazaar. After Christmas, there is a period when
disappointed because they havent played yet.
I do embroidery, and after Easter I do wood
The question is: What can the adult do to carving. I do these activities nearly every day for
help strengthen the will forces such as they several weeks, and do not do a different activity
appear in these play situations? If indeed, as every day. The one exception is painting day.
Rudolf Steiner says, it is from the outside that
Each day during the free play time, I proceed
the impressions on the organs come about, and
with my work. I have not created projects for
also the well developed forms of the organs
the children to do, but I do make certain that
are the best support for the will, then in the
enough materials (mostly remnants from my
environment there must be order in manifold
own work) are there for the children to use.
ways, rhythm, good habits and love. To come to
All my scraps from cutting fabric or paper,
an appropriate order around the children, the
woodcarving or sawing I put into the childrens
adult has to think ahead. Then her gestures will
baskets. The children may freely take what
become calm and purposeful and well thought
they need from there. They create a variety of
through. She will not run about fetching things,
things. Some attempt to do what I have done,
because she has forgotten this or that. Also, to
others have their own ideas. In November, for
think ahead helps heal the bad manifestations
example, when I glue together the painted and
of the will of the child. For example, if a child
oiled lanterns for the children and then make
slams the door, we shouldnt say, You shouldnt
transparencies for the Christmas Bazaar, for at
do that. Rather, with our full consciousness we
least two weeks every day (except painting day)
should be with the child in the situation in a
the big table is set up with scissors, glue and the
consequent way. Thus, when he is approaching
childrens baskets with colored paper. Gold paper
the door, we follow his actions in our mind.
pieces are also at hand. Some children make
The adult also has to be well engaged in his small lanterns and transparencies, others make
own work before the children arrive. The mother crowns or other small toys for their dolls, which
is already busy when the children awaken in they then take home with them.
the morning. When the children arrive in the
While some children come many days to
kindergarten in the morning, the adults are
work at the glue table, others might not come
already busy there. The will of the child nestles
at all at this time but will come later in the year

19
The Developing Child
when I have a time for sewing aprons for the
kindergarten or embroidering table covers. Then
in the childrens baskets there are pretty colored
threads for sewing. Fabric scraps which are left
after cutting are also placed in the childrens
baskets for free use.
When I carve small bowls, spoons, candle
holders, etc., there are always small pieces of
wood left over with which the children build or
which they wax. Carving knives are naturally
not put into the childrens hands, but sometimes
they take pointed sticks and carve with them
outside on rotting stumps.
In this way the work of the adult is always
purposeful and useful for the life of the
kindergarten. The children take part in it in a
variety of ways, or they play around the teacher
who is at work. They are always aware of the
work and take a warm and loving interest in it.
In all of this work, there exist the
prerequisites of orderliness, rhythm and good
habits. They belong to the right physical
environment in which the children may receive
order and strength in their will forces because
they are imitative beings. Imitating is will
activity! You cannot teach imitation. It has to be
done with ones own will. Will activity is very
individual, and it is united with the ego.
We can observe this in the different ways
children imitate. Everyone has the same example
in front of them in the kindergarten, but their
reactions are quite different. Some immediately
start to imitate or to play nearby, taking in the
atmosphere of the working activity, while others
dont get the impulse at all. Within imitation
there is great freedom. If we are willing to work
on ourselves, then we need to also work on
the prerequisites described above. Then every
child will find for his will development what
he himself needs and what he is unconsciously
seeking.
20
To guide the children in their play we have
to always think of the differentiated steps in
their development. Now I would like to talk a
little more about the last period between five and
seven years of age. After age five, a transition
takes place from what the child wants to do to
what the child should do. This does not mean
that we give the children orders or commands
which just come into our mind. Rather, out
of the strong connection built up with the
adult during the preceding years, the children
now want to do what they should do. But even
though we may use more words and appeal to
the mental images of these older kindergarten
children, even if we tell them what they can do
and how they can do it, even if we inspire their
forces of patience, even then: imitation is still the
main thing!
Until now the children have unconsciously
noticed that the adult has done what was needed
in the kindergarten, what she had to do in
order to finish her daily work, to care for the
environment, prepare for the festivals, etc. The
children have noticed that the adult hasnt always
done what she would like to do but rather what
she needs to do. This attitude can also be imitated
by the children after age five. How? The children
observe, for example, that the adult takes a long
time for her work. Either she makes many things
of the same project such as for festivals or for the
Bazaar, or she needs a long time to make only
one thing such as with carving or embroidery.
Children see the perseverance, the patience and
care which the adult brings to her work. They
are interested in the process from day to day.
They see also that the adult does things which
are uncomfortable for her to do, but that she
tries to overcome this. For example it may not
come naturally to her to sew with a thimble, but
she always uses the thimble nevertheless.
Another aid to getting children to do what
they should do or how they should do it is to
talk about specific people, how they behave
Freya Jaffke
in their profession, what they would do in a
certain situation. Between 5 and 7, they do not
have to have the physical presence of someone
working in front of them; they can also build up
a picture inwardly by hearing about the person.
For example, I may talk about the master of
embroidery who taught me to embroider, or
about a tailor who would never sew without
a thimble, or about the servant called Ludwig
whom I got to know when I went to a conference
one day (see The Story of Ludwig at the end of
this article).
During the second half of the school year
before they go into first grade, we may request
the oldest children to do a specific task. Then
they have the possibility to strengthen their will
forces by pursuing a certain goal. I always offer
these oldest children the possibility of making
their own very simple, knotted dolls. Rudolf
Steiner says that a self-made Bajazzo, knotted
out of an old rag and with ink spots for eyes, is
able to awaken the genius within the child.
We start by embroidering the dolls blanket
after Christmas. Then we tease the wool by hand
to form the dolls head and knot the hands, using
a pink flannel cloth for the doll. The children
make their own eye spots using a colored
pencil. After that they start sewing the hair and
some clothes for the doll. Some children have
a great many by the end of the year. Some only
one! From the moment the doll is finished, it
is integrated into the childrens play. One often
sees a difference here between boys and girls.
The girls feed their dolls and play with them in
a variety of ways, and sew them many, many
clothes. The boys put them in the cars they build
and take them for rides or use them for patients
in their ambulances. Over the weekends the
children take them home, so that they can be
cared for during the weekends as well.
Around age 6, the children may also follow
instructions. They are asked to do things and
21
The Significance of Imitation
they like to do them. For example, they can go
as a messenger to another class or get the broom
and dustpan, or they may be asked to help dry
the dishes. We should never ask for the childs
help by questioning the child. Try to know what
the specific child is able to do and what he would
like to do, and sometimes what he needs to do! It
may happen that a child rejects doing what he is
asked to do, but some others then come and ask,
May I do it?
Children of this age are able to understand
our instructions. They can transform the
mental image which arises through words into
their own activity. In their earlier years we had
to divert children from the things that they
shouldnt do. Now they need clearly defined
limits and clear directions such as We dont
shoot, or I dont like this. It must be said in
such a way that the children still feel the love of
the adult and feel his conviction as a loving and
loved authority.
Everything which I have tried to point out
here has been said while bearing in mind the
words that Rudolf Steiner spoke in a lecture in
Dornach on April 19, 1923. (Lecture 5 of The
Childs Changing Consciousness and Waldorf
Education, pg. 116)
before the second dentition [the child
lived mainly] in the region of the will,
which was intimately connected with the
childs imitating its surroundings. But what
at that time entered the childs being quite
physically also contained moral and spiritual
forces that became firmly established in the
childs organism.
This means that the will of the child can be
developed and become strong through good
habits, consequences, and limits set by the adult as
his example.
When the child enters first grade, the will
has to be trained more and more consciously.
The Developing Child

Now children have to follow a task given by the With the most sensitive feeling, we have to guide
teacher for a period of time such as watering the children from the way of imitation to loving
the flowers, dusting the window sill, or cleaning authority. This is a great art!
the blackboard for a week. The child has to
I would be glad if what I have said here
remember every day and has to do it, even if he
helps you to appreciate more fully how great
doesnt want to. He has to overcome himself.
the significance of example is for the childs
During the kindergarten years it is too early to
imitation and for the development of the will.
insist on repeated tasks for particular children.

The Story of Ludwig the Servant

Ludwig was a real servant in the home of an elderly
lady. We stayed in her home during a weekend conference.
At breakfast time when things ran out, Ludwig was there to
bring more food, but he always waited at the threshold of the
room, and the old woman brought it from there to our table.
In the kindergarten I gave a nice verbal description of
Ludwig to the children. After that I asked a six-year-old boy
to bring the cups from the tray to everyones place. He looked
over all the cups, chose one out of the middle and put it at his
own place, very satisfied for he thought that it was the fullest
one. Then he looked at me, by chance, and I said, Ludwig
wouldnt have done that; he always serves the others and
takes the last one himself.
Really? asked the boy.
Really, I answered. Then he took the cup, put it at
another place, served all the others and took the last one
himself.

22
 Readiness for Entering the Nursery/Kindergarten
The following two articles speak to a question which troubles many kindergarten teachers:
At what point is a child ready to enter a nursery class or a mixed-age kindergarten?

Kindergarten Readiness
Dr. Elisabeth Jacobi, Stuttgart

The question of whether there is a time
of kindergarten readiness has become an
urgent question in Europe only in the last few
years. Not long ago, in our experience, a child
rarely came into the kindergarten before the
end of her fourth year. There was no room.
With the decline of the birthrate, however,
an increasing number of kindergarten spaces
became available, and younger children entered
to fill them. The kindergartens want to fill their
places, and the mothers are glad to be able to
bring their children into the kindergarten early.
Thus, the age of the children who come into the
kindergarten is now lowered to such a point
that it is necessary to become clear about what
constitutes kindergarten readiness in a child.
We want to disregard external necessities for
bringing children into the kindergarten early
whether it be that the mother must go to work
or that the atmosphere in the home is such that
one would like to remove the child as soon as
possible. The central question remains before
us: How do I recognize whether a child is really
ready for kindergarten?
In his speech, todays child often says I as
early as two years old. In the etheric body, the
childs head becomes independent around the
age of two and a half, and he begins to think.
But the I-experience still does not fully happen
today until the child is three years old. Only after
this step has been fully accomplished does the
child slowly begin to make verbal contact with
other children. This is achieved at about four
years of age. At this age, the remaining speech
development is often already complete, but not
always. Children who cannot yet pronounce
gkch sounds have difficulties in their will
development; while children who have difficulty
pronouncing sschst are behind in their
intellectual development in certain cases.
When one considers the independence of
the children, much depends upon the parents
home Whether a child can dress himself,
whether he is clean, whether he can use the
toilet independently are, to be sure, essential for
the kindergartner, but these factors alone do not
determine if the child has reached kindergarten
readiness.
One must pay attention to the mental and
physical stamina of the child. Can a child last
four hours (the time of the normal kindergarten
in Germany) without actually needing a nap?
Is the child so susceptible that he would catch
every sniffle in the kindergarten and become
sick? Is the child already far enough along to
handle the childhood diseases, or would it mean
a premature exposure in certain cases? The child
should already have developed a beginning sense
of time. She must also have already overcome
the first phase of defiance which still belongs
to the I-discovery. And she must be able to
tolerate other children, in particular, many other
children.

23
The Developing Child
A young child plays by himself, runs to
the others, watches, perhaps takes something
away and continues to play alone again even
when many other children are in the room.
The child is very imitative, but the imitation
appears mostly from hours to days later rather
than right away. Only when a child can imitate
spontaneously and can play with other children,
do I consider him ready for the kindergarten.
The painting and drawing depend again
very strongly on how the child has been
introduced to them at home. Recognizing
kindergarten readiness is little agreed upon in
this area unless one knows exactly the rules of
how the development of a child is mirrored in
the language of drawing. (See the following
article which refers to Michaela Strauss book,
Understanding Childrens Drawings.) But it
is important for the kindergarten child to
recognize danger. The child needs this ability,
among other things, for the kindergarten
walk. Also, a kindergarten child should
generally already be able to go for a walk
uninterruptedlywithout stopping at every little
stone. A child should be able to refrain from
fighting with another child as well.
When one examines the kindergarten child
as a physician, one experiences a certain inner
independence or even boldness in the child,
and one has the impression that, yes, this child
is in his place. A three-year-old or a younger
child has almost a protective covering over
himself which preserves him in his world. If one
brings such a child into the kindergarten, then
this covering rips open in about three weeks
24
and a plucked, featherless little bird stands
before us. This can happen even if the child
visits the kindergarten on an hourly basis, and
the torn covering cannot be repaired simply
by removing the child from the kindergarten.
This unveiling of the protective covering occurs
naturally between three and a half and four years
old. Only then is the child really ready for the
kindergarten. Whenever we cause this process
to advance prematurely, we are doing something
similar to the early learning of reading.
Of course, a protected, veiled child brings
a great deal of heavenly forces and warmth of
soul to the kindergarten teachers. This leads to
the latter expressing quite a special affection
for the very young ones. But this is an area that
naturally weaves itself between parent and child
and, in particular, between mother and child.
No one else ought to interfere directly with this.
It is emphasized here once again that this is
spoken from a physicians point of view, and that
the social and social-pedagogical duties toward
emergencies and families in stress have not been
addressed.
So the question of kindergarten readiness is
to be examined very earnestly each time. Neither
commercial nor emotional points of view ought
to play a role here, and, in itself, that the child is
being urged into kindergarten should not be a
decisive factor. This article is meant to sharpen
the perception of the problem from the point
of view of our study of man. The teacher shares
especially in the responsibility for the childs
health in the first seven years.
Further Considerations about Kindergarten Readiness
Joan Almon

In talking with kindergarten teachers from ability to visualize or conceptualize (the German
all parts of North America, it has become word vorstellen is used, which lacks a good
clear that many schools are wrestling with the English translation) can be directly reached
question of what age children ought to be when through the word. The child is therefore ready to
they enter our nurseries or kindergartens. Some follow directions within the group.
schools have resolved the question by allowing
In the experience of these two physicians,
young threes to enter into a nursery class where
these signs are seen at the earliest around age
they are separate from the fours and fives, while
3. If they do not appear by age 4, then it may
others integrate them into a mixed-age group.
be helpful to speak with the childs pediatrician
In the book Kinder Sprechstunde (Urachhaus, about this.
1984), Drs. Michaela Glckler and Wolfgang
Some years ago, when Margret Meyerkort
Gobel, look at many aspects of the young childs
was offering a course at Acorn Hill, we consulted
development as well as many types of childhood
with her about kindergarten readiness. She
diseases. It is our hope that this most valuable
discussed many of the same considerations
book will be printed in English soon, but in the
offered above by Drs. Jacobi, Glckler and
meantime we summarize here some of their
Gobel, and added a few more. Her list included
thoughts on when a child is ripe for entering
the following:
kindergarten.
1) Today the child often says I at the age
One consideration is that the child should
of 2, but the real experience of I is later. The
literally be prepared to take some steps away
I-consciousness seems to begin early because
from the home and mother. The child is ready
the child is brought into thinking earlier than
to enter kindergarten when he has already
before. We need to discern now between the
walked away from his home once and found his
childs saying I and really meaning it, for only
way back or when he wants to go to a friends
when it is truly there is the child able to reach
home nearby on his own. For most children
others through speech rather than by hitting.
these tendencies are so pronounced that one
day, to the horror of those present, the child has 2) The child needs a certain amount of
disappeared. Then the child returns and tells independence from the parent. He should be
where he has been. As long as the child is still able to do a certain amount of dressing and
attached to the mothers apron strings, this time undressing on his own. He needs to be toilet-
of independence has not yet come. In such cases, trained and independent of the breast.
if the child is over 3 or 4, the mother must
3) The child needs to show a certain amount
examine herself to see if her behavior is holding
of physiological and psychological stamina. The
the child back from achieving this important
child should:
independence.
be able to stay awake for 4 hours without
A second milestone of readiness appears
needing a nap;
when the child can listen to stories from
not be so delicate that he catches every
beginning to end. This shows that the childs
little cold in school;

25
The Developing Child
be sufficiently developed that he can
manage childhood diseases and does not
get convulsions with high fevers;
be past the first stubborn period of the
terrible twos which belongs to the
period of ego-seeking;
have developed the first feeling for time
because the ego is there;
be able to take a good walk without
stopping for every little stone or puddle.
4) Until 2 or 3 the child plays by himself.
After that he begins to play with others and can
imitate activities at the time they are occurring.
5) The child should show the first
possibilities of recognizing dangers and thus of
not running into the street or pond. He or she
should show the first possibility of defending
himself rather than crying. This is an indication
that the ego is there to ward off difficulties.
All of the above considerations point to a
picture of the child who follows an archetypal
pattern of developmentspeaking around age
2 and thinking around age 3, accompanied by
a real statement of I, also around age 3. This
is preceded by the difficult stage of the terrible
twos when the child is creating a distance
between himself and the world around him
through the use of no. It is only after this new
I-awareness has had time to settle into the child
that he or she seems ready to reach out to the
broader world of the kindergarten.
One can see the stages of development
portrayed in the childs drawings. In her book
Understanding Childrens Drawings, Michaela
Strauss shows the circular movements drawn
by the child under age 3. It is around age 3 that
the circular movement develops into a circle
with a clear inside
and outside. She
describes the process
in this way: In his
26
drawing the child now tries very hard to make
a circle and close it, join it up . A little girl is
sitting up at the table completely engrossed in
drawing circles all over the page. It is her third
birthday, and in answer to the question: What
is your name? the answer comes pat: I? My
name is I! This flash of ego-consciousness is
documented in the childs drawing by the form
of the circle. (page 24)
Michaela Strauss also describes the more
linear form of crayon movement which the
one- and two-year-old will also do. By age three
this has generally evolved into a clear cross. She
gives an example of David,
who just turned three and
preferred drawing with a
hard pencil, letting a mass
of lines of the finest filigree
arise on the paper, without, however, achieving
the cross corresponding to his age. (page 27)
Then the family take David and his younger
brother to stay with friends who have five
children. They are all older than David. David,
the eldest up till now, the big brother, cannot
cope at the outset with his new role of little one.
So he escapes into illness, has a high temperature
and lets himself be spoiled. Three days later he
gets up and is well. As though to demonstrate
that he can now master the new situation, he
takes a thick, colored crayon and, for the first
time, he draws, one after another, on several
sheets of paper, a large perpendicular cross that
fills a whole page.
Next the child, after the third year, begins
to bring the circle and the cross together and
continues to do so in a wide variety of ways
until the fifth year and beyond. The child will
put a point or a cross into the middle
of the circle, describing a new stage
of self-development. He uses these
to show his relation to inner and outer space,
and he puts a point or a cross in the center of
Joan Almon
the inner space to represent himself. In both
these symbols he illustrates for the first time his
experience of the ego and of the world about
him. The point and the cross within a circle
represent the I-form. (page 29)
Michaela Strauss gives a picture of the next
and perhaps final stage in terms of kindergarten
readiness: Towards the fourth year a new
orientation is on its way. The point and the
crossing having crystallized as I-symbols, this
concentration now gradually begins to loosen.
The paths of movement lead from inside
outwards. To begin with they radiate out from
the center as far as the periphery
of the circle and remain within this
boundary; this soon becomes more
free, however, and groping feelers
reach out beyond. (page 30)
The remarks by Drs. Jacobi, Glckler and
Gobel, as well as Margret Meyerkort and
Michaela Strauss all seem to point towards
children not being inwardly ready for nursery
or mixed-age kindergarten until between 3
and 4. We are then left with the question of why
is the trend developing in American education,
including in Waldorf kindergartens, towards
bringing the young 3s or, in some cases, even
2-year-olds into school programs? Perhaps
the situation is comparable to why American
education has brought academic studies to
children age 5 and younger. On one level the
children seem ready. The 5-year-old is often
asking about how to write, read or do arithmetic.
The parent or educator can easily mistake this
as a sign of true readiness for the more labored
instruction that goes on in teaching academics,
whereas in my experience most 5-year-olds are
content to learn to write and read a few words,
just enough to feel grown up. Now they can
announce that they can read or write, just as
they announce to their parents that they can
speak German after they have done one or two
27
Kindergarten Readiness
verses in that language in the kindergarten. In
other words, a little bit goes a long way.
With the 2-year-old who is precociously
saying I, the same may be true. Parents and
educators may easily be mistaking this as a true
ego-conscious experience and begin creating an
educational experience for the child which is not
yet appropriate. Even when the I is more fully
established at age 3, the above indications point
to the child needing another 612 months in
order to be inwardly ready to take steps out into
the world.
What then are the possibilities for the
child before the age of 3 or 4? Many children
stay at home with their mothers until this age,
with perhaps a morning or two a week when
mother and child may visit another family
or host a family. This puts little strain on
the child who, at the same time, has a social
experience with another child of its age. There
are also many families where the mother needs
to work, or feels she cannot be at home so
much with her young child, or feels the child
is especially hungry for social contact. Some
of the alternatives being explored in Waldorf
settings for younger children are home-based
play groups or day care centers, ranging in size
from 3 or 4 children to 6 or 8. We have also
heard of some play groups where the mothers
are present with the young children, making
toys while the children play, and learning songs,
verses and stories along with their children. In
such a program mothers can also receive much
help with their basic questions about parenting a
young child.
As Waldorf educators in North America we
are just beginning to explore these questions
of kindergarten readiness, and we recognize a
certain urgency as more and more mothers of
children under 3 are going back to work or are
seeking a nursery program for children.
28
 Etheric Forces and the Young Child

The Birth of the Etheric

The Transformation of Growth Forces into Thinking Forces
Dr. Michaela Glckler, Goetheanum
Dornach, Switzerland Spring Valley, NY, February 1989

In anthroposophical medicine, we have a research towards an understanding of the etheric

situation similar to one that exists in the Waldorf
kindergarten. Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman
gave many indications which are very helpful.
But they have to be worked out again, year
after year, so that a more and more detailed
understanding can arise as to why a particular
substance is correct. It is the same in the Waldorf
kindergarten. One can paint a room pink, hang
a Sistine Madonna, have a basket of cloths, wood
pieces, etc., learn a few stories and songs and
feel this is a Waldorf kindergarten. However,
one must keep going to understand the why of
what one is doing, to try to differentiate and to
develop the work further.
Today our theme is the etheric in the child,
and this has much to do with thinking. We can
think constructively and this is healthy; we
can think with our healing and regenerative
thoughts, for the life of thought in the older
child and adult is the same as the growth forces
which we see in the young child. These growth
forces are transformed into thinking forces.
If someone has knowledge, he can open
the way for others to higher knowledge. Even
if youre not an initiate, you will be able to find
which results of spiritual research fit into lifes
reality. Rudolf Steiner said again and again, Do
not simply believe somethingprove it! In
this talk, we will look at the results of spiritual
forces in the child. It is possible to prove and
work with the special quality of the etheric
forces.
For the moment this can be taken as a
picture of the etheric forces and how they work:
Realm of thoughts Conscious self
Biological life Subconsciousness
The etheric forces are building up the body
during pregnancy and after birth up to the age
of 21. We are unconscious of their work in our
physical body. As they are freed from their work
on the physical body, however, they become
active in the life of thought, and we can become
conscious of them. For example, when the life
processes or etheric forces are at work in the
liver we are unconscious of them, but the way
we bring thoughts together rests in the upper,
conscious realm. That realm we can look at quite
well.
It takes time to build up the nerve and sense
organs, and this process continues until age 9.
The eye, for example is not ripe until around age

29
Etheric Forces and the Young

8. Perspective is not developed until that time. A the development takes place primarily between
9-year-old can pour accurately into a cup from 7 and 14. In the case of the metabolic system
a pitcher because he can judge how far to hold its development culminates between 14 and 21.
them from his body. A preschooler can not do Therefore in the grades, from ages 714, the
this for she has not yet developed perspective. teacher reaches the children through speech by
means of which their feeling is reached. Speech
If the eye is abused at a young age by
stimulates sympathy and antipathy and this
watching television, which is two-dimensional,
stimulates the ripening of the rhythmic organs,
or through other means, then the organ is
the heart and the lungs.
damaged. Some things can be repaired, but the
basic organ cannot be changed.
Until the 16th year, the heart, circulation
and lungs are developing. Children should
not be trained for athletics until the rhythmic
system is developed around age 16.
Until the 22nd year, the bones are
developing. There is a ripening of the hormonal The above diagram may seem confusing,
and metabolic system. Thus throughout the first because we usually speak of the young child in
18 or 22 years the body develops not as a whole the first seven years as working with the will-
but organ by organ, system by system. metabolic system. This is true, but while we say
that the first seven years are the will period, we
As we look at the development of the three
also say that the young child is a sense organ.
systems of the physical body, the metabolic,
The nervous system develops through physical
the rhythmic, and the nerve-sense systems, we
movement. Ordinary medicine understands
see that all three are affected by the three deeds
this and prescribes gymnastics for stimulating
which the child experiences in the first three
the nervous system of brain-damaged children.
years:
Until age 9, children should move and be active
1) The upright process and the walking as much as possible in order to develop their
which comes at the end of the first year thinking. The 1112-year-old does not want to
stimulates the development of the nerve-sense move so much. The kindergarten teacher relies
system. upon movement in order to teach the young
child, and it is movement which helps the child
2) Speech development at the end of the
to develop the nerve-sense system. Movement is
second year helps the breathing and rhythmic
the best education for stimulating the brain.
system.
At birth the physical body is born, but
3) And the thinking process of the third year
it is only at age 3 that the body is used as an
helps develop the metabolic-limb system. As
instrument for the I. At age 7 the etheric body
children play at this time, their hands and feet
is born, but it takes 2 or 3 years for the etheric
become more skillful and they are learning to
to become an instrument. At age 14 the astral
build and rebuild.
body is born, but only around age 16 or 17 does
From one point of view it is the nervous one have command over ones feelings. Likewise
system which is developing in the first seven at age 21 the ego is born, but only around age
years, and in the case of the rhythmic system,

30
Michaela Glckler
23 does one begin to take life seriously. It always
takes a few years after the birth of a body for it to
begin functioning with a sense of mastery.
Let us look at the development of the
adolescent. From age 14 on, the young person
is developing thoughts which are free of sense
pictures. From 16 on, the teenager can become
very idealistic. He no longer needs teachers
to tell him facts and to ask him to believe. He
becomes his own master. If the organs of will
have ripened, then this ripening of thought
processes takes place around age 16. There
develops an ability to judge and weigh, and this
ability arises out of the grown-up metabolic
forces.
If you look at the ripened thoughts of adults,
you will see that the adult needs the possibility
of self guidance in thought life; the adult walks
in his thinking. He also needs feeling in his
thought life. He must consider, for example,
whether a thought is a pleasant or unpleasant
one. And he needs pictures in his thought life.
This can now become pure thinking activity, and
the adult can find the laws of how things run.
All that came before now fits together step by
step, and in these ways the different systems, the
metabolic, the rhythmic, and the nerve-sense
help each other to develop.
When we look at the long term development
of the human being from birth to age 60, we see
the following patterns. The body is undergoing
intensive growth in the first 20 years. Then come
20 years of relative stability in the body, and
from 40 to 60, the bodily forces begin to decline
and the body grows weaker and weaker.
020 The life of thoughts increases year after
year as the physical forces are freed for
thinking.
2040 A time of equilibrium during which one
does not realize so strongly ones changes
and growth.
31
The Birth of the Etheric
40 + In getting older, the spiritual forces
may increase more and more while the
physical forces may decline.
Dr. Raymond Moodys books on near-death
experiences show that when one is near death,
one experiences tremendous clarity of thought.
Death is the moment of purest clarity and
awareness.
What about the etheric forces in the life of
the kindergarten child? Life wisdom is contained
in the etheric. One should not imagine the
etheric as a pleasant cloud, all rosy and hazy.
The etheric is the body of wisdom and truth.
The etheric forces are engaged in building up
the body. Lies destroy the wisdom and life of
the human being and hurt the etheric. All that
is untrue harms the young child. Therefore we
must build an environment based on truth and
integrity for the child.
The kindergarten morning should be viewed
as an organism, like a body, in which all the
organs fit together. One part of the morning
should smoothly fit together with another. This
fits with the way the etheric forces work.
Our etheric forces arise from the spiritual
world. They come out of the relations of spiritual
beings in that higher world. Imagine two angels
with a certain relationship to each other. This is
a tremendously active process, and out of this
come our etheric forces. Therefore with our
thoughts, we can touch all beings of the world.
We know when someone is thinking negatively
of us, for we are etherically touched. Imagine
if higher beings are thinkingwhat a powerful
force is released. This is all reflected in our
thoughts. We reflect this higher wisdom; we do
not carry it within us. We reflect it, and this is
our first relationship with higher knowledge.
Etheric Forces and the Young
The child experiences us as examples, and he
experiences that we have etheric relationships. If
the child feels in our gestures that we care for the
physical world, she responds to that. We reveal
our relationships through our daily activities.
We create such a morning for the children. We
take all things in earnestwith joy or sorrow. If
we wash the dishes and wish we were outside,
then the child feels that our actions are untrue
and that there is something schizophrenic
happening. If we like our work and feel it is
useful, then the child feels this and responds to it.
The etheric body must keep regenerating.
For example, every day with our bowel
movements we lose 200 gm (67 ounces) of cell
substance which must be replaced. There are
many, many cells which die each day, and the
etheric body must keep regenerating new cells
for us. It cannot refuse to do so. Likewise, we
cannot say, Today I wont clean up. We repeat
again and again that which is necessary in order
to help the etheric body to do its work.
Art is a means of regenerating. An artist
works again and again on his art and always sees
ways to do it better. It is an expression of inner
forces. We need to do our own artistic activity
every day. We cannot simply eat the creativity
of others. Through creative fantasy, every
human deed can be transformed and made
more beautiful. This is a process of self training.
To work with young children we must become
small, humorous artists.
Our movements should have a creative,
purposeful quality. They should not just be
mechanical. As kindergarten teachers we should
study eurythmy as much as possible, for we
need more than just the outer form of gesture.
Eurythmy movements are permeated with life
forces.
Children whose speech process is disturbed
need exercise. This is also the case with children
32
who speak too much or at the wrong times. This
is the same disturbance, but from two different
sides. Such children should be brought into
tranquility. They should listen to good spoken
verses. We should teach parents to take the child
on the lap so they can listen to clear, well-spoken
verses.
Our own character and will impulses
give qualities of a specialized nature to our
movements. Through our will we bring an
impulse into our movements; through our soul
we bring a quality; and through our spirit we
bring meaning. In this true relationship of all
things in the world, the child builds up a healthy
well-formed organisman organization of
wisdom. Then there is an independence for new
steps to be taken in adulthood and an interest
in all things that exist in the world. Both are
necessary.
The following were questions posed to
Dr. Glcker during the Conference.
Answers should not be taken as a rule or
recipe. We need to develop courage to learn
from our experiences and not just quote
authorities. We need to be open to what can
work through us and not fall in love with our
own fixed ideas.
One of the questions pertained to the
relationship of fantasy to imagination. The
etheric forces work on the physical body. They
gradually become free and become thinking
forces. On the way they pass the realm of
feelings, of inner soul forces, and take on the
quality of fantasy. (Rudolf Steiner: Fantasy is
growth force projected into the soul realm.)
As it comes more towards the brain and the
thinking forces, the fantasy becomes more
frozen, for then it is a dying process. We look
at a person, and it is an etheric process which
makes an impression through the eye on our
etheric body. This is how we remember our
Michaela Glckler
impressions. It is a dying process. The pictures
become fixed and must die so there is room for
something new. These dying thoughts help us
to arrange ourselves in the world, but they are
not a help to the inner life. For our spiritual
possibilities, we need to keep the power of
fantasy alive. Otherwise, ones whole being will
be affected by the dying process. This is why
fairy tales are important. In fairy tales, there are
fantasy pictures. They are taken as seeds into our
unconscious life which arise later as thoughts of
the inner life.
Regarding the development of the childs
organism, one can look into physiology books
and learn about the development of each organ,
for each has its own growth curve. We then need
to put this together with the facts of spiritual
development.
The most important fact about the education
of the child in the first 9 or 10 years is that
movement stimulates the nerve-sense system.
Every skilled movement stimulates the brain,
because the brain is exercised. It has to notice
all the movements and activities. It is not
the intelligent speech of the adults which
stimulates the childs brain, but the childs own
activity. We should work with parents to help
them understand this. The intelligence of the
body is the basis for the intelligence of the
brain.
Another question pertained to speech
problems in young children. It is important
that we love speech and that our words are
spoken like living beings. They must have sense,
but they are not just information carriers.
Children who stutter can often overcome
this problem later in life if they are motivated
to do so. When a three-year-old stutters, the
problem in most cases (about 95%) will pass
away by itself. Take time and listen, but dont ask
the child to repeat. Before school age, all speech
33
The Birth of the Etheric
training should be in play form such as through
verses, singing, and speakingnot too fast and
clearly. Most of these children do not need any
additional professional help at the preschool age.
What about problems of masturbation
in young children? This is a problem of the
environment. If the child is not interested in its
surrounding, then the child will take interest
in the physical body. One should do something
in hopes that it will interest the child. A way of
healing is to engage the child in becoming active
in the surroundings.
Could you speak about the warmth forces
and warm clothing, and in particular about
children who resist wearing warm clothing?
We see more and more children with weak
constitutions, and we can help them with
clothing. In particular, they need many layers in
the trunk area (chest, stomach and back) for that
is the area of the inner organs, which need the
most warmth. When the trunk is warm enough,
then the hands and feet will also receive enough
circulation. The limbs are always cooler than the
middle realm (28 C compared to 37C.) Some
children do resist warm clothing. Perhaps the
clothing is made of synthetic fibers. It is very
uncomfortable to be warm in synthetic clothing.
Also, in about 70% of the cases, the child may be
resisting as a form of provocation!
What about children from single parent
homes? One hears about special concerns
for children, especially boys, who live with a
mother in a single parent home, but usually
such children find their own male figures in life,
possibly an uncle, grandfather or neighbor. One
can place them with a male teacher, but they
may not accept the male as a special role model.
Mixed-age groups can be a help for such
children, as well as all children, for they can
function like a family. The younger children look
up to the older ones to see where they are going
Etheric Forces and the Young
in their own development, while the older ones
look back to see where they have come from.
The teacher needs to differentiate between the
different ages and create an artistic flow. The
assistant can be brought into this process as well.
The group integrated by age is best for the child.
Parents should be helped to keep at least five
minutes of awareness each day for each of their
children. Likewise, in the kindergarten, a teacher
should have a personal moment with each child
once or twice a week.
Many children today need healing work
with a doctor or a curative eurythmist. In
anthroposophy we have the knowledge of how
to help children, but we do not have enough
personnel. As teachers we must broaden our
knowledge, but we mustnt try to substitute
for another profession. We need to work
together cooperatively. If one does not have an
anthroposophic doctor in ones own community,
then it is possible to have a relationship with a
doctor from another community. That allows
one to call him or her and describe a symptom
thats been discovered in a child and seek advice.
In this way we are building up a new social
fabric, which is so necessary here.
How do we help children meet the many
problems which they face in our modern
times? As we build up an awareness of our
times, some people paint very dark pictures
indeed. Of course there are many problems. We
can see the problems of modern foods coupled
with ecological problems and how they are
resulting in allergies in children. We can see that
children sit far too much and are not engaged in
their will enough. We know that children should
see the world at many different distances and
that when they sit in front of the television they
are taking it in from only one distance. We see
many other problems which television brings
to children. For example, children see only the
outer aspect of the person on TV, not the ego
34
of the person. Most of the senses, especially the
higher ones, are not engaged. Thus television has
a disintegrative effect on children rather than
helping to bring about integration.
In the area of diet we see the problems of
children who consume sugar in significant
amounts. Sugar is easily digested in the digestive
tract. It takes no energy to do so. One does not
even need a stomach to digest sugar, whereas
if one has to make sugar out of more complex
foods such as bread, then it takes huge amounts
of energy to digest it. It takes work to create
the sugar. Eating sugar is rather like the drug
process. There is one little injection and then
a whole experience, a whole story begins. It is
done so easily and with so little effort.
We also see many sleep disorders in people
today. People have trouble digesting their life
experiences and this leads to sleep problems.
Then they use sleeping drugs. Thus they are half
asleep in the daytime and half asleep at night.
Anthroposophy arose in this century to
help us understand every problem of our times.
Without these problems, we would not be able
to find our way to freedom. We would not need
anthroposophy. These problems are related to
the development of freedom and in this sense
are a gift. And we must remember that pursuing
freedom without some error is not possible.
We must come to appreciate, even to love the
dark areas of life, for the new possibilities which
arise from them. In this way we can develop
these Christian and human aspects. We should
not say, Waldorf education forbids television.
Rather, it is an effort to understand at what
age it is a healthy impulse and at what age it is
not. After age 16, watching television is not a
problem for the body and soul.
Regarding vaccinations, know what
possibilities of development do not take place
with vaccination. When parents learn about
Michaela Glckler
this, they are often sad and want to find a way to
overcome the limitations of vaccination. Then
the body can be stimulated from the spiritual
side, from the life of thought and the world of
fairy tales. The etheric works on the body from
the inside and through the stimulating factors of
the outside.
When we look at the most dangerous aspects
of our time, we see important hindrances arising
in our will, in our emotional life and in our
thoughts.
In the realm of will, modern human beings
have become very inactive, and when we are
inactive we begin to mock and even hate those
who are active. The healing antidote to this is
our own activity. In the realm of feeling, we
hide jealousy and even hate under a banner
of criticism, and we have become a society of
critics. All of this arises from a fear impulse. We
Will Emotional feelings
Activity
Inactivity Love interest
The conditions of our modern life
The Birth of the Etheric
are afraid of the ability of others, and we fear
our own self. We can overcome the obstacle of
fear by developing interest in others. From this
interest love arises. Sympathy is not love, though
many think it is, for sympathy changes too easily.
In the thinking realm, no culture has had so
much of the lie as ours has. It begins with the
automatic question of How are you? when one
has no interest in the answer, and the lie goes
on from there into advertising and many other
realms of life which are based upon the lie. The
healing for the lie is to love the truth.
We must aim for the path of activity, of
interest and love, and of truth. This is a path
which leads us toward freedom, and this is
the path of Christianity. In a kindergarten
atmosphere that is permeated with the teachers
striving in these areas, the children can develop
their individuality and thereby find the strength
to overcome the difficulties of the times.
Thoughts
Fear Lie
Truth
35
Etheric Forces and the Young
Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy
Understanding the Dream Consciousness of the Young Child
The following is a summary of three lectures given
by Dr. Michaela Glckler, pediatrician and head
of the Medical Section of the Goetheanum. The
notes were recorded by Nancy Foster and Joan
Almon and have been reviewed by Dr. Glckler.
The Metamorphosis of Growth Forces into
Forces of Fantasy and Imagination
This weekend we will look at two aspects
of the developing ethericthe quality of the
growth forces and the artistic forces. There
is also a third aspect which focuses on how
these forces and qualities are raised into the
consciousness of the child. To be conscious
of these early growth forces, it is a help to go
back in time to our own childhood and find
the mood with which we viewed the world,
its colors, smells, light, etc. What are our most
beloved memories? Do they pertain to light and
shadow, to the quality of early morning or of
evening? Do they pertain to dreams? In dreams
themselves there is a big difference between
the dreams of children and those of youngsters
in puberty. If you can remember back to your
own childhood, it is a help towards meeting the
children in the kindergarten.
When we look into the realm of life and the
realm of thoughts, we see one aspect of both
which is totally similar and the same. It is that
mere is a pure selflessness involved with both.
What is life? We see living organisms such as
plants growing, creatures crawling, jumping and
leaping. We see human beings, ourselves, alive.
If we ask the plant, Who are you? it would
say, I am a Cornell cherry. If I ask Susan,
Who are you? she would say, I am Susan. We
experience life, but we do not focus on it. We are
36
not conscious of it. Nobody would say, I am a
living being; I am alive.
It is the same with our thoughts. We do
not focus on our thoughts, although we are
proud of our intelligence. In Philosophy of
Freedom, Rudolf Steiner describes thinking as
the unconscious activity in our inner life. In this
regard, the quality of life and of our thoughts
is the same. They are of the same unconscious
nature.
Last year at this conference we spent a lot
of time looking at this common nature. (See
The Birth of the Etheric by Dr. Glcker.) Let
us bring a few points back to consciousness.
Regarding life, it is characterized by the fact
that all the parts fit together into a whole. One
cannot understand an isolated function of an
organism or the working of a single isolated
organ. It derives meaning only in relation to
the whole. Life is a power of integration. An
animals stomach sitting on a dissecting table is
not alive and can only reveal the secrets of its
physical form. It is only when it is functioning
within the animal that we can fully understand
its living nature. We can say that the whole is
much more than the sum of its many parts.
If one part is disturbed, then the whole is
disturbed.
It is the same when we look at our thoughts.
There is a weaving together of concepts, words
and descriptions to form a picture. If we look
at a plant, for instance, we focus on the petals,
the colors, the leaves, etc. The way they all come
together makes the plant. It is the same with our
thoughts. We cannot think one thought alone.
If we think small, for instance, we must think
of something yet smaller and something bigger.
 Michaela Glckler
Otherwise small has no meaning. We must see
the relationships. In this way thoughts, too, do
not live in isolation. They are part of a whole.
The forces of life and thought are the unobserved
selfless forces which are at work within us.
At last years conference, we had a diagram
of the growth and decline of physical forces.
Consolidation of activity
Etheric forces retreat:
Physical growth
lack of regeneration
in physical body
From the etheric point of view, things are
very different than from the physical. Between
40 and 60 years of age, the physical forces are
more and more on their own, while the etheric
forces retreat. They are not available for the
vitality and regeneration of the physical body.
Where do the etheric forces go as they retreat
from the physical in the older human being?
They transform themselves into thoughts.
Spiritual life grows
Physical decline
During her early years, the child is thinking
with her growth forces. The whole way the child
thinks is connected with growing up. In this
first part of life, the etheric forces serve us by
building up a healthy body. In this there is a
natural egoism, as we put our etheric forces to
use for ourselves. We focus on our own needs,
and that is natural in this first stage of life which
lasts until age 20.
37
Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy
In the second part of life, from 20 to 40,
there is a change towards a selfless attitude in
which we think more of others and encourage
others. One sees mothers or teachers or those
in official life who begin around age 40 or 50 to
look outwardly at others. They become more
objective and make good advisors. Others
remain more egotistic, and this can develop
destructively and can even become
pathological. They are not growing old
in a natural way, for the older person
has the possibility of giving away, of
doing without. This attitude is an inner
dynamic of how the person thinks. The
older person can forget self and think of
others.
The etheric helps bring a balance between
the individual and the society as well as between
the parts of the cosmos. For example, there is
a deep relationship between the plant and the
sun though they are far away from each other.
The plant is like an organ of the sun and earth
together. This is like the mystery of life. All
the plants and animals and earth together are
an organism. We, too, are part of this living
whole, and when we breathe in and out, we are
participating in all that is around us.
Our thoughts, too, can connect with things
very far away, like the plant relating to the sun.
We can think of how the farthest stars behave.
We can think of the hierarchies and of how they
built up the cosmos. We can think of the laws
of mathematics and of higher sciences. Our
thoughts can penetrate all.
There is a moment, at around age three when
the child says I to himself. Then the life of
thought comes along. There was a three-year-old
boy named Simeon who could not yet say I.
One of his aunts said, Oh, he cant pronounce
s properly. If he could, he would be able to say
I. Simeon heard this and grew angry and said,
Why does she say that? Simeon can say I.
Etheric Forces and the Young
After this he did not say I again until three
weeks later when he painted a fiery picture, and
someone asked who had painted it. He replied,
I did. I, I. After this he again forgot to say I.
Over the next three weeks it came and went. He
displayed a tender awakening of the I. This is a
word which cannot be learned. Even if he says,
Simeon can say I, he is not realizing it. He
is only repeating it. It requires an awakening, a
tender awakening of listening to the sounds of
the soul, which lives more and more inside the
being. It requires realizing the reality, and then
one day, the thought is there.
Thoughts stand in relation to others and take
meaning from others. They are important in
relation to others. There are situations in which a
piece of chalk is of great worth, worth more than
thousands of dollars, because in a particular
context it is so necessary. We can never say
that one of us or one of our thoughts is more
important than another. Each has importance in
relationship to the others.
In a child, the physical body is growing, and
nearly all the life forces are directed inward for
the growth and regeneration of the physical.
Very little is freed for thinking and that occurs
only gradually in the early years. Around age 6
or 7, more of the life forces are freed and then
thinking activity can begin. In the older person
we have the opposite picture. There is very little
that is directed towards rebuilding the physical
and most of the forces are available to be
engaged in spiritual activity.
Etheric forces working in the physical
The etheric is freed for thinking
Child
38
We can see the etheric forces in life totally
focusing on our constitution. In a good natured
sense they are egotistic. The immune system
is the purest expression of the Ego-activity on
the etheric level. (It represents our biological
Individuality.) The etheric forces serve our ego
so the ego can be built up. It fights against the
outside world to keep outside substances such
as wrong blood or allergens from entering. The
immune system is fighting off the world to serve
the ego, to strengthen it.
The lemniscate is the picture of the etheric
going through the midpoint of transformation
and moving towards the outside. It
goes around again and reenters the
inside. The center or crossing point
of the lemniscate is the point of
metamorphosis. The growth forces
go through that point and turn into
something totally different, that is,
they metamorphose into thinking forces. The
growth forces which turned inward are now
thinking forces which turn outward.
The life of thoughts makes sense only when
it is turned outward in understanding the world,
when it is oriented towards the outside. If we
think too much of self, we become ill. There
is a mystery of how to keep the physical body
healthy, which has to do with the life of thought.
If during the day, our thoughts go out into
the world, then they may return to us at night
and help us build up our bodies. Normally we
regenerate ourselves at night. However, if we
think too much of ourselves during the day,
Middle Years Old Age
Michaela Glckler
directing our thoughts too much in on ourselves,
then during sleep these thoughts can have a
destructive effect on our physical body.
We all contain great wisdom within us, the
wisdom of Study of Man. We have to bring this
to clarity in our thinking life. A conference
such as this with its lectures, discussions and
workshops, gives us an opportunity to bring our
thoughts from the unconscious realm into the
conscious realm. Together we can take a step
forward.
Soul Development and Artistic Activity
We have just heard such lovely singing, and
it is a reminder that we all have music within
us. We each have two octaves in us and singers
have three octaves. This is the music within us,
but other art forms also live within us. We have
the possibility of doing form drawing and other
activities which bring into us the forms of the
mineral world, the plant world and the animal
world. They bring into us human forms as well
as the forms of astronomy and the abstract
forms. A whole world of form lives within us.
We also have speech with its many facets.
What can we express in words? We can use
language to express our feelings. Through
listening, we can come to the musical quality of
language and we can enter into another persons
feelings. We can also control the will through
language. Teachers know this. They can utter one
word and there is silence in the room.
To create in the worlds of music, form and
speech is a most important part of our inner life,
our soul activity. Where does it come from and
what are its relationships to the physical body?
How are physical activities and soul activities
related?
Leonardo da Vinci is well known as the
painter of The Last Supper. Rudolf Steiner often
speaks of this painting and says if someone from
39
Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy
the planet Mars were to come and look at the
Last Supper, he would intuitively understand
the path of human earthly development. Art
can speak of the deepest qualities of inner
development, and this painting has particularly
captured this. Although Leonardo was an
engineer and was also well versed in medicine,
he wrote a book to introduce painters to the art
of painting. There is a passage in it on how the
painter can control himself to become more
and more an artist and less and less a beginning
painter. The difference he points to is that the
inexperienced painter always reproduces himself
in his paintings; the more experienced painter is
able to bring the being of the world into art.
The beginning painter is allowing the soul
to express itself and what the soul is accustomed
to is building up the body. In the body, the
soul is reproducing itself. This is what it is
used to doing, and it continues to do so in the
activity of painting. It is natural, then, that the
inexperienced painter gives expression to this
and, in a sense, reproduces himself on canvas.
In a therapeutic situation, one sees the ill
person reproducing himself in painting. It can
be helpful to let him do this a time or two for
diagnostic purposes. But to allow it to go on is
unhealthy, for it can reinforce the illness.
The experienced artist moves beyond this
wish to reproduce himself. He wants to bring
the being of the world, of God, of nature into
art. The experienced artist wants to reach this
being and allow it to enter his art. Leonardo
could reach the being of Christ and reveal it,
its language, its inmost content, through his
art. That is why a person from another planet
could understand so much about human
development on earth by gazing upon the
Last Supper. To paint in such a way requires a
sacrifice, a movement away from self expression
and towards the expression of something higher.
Such painting is a prayer to God to be allowed to
Etheric Forces and the Young
bring something higher into the world through
art.
Which laws live in the arts? If we look
at the genetic pattern of a fruit fly and see
how the genes are distributed, we see that the
genes are scattered about. The eye genes are
spread throughout the whole chromosome, for
example. It is like a home in which the mother
has been gone for four weeks. She returns to
find things spread all over the house, and she
has to restore order to it. In building up and
regenerating the eye, someone needs to say,
These are genes which I do need, and these are
the genes I do not need. We do not use all of
our genes. Some are blocked. Fever or illness
may release some of them. We ask how this
special order can arise. This cant be answered
just by looking at how the genes are distributed,
for it cant be seen. The genetic pattern doesnt
work just by itself. It needs hormonal activity
to work and enough water in the cell to work.
Yet what brings genetic activity into the cells?
Water is necessary, and enzymes and hormones.
You are looking at a circular system, and to ask
what triggers it is like asking what comes first,
the chicken or the egg. The enzymes are needed
to stimulate genetic activity, but you need the
genetic activity to first build up the enzymes.
There is an interdependence here, and that is a
characteristic of life.
Life began with this whole activity; life
arose from life. There was no hen or egg in the
beginning. They were all together, for life is
complex. It is a living system and does not arise
from one little element or part. Physical laws
deal with physical aspects; physical science pulls
things apart. There are different laws which deal
with the integrated whole, the composition.
Rudolf Steiner says integration-activity comes
out of the artistic realm.
If I pull some blood out of my veins, for
example, and think this is the same as the
40
blood in my body, this would be an illusion.
Immediately it begins to deteriorate or break
down. After two hours the whole blood
constitution is altered. Yet it is a physical
substance and each piece can be analyzed. All
factions of the blood can be separated, and you
can distinguish different substances. Physical
research does this all the time. But the secret of
life is synthesis. Rudolf Steiner discovered this
great secret of life, that life is integrative and
synthesizing. All parts relate to one another.
They are working to create a whole.
Laws of composition are integratively
at work within us. The whole body is a
composition itself. All of the arts live within
us but in slightly different ways. Music does
not live in us in the same way as do painting
or modeling. If you model or paint, you do
not try to leave spaces between the colors or
the forms. But one does leave spaces in music.
Music lives in discontinuity, in the spaces or
intervals between the notes. There is something
living between the notes. That is an important
aspect of music, and, in addition, music lives in
time rather than in space. Also, music lives in
the tension between two partners. We take the
string of the monochord which is drawn taut
and divide it into intervals. Without the tension
there could be no musical sound. Music lives in
harmony and disharmony, tension and release of
tension.
Where do we find something similar in the
human beings constitution? Where do we find
the spaces and the ability to make proportions
as we do in music? In regard to spaces, consider
the hand with its fingers spread apart. There is
nothing between the fingers, and for this reason
we can be so active with our hands. In the
embryo, the hand begins by being filled in with a
weblike substance. Then the fingers emerge and
the webbing retracts. There is a free space and
the music enters. If this does not occur, then
we must do surgery to free the fingers.
Michaela Glckler
When we look for proportion in the human
body, we can begin with the interval of the fifth.
In the fifth, there is a beautiful proportion of
2:3. We see this in the physiology of the human
being as well. On the right side of the chest the
lung has three parts, while on the left only two.
There is a breathing mood in the body itself
of 2:3. In music, this is known as the fifth. We
could look at other mathematical relationships
in the body, for the whole body could be
expressed in numberstwo eyes, two ears, etc.
The whole nerve-sense system can be described
in 1:2 relationships.
Another mathematical example from the
body is the angle of the heart. The middle axis of
the heart lies at an angle to the central axis of the
body. On average, the angle the two make is 23
degrees. This is the same angle as the earth to
the sun on the ecliptic. There is no one detail of
the body which is not full of sense and order and
integrated into the laws of numbers, proportions
and music. The world of music lies throughout
our body.
Now let us consider the growth of the human
being in the first 21 years.
birth of
birth of birth of
astral
ego
etheric
Every seven years during this period we
experience the birth of a body. What does this
mean? What are these bodies for? The physical
birth means the physical body is free to live in
the physical world itself. The body moves and
lives independently in the physical world. The
birth of the etheric means the etheric is free in
the etheric world. We see this moment of birth
when the child starts to live in abstract memory.
Before the independent life of the etheric,
abstract memory is not possible. Last night
we saw the marionette play of Little Twig.
41
Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy
Tomorrow we will see it again. As adults we
might think, now we know the play, wouldnt it
be nice to have it a little different, to see different
variations of it tomorrow. We might counteract
this tendency by telling ourselves that it is good
to repeat things and take this on as an exercise.
But for a young child this is altogether different.
The child knows it and knows it not. It knows it
in repetition, and this continues until abstract
memory is established. Abstract memory begins
between the ages of 6 and 8.
In each birth, we experience that a force is
freed to live in a new world. When the astral
body is born around age 14, the world of feeling
is born and can function in the astral world.
Around 21 the ego is born. This is the world of
inner being, and we can now meet as inner being
to inner being. Before this birth we could meet
the astral, etheric or physical being of another.
Now we can know one another at a deeper level.
We can come to the center of the being and
make contact there.
If we ask ourselves which forces deliver these
birth moments of the soul, then we see that
each body is revealing itself in its own realm.
All gestures of the soul express their intentions
in the body. The body reveals all our feelings,
thoughts and will. They all fit together into the
laws of composition, and these are the same as
the laws of art. We need years to study the laws
of music, to realize that the laws of music are the
laws of the astral body and of a very complicated
emotional life. Likewise we can study the laws
of speech and comprehend the laws of the ego,
the laws of painting and the laws of the etheric,
and the laws of modeling and the laws of the
physical.
Let us consider the laws of the ego. If a child
is crying and moving around a great deal, and
we cannot find any reason, then we have the
feeling that the child is moving without ego
forces in a hyperkinetic way. When the child
Etheric Forces and the Young
is really present, he acts in a different way.
Likewise, if we drink too much alcohol, the ego
withdraws and we have too little balance, for
the ego power is the power of balance. Then we
stumble about. When the ego is present, we can
say I am and this can be the dominating force
in us. We can send I am and I will into every
thought. Then we do only what we want, what
we have directed ourselves to do. We identify
with all that we do. That is typical of this kind of
ego power.
The art of speech represents this most
beautifully, for it integrates the musical and
sculptural laws. All of the physical laws are
there, and we see them at work in the way we
model our consonants with tongue, teeth, etc.
The laws of the astral are there in the music of
the language. Every language has its own music.
The vowels live purely in this music, and you
therefore cannot model vowels. They wont
sound forth. Speech brings music and modeling
into harmony. In speech, we bring the astral and
the physical bodies together. The integrative
power of the ego is the power of the word. After
21, when the ego is there, we can consciously
speak and say, Yes, I want this, or No, I dont
want that. Until the time of maturity, we cannot
consciously speak in this way.
Between 14 and 21, between puberty and
maturity, the body changes considerably. During
these years the body finds a whole new harmony.
In adolescence around 15 or 16, there is still a
great deal of disharmony. The teenager looks at
himself and has the feeling, All the adults in the
world look harmonious, only I dont. He looks
at his thin chest and cant imagine how it will
ever look normal. Then comes the last stretching
of the chest, first crosswise and then from
front to back. In adolescence there are so many
changes, but they do not all happen at once.
They follow one another, giving the adolescent
an awkward, unfinished look.
42
The adolescents growth is discontinuous,
not harmonious. It begins with the feet and
moves upward. The poor 11-year-old has such
large feet. One has the feeling in looking at an
adolescent that every part is growing for itself.
It is as if each part is a separate tone and we
are unable to see the whole composition. All
the tones are not yet there. The beard grows
in patches, not all at once. The breasts mature
unevenly, often growing one at a time. It is as if
a conductor of an orchestra is calling forth one
instrument after another. At the end, they are
all called forth and playing together. The growth
looks funny if we dont see the musical process at
work.
These phenomena are not typical of the
preschool years. The first period of growth is
a very harmonious one. During the first nine
years there is a holiness present in the growth.
The young childs physical development is
normally harmonious, but their emotional life,
their thinking and their will still need our care
and attention. These are qualities not yet born
in the child. Surrounding the child there is an
embryonic atmosphere. With which eyes am I
allowed to behold this? To look at the unborn
forces of the human being is like looking into
the uterus of the soul. We must represent the
ego forces of the child so that the growth is
harmonious and good. We are part of the caring,
ripening activity.
Consider our own soul activity in terms of
music when we meet another person. If it is a
person we like, we experience a major mood
within us. We feel, Oh, good, here comes a
person who makes me happy. If another comes
towards us, we may feel unhealthy, tense and
drawn in. Why do we feel this dissonance? If I
bring myself into a new position in relation to
this person, then a new tone will arise, a tone
which may bring the dissonance into harmony.
Every tone needs two partners who function
Michaela Glckler
like the two fixed ends of the monochord.
Without them there can be no tone. Never put
the consequences of disharmony on the other
person, laying guilt upon him. You are a partner,
and the tension exists between the two of you,
even as it exists between the two ends of the
monochord.
In the marionette play, Little Twig, we had
a beautiful composition of moving pictures,
speech and music. If it is told with the mood of
drama, then isolated emotions would awaken.
That is not possible for the young child, for at
this age, these developments of the inner life are
still unborn. We do not want to awaken them.
Young children need harmonious interactions.
The Developing Consciousness
of the Child
In the beginning of the conference, we
thought back to our infancy and childhood.
What were our thoughts and actions? Dr.
Glckler remembers feeling awake in all parts of
her soul life as a child. She felt sorrow, hurt and
delight. The young child already has an ego and
emotions but not in the developed form which
was described in yesterdays lecture. Around
age 20, the ego is born and can stand freely in
the world. But all the forces already exist in an
unripened stage earlier in life.
When we try to form a picture of what
is present and ready to be freely used in the
young child, then we see that the child is totally
there and present in the physical body and is
fully awake in the senses. These can be used
and developed in early childhood. Imitation is
present at a young age and speaks to the senses.
Activity is important in these years because the
physical body likes to move and be active. It
likes to be skillful and adapt to the world. The
children delight in being active from morning
to evening. When they are being active, every
hindrance hurts them. To do what they like is
43
Title Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy
a pure delight for children. These things exist
in the life of the young child. All else is still in
development.
The young child experiences events
differently than we do. As mature adults we
take things into our soul life. The young child
cannot do this yet. If the young child has a
problem or is shocked, he will often wet himself,
the experience runs out, whereas we hold the
experience in. If the child feels joy, he begins to
jump up and down. The whole body wants to
participate in the joyous experience. We dont
usually display our joy with the whole body,
except at a football game when we jump up and
down. Then we can experience the game like a
child. But usually if something fills us with joy,
we smile or laugh. That is like a small jump.
Consider sense perception and how it relates
to the soul realm. When we read the biographies
of great people such as Proust and consider
their experiences of childhood, we can see what
intense sense impressions they had as children.
A child experiences the atmosphere of a festival
or vacation in a most intensive way. At age 30,
Dr. Glckler returned to a beloved vacation spot
of her childhood. She tried not to be sad, but her
experience as an adult was so much paler than
what she remembered from her childhood. The
house was so small, the stall for the animals not
at all special. Even the flowers in the meadow,
and the sky and water seemed rather normal
and not of that glory which the childs memory
put on it.
In childhood, the life of thoughts and the life
of the senses are still a unity. They are not yet
divided. Therefore the experience of the senses is
very intense. It is also why children can imitate
and can understand immediately what is going
on. They intuitively know when something is
wrong. They can intuitively understand their
sense experiences in the moment that they are
occurring. As adults, we need to understand
Etheric Forces and the Young
by thinking about the experience afterwards.
Later, when abstract memory awakens, the child
will be able to separate sense impressions from
thinking. This is an important step, for in order
to learn something, sense perceptions have to be
separate from thinking.
The childs perceptions of the world are
very different from those of the adult, for he
sees thought life woven around and within
his surroundings. He looks at a dark corner,
for example, and sees the shadows move. He
experiences the inner meaning of darkness.
Something jumps out of the darkness, and the
child is frightened. He runs to his mother who
turns on the light and says there is nothing
there. The child is often not understood at a
deeper level, but he is consoled that the mother
is strong enough to bring light into the darkness.
The child has both these experiences; he is
misunderstood and consoled at the same time.
We need to realize that every thought is a
living reality for the child. She sees the flower
and experiences the inner reality of the flower;
she sees the being of the flower. The child
experiences not only the outlook but also the
inlook, the inner being or I Am of the object
perceived. The child is not awake like the adult
is. She cannot separate the inner from the
outer and think about the one or the other. She
is neither fully awake, nor is she asleep. Her
consciousness is in between, like a dream. Yet
within that consciousness she is alert to the
world and takes everything in.
Let us try to understand waking and sleeping
more fully. What happens in sleep in the adult?
The astral and ego leave the physical and etheric
bodies behind and live in the realm of the
Cosmos. The child with her unripened soul life
does not sleep properly in this way. The astral
and ego are too involved in the physical and
etheric. To sleep in such a way that the astral and
ego are free of the physical and etheric requires
44
that the etheric body be born. This does not
happen until age seven, but it takes a few more
years for the freed etheric to be well established.
After seven, the astral and ego can begin to
come to the pure astral realm in sleep. Then the
thought life can switch off during sleep.
The childs consciousness occurs in stages.
Around three, a new self-consciousness begins
as the child experiences herself as an I
separate from others. At nine, there is a crisis
in the development as the child senses her I
at a deeper level. A self-sensitivity exists, and
the child feels I am alone, I am a personality.
Before that she felt part of her surroundings,
with a growing self-consciousness but still part
of her surroundings. Between eight and ten, she
feels more fully apart. She feels separate from her
mother and father and secretly thinks that this is
not her true mother and father. Perhaps she asks,
Are you sure I am your child? You didnt mix
me up with another at birth?
Now the sleep life changes, and the
nightmares of the young child stop. The child
begins to sleep more deeply. During these first
nine years, the child awakens at night with fears
and visions because the astral and ego are still
so close. The child is half wakeful at night and
dreams in the elemental world. As adults we
move through this realm quickly, and if we are
tired enough we are not disturbed by it. The
young child cannot sleep properly, but she also
cant awaken properly. She is in between.
An awakened person can identify what
things are good for him out of an awakened
process of knowing the thing itself. A dreamy
adult can intuit what is good and not good but
cant explain it. The astral and ego are too closely
bound to the physical and etheric in such a
person. It takes courage to be awake as an adult,
to develop an independent personality. Many
people are fearful and dont want an awakened
adult consciousness.
Michaela Glckler
The dream consciousness of the child is
easily misunderstood. A parent may say, my
child is interested in all the world, technology,
nature, etc. He is so awake to the world, he
is not at all dreamy. But the young child does
live deeply into the world around him. He lives
through the senses and experiences all the
qualities of the world. He is not awake to think
abstractly about the world as the adult is, but he
is actively taking in the world through the senses
coupled with thinking. In the night time, he is
more awake than we are. In the daytime he is
more asleep than we.
How can we help the child during this stage?
Rudolf Steiner says that before age nine the most
important thing is to help children to properly
sleep. Since the children are more awake than we
are in the night, it can be a help to some children
to have a night light on. This gives a certain day
aspect at night so they dont feel too alone in
sleepy awakeness.
The child is also helped to sleep at night if he
has been helped to awaken properly in the day.
This occurs through the purposeful activities
which the adult does in the childs presence
during the day. The child needs to experience
clarity and purposeful direction in the day time.
Then it experiences proper calm at night.
There is a constant process of transforming
the unconscious into the conscious. In the
unconscious there is much wisdom. An awake
adult can discriminate the conscious part
of thought life through learning, but cant
experience spontaneously the unconscious part
of thoughts. The dreamy adult gets an intuition
and spontaneously realizes something.
The child experiences wisdom but not in
an awake way. It cant judge, analyze or prove
things. Instead, it has a capacity for fantasy
which is nothing other than experiencing a
small part of this wisdom which is freed from
the growth forces and is available as fantasy.
45
Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy
conscious
where the unconscious
becomes conscious
unconscious
The child lives in the realm of pictures and
wisdom, but he is mixed up totally with sense
perception. In one stick he sees the whole world.
With the stick and a piece of yarn, he can be a
fisherman, a priest or so many other things. He
works with the world of growth forces which are
gradually being freed and reappear in the soul,
first as fantasy forces and later as imagination
and then as thinking forces.
All living things have a spiritual component.
The elemental beings are the spiritual
fundamentals of things. These are thought
realities. In all living things there are also
destructive forces. The dead is inborn in every
living being; every cell contains within it an
aspect of death. We might consider this to
be a bad being, a destructive being, but we
need destruction so that new life can be born.
If nothing died, nothing could be born. A
balance occurs between life-giving forces and
death-giving forces. Only the human being is
capable of going out of balance between these
two polarities. Through our ego we need to live
in a balanced way, keeping life and death in
harmony.
When the child learns to walk in the first
year, she finds her first ego balance. In speech in
the second year, she finds her social balance. In
thought in the third year, she finds her spiritual
balance. In finding her ego or I, she finds this
spiritual balance, this balance in thought.
The whole development of the ego is part of
a huge process of finding balance. If we continue
to live more and more out of balance as we do
today, with no balance between spiritual and
Etheric Forces and the Young
physical activity, then it will not be possible for
the earth and the human being to endure much
longer. There is no god we can make responsible
for this balance. We must look to ourselves for
this.
There are many spiritual trainings which try
to reactivate an old stage of dream consciousness
which we had as children. It is not difficult to
move in this direction, for it lives in all of us. It is
beautiful to be a child, and it is understandable
that many adults prefer this and want to be more
like children and not fully adult-like. As adults
we can achieve a new stage of awakeness and
need not turn to methods which reactivate the
dream stage of childhood. Turning to drugs,
alcohol, reliance on a guru or utilizing certain
spiritual techniques leads us backwards rather
than forwards.
We can give children a beautiful security
of dream consciousness and gently guide them
towards awakeness. We need not push them out
too quickly, but guide them out. If they have not
fully experienced the dream consciousness of
early childhood, then as adults they turn back
and seek this lost paradise. They seek the dream
experience through drugs, for instance. We all
had something similar to a drug experience in
childhood when colors, pictures, etc., were so
vivid and we could fully live within them. Now
we can find it in new ways as awakened persons.
Rudolf Steiner describes fantasy in this way:
The soul is able to withdraw a certain energy for
other purposes, and this is the power of fantasy:
the natural power of growth metamorphosed
into a soul force. (Understanding Young
Children, page 75) Dr. Glckler has tried to
explain this process in this lecture and in the
other lectures this weekend. For the child in the
dream consciousness of fantasy, life is like being
in a theater in which good thoughts appear like
good elemental beings and bad thoughts appear
as well because of the work of the destructive
46
forces. These destructive forces are always
there in nature, working in the processes of
digestion, for example. They appear in the child
with as much reality as an outer experience of
the senses. They create a specific type of dream
consciousness for the child.
In our times, the childs dream consciousness
is strongly touched by the destructive forces,
and fear arises. There is a very strong element
of fear in children today. The child lives in
the world of technology today, and every
technological event is based on destruction.
Electricity, for example, is created out of the
earths destruction. To remove oil or gas from
the earth is always a process of destruction,
even when we use it to construct something.
We must always look to the balance of energy.
If we use windmills, do we have a positive
balance or a negative balance of destruction?
Or if we sit in a room lit by a 100-watt light and
do nothing, then perhaps it would be better to
do nothing in the dark. Of course, we must use
the forces of technology if it is for constructive
purposes. If we use the washing machine, this
uses much energy which is destructive, but we
can balance this by doing something worthwhile
with the freed time. Finding this balance for
the destructive elements of technology is one
of the moral problems of our time. When the
imbalance towards destructiveness is too great,
then fear arises, a fear of the elemental beings of
destruction. This happens when there is not a
balance of constructive beings, and children are
very sensitive to this imbalance. It makes them
fearful.
During the last 20 years, for the first time in
mankind, we are experiencing sleep problems
in children under age seven. There is a coldness
present in the children. Sometimes it is physical
and can be corrected, but often it exists in the
awareness of destruction which brings fear to
the children. Often they want to come into the
Michaela Glckler
parents bed during the first nine years, and this
can even be a help to the child. This can be a
little cure, but the child should not be exposed
to adult sexual activity, for this is too great
an experience for them and can lead to other
problems.
Childhood Illnesses
Dr. Christa van Tellingen
Raphael Association, Fair Oaks, California
These are notes of a talk given to northern
California kindergarten teachers in fall 1985. The
notes were sent to us by Sally Smith of Sonoma
Valley, California, and were reviewed and revised
by Dr. Christa.
Dr. Christa opened her talk with the
question, Why do human beings get childhood
diseases and not the animals? She compared
a chimpanzee baby with a human baby.
Animals develop in keeping with their group
soul, whereas humans bring their own unique
development with them. Illnesses in animals
lead to death, whereas illnesses occur in humans
so that development can happen. She mentioned
that domestic animals sometimes might take on
an illness for their master.
Kindergarten teachers can benefit from
studying the subject of incarnationhow man
as microcosm comes down and takes hold of
his body. The body is not always in the right
condition for the soul to take hold of it. We can
see how the ego battles with the forces of the
body to make it its own. In 1922 Rudolf Steiner
gave whats called the Bridge lecturesThe
Bridge between the Universal Spirituality and
the Physical Constitution of Man. These lectures
deal with the bridge between the physical-
etheric and the soul-spiritual. Childhood diseases
47
Forces of Growth and Forces of Fantasy
The real help which the children need
is for the family to find the correct balance
between constructive and destructive forces in
the home. It is also of help for the religious life
to arise in the home which can bring balance
to all processes which seem senseless if not
understood in the light of inner understanding.
help create this bridge between the physical-
etheric and the soul-spiritual.
The bridge which unites the physical-
etheric and the soul-spiritual has four
components:
1. Warmth. It is not only a state of being, it
permeates all other components of the bridge.
Warmth is the vehicle of the ego working into
the physical; it is a tool for the ego. It forms the
warmth organism in our bodies.
2. Air or Gas. It can be used by the astral
body to work into the physical realm. Air is
outside our body but comes to us through the
blood system. It penetrates us completely and we
breathe it out again. It carries the soul into the
body, and forms the air organism.
3. Fluid Organism. There is no life without
water. The etheric or life body lives within this
organism.
4. Crystalline mineral. The physical body
can find its expression in the crystalline mineral
element, also in the formation of kidney stones,
deposits in joints, etc. It brings form into our
bodies in the teeth and bones.
The macrocosmic man expresses himself
in the hereditary body through this bridge
Etheric Forces and the Young

that unites the supersensible bodies (ego, astral animal kingdom to man. Allergies are also
body, etheric body and physical body) with taking the place of childhood diseases.
the physical material in warmth, air, water and
Kindergarten teachers can help to build the
minerals. Where the bridge does not function
bridge for children who arent benefiting from
right, childhood illnesses help to transform
childhood diseases by recommending warm
the forces of the bridge so that the inherited
clothes, simple diet, daily rhythm in life, outdoor
physical body can be transformed.
activities and enough sleepin short warmth,
Fever is an expression of the ego air, water and mineral in a balance specific for
organization working into the physical body to the child at that moment.
make it its own. Redness of the skin is a physical
expression of the ego. The Health of the Kindergarten Teacher
Whooping cough is a way to help the airy As we work with children whose etheric
organism fit into the body. It is a disease of the bodies are as yet unborn, our own etheric
astral body fitting into the airy organism. forces can become less personal. We are more
open to the cosmos, more connected to the
Mumps is an expression of the watery forces
spiritual world. If we are not conscious of
being transformed. In rubella the lymph nodes
this, our etheric body gets dispersed into
swell up (watery organism). With mumps there
our surroundings and we lose that part of
is a swelling of the salivary glands. With these
our etheric. We have to build our forces into
the ether body modifies its home in the fluid
something we can offer to our surroundings in
organism of our bodies. In measles we see fever
a eurythmic sense, without losing ourselves
and redness with the watery transformation.
in the process of giving. It is important that we
Chickenpox is a disease where the physical
work with our own daily rhythm (rhythm is a
forces become transformed (temporary
property of the etheric body) and that we dress
scarring).
warmly. Warmth allows us to stay in ourselves
We can ask the question, What is a child more easily and to transform etheric forces
gaining when he or she gets a particular through our own activity.
disease? Rudolf Steiner tells us that smallpox,
Grains are important for activating the
for example, is easy to obtain by people who
digestive system and for giving warmth. Dr.
had trouble loving others in their last lifetime.
Christa recommended raw grain as in muesli, as
Disease is a healing process for what was not
well as cooked grains, raw vegetables, and soups.
accomplished previously.
Avoid cold foodscucumbers, beans, peppers,
Dr. Christa noted that it seems that children tomatoes, eggplant.
who are immunized against childhood diseases
Teachers who are constantly giving of
get more ear infections. In this way they develop
themselves all day need to learn to say no. This
the fever they need. In the future more diseases
takes ego.
will come from the plant kingdom and the

48
49
 The Young Child and the Spiritual World

How Can We Find a Connection to the World of the Angels?

Dr. Helmut von Kgelgen

In the introduction last night we heard Kennan has the words, too. Does he actually
of the many changes which have taken place believe in angels? Probably not. In the New
in Waldorf education. The wind of change is Testament, the angel appears to the shepherds.
also blowing in Eastern Europe. It is called In doing so he opens the door to a new level
Perestroika, the restructuring. George F. of consciousness. The angel says Do not fear,
Kennan has spoken of Perestroika and its for it is a shock to behold an angel and to have
founder Gorbachev in this way: This is an age this door opened, but it is a good shock. The
of change and Gorbachev has made himself its intent is not to destroy but to open the soul and
angel and its instrument. heart (Imagination), and to enable one to hear
(Inspiration). Now the will of the spiritual world
Gorbachev has brought the greatest changes
can work in your will (Intuition). We know that
imaginable in Russia and in Eastern Europe, but
accidents can come into our lives and shock us
what is meant here by angel? And what is the
in this way.
spirit of this time?
A scientist has recently written that if you
Rudolf Steiner had 23 people before him
take a frog from its pond and put it in a pan of
when he started the lectures known as the
hot water it will jump out. But if you put it in a
Study of Man. These are a preparation for the
pan of cold water and heat it slowly, the frog will
educational work of this age, for this epoch. He
sit there in the water until it has boiled to death.
began with personal remarks which have not
The frogs senses are such that it can distinguish
been included in the English translation of the
large temperature changes but not gradual
lectures. He said that now, at the very beginning
ones. There has been no need in its evolution
of this preparatory work, it behooves us to make
to distinguish small temperature changes.
contact with the spiritual powers, through whose
Today, the scientist continued, the human race
power and at whose mandate each one of us has
is like the frog in the pan. Man is not really
to work. We must ask them to stand behind us as
paying attention to the fact that he is gradually
we seek to work out of Imagination, Inspiration
destroying life on the planet. We are destroying
and Intuition.
the living world in the Amazon region, for
What does it mean to find contact with example, but are not noticing what we are doing.
the spiritual powers? This is the theme of our
Likewise we live in the world of the spiritual
conference. Rudolf Steiner spoke of these
hierarchies, but we are not aware of them. They
powers, of the angels, the archangels and the
live in us, but we are not sensitive enough to
archai, the third hierarchy. True, we have these
perceive them. How can we contact the spiritual
words, we know their names. But George

50
Helmut von Kgelgen Connection to the World of the Angels

powers who are with us in normal life? Rudolf speak of the grandmother having gone home
Steiner has said we have to contact them if we where she can now look down upon us. There is
are to take up this new task of educating for our a feeling of love when we remember the person
times. How can we perceive the connection? and this gives us the Imagination of the beloved
person. We feel we are in the spiritual world;
We can look back and reflect and see that
it is near to us and not far away. It is the home
there is guidance in our life. Where there is
we never lose. Feelings of reverence and awe
guidance, there is a guide. We then get the first
are important when we speak of a person who
feeling of a guardian angel in our life. It doesnt
is dead. Then the children can live with these
just come of itself. We must do something to
feelings as a reality.
discover it.
The other feeling which is most important
With children it is easy to speak of a
in building a bridge to the angels in the spiritual
guardian angel. They still live at another level
world is thankfulness. Rudolf Steiner did not
of consciousness where they can experience
say that we must bring the children to say thank
the hierarchies. Recently he received a letter
you, but rather that as adults we must learn to
from a former kindergarten teacher who is now
feel grateful for life. We must feel thankful to
a mother of three young children. The oldest
live in this world, to have this work, to have our
one was 4 or 5, the second child was 3 and the
destiny, even the difficult parts. Life brings pain
baby, Frieder, was 8 months old. One morning
and things not easy to endure. But when you
the eldest child came into the mothers bed and
love your task of educating children, your work
said that during the night he had seen a most
will be full of thanksgiving. It is necessary that
wonderful angel. Oh, youve seen your angel,
out of this thankfulness we come to love truth
said the mother. No, not my angel. I was in the
and be as true as we can be. This is one of the
arms of my angel. It was your angel I saw. The
most important things for the teacher. Real truth
child was silent, then paused and said, There
is in the spiritual world, and the striving towards
we are all of the same height, you and I and little
truth is a striving towards the spiritual world.
Frieder. The mother dared not answer. Children
have such experiences, but often they cannot There is another way we help children to
find those with ears to listen. This mother could keep their contact with the spiritual world and
listen. that is to bring them rightly into the world of
sleep at night. We draw near to the archangels
When the adult is striving to find spiritual
at night, but it is the content of our speech that
contact, this forms a bridge for children. It
brings us into contact with the archangels. The
helps them to preserve their own contact with
little children cannot do this by themselves.
the spiritual world. The light of God the Father
The verse or prayer that we say with them or
comes through the angel to the child. This
for them at night helps lead the child to the
nearest hierarchy is a bridge that allows us to go
archangels.
deeper and deeper into higher worlds.
As adults we can do a review of the day
Both we and the children have other close
before going to sleep. As we look back over the
ties with beings in the spiritual world, that is
day, or even over longer periods of time, we
with those who have recently died. It may be a
begin to discover the guidance which took place
grandparent or a friend. This is not always sad,
in our lives. Every day we can consider: What
and we must not look melancholic when we
did I do? Could I feel a guiding force?
speak of death. Death can be celebrated. We can

51
The Young Child and the Spiritual World

Rudolf Steiner has said that in these
modern times since the beginning of the age
of the consciousness soul in the 15th century,
it is necessary not only to look back with our
angel but to look forward, to prepare the next
stage. For example, if tomorrow we have an
appointment at noon with a mother about a
difficulty with the child, then we look ahead to
this appointment on the night before with our
angel. We do not then think, What did my
angel tell me; what ideas did my angel give me?
It is not for this that we think ahead with our
angel, but to carry this mood into our meeting,
the mood of living together with our angel at
night. We must still struggle and think on our
own, but if we live in this mood, we will find
the right way. We can bring through the night
into the day, the mood that always, the angels
are with us. With this picture before us then,
suddenly the frog is aware that there is heat and
he must jump. There is a spiritual reality in our
thoughts, and we can bring this spiritual reality
into our deeds.
The greatest mysteries of how we interact
with the angels, the archangels and the archai,
arise in relationship with how we walk, talk and
think. When we walk we use muscles; we move,
we incarnate into the carne, the flesh. Our karma
enters into our body. The child experiences this
in the first year of life as he begins to move and
to walk.
To speak is to engage in a finer movement.
This is the beginning of the whole life of art.
How are the words producedout of love?
out of anger? In speaking, spiritual content or
concepts are in our words. The spiritual world,
the world of beings, of concepts, does not come
out of our headsthe world which surrounds
us is the spiritual world as well as the world of
matter.
When thinking we open ourselves to the
spiritual world. For the child, thinking is first
bound to the things which surround him. As
maturity comes, thinking changes as does the
sequence of thinking, feeling and doing. As
adults we normally think first, then feel and then
do. Sometimes we are like children and act first
and then think, What have I done?
We are faced with the tasks of this
generation, for we must be contemporary. We
are part of this time period. In this way, as we
perform deeds, we have contact with the spirit
of our time, the archai. When we speak, we
have contact with the spirit of the people of
a community, with the archangels who work
with communities of people. When we think,
we come into contact with our own angel. We
also come into community with the whole of
mankind. We bring thoughts into the whole of
language.
Thus through thought we make contact with
our angel.
Through speech we make contact with the
archangels.
Through activity we make contact with the
archai, the spirits of our time.
Rudolf Steiner once described the task of
anthroposophy as that of bringing together
communities that they may work to be a chalice
for the higher beings of the spiritual world. In
Switzerland, when the first Waldorf school was
three years old, Rudolf Steiner said that people
didnt understand what was meant by the free
spiritual life. Every one thinks it means each
rooster stands on his own dung heap and calls
cock-a-doodle-do. That is not free spiritual life.
In a school there are teachers who work together
through the college. Perhaps one teacher
has a more pronounced part, another a less
pronounced part. But they are working together
for the spirit of the school. They work together
to bring this spirit to work in the world through
the deeds of the everyday life of the school.

52
Helmut von Kgelgen Connection to the World of the Angels

To understand a school, a gathering of hierarchies, with our own angel behind us, with
teachers, we should consider the picture of the archangels forming a chalice of courage, and
Pentecost, the gathering of souls so connected with the archai bringing a drop of light into that
to the Christ and His Resurrection. This was a chalice. In this way we too can work individually
community fulfilled in a higher being. That is with the third hierarchy. Every evening before
the task of anthroposophists. doing our own meditation we can think: The
angels, archangels and archai will help me to do
In the beginning of this talk, man was
the work I must do. In the morning after our
likened to the frog, not a very nice image. But
meditation, we can think again, The beings of
we need to see that we are surrounded by the
the third hierarchy will help me. In this way we
spiritual world, not just at the moment when
form the contact with angels, archangels and
the angel speaks and opens the door, but in
archai. That is the answer which Rudolf Steiner
ail the gradual ways in which we experience
gave to the theme of this conference.
the spiritual world. When we think, when we
feel, when we do, then we are experiencing the
DISCUSSION
spiritual world and its beings. In all that we call
self-education, we experience sensitive steps In the discussion time, Dr. von Kgelgen
toward the beings of the third hierarchy. gave us a picture of his own background with
Waldorf education. He started as a Waldorf
In his lecture Awakening to Community
teacher in 1946 and took four classes through as
on December 13, 1923, Rudolf Steiner described
a class teacher. In 1969 the first Waldorf School
the path of anthroposophy. For the adult it
was 50 years old and a new era was beginning in
begins with thinking, with cognition, with what
which the young child was under serious attack
the head can grasp. Then art is called forward
through early academics. Together with 24
to enliven the thoughts and concepts. It ends
kindergartens, he helped found the International
with a religious deepening, with a warmth that
Waldorf Kindergarten Association. In the early
reassures the heart. Thus it begins with what the
1970s, the kindergartens joined together in
head can grasp, takes on all the life and color of
Germany to fight against early academics. In
the artistic experience, and ends in a warmth
1975 he graduated his last class and took up the
that suffuses and reassures the heart so that
task of working on behalf of the young child.
man can feel that the spirit is his true home.
He helped found the kindergarten seminar
The present world rejects this approach and as
in Stuttgart and already in 1971 traveled to
a result anthroposophy has its enemies, Rudolf
the United States. In 1975 he came again to
Steiner said.
support the opening of the kindergarten training
Now we arrive again at the beginning of this program at the Waldorf Institute.
talk and the Study of Man. Rudolf Steiner spoke
When did Rudolf Steiner give the Teachers
of the need for contacts with spiritual powers on
Imagination? What is its background? In 1919
whose behalf and at whose mandate each one
Rudolf Steiner gave the Study of Man course. He
of us works. He gave the Teachers Imagination,
gave thanks to the spirits who gave Emil Molt
the meditation which connects the college of
the idea of founding the first Waldorf School.
teachers with the angels, the archangels, and the
(Molt was the director of the Waldorf Astoria
archai.
cigarette factory when Rudolf Steiner was asked
Rudolf Steiner said to the teachers, do to speak there about the threefold social order.
not forget how we work together with the

53
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
When the workers became interested in Steiners
ideas about education, Molt helped finance a
school for the children of the workers.) In his
last words Herbert Hahn, one of the original
Waldorf teachers who had already given lectures
to the factory workers, repeated: Dont forget
that Waldorf education comes from the threefold
social movement. Out of this movement Emil
Molt had the idea, we must have a Waldorf
school. Already in 1907 in The Education of the
Child, Rudolf Steiner planted the seeds for such
an education when he said that when spiritual
science is asked, it will be possible to give a full
school education. He waited to be asked, and
Molt asked him.
Is the Archangel Michael a spirit of time?
Yes. He has been an archangel and he is now
ascending to the realm of the archai, the spirits
of time. His old name was Archangel Michael.
Now it is better to speak of Michael, for he is no
longer an archangel.
How do spiritual beings guide us? They
whisper inwardly. We need to have a receptive
inner mood and be prepared to hear them. Then
we have ideas and inspirations. We see a child
playing in a corner. Suddenly he bounds up and
goes elsewhere. Where did his new idea come
from? We experience that we sit and think about
a child with a difficulty. How to help him? An
idea comes. Ideas are not simply the perspiration
of our brain, something our brain excretes.
Thoughts are in the world and we have the
mental ability to be aware of them.
There are many concepts such as what is
beautiful and what is ugly. We learn by looking
at the world, by seeing what lies behind and
within the things of the world. We need to
cultivate fantasy in the young child, for it sheds
light on all.
How do we know who is guiding us? Might
it be a harmful being? How can we recognize
54
it? Yes, there are evil beings who try to guide
mankind. On the one side we have Ahriman, the
cold force of hardening. On the other side we
have Lucifer, full of fire and light, intoxicating
and ecstatic. It is like the cross of Golgotha
between the other two crosses. We need to learn
to make the distinctions between them, for there
exists the possibility of error and temptation. We
must learn in freedom to make distinctions. We
have the burden of freedom and we must learn
to distinguish.
Does our nightly meditation as teachers
help the children into the arms of their angels?
Yes, and even if you think of persons who have
died you are helping to build the contact to the
spiritual world. We can ask that our love may be
united with the love of Christ; or we may help
a person who has died to give aid in bringing
a child in sleep into the arms of its angel. On
the next day the children may come to you in
another mood as if you were together in the
night.
Are there children who cannot find their
angels? Rudolf Steiner said that children are in
the arms of their angels until the child begins
to think in a materialistic way. When the child
is young, the angel is more active in finding the
child. As we grow older, the angel recedes in
order to leave the person free. If the person does
not try to make contact, the angel withdraws
more and more. This is the dark side of freedom.
What is the spirit of the community? In
the Teachers Imagination we speak of the circle
of the archangels forming a chalice. This is a
verse worked with by colleges of teachers and
in a college the members come out of different
communities; they have different languages or
come from different social communities, yet
they are striving to work with the spirit of the
school. We can speak of the spirit of a class, or
of a school, or of a conference such as this one,
and this spirit comes about as we work together.
Helmut von Kgelgen
Then we arouse the interest of the spiritual world
and they say, There is good work. Let us go and
help there.
How much can we say to children about
spiritual beings? This is a question of tact. We
can speak out of our inner conviction and tell,
for example, a birthday story. But it must be real.
We must know about the spiritual world and the
angels who dwell there. We mustnt talk about it
because were supposed to.
In relationship to the last question, what
about our speaking of elemental beings? They
too are real and we must find our relationship to
them. Our thoughts are also little beings which
live in the nature processes. This is a very large
question, however, and cannot be dealt with
adequately now.
Bronja Zahlingen spoke of finding Marjorie
Spocks book Fairy Worlds and Workers very
useful for those wishing to understand the
elemental beings more fully.
You spoke of looking forward in a
meditative sense. How do I do this? One
aspect of this question is very practical. We
get up in the morning, eat our breakfast,
enter our kindergarten and prepare for the
day. We can also think ahead for the next day
by communicating in the evening with the
hierarchies and again in the morning. Then it
is possible for our angel to add new ideas, so
that we can do the right thing in the moment,
or do something other than we had prepared if
necessary.
What if one is working alone and does not
have colleagues or a college of teachers? You
are part of the whole kindergarten movement
so you are not alone in this work. It is important
that we all feel we are working together for the
pedagogy of the future. Then we can experience
the chalice referred to in the Teachers
Imagination.
55
Connection to the World of the Angels
Why do we suffer so often from physical
illnesses in our striving upwards? Consider the
plant. As it grows up towards the light, its upper
leaves are the thinnest and most delicate while
its lower leaves, nearest the earth, are the largest
and most solid. Likewise, as we grow upwards
towards the sun and the spirit, our physical body
may grow weaker. It is important to have the
right relationship with the spirit and with our
own karma. Gratitude is an important quality
in this relationship to joy and delight. We have
to develop gratitude because we never merit
joy and delight; they are always the grace of the
gods. But when pain and suffering come, we will
know that this belongs to our karma; we merit
it. Pain and suffering will help us to progress.
We must not flow away into the spiritual world
in a Luciferic way. We must find the middle way,
standing on the earth while striving upward and
with thankfulness for the grace of joy and delight.
Johanna-Veronika Picht added to this
that we must also sort out the essential from
the nonessential. We must not get burned
out, especially by doing things which are
nonessential. Decide where to spend your
strength and your thoughts.
What about thinking about children
before we go to sleep? Freya Jaffke spoke to
this question and said each person must find
his/her own way with this. The picturing of the
children should not take too long, though one
can then spend more time on a difficult child.
For example, one can review a problematic
moment with the child, make it present within
one, picturing the gesture of the moment.
How did the moment arise? What led up to it?
What happened during the moment and what
came afterwards? Also find a good moment
that happened with the child. Make this picture
big before your minds eye. Thus two objective
pictures stand before you without any wishes.
Then you can feel a real connection to the child.
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
You may do this picturing several nights in a
row. Maybe one picture will increase or decrease;
or both may merge into equal strength. Then
daily work will grow easier, for you are not
Continuing the Work of the Hierarchies
in the Age of the Etheric Christ
Werner Glas
When we look at a medieval book such as
Parzival, we should not consider it a linear story,
but rather a circular one with 16 segments.
At the end we return to the beginning. Then
perhaps the opening paragraph is quite different
than it seemed when we started. The same
process is true of this conference. We can go
back to the beginning and start again and it will
seem different than it did five days ago.
We have seen great variety in our speakers
and in their approaches to working with the
young child. An imp might enter and say,
Oh, see, we can do whatever we want in the
kindergarten. Just see how differently these
teachers all do it! But their differences have
grown out of their meditative work, their work
with the Study of Man. Such inner work gives
one the right to be original and different. We
must sharpen our responsibility to work out
of the central impulse of anthroposophy. We
need to work with a willingness to serve and
protect the young child, to further his right
to survive as a spiritual being. It is not easy to
be born into the present time. Until 1879 we
were only experiencing the preparatory stage of
materialism, its embryonic period. Now the real
period of materialism is beginning and will be
with us for two to three hundred years.
56
fighting the one aspect. But be careful not to
neglect the good children. Look at all of the
children, and occasionally dwell on one or two
who do not have difficulties.
In the movie Short Circuit, a robot is struck
by lightning and is greatly changed. He displays
wonder and awe and imitates a butterfly flying
across a meadow. A scientist decides the robot
has become human. This mistaking machines for
humans is symptomatic of our times and began
with the robot in Star Wars. It is a sign that our
sense of ego is blunted. We cannot distinguish
between that which is truly human and that
which is not. We must learn to find the human
element so that we can better communicate with
the parents, not only about problems, but also
about their solutions. It is not enough to look for
symptoms of materialism, we need to also look
for symptoms of hope.
On March 15, 1906, in Berlin, Rudolf Steiner
offered this distinction between individuality
and personality:
Today one easily exchanges the concept
of Individuality and Personality. The
Individuality is the eternal, that which
carries through from earth life to earth
life. Personality is that which the human
being within one life brings towards all that
forms him in development. If we wish to
study the Individuality, we must look to the
very basis of the human soul; if we wish to
study the Personality, we must see how the
essential kernel of the human being comes
Werner Glas
to expression. The kernel of being, the
essential essence, is born into a people, into a
profession.
That all is decided by the inner beingthat
is personalized by the inner being.
When a human being is at a lower stage
of development, one will notice little of
his inner work. His mode of expression is
taken from his folk. Those who are more
evolved will find a way of expression, and
gestures, which come from their inner life.
The more the inner life of the human being
can work on the outer, the more the human
being develops. One could say in this way
the Individuality comes to expression in the
Personality.
The one who has a distinct character through
gesture, through his physiognomy, even
the way he works on the environment, is a
marked Personality. Does this Personality
element become lost at the point of death for
subsequent development? No, that is not so.
Christianity knows quite exactly that this is
not the case.
That which is understood as the resurrection
of the body is nothing other than the
maintenance of the Personality in all
subsequent incarnations. That which has
been gained by the human being as a person,
that personhood, is embodied in the
Individuality, and for that reason is carried
on into following incarnations.
If we have made something of our body
which has its own special character, then
the forces which work to bring this about
will resurrect. As much as we have worked
on ourselves, as much as we have made of
ourselves, is not lost for us.
Where is the unique kernel of our being
carried? It is carried in the realm of the angels.
57
Continuing the Work of the Hierarchies
For the angel, the I of the human is what the
physical body is for the individual. Our walking,
talking and thinking are the lowest members of
the angels being. In the angel, all of the other
hierarchies are reflected. Through the angel they
all work into our I. We seek ways to work more
closely with the angels.
Werner gave an example of recently going on
a whale watching expedition. This has become
a very popular activity in America. During this
summer 200,000 people went whale watching.
There are fleets of boats which go out, and the
guides know the whales individually. Seeing
these whales awakens a sympathy in one. It
rings a bell in the unconscious realm of the
soul, in a place where memories of Atlantis lie.
For some people seeing the whales changed their
dream life in the following days and affected
them in positive ways. To get in touch with
these realms of ones own soul life can give new
possibilities for working with the angels.
Rudolf Steiner spoke of the differences
between imagination and fantasy. They are not
the same. At the end of Study of Man, he gives
a three line verse which begins Imbue thyself
with the power of fantasy. It does not say with
the power of imagination. The depth of that
difference becomes apparent in the following
quotation taken from lecture 8, volume 3 of
Anthroposophy as Cosmosophy. In the lecture
entitled The Human Being in the World of the
Hierarchies, given on October 22, 1921, he says:
The human being has a singular, an
individual relationship to his Angel. That
relationship expresses itself in two ways. It
expresses itself in inner experience when the
human being allows himself to go beyond
himself, to go outside himself from within
[I]n ordinary life, however, as this is an
intimate matter, something Luciferic easily
mixes into the process. Nevertheless, the
human being can go beyond himself as a
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
soul experience and, to a certain extent,
experience something objective in fantasy.
In many ways fantasy is very creative, but
individually creative, like language. And,
basically, the activity of fantasy is the basis
of language.
Just as people frequently experience only
something abstract in language, just as the
genius of language, which is an Archangel,
can not always spread his wings, so the
Luciferic weaving in fantasy obstructs the
perception and makes fantasy fantastic. In
actuality an Angel slips through the life of
the individual while he lives in fantasy.
When an individual lives in fantasy, the
angels enter the life of the individual. The same
force which shapes the brain in the first years
later enters the human being as fantasy. This is
really the working of the angels in human life.
When a child observes the world, he
becomes the world. This is the same process we
experience between death and rebirth. In Leaves
of Grass, Walt Whitman speaks of the child
going forth every day, and everything which the
child beholds becomes part of him.
There was a child went forth everyday
And the first object he lookd upon, that
object he became;
And that object became part of him for the
day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of
years.
This is the same process as the merging of
spirits in the spiritual world. We do not meet
a spiritual being; we become the spiritual being,
we merge with it. We then carry this capacity
for merging into our incarnation on earth and
experience it during early childhood.
During the Basel course on May 10, 1920,
Rudolf Steiner made reference to play. He
58
differentiates between play in the first seven
years and between ages 7 and 14. The fruits
of the first play only appear in the twenties
when the ego is born deeply into the human
being. The force that is applied in the childs
play reappears in the 21st or 22nd year in man
as the intellect, now independently collecting
its experience in life. (Understanding Young
Children, page 70) The early effects of fantasy
and play appear again in the 30s when the
consciousness soul becomes active.
This transformation of play and fantasy
forces comprise a remarkable set of concepts
which at first seem very simple, but which in
actuality are not simple at all. We have to work
with these ideas. In 1819 Goethe wrote the
following in an article entitled Sight from a
Subjective Point of View:
I have the gift that when I shut my eyes and
lower my head and think of a flower in the
center of my organ of seeing, the image does
not remain in its first form for a moment;
rather does the form fall apart. From its
innermost aspect new flowers develop, also
with green leaves. These are not natural
flowers but fantasy flowerslike the forms
of rosettes created by a sculptor. It was
impossible to fix the fountain-like creation in
a static position. The process lasted as long
as I wanted it to last. It did not fade nor did it
intensify.
Christopher Frye offers a similar picture
in The Ladys Not for Burning when he
refers to seeds and says, I hold in my hand a
generation of roses. The seed is the involution,
the future flower the evolution; one is the
contraction, the other is the expansion. Here
we have karmic situation and karmic response.
But not everything in life is the result of karmic
necessity. Rudolf Steiner says, Create out of the
nothing. This pertains to the power of fantasy,
this pertains to the shaping of the future.
Werner Glas
The model for our physical body was begun
on Ancient Saturn, but it must also be reworked.
Added to it has been the model of the etheric
body of the Christ. Rudolf Steiner said that
between the 12th and 15th centuries, the model
of the astral body of Jesus also became available
for a number of incarnating human souls such as
Francis of Assisi.
Now there is a renewal of all that which
carries the I. Christianity has reached the
point where it can go from the ordinary I, the
walking, talking, thinking I, to the Pauline I,
where we can say, Not I but the Christ in me.
The Religion of the Young Child
Elisabeth Moore-Haas
From the North American Kindergarten Conference, August 1989
Elisabeth said she asked some American
early childhood students what earliest memories
they had of childhood. One student reported
having seen a dog lying dead under an outside
staircase. The boy was not supposed to see it, but
he went out and saw the dog. Later the dog was
gone. The child crept under the staircase, then
lay down and imitated the dog in death. He felt,
Oh, this is good. He was about three years old.
It felt natural to him to experience the gesture of
the dog.
Another example was also given of children
living in imitation. At one time in Switzerland,
there were many Italian construction workers.
Some of the children in her kindergarten would
imitate them in play. A new child entered
the kindergarten and after a time came to
Elisabeth in tears: I cant play with them! I dont
understand what they are saying. They speak
Italian.
59
Continuing the Work of the Hierarchies
Inasmuch as we stimulate the forces of fantasy
in the young child, later, when the consciousness
soul develops, this step becomes possible. Rudolf
Steiner has said that joy in the first seven years is
the basis for the consciousness soul. The forces
of fantasy can transform one and enable one to
overcome egotism.
When Rudolf Steiner gave the Teachers
Imagination, he gave the image of the chalice
of courage. It is Michael who brings to us
the courage which we need to overcome the
materialism of the age.
On another occasion a boy brought an apple
for his snack, but did not eat it. Instead he was
spinning it slowly around staring at it. At last she
asked him, Will you eat your apple now? He
looked anxiously at her and said, I cant. It has
vitamins inside it.
In these examples, the first child lived in
the religion of the young child, but not the
other two. It was the first who lived deeply into
imitation, into the being of another.
When speaking about the incarnating ego of
the child, Rudolf Steiner described the process in
this way:
Out of the spiritual worldson spiritual
wings, as it werethere comes mans ego.
Observing first the child in the early years
of his lifehow he develops, how step by
step from inner depths the physiognomy
emergesto the surface of the body, how
the child acquires more and more control
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
over his organismwe see in this process
essentially the incorporation of the ego.
The organizing principle in the physical
body emerges with the change of teeth,
becomes emancipated at this time, and in the
main constitutes the intelligence. (Balance in
Teaching, Sept. 22, 1920, or Understanding
Young Children, page 51)
We hear a lot about the dreamy child.
What does this mean? It is not that the
child is daydreaming. Rather it is a state of
consciousness such as grown-ups have when
they are dreaming during sleep. The childs
astral forces and ego are expanded. The ego is
observing the child. It is not yet incarnated or
incorporated into the body.
When the very young child draws, he is
sometimes amazed to see lines on the paper.
He doesnt connect his movement with what is
appearing on the paper. Only gradually does the
child connect his actions with the outcomes. A
very young baby looks at us but looks above us.
It does not make eye contact with us at first. The
infant gives itself up to the atmosphere around
it. We experience this, for example, in the lovely
special aroma of a young baby. If we dont rush
the baby down to earth, then it can live in this
atmosphere and gradually enter the more earthly
realm.
Then comes a stage around age three when
the child says, No, I dont want to. She has
discovered something new, the possibility for
antipathy. In general the child until age 7 lives
in the forces of sympathy and is at one with the
world. But at times antipathy enters, though in
a non-moral way, for it is a standing back, a way
of looking at the world around onesimilar
to what happens later in life in reflecting or
thinking.
True motivation arises out of sympathy. For
a grown-up person, it may be a duty we have
60
chosen or an inner commitment. The moment
you expect the child to do something for you,
however, he may rebel and misbehave. From this
we can learn how to meet the childs true needs.
There should be no expectations in regard to
young children. An example: A teacher prepared
a festival and did everything very well, but the
children acted up and did not behave the way
she wanted them to, because they felt pressed
by her expectations. What is needed is a non-
intentional approach towards the child.
This is true for working with our colleagues,
too, for example, regarding how they paint with
their children or whether or not they use plant
dyes. It is best not to have such expectations.
In this sense give up on the other. Let them
be. Then one can work freely with the other.
We need to be in a state of sympathy with the
children or with our colleagues. Then we can
create something in the social realm. There is
never only one way. There are as many ways as
there are kindergarten teachers! We cant copy
one another. We can digest what we see and hear
and then come to our own way, which may turn
out quite similar, but we have worked it through
ourselves. Rudolf Steiner visited a school with
parallel classes where the two teachers did things
very differently. Thats how it should be, he said.
Each one must do it differently.
To decide what is right, you have to look at
your particular situation. With young children
you cannot try many different ways to do
something. Out of intuition you must choose
one that you think will fit this situation. For
example, there was a kindergarten in Switzerland
where all the children arrived by school bus at
the same time. On the bus were older children,
and when the kindergarten children entered
their kindergarten room they were unable to
play or imitate at first. They were too agitated.
The teacher therefore decided to begin each day
with a little table play. The children would enter
Elisabeth Moore-Haas
a darkened room, a candle was lit and the little
play was performed. This worked for this class. It
takes a true intuition to find the right solution to
such a problem. Not just anything will do.
For the child, being able to play requires
being in a state of sympathy. As adults we stand
back from a beautiful sight and admire it. But
the child has to enter right in and touch the
thing. Elisabeth remembers as a third grader
going to the mountains with her parents. They
raved about the far-off snowy peaks, but she
was only interested in seeing the flowers, the
bees and the stones, the things nearby which
she could embrace. She didnt even see the
mountains. In adults, however, if this force
of sympathy becomes too great, it can be a
problem. A best selling book, Women Who Love
Too Much, describes one aspect of this problem.
Being in sympathy means being able to take
in everything that is moving, that has a gesture.
This is the realm where imitation lives. It matters
what living images are rendered to the children.
When we do a harvest circle with the children,
for example, we try to show the child what the
farmer actually does. Is this really what the child
needs? Is this not a hidden teaching, especially
if you go out and look at the farmers doing it
and try to duplicate their gestures. This is a
materialistic approach to education. We should
look instead to the inner gesture of the activity.
What really lives in the process? For example,
in milling there is the archetypal gesture of two
surfaces grinding against each other, which
we can show by the palms moving round and
round each other in a mill-like gesture without
touching. There is a similarity to the eurythmy
gesture for M, for that is the inner essence
of the gesture. In this way we do not make the
gestures too physical such as would occur if we
would show a turning handle of a hand mill. The
child lives in the inner gesture. We dont want to
force the childs ego in. We would like to create
the right conditions for it to incorporate itself.
61
The Religion of the Young Child
The word religion comes from the Latin
religio, which means to reconnect. Rudolf
Steiner says the religious mood of the young
child is meant in a bodily, physical way, unlike
the religious experience of an adult. All that
lives in the childs environment influences the
childs circulation, breathing, etc. The child
is at one with the world, giving itself over to
its environment, and that is the religion of
the child. Therefore, we need to prepare the
environment so that the children are able to
give themselves up to it. All that we think or feel
or do affects the child. If all of this is done in a
healthy way, then the young child does not need
religion per se. The child is already there in
religion.
But, of course, the child becomes more
distant from the environment, and rhythm
becomes necessary to enable the child to live
into the environment. Where theres life, there is
rhythm. Rhythm serves as a bridge between the
heavenly and the physical. For the child, rhythm
in life can lead him towards the healthy dream
consciousness, which expresses itself often in
liveliness (not hyperactivity), in creative play
rather than in a dull brooding.
What about the mood of the fifth? It is
different from what is called pentatonic music.
Some people mistakenly think it is a spaced
out music. Rudolf Steiner describes it very
clearly. It is a type of music which helps a child
to incarnate gently. With such music, as well as
inner gestures, a healthy environment, and a
sound rhythm, we create an oasis for children
where they feel at home and which will help
them love to incarnate. Such an experience
serves as a healthy, homeopathic dose to balance
some of the awakening influences of our time.
Doing curative eurythmy for only three minutes
a day can bring about healing in an adult. Then
imagine what strengthening and healing can
occur in a healthy kindergarten day of four
hours.
The Young Child and the Spiritual World

Rudolf Steiner also said that children should
enjoy life and take pleasure in it. This is not the
time to be ascetic. If as a young child, a person
has nothing which belongs to him, not even love,
how can he be a giving person in adulthood?
There is a natural egotism in childhood which is
appropriate.
When we intellectualize and give
explanations, we are cutting off the childs
religion. Then the child is awakened earlier
and perhaps afraid, such as the little boy with
the apple who could not eat it because he was
thinking of the vitamins it contained (for him
probably a kind of ghost). The situation of the
little boy who could not play with his classmates
for he thought they were speaking Italian is
similar. The child could not dive in.
As teachers we must be careful that we
do not use the children as a substitute for
something we are missing, and we should not
want their love. We should be happiest when the
children are completely absorbed in their play.
Then they are deeply content.
In imitation, the child takes in the quality of
everything we do. She absorbs our ambitions,
our intentions, our quiet enthusiasm. Rudolf
Steiner says we should be actively thinking
when we are with childrenthis allows children
to be in a dream consciousness. It is not we who
are to be dreaming; we are to be active in our
thinking. The more we as grown-ups achieve
wakeful consciousness, the more the children
can have a dream consciousness.
All of this calls for a certain selflessness
on the part of the adult. In addition to an
appropriate atmosphere in the early childhood
room and in our carrying of ourselves, the
religion of the young child can also be
helped by the clothing we wear. The image that
mankind was once in paradise is equal to the
religion of the young child. It means being
united with the spiritual world, being at one.
After eating the apple, we humans entered a
much more materialistic state of consciousness.
We could no longer see the human being veiled
in the colors of the astral body. But the child still
feels at home with clothes which are a picture of
the spiritual, rather than pants or jeans which
point to the physical, namely to the form of the
skeleton. There are teachers who may wear jeans
or pants out on the street and then change to
more appropriate clothes for the early childhood
surroundings. We need to dress in such a way
that the child feels comfortable and at home
with our clothing.
We affect the children in so many ways. Our
morality and our thoughts permeate even the
childs sheaths. Rudolf Steiner said that children
could behave like little demons. How to drive
these demons out? By behaving in an appropriate
way in the childs environment. Steiner said
that we should make the same impression on
the child as his own arm makes. We should
be like an extension of his own body. Then we
are not imposing ourselves on him or forcing
something. Education throughout life is self-
education. (Rudolf Steiner)
In a lecture on the self-education of the
human being in the light of spiritual science
given in Berlin on March 14, 1912 (not
translated into English), Rudolf Steiner said the
following:
If we speak of an extended self in each
of us through which we can enter into
other individualities (in sympathy or in
sharing joy, for example), then, with the
developing child we can also begin to speak
of something else which is present beyond
that which we usually consider as educators
and which develops out of the ordinary
consciousness, namely the presence of a
higher being which is present outside the
childs usual self and which is already at work

62
Elisabeth Moore-Haas
on the child. Where can we find that which
is already actively working on the child as a
higher self, as a higher entity which belongs
to the child but does not enter the childs
consciousness? It may seem peculiar but it is
nevertheless correct that the entity is active
in the child during rational well-guided play.
We can only create an environment which
facilitates the play of the child. What is
actually achieved through play, is essentially
accomplished through the self-initiated
activity of the child, through everything
which cannot be regulated by us through
strict rules. Indeed, this is the essential
aspect, the educational aspect of play, that we
cease with our rules, with our pedagogical
artistry and educational techniques, and give
the child over to his own forces. For what
does the child do when we give him over
to his own forces? The child then explores,
by playing with physical objects, whether
this or that works through his own activity.
He brings his own will into activity, into
movement. And through the manner in
which these physical objects behave under
the influence of his will, it comes about
that the child educates himself through
life itself, even if this takes place playfully
in a completely different manner than
through the influence of a personality or a
pedagogical principle.
It is therefore of the greatest importance that
we interfere as little as possible in the play
of the child. Thus if we give the child a toy
with which he can, through pulling strings
or in some other way, receive the illusion of
the movements of the human beings or of
objects, whether through a movable picture
book or some other toy, we educate the child
better through such play than if we were to
give him building blocks. Too much rational
activity is intermingled, and this belongs to
63
The Religion of the Young Child
a more personal principle than the playful
tapping around with the living, moving
element which is not grasped conceptually
but is simply observed in its full activity. The
less thought-through and predetermined
this, which a game or toy reveals, is, the
better; because it then becomes possible for
something higher, which cannot be forced
into human consciousness, to enter, because
the child is exploring and is not relating to
life in a rational, intellectual way. And then
we can see how the child is already being
educated by something that transcends the
personal.
The higher self of the child can come in if
we can provide the appropriate environment.
This is education towards freedom. Then within
the morning we can offer a little ritual in a
homeopathic dose such as a verse of Rudolf
Steiners. These special moments might create
an atmosphere into which the hierarchies may
waken.
QUESTIONS
Could you say more about religion in our time
and in the future? Also, is it still appropriate
to do a shepherds play with the children? Is
it right to have the Sistine Madonna in the
kindergarten?
Sometimes we find ourselves doing things
in the kindergarten which seem very religious,
and we must realize that we are doing these
things for ourselves, as adults. We are reminding
ourselves of the background of the festivals and
their religious content. At such times we are
not doing things with the childrens needs in
mind. Between the ages of 7 and 14 children live
in the world of feeling and religion is more
appropriate to them. But the first seven years are
a time of doing. Sometimes our kindergartens
appear overly Christian in a sectarian way. We
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
also must consider what lives in the culture
where the school is located.
Rudolf Steiner has said that in the future
we will be connected to the spiritual world,
but, unlike the child, we will be connected
consciously. Then we will not feel the need for
re-ligio, for reconnecting, for we will already
be connected. We havent reached this stage
yet, however. Young people are sensitive to the
exclusive aspect of religion and wish to open to
all. Rudolf Steiner has said that each religion is
an aspect of the whole. When we study religion
more deeply, we can see that true Christianity
is not restricted to one place or one people, and
it is, in its essence, a non-denominational and
all-inclusive religion. The Christ being is of a
cosmic, universal nature. When we have this in
mind we can say that Christianity has a central
place in Waldorf education, but not in a narrow
sectarian sense.
We dont yet have true freedom of religion,
though younger people are straining towards
this.
Regarding the Sistine Madonna, we must
realize that we do not hang this painting in the
kindergarten for religious reasons. We should
study what Rudolf Steiner has said about
Raphael and about this painting. We need to
understand what it says about incarnation, about
the soul carrying the spirit into incarnation. It
is important, however, that we treat the painting
with modesty. It should not give the impression
of an altar or a shrine. It does not need to be
draped with cloth. Its presence should not be
exaggerated, and it should not carry a quality of
sentimentality. This would be as inappropriate
as saying a verse sentimentally with young
children.
When we say a verse or a prayer with the
children, we might not use gestures. As much as
we otherwise try to include movement in early
64
childhood whenever we can, the verse works in a
different realm. We should look cheerfully at the
children while saying the verse. Our eyes should
not be closed in a mood of inwardness. That
is not appropriate with young children. If one
finds that the snack verse becomes too routine
for the children, one may occasionally speak a
verse by Rudolf Steiner which is generally more
appropriate for adults.
In preparing for a festival, study a festival
lecture very carefully. When you are carrying
the festival inwardly, you do not have to do
so much outwardly with the children. For
example, at Michaelmas time, Elisabeth liked
to do a modest marionette play of St. George
and the dragon which included Michael. For
her, Michaelmas was a more inwardly rich
festival than Christmas. It is our inner work that
prepares this. If it lives in the teacher, the festival
may become more elaborate. It wont hurt the
children as long as you dont explain.
Could you say more about active thinking?
Learn to observe how imitation works, how
it lives in the quality of movement. When the
teacher acts, the child takes in the quality, the
morality of how the person moves. It does not
necessarily happen that the children do the same
thing that the teacher does, but rather that the
quality of the teachers activity is brought by
the children into what they do. The quality of
our thinking, striving towards the spiritual will
express itself in the finest ways of our demeanor.
For the adult, being Michaelic means being
conscious, being awake. But for the young child,
awakeness is not appropriate. For children to
grow properly into awakeness, they must first
sleep properly. But children benefit from our
awakeness. Rudolf Steiner has said that if we
work towards the Knowledge of Higher Worlds,
for instance, that is life force for the children.
Elisabeth Moore-Haas The Religion of the Young Child

The childs etheric realm is attacked by the do not need to say, This little dwarf needs to go
media. Since Waldorf education keeps children to bed now at cleanup time. We hand the child
soft, they are more damaged by the media a log to put away, but dont watch to be sure that
than children who are not in Waldorf schools. he does it, for that would be too intentional.
We take on a heavy karma if we dont get our
The word cleanup is taboo. It is so abused
courage up to take a stand about TV. But we
at home that it has a bad connotation for the
must do this not out of dogmatism; we have to
children.
do our homework and study about the effects of
TV on children. There are many books on this
Could you say more about the mood of the
subject by non-anthroposophic authors, which
fifth?
we ought to study in order to include scientific
research and speak the language of our time. There is more music in the mood of the
fifth becoming available. A Swiss woman, Helga
Is discipline too awakening? Oberlnder, has helped to create four seasonal
books of mood of the fifth songs. Young children
It all depends upon how it is done. We
do not need the personal, more inward soul
must act on the childs behalf. When they are
mood of minor or major music. Mood of the
acting up they are not always tuning their
fifth music strives to live in the middle, not
instruments (the physical body) in a healthy
going strongly towards major or minor. It does
way. Children are often already damaged and
not just go up and down the pentatonic scale. It
they need healing. We accomplish this, however,
always dissolves into the fifth.
through deeds rather than through words. We

How Can We Work with the Karma of the Young Child?

Margret Meyerkort
Revised for the second edition by Margret Meyerkort

The title of this mornings lecture is in the 1. To remind ourselves of what karma is.
form of a question. The subject is new to me and
2. To look at the karma of becoming an earthly
so I can only be tentative.
human being.
I understand that it was Steiners innermost
3. To look at the karma of being modern.
intention to awaken contemporary people to a
Western and modern point of view of karma. 4. To look at personal karma.
Therefore it is my intention, indeed my hopein
What is karma? Karma is the realization of
spite of the mood of questioningto further our
my prenatal resolutions made in the presence
own interest in the mystery of karma, or much
and with the help of creator beings. These
more, the majesty of karma. I propose to go in
resolutions shape my outer appearance, my
four steps:
color, my movements, the language which I
speak, the people I meet, my profession, my race,
my country, etc.

65
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
Here is a story from life. Jack had a student
friend Ann. Jack knew Anns older sister Jill. She
lived by herself and preferred the company of
people who were in their forties. Jack had seen
her once or twice at a students gathering. Then
came a New Years Eve Party and Jack asked Jill
if she would go with him. She was undecided
because she had agreed to go out with Peter.
Then Peter rang and was lukewarm about going
out at all this evening. Okay, Peter, dont bother
to fetch me, said Jill and went out with Jack. The
party was boring and together with some friends
they went to another party. This one spilled over
the large apartment. In the course of the evening
Jack passed through a dark corridor and there
on a sofa lay Jill. He sat down by her. Later on
they kissed. After an hour he took Jill to her bus
and he walked home. He wondered what this
experienced woman had felt, what was in store
for him next time they met. But she realized
that her life had taken a decisive turn and she
would never like to be without him. A few years
later they married and Jill became a dependent
partner, who was reluctant to stand on her own
two feet.
What do such stories show us? Jack and
Jill took steps independently of each other and
with entirely different motivations. A number of
other people were involved in the final outcome.
Peter was not keen to go out. The first party was
boring. The second party provided the darkened
room. Jill felt tired. None of the participants
had the slightest idea that they helped to shape
the future of two people, not even the people
involved. Jack and Jill could say that karma
works gently, and yet sometimes there is an
unbelievable push. Karma weaves without the
participants discernment. It is imperceptibly
active and we have to cope in such a situation.
I repeatthis is the reality of karmasuddenly
I am in an unforeseen situation and now I have
to cope.
66
After our birth we are formed and
transformed from two sides. One is that
karmic forces work out of the cosmos into
human existence as such and into our uniquely
individual incarnation. Equally, we are formed
by the empathetic effects which parents and
teachers have on us and the empathetic effects
the whole physical surroundings have on us.
Here is another story: After World War
II, a young Hungarian woman escaped to the
West. She married and had a little boy. Three
years later the young mother died of cancer. The
father was desperate with grief. Why? How
can I go on? What for? John was four years old
when father and son traveled by car through the
country.
Look, Daddy, Whats that?
Thats a pine tree.
Theres another pine tree.
No, thats a beech tree.
Why, Daddy?
The wind has different names. In one
country the wind is called Maria, in another
Mistral. And so the trees have different names
oak tree, beech tree, pine tree.
Silence. And then John said, And John and
Daddy and all people have one name.
And what is that?
Jesus.
What spoke through the child? Was it a
cosmic force which is common in all human
beings to live, grow, and develop? Or did the
child, through the empathetic interweaving with
his physical surroundings react in this way to the
fathers sorrow?
My second point is that we all go through a
karmic process of a human incarnation where
Margret Meyerkort
cosmic and earthly forces interweave. We all, I
believe, are sensitive to our physical body. We
appreciate its beauty and sensitivity, its strength
and versatility. But many of us also agree that
in our age we experience an assault on this
instrument of our physical existence.
In his book, An Outline of Occult Science,
Rudolf Steiner describes how during the
incarnation of the Earth called Old Saturn,
the physical body of the human being was laid
down. It was shaped in such a way that it could
be the vehicle for perceiving the Earth and
for bearing the Ego. Later, in a lecture given
in 1908, Steiner calls this structural system
with its bones, muscles and nerves, and this
physiological system with breath, blood, glands
and metabolism The Name of Man.
Let us look at the Name of Man from the
point of view of the structural system. What was
it that was laid into it? Functions like the lifting
of the head, the lifting of the trunk, crawling, the
upright position, walking. At first it is a struggle
to gain physical equilibrium, to acquire a free
and freed orientation. Gradually the human
being learns to control his movements and attain
a balanced position between heaven and earth.
This struggle for the upright position in space is
at the same time the beginning of an endeavor
which lasts a lifetime.
It is of help to consider first the peculiar
relationship in the human being of his legs
and feet to that of his arms and hands. The feet
continue to serve the movement of the body in
space, while arms and hands are liberated from
this function and are there to serve the inner life
of the human being. They afford the possibility
for the soul to find its equilibrium. Thus, we may
say: What was laid into the upright position of
the human being was freedom.
This is the karmic potential with which we
are born. In other words what is common to
67
The Karma of the Young Child
all mankind is that when we incarnate, each
time we breathe in The Signature of the Gods,
we listen to the Name of Man as it has been
laid into our structure. The karmic potential is
to develop and to make sound forth anew the
Name of Manthe bearer of freedom.
To the teachers of the first Waldorf School,
Steiner said, It is your task to continue the work
of the creator beings. With regard to our present
consideration this means that it is the task of the
human community to see to it that the structural
system of which we spoke can be a faithful
image of the plan, of the love, and of the work of
the divinities. Then, later on, the personal karma
of the human being can enter this physical
organization.
Now, each time the human being incarnates,
she does so into a time situation of her particular
environment, into a specific age. So she finds
then and there a given situation. What is this
today? Among many things we have today
are trampolines and skating boards for young
children and bouncers for babies. Do these
gadgets allow the young child to find her
equilibrium in space or do they disturb the
postural system and thereby interfere with the
karma of the child?
If they interfere we may ask ourselves, has
the child the opportunity to develop a steady
walk, a sturdy walk through mud, across brooks
and pebbles, through snow, across ice? Do
we offer our little ones opportunities to refine
bodily movements by climbing, falling, jumping
over puddles, crouching under fences? Do we
offer opportunities to refine arm movements,
hand movements and finger movements in
sweeping and shoe polishing, in sewing and
tying a bow? These and many more fine motor
skill movements build the physical body for a
balanced position in spaceand in turn build
the foundation for the development of language.
The Young Child and the Spiritual World

Let us take a brief look at the development child as I try and remove their obstacles. If
of language. Again, the creator beings have laid I make the needs of the parent and child my
a seed into the human beingthe possibility to own, the potential of communicating through
communicate through language, the possibility language gently unfold.
to speak. In this karma we share. More than that,
I have already touched upon one feature
for the actual acquisition of language we all need
of my third point. But the karma of being
the community of human speakers. This means
modern is much greater.
that if language is really to come about on earth,
we each require a social component. In this In as much as a soul incarnates into an age,
need of the child and this response of the adult, she tries to unite herself with the meaning of
human beings the world over share. the age, the spirit of that age, so that she may
live out of the forces of that particular Time
How does this look in our modern age? Do
Spirit. Thereby she may grow, serve, and develop
we encounter attacks in this realm too? What
her fellow human beings and the Earth. To
happens when babies are laid on their tummies
be modern poses then the following question:
and there is no communication between child
How can a soul within the ongoing stream of
and adult? What kind of language is it which
time intuit the intentions of creator beings, and
the child hears by way of technical devices? Is it
how can she, within the ongoing stream of time,
blunted? Is it dead? Surely, it is absolutely and
give shape and form to the intention of creator
totally impersonal.
beings?
How can we realize the potential of language,
The first part of the question is directed to
how can we continue this Signature of Creator
the world of the spirit and the second part of the
Beings? There are many ways. One is that we as
question is directed towards the physical world.
teachers must step up our work with the parents.
Steiner shows us that in 1879 mankind
Here is another story. Recently a therapist
entered a new age. It is the age which proceeds
working with a school told a parent and teacher,
under the guidance of the creator being Michael.
that, Tom should never have been admitted
As students of Steiners we may ask, why might
into this kindergarten because of his speech
a soul choose to incarnate into this century in
difficulties. Maybe! But another consideration
the western world? What might a soul wish
would have been, creator beings interweave
to develop, indeed need to develop in this
gently with our karma, and in as much as we are
Michaelic Age?
co-workers of creator beings does it not behoove
us to develop a sensitive (or respectful) manner Steiner tells us that one of the faculties which
of working? Can we not step up our work so each of us can acquire under the guidance of
that it helps us to recognize bothkarma as a Michael is self-reliance. It is to grow into an
fact and also the manner of karmic activity? In autonomous personality, a person who can take
other words, it is one thing to tell a parent that responsibility for her actions herself.
statistics have shown that the crop of todays
Our forefathers were dependent on what
speech difficulties is no longer hereditary but is
the church said, on the laws which the chieftain
due to human beings themselves who no longer
set, on the code of behavior which the family
speak to their offspring. But it is an entirely
or nation prescribed. In those times the human
different thing to interweave with this particular
being lived without any question within the
parent and to empathize with this particular

68
Margret Meyerkort
blood community: Uphold the name of the
family, continue the profession of the father or
be an outcast.
To some extent this was still so with the
adults in Steiners time because they had
incarnated before 1879, i.e., into a Gabrielic
Age. This meant that these people largely lived
by rules of behavior, and this in turn meant that
they gave their own children an authoritarian
education. I remember the stories my own
parents, born in 1898 and 1903, i.e., into a
Michaelic Age, told us childrenstories of
enormous tensions in their homes, tensions
between themselves as children of a Michaelic
Age and their parents, souls of a Gabrielic Age.
Through these tensions a strengthening of the
soul forces occurred. Of course, the opposite
could also occur, a crushing of the personality,
and often it did occur.
And how is this today? We are in the
situation that the little ones we have in the
kindergarten are the third or fourth generation
of souls who were born in the Age of Michael.
Their parents and their grandparents already
incarnated with this longing to grow self-
reliant. Is this why we adults since the middle
of this century have become increasingly anti-
authoritarian in our approach to children?
Maybe. What is definite for me is that a society
which is anti-authoritarian has sapped the
childrens strength.
How is that possible? Ours is a permissive
societyTake out of the icebox what you want,
or in answer to Sallys Im not going to bed,
Okay, then.a society in which we adults
constantly cave in when the child whimpers, I
want ballet lessons, or Im not going to paint.
This disallows the child to meet the realities of
existence; it disallows the child to relate to his
surroundings. Instead, the child dissipates his
forces.
69
The Karma of the Young Child
But to be a parent and teacher of the young
child, in a Michaelic or Gabrielic or whatever
age, means to set boundaries for the child.
Boundaries give safety, security, assurance,
confidenceall of which the young child needs
above all else.
Yet, the quality of the boundary which we
set in this Michaelic Age has to be different from
the quality of the boundary set in a Gabrielic
Age. Today the setting of boundaries has to
come out of the individual consciousness of each
adult and no longer from tradition, not from the
guidelines of a particular group of people.
This is difficult. Is it not easier for us
either to give Sam a free rein and let him be
his own master, or to sit on him? Instead, to
be truly modern adults means that we learn
to discriminate what our priorities are and so
decide for the children.
Of course this is a challenge, in that I,
the teacher make blunder after blunder. But
firstly I have Steiners insights to help me
and he repeatedly stresses the importance of a
rhythmical life, a rhythmical educationand
secondly, I sooner or later begin to feel that the
other side of this challenge of self-reliance is
joythe joy of autonomy, the joy of carrying
responsibility.
One more word about the kind of boundary
the young child is looking for in this, his chosen
age of incarnation. It is that he needs boundaries
which gradually widen, boundaries which can be
supportive but not restrictive.
So, what does it mean for the young child
to live his karma of being modern? What does
it mean to be a member of the Michaelic Age
as a young child? It means in the first place to
find and develop courage and confidence in
himself. It means to find and develop confidence
in people and human existence, to find and
develop courage for the future. Both are born
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
out of boundaries consciously set by parents
and teachers. If a child was shaped and formed
in some such way by parents and teachers, then
in adulthood she is likely to have the strength
and skillsphysical, social and moral strength
and skillsto shape and form life on her own
responsibility.
Before I come to the question of the personal
karma of the young child, I want to turn to the
parent. Again a story: A young woman was in
the fifth month of expecting her second child.
This is a very different pregnancy. It is all fiery.
The other one was watery. And the little one was
born on Midsummer Day.
This and other stories can convey to us
that there is a relationship between mother
and child during pregnancy. Steiner describes
the following: When the Ego is in the spirit-
world and is face to face with creator beings,
the Ego also decides who are to be the parents.
Then the parents descend. Later the spirit-
child sees the parents and is reminded of the
three-way decision and conception takes place.
Steiner describesand modern psychology
and embryology give concrete examples
how during embryonic life the mother is in
communication with the incarnating soul. She
perceives something of the child, e.g., the name:
Its going to be Robert. Steiner speaks of a
spirit bonding which takes place. Still later, but
before birth, the spirit-child has a preview of
his life and the mother shares in it. When I read
the autobiography of Gerald Moore, the pianist
and accompanist of all the great singers of his
time, I wondered why his mother had given him
a certain push into his career. Had there arisen
and lived in her a broad outline of the childs
destiny?
That the mother intuits the childs karma
can arouse positive or negative feelings in her.
What if they are negative? Can it be that during
the years preceding the arrival of the child
70
the parents did not shape and form their lives
consciously? The mother says, What, I am
housebound? I never expected that.
The father says, What, I have to be up in
the night? I never expected that. And is the
following another form of immaturity of the
parent, when the child can never do anything
right, when the parents always appear to be
dissatisfied? There seems to be a conflict, the
conflict of what the parents want the child to be
and what the child in reality is. And what if this
goes further and the parent does not approve of
the childs destiny?
A conversation might help, when I, a friend
of the family, try and lift the parent out of
experiencing a screaming child. I try and release
the mother from experiencing defiance, and
again defiance. I shall try to interest her in her
early experience: How did you feel when Richard
smiled at you for the first time? Then I might try
to go back to still earlier experiences: How did
you come to the name of the child? What did
you experience during pregnancy, what thoughts
did you have? Gently, we try to recognize the
intimacy of the soul to soul in pregnancy. This
re-cognition aims at a kind of listening.
I have come to the last point: The personal
karma. Two stories: Marie was four years old
when she came into the kindergarten. From
the first day she showed intense fear of the
very mention of lighting a candle. The teacher
ascertained from the parents that the child had
never experienced a fire and that she had always
been healthy. She had a noticeably milky-white
and velvety skin and showed a remarkable
walk in that she neither dragged her feet upon
the ground nor walked on her toes only. There
seemed to be a certain balance between gravity
and levity in posture and movements. She was
loved by children and adults and provided a
focus in the room wherever she happened to be.
Both parents had not learned a second language
Margret Meyerkort
and not been outside England. But when this
first child was born they said, We want her to
have a French name. And so the little one was
named Marie.
It took teachers with the help of the parents
over four year to transform Maries crying and
running away at the sight of the smallest flame
into weeping, whimpering, turning her head,
and, on into looking at the candle, smiling.
Today Marie is an actress. She chose a profession
which asks of the person to enflame other
personalities, to kindle and enliven other lives.
Rachel was four years old when she came
into the kindergarten. She was the third child
in her family and came from a sheltered home
in the country. Her eyes were set wide apart. In
the kindergarten Rachel watched other children
play, or she built herself a house out of two play
stands and hung cloths over them, and then
walked away, again to watch other children in
their activity. After about two weeks teacher and
parent noticed Rachel move her eyes and head
in an unusual way. The family doctor diagnosed
petit mal. We agreed on a pedagogical therapy
singing and music around and with the child,
and also interesting her in an indirect way in the
house she had built during playtime.
By the time Rachel left school at the age of
18, she was an accomplished viola player who
got into the Royal College of Music in London.
Today she is working as a music therapist.
At this point I want to remind us of another
suggestion of Steiners. In fact for me it is an
admonition, and that is: Do not interfere with
the will of the child. Why? Because in his will,
in his unconscious, lies his karma and because in
karma freedom must reign.
Is the formerly mentioned statement of
Steiners, The teacher continues the work of the
creator beings, compatible with this statement,
Do not interfere with the will of the child?
71
The Karma of the Young Child
I suggest the two statements are compatible
because I must not interfere with the will of
the child, must not break his will, as so often
happened in the last century. It behooves me
to recognize the karmic intentions of the child.
Once I have recognized them, I can consciously
work for karma. Then the teacher becomes a
person who removes obstacles, and who creates
opportunities so that the karmic intentions of
the child can come out to the fullest degree.
Let me summarize a few guidelines and
practices. I like to call them the disciplines of
those adults who are intent on helping the child
out of his past and into his future:
1. That we be observant of bodily features
2. That we be observant of developmental
features
3. That we be observant of psychological
peculiarities
4. We do well to study Steiners karma lectures
5. We do well to become aware of human
history, to gauge the state of a soul like
Maries. I often wondered whether this
excessive fear of fire was not a subconscious
memory of her death in a former
incarnation.
And so to conclude: In education parent
and teacher are encouraged to make themselves
sensitive to karmic differences and to karmic
needs. Thereby we will be able to fulfill two
tasks:
1. We open the way for the young child to
become fully capable within the limits
of her/his karma.
2. We endeavor to educate human beings
who are capable of fulfilling the plan
of creator beings, capable of answering the
expectancy of Michael.
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
The following are summaries of three lectures given at the
1991 International Waldorf Kindergarten Teachers conference in Dornach.
Working with the Angels, the Archangels, and the Archai
Dr. Helmut von Kgelgen
Dr. von Kgelgen spoke on the human beings
relationship to the hierarchies at a conference in
Dornach. He referred to the study material for
the conference, a wonderful lecture about how
the archai, archangels and angels interact with
human beings through our walking, talking and
thinking. The lecture is entitled The Waking of
the Human Soul and the Forming of Destiny, and
was given by Rudolf Steiner in Prague on April
28, 1923.
In the first three years of life, before the
child is so engrossed in material life, she has
a close relationship with the angels. At night,
while asleep, the children meet their angels.
They dream of them or have other experiences
of them. As we grow up, the qualities of our
childhood mature and develop in us and can
evolve as imagination, inspiration and intuition.
We too, can relate to the angels. It generally
happens in our sleep, for it is such a remarkable
experience that we might be filled with fear were
these contacts to happen in our waking life.
Hence, in the Bible, when Gabriel visits Mary, he
begins by saying Fear not
In our waking state we can work in such a
way that our relationship to the spiritual world
is strengthened, both to the angels and to the
human souls who have died and are living in
the world of the spirit. This relationship can
manifest in our daily life in various ways. For
example, in the German language, when one
receives a sudden idea one says it is eingefallen,
it has fallen in. But what has fallen in and from
where has it fallen? This can be the work of the
72
angels, pouring their thoughts into mankind, or
it can be the help of those human souls who are
now in the spiritual world but wish to help us
and work with us.
The spiritual world is always there around
us, and we can work more consciously if we
note the transition as we move from the earthly
world to the spiritual world and vice versa. Thus
at night we can say as we enter sleep, Now I am
entering the spiritual world, and in the morning
as we awaken, we can say, Now I am entering
the earthly world.
We can also connect with the angelic world
during the moment before we walk into our
classroom. There can be a moment of absolute
silence before entering into our work. Our
hearts can quicken, and we can say a prayer. For
a moment one can think of the angels, or of a
friend who is now in the spiritual world. Then
one goes with a renewed strength into ones
work.
In working with the spiritual world, it is
important to work in a rhythm, and particularly
the rhythms of seven are a great help. For
example, one can work with the rhythm of seven
days or seven years or even seven minutes.
Seven months, however, would not be a true
rhythm. We are not yet so far along that we
can observe ourselves over a period of seven
lifetimes and work with that rhythm. In rhythms
of seven a new strength appears. We can work
with meditations in seven day rhythms such as
with the Foundation Stone Meditation. Rudolf
Steiner gave the Foundation Stone Meditation
Helmut von Kgelgen
as a whole but then showed how one can work
with it in seven-day rhythms. In this way one
connects with it more fully. If one is trying to
work with a number of verses or meditations,
such as the Foundation Stone, the Soul Calendar
and a verse for the dead, one can put them into
rhythms of seven. Thus, the verse for the dead
could be said each Saturday, rather than each
day.
When we work with these rhythms of seven,
the angels take notice of us. If, for example,
we have a sudden impulse to act, we can take
time and wait seven minutes before acting. We
may then feel that seven minutes is a very long
time, indeed. But in this quiet pause something
happens. Waiting these seven minutes gives the
angels a chance to notice us, to let something
fall into us. In this way we make time for the
angels to enter into our lives, and they wait for
us to do this. It is not magnificent revelations
from the angels which appear to us in this time,
but that the angels see us in this time. They can
perceive us only when we are prepared for this
to happen and give it time.
In 1919 Rudolf Steiner said that our century
is particularly important during the age of
the consciousness soul. It is a time when our
consciousness can open up to the realms of
nature and to the higher hierarchies. All of this
can happen in quite a new way. It happens now
that the angels no longer take an interest in the
form of man as they did in the past. How can we
bring the angel something in which he can take
an interest? In this time of the consciousness
soul, we must consciously work on ourselves
so that the angels can take an interest in us
again. We need to realize that every child,
every colleague, every parent is more than just
a physical being. Every one contains a spiritual
being, as well, which brings something with
it from previous earth lives. Recognizing the
spiritual nature of other human beings is a
73
Working with Angels, Archangels, and Archai
prerequisite for finding our connection to the
spiritual hierarchies.
Rudolf Steiner went on to say that we mustnt
overload ourselves with the rational thoughts
of the intellectual soul era which is now past.
We need to open up to the thoughts of the
consciousness soul, recognizing the living spirit
in each of us, recognizing our connection with
the hierarchies of the spiritual world. When
these thoughts are taken up by us with inner
strength, they can help us in our work with the
parents and in helping lead the children rightly
into their new lives on earth. In this context we
must realize that it is not our task to educate out
of state regulations, nor are we a program or
simply a method. In the highest sense we work
in accordance with the angels, the archangels
and the archai. It is these beings of the third
hierarchy who employ us, who give us our
work. They work with us as individuals, and
they work with us as a faculty. Their presence is
acknowledged in the Teachers Imagination used
by the College of Teachers in a school.
As Waldorf educators we work with these
beings of the third hierarchythe angels, the
archangels and the archaibut all humanity
has a new opportunity to work with them.
Since the fifteenth century we have been in
the age of the consciousness soul. It is an age
which will last over 2000 years, but Rudolf
Steiner indicated that the 20th century was
an especially important time for humanity to
lift up its awareness to the spiritual and begin
again to work consciously with the beings of
the heavenly world. One way to do this is to
include the angels in our planning for the next
day. In the evening we can not only review what
has happened during that day, we can preview
what is to come next for us. We can have a
conversation with our angel. Rudolf Steiner
said the angel would then grow interested in
what is coming. In the morning we should pay
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
attention to what has been said to us during the
night. It does not matter if we have forgotten
what was said during the night, however, for
the angel wont have forgotten it. When we need
the insight given, it returns to us at the right
moment. The angel leaves us free, but works
to help us, for example, to really understand
one another when in a conversation. Later our
thoughts may be filled with loving forces which
awoke in this conversation. This, too, is the work
of the angel.
A good exercise for preparing for this inner
work is to work on control of thinking so that
the mind does not jump all around. Rudolf
Steiner describes this exercise in several of his
books. Such self control in the realm of thinking
helps us to receive insights from the angels. We
may then suddenly experience that the angelic
beings give us the courage to do something
which we would not otherwise have had the
strength to do.
As teachers it is a help if we study the
biographies of individuals. In knowing the life
of another, one begins to see how the angels
worked into a human beings destiny, often in
most remarkable ways.
When we study the destinies of a nation or a
people, we can see the working of the archangels,
Walking and the Incarnation of Destiny
Joan Almon
In this lecture on walking, Joan Almon
began by describing what it is like to watch a
young toddler who is just beginning to walk.
Ones heart is warmed at the sight. The legs are
spread wide, the gait rolls a bit as the child seeks
balance. Theres many a bump as the child falls
down and rises again to its feet. We may also feel
a sense of wonder, for there are great mysteries
hidden in this seemingly simple deed.
74
for they guide the work of whole groups. They
guide the development of language, and the
spirit of a people is reflected in its language.
They also guide the development of language
in each individual. Thus it is important to
pay attention to speech, so that it is true and
beautiful. Our speech can be a fine work of art.
In the word lies the archetypal creativity. Rudolf
Steiner was always very careful about how he
spoke, even in his everyday exchanges. It is
especially important how we speak with young
children, for they are finding their way into
language. We speak to them in whole sentences,
and in the good, fine way of fairy tale language.
Speech itself can give courage, for it connects us
with the archangels, the spirits of time.
We can work with the beings of the third
hierarchy in so many different ways. As Waldorf
teachers we work with the Teachers Imagination
which refers to the angels, the archangels and the
archai. As individuals we can make space for the
relationship with the third hierarchy to develop.
At night, for a few seconds before sleep, we can
think: The angels, archangels and archai want
to help me in my daily work. In the morning
we can think of these beings again and remind
ourselves that they want to help us if only we are
open to receiving their help. In this way we find
the courage for our work.
If we look into the far past of mankinds
development and ask at what point did the
human being stand upright and walk, then
Rudolf Steiner points us to ancient Lemuria.
Before this, mankind moved in the horizontal
position like the animal kingdom does today. It
required the incarnation of the ego in the earth
stage of development for human beings to stand
upright. This was a great moment in evolution
Joan Almon
when mankind was ready to stand upright
and walk. Its implications for the destiny of
the human being were so great that it drew the
attention of Ahriman and Lucifer, who wished
to interfere with this important step in human
development. They would have loved to have
entered in at this moment, pulling mankind
so far down into the physical earthly nature,
that perhaps there would have been no full
uprightness; or, in Lucifers case, lifting mankind
above the earth so that our feet would not fully
touch the earth, our being not fully embrace
earthly incarnation. These were the two great
dangers which faced mankind as walking began.
Rudolf Steiner says in his lecture entitled The
Pre-Earthly Deeds of the Christ that a similar
threat arose from Ahriman and Lucifer when
mankind learned to speak in the early days of
Atlantis and when humanity learned to think in
the late days of Atlantis. Three great moments
in evolution and three great dangers. Steiner
goes on to say that each time the Christ Being
came to the aid of humanity. The same Being,
who later appeared in the body of Jesus, now
intervened on behalf of mankind but from the
spiritual heights, holding Ahriman and Lucifer
at bay, so that mankind could walk, could talk
and could think.
This protection by the Christ Being is
reenacted in the life of every individual. In the
first three years while the child masters walking,
talking and thinking the spiritual world gathers
around in protection. Ahriman and Lucifer are
held at bay. Thus when we see a young child take
her first steps we are right in feeling a sense of
joy and wonder, for there are great mysteries
which stand behind the outwardly simple deed
of walking.
Turning our sights away from the spiritual
history of mankind to the children before us,
we can see a series of stages. When we watch
the child gain mastery of her physical body in
75
Walking and the Incarnation of Destiny
the first year, we see a fascinating pattern of
development emerge. Emmi Pikler, a physician
who had a baby center in Hungary, did intensive
observation of children learning to walk and
wrote on this subject. Her books have not been
translated into English yet. She observed that
children all follow a basic pattern of movement
which eventually leads them towards crawling,
standing upright, walking, climbing, etc. The
young child should not be rushed or hindered in
the mastery of these movements.
Another active observer of the young
child was Joan Salter, an anthroposophical
nurse in Australia who founded the Gabriel
Baby Centre, a type of well-baby clinic. In her
book, The Incarnating Child, she describes
certain archetypal gestures she has observed
in childrens movement in the first year. From
early on, when the infant is on its back asleep,
its little arms stretch up on either side of its
head, looking like the first two little leaves which
spring from the stem of a sprouting plant. If the
child is ill, the little arms drop to the side like the
leaves of an ailing plant. One could say this is the
plant stage in human movement.
A next stage in movement is the fish stage
when the child lies on its tummy and lifts its
legs. Often the feet are together looking like a
fish tail. In a next stage the child lifts the legs but
also the upper chest and arms, so that it looks
like it is going to fly. This is the bird stage. In the
reptile stage, the child squirms across the floor
on its belly, and in the four-legged quadruped
stage, it rises on all fours and begins to crawl. At
last comes the human stage, when the child pulls
itself up onto two legs and begins to walk. It has
worked its way through the kingdoms of nature
into the human stage. In her book, Joan Salter
also likens these stages to the great geological
periods of the earth.
A third picture emerges from Karl Knigs
book, The First Three Years, where he speaks
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
of certain instincts in the infant for crawling,
standing upright and walking. These instincts
exist and can be activated by touching the feet in
certain ways. In this regard the infant resembles
the animal kingdom, for the newborn animals
have strong instincts for standing up and
walking. Many can do it in the first hours after
birth. In the human being, however, a different
process takes place. We do not master walking
out of instinct like the animals. We lose these
instincts by the time we are several months old
and then go through a process of learning to
walk. We are helped by the spiritual world in
the form of the archai who help us to walk. We
are helped by human beings through our gift
of imitating their capacity to walk. And we are
helped by the growing strength of the ego within
which wants to get up and walk, leaving the
realm of the animals behind.
The deed of walking has many aspects, and
each has implications for our whole life. To
begin with, walking requires the activation of
our will which is so closely related to our limbs.
The development of will is of special interest to
the kindergarten teacher and can be illustrated
with a series of examples. A six-month-old
named Gordon was observed over a period
of a month as he tried to turn from his back
to his stomach. Again and again and again he
worked at this until at last he accomplished
it. He never showed signs of frustration and
seemed undaunted by the hundreds of times he
failed to turn over. He kept trying until at last he
succeeded, and then began to work on the next
type of movement.
A similar focus of will was seen in a four-
and-a-half year old girl named Ivana. She came
to kindergarten one Monday and announced
that she could tie a bow. She demonstrated it
with great ease and skill. Her teacher wondered
how she had come to learn this complicated
task which is usually not mastered at such a
76
young age. The week before she had shown no
interest in tying bows at all. When the mother
was asked how this had come about, she laughed
and described Ivanas weekend. For two days
she pretended she was going to a birthday party
and folded up every bit of paper she could find
in the house. From her mothers yarn basket
she cut strings for wrapping up her birthday
packages. Again and again and again she tied
bows, making a total of perhaps 60 or 70 such
packages. It would have been terrible to have
assigned her such a task, but out of the spirit
of play and the power of her own will forces she
took it on for herself, bringing forth a skill which
was ready to be born.
As a next stage of development of the will
forces, a picture was given of a six-year-old boy
who built himself a car in the kindergarten and
now was trying to find a way to steer it. The car
was made of two stumps which had been turned
on their sides with a wide board lying across
them. If he straddled the board and pushed with
his feet he could make the car roll a bit, but he
could not steer it this way. On this particular day
he wanted to find a way to steer it and spent 45
minutes trying to tie a rope onto the stumps and
onto the board in such a way as to connect the
two and maneuver it. Again and again he tried
it, first one way and then another. At last he gave
up, and with a shrug dropped his rope and went
off to play with a friend. One felt he had learned
as much from a seeming failure as he would
have from a success. One day he would realize
that an axle and a drive shaft are needed for this
step, which a simple rope could not accomplish.
In the meantime, he had fully directed his will to
the task and seemed not at all frustrated by his
inability to make it work.
The same boy, not long after this, at a point
when he was showing strong signs of first grade
readiness, had the following conversation with
his teacher: She was churning butter and was
Joan Almon
at the point of paddling the butter to separate
off the butter milk. He was watching her and
noted that although the cream had been white
when it entered the churn, the butter was now
yellow. Why? he asked. The teacher told him
she did not know but had always wondered
about this change in color. Simply wondering
was not enough for him. He seemed to gather
up his will forces and direct them towards his
thinking. One could almost feel the wheels
of thought going around. He stood by the
teacher for several moments with a look of deep
concentration on his face. He then brightened
up and announced, I know why. You see, the
cream came from a cow and the cow ate grass
and the grass was green. Green is made up of
blue and yellow, and that is where the yellow
came from. Having concluded this he went
off to his next activity, leaving his teacher in
amazement.
Her amazement grew even deeper some time
later when she repeated this story to a group of
parents and one, who had milked many cows,
said, Hes absolutely right. In the summer when
the cows eat grass, the butter from their cream
is yellow, while in winter when they eat hay, the
butter turns white. This occurs because the grass
contains carotene, the same substance which
makes carrots orange. Many old-fashioned
farmers wives added natural yellow coloring to
their winter butter to give it a bright, summery
look. One finds a description of this process in
one of Laura Ingalls Wilders books.
When this story was told to a Waldorf
high school mathematics teacher, he remarked
that it is this same force of will in the thinking
which is so necessary for a student to do well in
math. One sees how some students have great
difficulties penetrating a problem with their
will forces, while others apply their will with
great success. Doing well in math is not only a
question of native ability. It is also a question
77
Walking and the Incarnation of Destiny
of directed, focused will in the thinking. Thus,
in this way, will evolves from the earliest
movements of infancy through the play of
childhood and takes its place in adult activity in
human thought.
Another aspect of walking is the upright
nature of the human being. We tend to take this
for granted, but it is a very significant step which
carries us out of the instinctual, animal realm
and into the human sphere. Yet many children
display a strong wish to remain in the animal
sphere in their kindergarten play. What should
one do for such a child? Some teachers forbid
all forms of animal play in the kindergarten in
order to help the children play out human roles.
Others allow all forms of animal play but often
complain of how wild the kindergarten becomes
and of how one feels the mood has sunken in
an unpleasant way. One way was described in
which the children may play animal roles, but
only domesticated animals, those who live in
relationship to human beings such as cats and
dogs or farm animals. Wild animals are for
outside, but outside the children usually forget
about them and do not engage in animal play.
When one allows animal play, then one needs
to observe the children who are drawn to it in
order to decide if it is a healthy stage of play
or whether a child is stuck in animal play and
needs help to emerge from it into human play.
Two examples were given.
In one, a five-year-old was described who
had a very strong stubborn streak in her.
She was unusually independent and at times
uncooperative. Because of this, it was difficult
to fully relate to her in the kindergarten. She
became ill with whooping cough and was home
for a month. When she returned she seemed
to have outgrown her extreme stubbornness.
She was in a sweeter place, though physically a
bit weak and vulnerable. Around this time she
began to take animal roles in a farm play which
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
the children repeated over a period of time.
She was usually a sheep or a cow and liked to
be near people who would care for her. When
this phase ended she rose to her feet again and
began to show much more care towards others.
The sweet side of her nature began to emerge
more and more, and her fierce independence
and stubbornness, which had often alienated
other children, was tempered by good will and
concern for others. In her case, playing animal
seemed to have been a temporary backward step
which did her much good.
In another case, however, a boy who was
always nervous and tense tended to play animal
roles nearly all the time. His animals tended not
to live closely with human beings, but were often
alone and sometimes rather wild. Out of himself
he rarely stayed on his feet in a human role for
the whole of play time. In this case it seemed
he was caught in the horizontal and needed
help to come more fully up into the vertical. The
teacher chose to intervene and would frequently
take him by the hand when he wanted to
engage in animal play and bring him to a work
activity or help him build a human house for
himself. Gradually he spent less and less time
as an animal and also became a much more
harmonious child. He was the child who, two
years later, gave the wonderful explanation about
the yellow butter. In his case, helping him move
away from animal play towards human play
seemed to have been a helpful and necessary
step.
Another aspect of walking is the freeing of
the hands. Once the child stands erect, he no
longer needs his hands for movement. What
does this signify for the human being? We speak
of animals or other lowly beings as creatures,
something less than human. Someone using
the full capacities of being human is a creator.
Similar sounding words but with such different
meanings. When the child stands upright and
78
has access to his hands, he leaves the world of
the creature and joins forces with the world
of the creator. A whole new element begins
to enter the human soul. For some children
this transition seems difficult. They enter the
kindergarten and look as if they do not know
what to do with their hands, which seem to
dangle lifelessly at their sides. Or they use their
hands to behave in animal-like ways, pinching
like a crab, scratching like a cat, hitting like a
bear. Their hands need to be brought up into
the human realm of creation. All kindergarten
children need to see the healthy work which
human hands can do, but such children may
need extra help to interest their hands in
creative, human activity. It is not only the
creative work of painting, drawing or modeling
which is necessary for the children, but the daily
work of table setting, dish washing, handwork,
etc., which helps children more fully experience
the realm of being human.
When our hands are freed, when they can
be lifted up high, something of the Divine enters
into us. An element of God the Creator becomes
awake in our being. In the Oberufer Christmas
plays at the end of the Paradise Play, this is said
beautifully when the Devils chains fall from
Adam and Eve, and Adam is free to raise up his
arms. Then God speaks and says:
See now, this Adam such wealth has won
Like to a God he is become,
Knowledge he has of evil and good,
He can lift up his hand on high,
Whereby he liveth eternally.
This beautiful passage also points to another
aspect of human uprightness and walking, that
of knowing good and evil. We can call this
the area of human morality and can consider
what is meant when we say a person is upright.
The children look to us for guidance in the
human, moral realm as well as in the other
realms discussed, and each teacher must think
Joan Almon
through how to bring this realm to life in the
kindergarten. We do not preach or moralize with
young children, but yet a moral tone needs to be
established so that the children can live together
in peace.
Another aspect of walking pertains to
the destiny of the individual. In the lecture
studied for this conference, The Waking of the
Human Soul and the Forming of Destiny, Rudolf
Steiner says, The primary measure of destiny
is expressed in the learning to walk. (page 11)
How are we to understand this? It might first
seem to us that all children walk the same in the
beginning, but on closer observation of children
one sees significant differences in the early steps
of a child. As kindergarten teachers we do not
have many opportunities to observe this phase of
development, but those who work with children
in the first three years may note these differences
and develop a sense of their significance.
In his lectures on Karmic Relationships,
Rudolf Steiner gives another picture of the
importance of walking to karma. Often he traces
a persons past life by noting how they walk in
this lifetime. In this regard he speaks of his own
geometry teacher, a man who had a profound
impact on Rudolf Steiner when he was a student.
He describes the man as he knew him in this
lifetime, a man who was a great geometrician
but whose thinking did not go beyond the
bounds of geometry into mathematics as a
whole. Even within geometry, he was not open
to the many changes which were then taking
place in that field. One gets the impression that
his thinking was narrowly circumscribed, but
within those limits his thinking was profound.
Then Rudolf Steiner speaks of how this man was
incarnated with a club foot. He often thought of
his teacher and of the significance of his physical
condition and then began to understand a
past life which his teacher had shared with the
individuality who later became the English
79
Walking and the Incarnation of Destiny
poet Byron. Byron, too, was born with a club
foot. In a previous incarnation these two men
had known each other and had set out on a
great spiritual mission together. They were not
successful in this mission, and although Rudolf
Steiner does not spell out the picture in detail,
one gets the feeling that the cut-off mission of
the past mirrors itself in the physical condition
of the next incarnation.
Can such pictures speak to us as
kindergarten teachers who are trying to help
the children meet their own karmic situations?
Most of us do not have these insights into their
past lives, but we do have opportunities to help
the children with meeting their destiny in the
present. Often one gets the feeling that a childs
way is blocked, that something stands in the way
of his moving forward to meet his destiny. One
wants to help, but how? The young child in the
first seven years lives so strongly in the realm
of movement that often it is through movement
that the blockage can be removed or at least
minimized. When the child shows a greater
difficulty, curative eurythmy can be a great help
in removing hindrances from a childs path. In
simpler cases, the activities which arise in the
kindergarten can clear the way. A few examples
were given.
A little girl, age 5, was described as being
very sweet and very good, but perhaps too good.
Of such children Rudolf Steiner said, be careful,
for the spirit does not flow strongly enough
in them. She participated in the kindergarten
but not with the enthusiasm and joy that one
expects from a healthy child. At times she would
sit alone and look quite sad and heavy-hearted.
Towards the end of winter there was a large
snowstorm, and when the schools parking lot
was plowed a large mound of snow was pushed
to the end of the lot. When all the snow from
the playground had melted, the children were
allowed to play on this mound. She wanted to
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
play there with the other children, but had great
difficulty walking on the snow which was very
uneven. She was encouraged to persist, however,
and every day for a week she struggled across
the snow, backwards and forwards, until at
last she could walk across it with ease. She had
found a new form of balance in her walking
and in herself as well, for after this she was
a much more enthusiastic participant in the
kindergarten.
In another case some boys between six and
seven years old were growing disenchanted with
the kindergarten. They were at a difficult stage
of first grade readiness and seemed blocked in
finding a new relationship to the kindergarten.
On a rainy day the teacher set up a circus
for them with a high-wire act, consisting of an
8"-wide board suspended between two tables.
She suggested they walk across it, thinking that
as they were first grade ready they should have
sufficient balance for such a task. They were
afraid, however, and did not trust themselves
to do it, but she offered her hand, which they
held onto with all their might. After a few
crossings they began to realize they could do
it and held her hand much more loosely. Then
they crossed without holding on. They began to
grow very confident and started to hop across,
to walk with their eyes closed, to walk across
backwards, etc. After this day of play, it was as if
an inner blockage had been removed from them,
and they showed fresh enthusiasm for all the
kindergarten had to offer them.
A final aspect of walking which was included
in the lecture pertained to the question of the
future destiny of mankind. In which direction
is mankind walking? Who will guide our steps
along the path of the future? Reference was
made to a lecture by Rudolf Steiner entitled
Easter: The Mystery of the Future (April 13,
1908). In this lecture Rudolf Steiner describes
the spiritual path of mankind in this way: In the
80
ancient past mankind lived very closely with
the gods. In Atlantis, the realm of the gods was
the reality for mankind, even as today mankind
is at home with the plants and animals. At that
time the physical world was hazy and unclear to
mankind, but the spiritual world was very clear.
Gradually, mankinds consciousness descended
away from the heavenly and towards the earthly.
At the time of Egypt, for example, the thrust
of spiritual life was to bring consciousness
down to earth. One feels this in the Egyptian
temples where one enters first into an open air
courtyard, then an enclosed courtyard, then into
one room after another, each growing smaller
in size. One has the sense of penetrating inward
to the center and being brought down. What a
difference this is in contrast to entering a Gothic
cathedral. The whole thrust of the cathedral is
upward and the human spirit rises with it. In the
Egyptian temple, mankinds spirit was still in the
process of incarnating, whereas after the time of
the Christ, the direction of the human spirit is
upwards again.
Now we are on the journey up, and Rudolf
Steiner says much progress will be made in
this age of the consciousness soul, a 2000-year
period which began in the 15th century. In
particular, he says that this, the 20th century,
will be a critical time for mankinds journey. At
this time we begin to separate ourselves from
the dense consciousness of the physical and turn
our attention upwards. The etheric body of the
modern human begins to loosen itself from the
dense physical and with it the consciousness
begins to loosen. This is not an easy process
for all human beings. Some are so attached to
the physical that they cling too hard and are
fearful of moving towards the spiritual. One
result of this is the growth of pathological fears
suffered by so many modern human beings. It
is important that modern human beings find
their way along this new path towards the spirit.
If he [mankind] has lost consciousness of the
Joan Almon
spiritual world, has come to believe that life in
the physical body and things to be seen in the
physical world are the only realities, then for all
ages of time he must dangle, as it were, in mid-
air. He will have lost his bearings in the spiritual
world and will have no ground under his feet.
He will be threatened, in this condition, with
what is known as the spiritual death That is
the death in the spiritual world. It is the doom
which threatens men if, before passing again
into the spiritual worlds, they fail to bring with
them any consciousness of those worlds. (The
Festivals and Their Meaning, pages 210211)
The Wonder of Acquiring Speech
Dr. Michaela Glckler
What do walking, talking and thinking have
in common? They are not laid into us in a fixed
manner as some things which are genetically
determined. Rather, they arise from within the
child through the process of imitation. They can
develop only if certain activities happen which
involve the child.
An example was given of a 13 year old girl
who, out of criminal neglect, never learned to
speak. She was kept in an imprisoned state and
grew up mute. Then she was discovered at age
13, and her overall intelligence was less than
that of a two year old. In the next two years she
learned a great deal. She developed speech, but
it was an unusual form of speech. If she wanted
to say, I dont like the color on the walls, she
would express it by saying, Nowall color. Her
speech developed in two-word sentences. She
was right handed, but her speech center was on
the right side, rather than the left. This is quite
unusual, for in 97% of people, the speech center,
known as the Broca center, is on the left side of
the brain. Normally the child learns to use this
81
Walking and the Incarnation of Destiny
Fortunately we have not been abandoned
on this journey. Just as the Christ Being came to
mankinds aid when he first learned to walk and
was threatened by the presence of Ahriman and
Lucifer, just as His presence on the earth marked
a new direction for mankind, just as His working
with the hierarchies aids every child as he learns
to walk anew, so too He is prepared to help us
walk along this new path towards the spirit. Of
the Christs new task Rudolf Steiner says, He will
not only be Comforter, but the One Who goes
before us. In the future His Being will permeate
all knowledge, all art, all life. His presence lights
our path into the future.
speech center through imitation, but this child
was no longer sensitive to the development of
the center through imitation. Instead, language
developed in another part of the brain, on the
right side, and it could not fully develop there.
She developed language in the way that a very
young child develops iteverything is nice or
not nice, yes or no. This 13-year-old spoke in
this same way, beginning a sentence with yes
or no and then giving a simple identification of
what she liked or didnt like.
Different aspects of speech develop in
different parts of the brain. For example, the
first language, the mother tongue, develops in
one part of the brain, but subsequent languages
develop in another part. An example was given
of a woman who had learned a German dialect
as her mother tongue. Later she learned to speak
high German. After an accident which affected
the brain, she lost her use of the high German,
but her use of dialect remained, for that part of
the brain had not been injured. In other cases
of brain injury, one might be able to understand
language, but not be able to speak it.
The Young Child and the Spiritual World
The title of this lecture is the wonder of
speech, and it is a good word, for there is a
strong element of wonder which arises when we
consider speech and its development. Acquiring
speech is not an inherited process but a process
of learning. What are the preconditions for a
child to learn speech? This is a complicated
question, for there are many fundamental
elements of speech, all of which need to develop.
Consonants and vowels, for instance, have
different qualities. The vowel element expresses
how we feel, while the consonants are more
directly related to the outer sense world. Every
syllable contains both elements, so that each
syllable builds a bridge from self to the world.
Rudolf Steiner said that the astral body is
the carrier of the feeling for speech. But also
to speak and understand speech we need the
capacity for thought and the functioning of the
ego. It is not a simple matter. Physical parts of
the body are also necessary for the formation
of speech. The timbre or quality of the speech
is related to the air flowing through the larynx,
which is a very complicated organ in its own
right. It contains a great many small muscles,
as many muscles as one finds in the rest of
the body. The larynx is like a little person,
a miniature of the whole human being in
movement. At the physical level one also needs
to take into account the form of the mouth
with its palate, teeth and tongue. Books were
recommended to help understand this picture,
and one is by Wolfgang Schad and is entitled
Erziehung ist Kunst. It has not yet been translated
into English. When we look at the shape of the
mouth, we realize how closely related it is to the
capacity for speech. The ape cannot speak, for
instance, for its mouth is not formed for speech.
The apes mouth juts forward as it develops,
whereas the human mouth grows backwards as
the second teeth and molars come in. The front
of the mouth of a young child and of an adult are
more or less the same in form.
82
Beginning with the second year of life, the
child experiences a continual development of
speech. All parts of the mouth contribute to
the development of speech, and if one part is
adversely affected it can affect the form of the
speech to a greater or lesser extent. Dr. Glckler
used herself as an example and said that a crown
which was put on one of her teeth affects the
way she forms the sound s. Speech develops in
the child while the mouth itself is developing.
Approximately one fourth of kindergarten-aged
children have speech difficulties, but most will
outgrow them by themselves. By adolescence
only 12% of them will still have problems. In
most children, the problems disappear by age 5
or 6. Others will stop having problems with the
change in teeth, so that by age 8 or 9 most will
no longer have difficulty in speech.
Wolfgang Schad gives a picture of language
differences on the African continent in contrast
to China. In Africa, from Tunisia to Capetown,
one finds about 700 different languages in use.
This does not count dialects which are also
abundant. In contrast, in the whole huge land
of China there is only one language present.
Also, China has had a written language from its
earliest times, whereas Africa did not initially
develop a written language. In Africa, the spoken
word has great importance. It is full of magic.
In China the written language is of great
importance, and the written language is the
same throughout the country. About 4000
characters are used in the written language of
Chinese newspapers. More characters exist,
but at the newspaper level 4000 suffice for
expression. People all over China can read the
same newspaper and understand it. Even though
they may pronounce the characters differently,
they read them and understand them in the
same way. The Chinese language is based on
pictures, and the characters have remained much
the same over time. There has been diversity
Michaela Glckler The Wonder of Acquiring Speech

and change in the language, but there is enough again in language. We must work to find sense
continuity that texts which are thousands of in language in order to help the students. It is
years old can still be easily read. In the German important for the children to meet an adult
language, in contrast, texts written in the old who speaks with an Ego consciousness. There
German of the Middle Ages can no longer be are ways to work on language which help raise
read except by scholars. Each continent has its human speech to cosmic speech. For example,
own qualities of soul life and these are reflected we can work on our relationship with the
in its language development. In China, we see a everyday words of the language and learn to love
land unified by language in which the old forms them, to set them free. The poor words which
can continue to live into the present. Thinking are used every day are no longer shining. We can
and speaking are closely aligned in China, love them and give them color. Then they laugh
whereas in Africa speaking and movement are again.
more closely aligned. On the African continent
Speech is our friend. If we feel depressed we
with its 700 languages, social relations are of
can take a poem, even a very simple one, and
great importance. The basic quality of love has
work it through word for word. We can speak
developed strongly there, as well as the social
the words in different ways, with strength or
feeling for others. All of this flows out of the
gentleness, for instance. We can hear how funny
astral body very strongly in Africa. It is part
they sound when they are spoken with a quality
of the picture of Africa, whereas China has a
not true to the word. It is difficult to capture and
contrasting picture.
express inner qualities in words.
In the development of the child, we see
Speech lives very deeply within us and
language unfolding in different ways during the
is related to our own I or Ego. In Paradise,
various stages of the childs growth. Between 7
Adam was asked to name all the creatures. The
and 14, children love to play with language. They
memory of paradise lives on in our speech.
make jokes and play with words. This is a time
Finding the self within is related to this process
when language is extremely important. Rudolf
of giving names. Part of the mystery of the I is
Steiner gave many indications about language to
that it comes to birth and incarnation through
the class teachers. Dr. Glckler feels that about
a series of identifications. In early childhood we
70% of discipline problems in the elementary
identify with an activity such as dish washing
grades can be met through more awareness of
and take it into ourselves through imitation. In
language. In contrast about 70% of kindergarten
the elementary grades we identify with the world
discipline problems can be met through greater
in the soul realm through love. In adolescence
awareness of movement. It is so important that
we identify at the thought level through interest.
we speak well to the children. We should clean
Through these three realms of interest, the I
our speech organ like we clean our teeth each
comes into incarnation. Working through these
morning so that we can speak rightly to the
realms the I goes beyond physical nature and
children of different ages.
comes to discover its spiritual nature.
The teenager experiences a different aspect
In the word there is tremendous creative
of language. They are looking for meaning,
power which can be alive in us. The whole of
and sometimes feel meaning has gone. This
world creation is in us and can be awakened
can be a crisis for the individual. Eurythmy
more fully in us when we work on the word.
is of great help to them in finding meaning
The word became darkened through the fall

83
The Young Child and the Spiritual World

of mankind, but we can bring new thinking
and will to the realm of speech. It is our task as
teachers to bring new qualities to speech so that
a new consciousness can shine through. This is
a great help to children as they seek to find their
own Ego. If we reactivate the archetypal Adam
within us, he who had the power to name things,
then this newfound power of speech works
creatively on the children. Loving language
should be todays motto.

Verse for the Beginning of Teaching the

Ancient Languages

To him who understands the sense of speech

The world ensheathes itself in a picture.
To him who hears the speech of soul
The world reveals itself as a being.

He who experiences the speech of the spirit

Receives the world with the strength of wisdom.
He who is able to love speech
Is given its own power.

So I will turn my heart and senses

To the spirit and soul of the world.
And in love, I will find myself
For the first time through it.

Rudolf Steiner

84
 The Sistine Madonna
The Sistine Madonna by Raphael: Is It Appropriate
in the Kindergarten?
Ren Querido
This article is a revised version of the content
presented in a talk to Waldorf kindergarten
teachers during the Western Regional Teachers
Conference in February 1989, held at Rudolf
Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California.
Of the countless masterpieces of Renaissance
painting perhaps none occupies such a
remarkable position as the Sistine Madonna by
Raphael. It embodies in a superb manner great
contrasts: the painting is both magnificent and
intimate in character, heavenly and earthly
in mood, sacred and secular in portraying
the mysteries of motherhood and the eternal
feminine.
Raphael (14831520), who was born on
one Good Friday and died on another at the
early age of 37, is said to have painted the
Sistine Madonna a few years before his death.
It therefore belongs to the artists later period.
Although it served as an altarpiece for a number
of years, the original intention for it may have
been a very different one. Executed on canvas
rather than on a wooden panel as was the
custom, it may have been painted expressly to
be carried in processions through the crowded
streets of Rome at high festivals of the Virgin
Mary. This would also suggest that it was meant,
in spite of its magnificence and considerable size,
to be a work of art for the people at large and not
simply for the clergy or nobility.
85
For the past 250 years or so it has had as its
home the National Gallery in Dresden, now in
East Germany, a once beautiful city struck by a
tragic destiny at the end of World War II when
thousands upon thousands of its inhabitants
were killed in a senseless bombing raid. The
painting survived the many vicissitudes of wars,
revolutions and insurrections from the 18th
century onwards and counts among its admirers
such various and distinguished personalities as
Goethe, Novalis and Dostoyevsky.
Today one approaches the original canvas,
measuring some eight or nine feet in height
(for the figures are life size), from the end of
a long gallery. The experience as one slowly
moves toward the Madonna is indeed truly
overwhelming, for as one draws near, one
senses that the central figure carrying the
child gently strides towards the beholder like
some supersensible revelation. With the green
curtains on either side drawn, we seem to cross
a threshold into a heavenly realm where, against
a background of numberless angelic faces, and
supported by billowing clouds, the mystery
of motherhood and of Mary with the child is
revealed. The central female figure combines a
serene, divine countenance with great earthly
beauty. Raphael may well have been inspired
by one of his many beautiful models, but here
he transformed the experience into a heavenly
countenance. The child is remarkably awake
The Sistine Madonna
and knowing for one so young, as if aware of the
thorny road that he is destined to tread on the
earth.
Too little attention has been given to the two
saints that flank the central figure. They form
an intrinsic part of the composition as indeed
do the two winged cherubic beings at the foot
of the painting who peek at the events above
with a quiet, somewhat mischievous, childlike
curiosity.
Saint Sixtus II, a magnificent old man clad
in golden papal robes, is seen on our left looking
up in deep reverence and conscious recognition
at the mother and child. His right arm and hand
point outward to the beholder while his left
hand rests with a warm, sympathetic gesture on
his heart.
In strong contrast we have on our right a
portrayal of the young, beautiful Saint Barbara
whose head is turned with lowered gaze towards
us, her hands folded in devotion across her
breast.
The historical background of these two
figures will give further meaning to the total
composition. Both Saint Barbara (235313) and
Sixtus II (Pope: 257258) lived in Italy during
the third century A.D. when the original Christ
impulse in its fullness had not yet been impeded
by church dogma and state approval.
Barbara, renowned for her beauty, was
locked up in a tower by her father who feared
that she had become a Christian. She maintained
her faith and suffered horrible torture which as
a consequence left her disfigured for life. Her
father ordered her killed, but legend tells us that
as the execution was to be accomplished he was
struck by lightning. Saint Barbara lived into her
late seventies and was known for her loving,
caring deeds for the poor and ailing.
Sixtus II, who occupied the papal chair
for only one year, was able at a time of terrible
86
conflict to bring about peace. He did so
by renouncing power. Widely admired for
his magnanimity and benevolence, he was
canonized shortly after his death and was
regarded with special veneration, together with
Saint Laurentius, by many generations right up
to the Renaissance.
These two biographical vignettes will help
us to understand Raphaels wise choice in
portraying just these particular saints on either
side of Mary and the Child. They represent
archetypes: Sixtus of power transformed into
peace, Barbara of the sacrifice of beauty into
spiritual loveboth inspired by the eternal
feminine that had borne the child. Indeed, if
then we view the central figure also as a divine
archetype made manifest on earth in all her
glory, beauty and inner serene strength, this
masterpiece is lifted out of any one-sided,
dogmatic interpretation. It is not merely a
Christian painting in the narrow sense of the
word. It can appeal strongly and intimately to
men and women of any religious persuasion
Christians, Hebrews, Buddhists alikeif it
is seen as representing an ideal of conscious
yet eternal motherhood carrying the child,
awakening from innocence to strong deeds of
love. Such representations are also found in
other cultures: in Isis and the child Horus, in
Kwan Yiu or the Canon of the Orient.
Let us now deal with the question: Should a
reproduction of the Sistine Madonna necessarily
be displayed in our kindergartens, and if so,
why?
In 1911 Rudolf Steiner gave indications to
Dr. Peipers in Munich that a healing influence
proceeds from contemplating again and
again a series of Madonnas in reproduction
arranged in the form of a pentagram. The
series of 15 pictures, mostly Madonnas by
Raphael (there is one by Donatello and one by
Michelangelo), opens with the Sistine Madonna,
Ren Querido
whose composition itself is clearly based on
the pentagram, and culminates in Raphaels
Transfiguration, his last and unfinished painting.
Astonishingly powerful healing can be
accomplished even by meditating upon these
pictures in black and white reproductions, as
was the case in Steiners time when he gave
the indication to Dr. Peipers for his patients.
(Today the series is readily available in colored
postcards.)
How are we to understand this process?
In our circles we are familiar with the soul
strengthening that can be received by meditating
regularly on a verse or mantra. Such wordsand
Rudolf Steiner has provided us with hundreds of
verses for particular occasionscontain through
their content, sound, cadence and composition
a seed power that seeks to awaken new faculties
in the soul. For the teacher this is of special
significance, for such inner activity regularly
practiced in the stillness of the soul makes us
more able to cope with our task of caring for and
educating children.
What is perhaps less familiar is the use of
the Yantra, as it is know in the East: a picture,
a scroll of calligraphy (as particularly practiced
by the Japanese), or a statue, which through its
mere presence in a hall, a place of worship, or a
private room endows the space with an uplifting
mood.
Without using this terminology, Rudolf
Steiner practiced the use of signs and symbols
in a similar manner for the first time at the
Munich Conference of 1907. There he indicated
that the walls of the Hall where the Rosicrucian
Conference was to take place were to be draped
from top to floor with curtains of bright
vermilion. It was also on this occasion that the
occult signs and seals, together with models of
the pillars of Joachim and Boaz from the Temple
of Solomon, were first displayed. Rudolf Steiner
87
The Sistine Madonna
pointed out that only under these conditions
could certain supersensible beings participate
in the earthly happening. He also indicated that
from now onwards, occult teachings should
never again be severed from the artistic impulse.
Later, in 191314, in the whole complex
construction of the first Goetheanum and its
arrangements of inner and outer spaces, pillars
with carved capitals, engraved colored windows,
and painted cupolas, the same theme appears in
a more comprehensive and powerful way. Space,
color, and form can exert a direct, beneficent
healing influence and are able to awaken, under
certain circumstances, dominant spiritual
powers in the beholder.
In the light of the above, we need to tread a
balanced path between over-sentimentality and
cold abstraction in determining the role of the
Sistine Madonna in the kindergarten. To exclude
this masterpiece altogether seems foolish.
If parents object to its presence on religious
grounds, we should attempt to educate them to a
wider viewpoint. By the way, I am not suggesting
that some of the above considerations should
be thrown at the heads of inquiring parents.
Each kindergarten teacher has to use her (his)
tact and discretion in what to say or not say.
What matters is that one has come to an inner
conviction oneself over a period of time and
speaks to the hearts and minds of the parents
out of a depth of personal experience.
Equally, it is inappropriate to build an altar
draped with colored veils around the Sistine
Madonna. A shrine-like display with candles
will justifiably create uneasiness in many
parents, even among those who are genuinely
interested in the new mysteries revealed through
anthroposophy. Our task therefore is a difficult
one: to learn to appreciate that this superb
masterpiece combines a serene, sober mood
with divine revelation and is utterly devoid of
sentimentality. Can we therefore accord the
The Sistine Madonna
Sistine Madonna a special place in the room in
a simple, straightforward manner, bearing in
mind that the childrens attention need not be
drawn to it? It acts in a healing, peaceful manner
through its very presence.
A final word: It may be helpful to consider
whether it would not be preferable to display the
The Sistine Madonna
A Symbol of the Eternal Spirituality in People
Why did Rudolf Steiner give mothers-to-
be the advice to look often upon Raphaels
painting of the Sistine Madonna? In many
contexts, he mentions this painting which is
also found in many Waldorf kindergartens.
Some of these comments help one to
understand this advice.
If one were to try, while contemplating
this painting, to describe and express in
words what he is seeing, observing, feeling
and understanding, he will surely find the
answer. With this in mind, the following
quotations are meant to deepen and make
conscious that experience.
Dr. Helmut von Kgelen
Let us now allow one of Raphaels paintings
to make an impression upon us. It is the Sistine
Madonna, which is located nearby in Dresden
and which probably each one of us knows from
the numerous copies which have been spread
throughout the whole world. It stands before us
as one of the most splendid, most noble artworks
of human development. The mother appears to
us with the child, floating on the air, down from
the clouds which surround the earth, floating
out of the undefinedone might even say out of
the spiritual, super-sensible world. She is clothed
88
full reproduction in a large print (considering
the size of the original) rather than making do
with a detail of the painting. This is especially
so because the flanking figures express through
gesture and mood the qualities of peace and
love. The cherubic figures at the foot of the
painting contribute a delightful quality of
childlike innocence.
and surrounded by clouds which, as if of their
own accord, become similar to human forms.
One of the clouds, as if solidified, resembles the
child of the Madonna. As she appears there,
she brings forth in us quite special feelings
about which we might well say that, when these
feelings pass through our soul, we could forget
all the legendary ideas out of which the picture
of the Madonna has grown, and we could forget
all Christian traditions which tell us about
the Madonna. I would like to put forward this
opinion about what we can experience in the
presence of this Madonnanot to characterize
it in a dry manner but rather to characterize
it in the most heartfelt way possible. Whoever
considers the development of humankind from
the point of view of spiritual science, comes to
the conclusion that the human being existed
before the beings of the animal, plant, and
even mineral realms existed. The painting of
the Madonna with the child is the symbol of
the eternal spirituality in people which comes
certainly to the earth from beyond. Yet, this
painting, through parted clouds, has everything
that can only arise or proceed from the earthly.
(Rudolf Steiner, 1-30-1913)
And Raphael has, in a wonderfully
delicate and pure way, revealed this mystery by
Rudolf Steiner Quotations
showing how, out of the spiritual heads of the
little angels, the Madonna, the human being,
takes shape and brings forth anew the blossom
of Jesus of Nazareth who is to receive the Christ-
seed. The entire evolution of humankind is
wonderfully contained in this painting of the
Madonna! (Rudolf Steiner, 12-22-1908)
One can see in the Sistine Madonna that a
great cosmic mystery is being impressed upon
human hearts, and one will be able to build upon
this in the future. When humanity will have
come to the type of non-denominational, broad
and encompassing Christianity which Spiritual
Science already represents today, one will be able
to continue building up this wonderful mystery
that has influenced human minds just as the
Sistine Madonna has done. Often it has been
proven to me that when a person looks into the
eyes of children, he can know that something
looks out from the childrens eyes which did not
enter their being during birth, something which
shines out of the depths of human souls. If one
looks at the children in Raphaels Madonna
painting, one sees the same elements of that
which is divine, secret and beyond the human in
their eyes as are still in the eyes of a child shortly
after birth. One can observe this in all Raphaels
paintings of children with one single exception.
One of the children in his paintings cannot be
interpreted in this way, and it is the Baby Jesus of
the Sistine Madonna. Upon looking into the eyes
of this child, one realizes that there is already
more to him than is possible in a human being.
Raphael has made this difference that in this
single child of the Sistine Madonna something
is living which from the outset is experienced as
purely spiritual and Christ-like.
Since we are people with feelings, we are
also creatures, beings of the Hierarchies, and we
also operate where the Hierarchies operate. We
work in this weaving, we perform deeds which
89
The Sistine Madonna
are not for us alone but rather through which
we are working together on the entire structure
of the world. Through our feelings, we serve
the higher beings who are shaping the world.
And if we believe, while viewing the Sistine
Madonna, that we are gratifying the feeling
which arises in us, it is a fact that a real process,
a real event is taking place. If such feelings were
not present, those beings who are supposed to
be working on the structure of future conditions
and incarnations on earth would not have the
strength that they need for their work. Our
feelings are as necessary for the structure of the
houses which the gods are building in the world
as are bricks for the construction of a persons
house. And what we know about our feelings is
once again only a part. We know what a joy it is
for us to stand before the Sistine Madonna. But
what happens there is a part of the whole world,
and it is quite immaterial how we consciously
approach it. (Rudolf Steiner, 7-6-1915)
And if you look at the wonderful painting
called the Mater Gloriosa who is receiving Fausts
soul, there you have the counterpart to that
to which Raphael alludes in his most famous
painting, the Sistine Madonna, where the Virgin
Mother is bringing the soul down here; at the
end of Faust, we see how the Virgin Mother
bears the soul upwardit is the souls birth upon
death. (Rudolf Steiner, 1-17-1915)
Thus I had always gazed in amazement
upon the holy Sistine Madonna by Raphael,
which I already knew earlier from copper
engravings and copies, due to the world-
encompassing look of the child and the
deeply felt virginal countenance and being of
the mother of this divine child. You see here
represented with the worlds greatest masterly
strokes Child and God and Mother and Virgin
all at the same time in divine radiance. This
The Sistine Madonna

painting alone is a world, a very full artistic its creator immortal even if he had painted
world, and it alone would have sufficed to make nothing else. (Dresden, 8-16-1813)

90
 The Education of the Teacher
Working with an Assistant Who Is Striving to Become a Teacher
Freya Jaffke
From notes taken by Margret Meyerkort at the
Hannover Kindergarten Conference, Spring 1986.
In Germany the kindergarten trainee spends
one year as an assistant, then two years in a
kindergarten seminar, and a final year again as
an assistant. This final year is a concentrated year
of practical learning and training. It could be
considered an apprenticeship. As kindergarten
teachers we have to be responsible for giving
guidance and direction, as well as meeting the
demands, challenges and expectations of the
assistant. In other words, we are still offering
them a training during this fourth year. This
means, in the first place, that we are able to
offer them insights and information which we
learn each and every day from our studies of the
anthroposophical picture of the human being.
The assistant has a right to expect that the one
who trains him or her is able to look at her/his
own shortcomings and review her/his own life.
To take on a group of children the year after
a training seminar is for many students too great
a burden. Instead, the student wants, and needs,
to learn to apply the course work, to integrate
methods for a group of children, to meet and
involve herself in the work with the parents, to
continue her own studies. This is the need from
her own point of view. From the point of view
of the children, of parents and colleagues, and
of anthroposophy, she must grow more aware of
her intentions and grow accountable for them.
91
There is a twofold need: first, to apply
that which one received during the training,
and second, to enter into and adapt to a new
situation. The new will fully hit the young
teacher when in the second year she has her own
groupshe will have to let go of that which she
learned from her master teacher. And so, she
attends conferences and has conversations to test
and grope her way forward. She realizes: That
which I have learned so far is not enough for me.
Where can I find what I need? During this first
year after the training course, the new teacher is
at sea. This is particularly so with regard to the
festivals.
The first encounter and conversation
between assistant and kindergarten teacher
marks the first efforts to work together. During
the coming year, all the subsequent preparations
for festivals, snack time, etc., continue this
important process of working together. During
this first conversation between teacher and
assistant, one discusses and exchanges dates
anthroposophical conferences, conferences
on Waldorf education, parents workshops,
teachers meetings, study groups, and artistic
and handwork courses.
We may discuss with her the dress
and demeanor of the teacherbecause as
pedagogues of the 07-year-old child we aim at
being in the first place a mother, e.g., to wear a
skirt rather than pants, to wear a hat outdoors,
to wear an apron indoors, and in the garden
The Education of the Teacher
a different apron, to place a mat under a vase
to protect the table, to change from outdoor
shoes into indoor shoes, etc. All of this is done
not to be finicky but so that the young child is
received and taken into the world with care and
protection. To carry this out, the assistant needs
to know where all the different objects of the
kindergarten live and how the routines of the
kindergarten are carried out.
In the beginning, the assistant may have to
be corrected in order to protect the children,
e.g., when the assistant does not clear the table
properly, she knows that the teacher corrects her,
not out of fancy or whim, but because the young
child is used to order, sameness, repetition, and
security in each and every little way of the daily
life. If the assistant puts three plates here, three
plates there, the young child feels pulled out
of his dream consciousness, of being naturally
at one with the environment. While the one
or the other child, without any word from the
teacher, may join the assistant in the washing
up, the other children may get ready for the
garden. The procedure at the sink is always the
same, and each item is always put in the same
place. The children all want to do the same
thing at the same time and want to do it again
and again. This is how the young child wants to
work, act and live. While learning the routines
of the kindergarten, the assistant has a right not
to have anything suddenly thrown at her, and
at the same time a right to be corrected and to
carry on an activity in the right way. Now it may
happen that the assistant is unable to carry out
the sequence of events straightaway and a word
of correction is necessary. This is important,
because she has to, and wants to, learn.
What is it that eventually makes the children
accept and respect an adult? They have a basic
need for security and in as much as the assistant
radiates certainty and security, the children
will look up to her. The aim of the assistant is
92
to eventually take responsibility for a group
of children herself and many are the steps on
the way. Furthermore, we all know that the life
in the kindergarten is so rich and manifold
that one can easily forget something. It has
proven helpful to make notes of the procedure
of painting, for example, or of circle time,
of daily or weekly cleaning or of the larger
spring cleaning, of festivals, songs and poems,
content and procedure of a parent meeting, of
workshops. Such practices give security and
enable the assistant to grow more and more
confident in her own ability. Naturally, one
may have an assistant who writes a couple of
sentences, or even nothing at all, but more often
than not they write pages.
The next step is that the assistant carries out
one or another activity in its required stages
together with a small group of children. Because
there are different ages in the kindergarten,
she will experience different ways of behavior
among the 4-year-olds, the 5s and the 6s, and it
is helpful to differentiate and clarify such matters
in conversations. Even though she may not ask
questions at the time, she may wake up to such
questions when she herself is a kindergarten
mother.
What matters most is that the teacher learns
to be mother, the heartbeat of the kindergarten.
The teacher does that which a mother does: She
cares for everything, e.g., she cleans and polishes
and mends the toys, furniture, etc. She makes
new equipment. Her attitude and starting point
is: How do I carry out my work in such a way
that the children have room in it, can develop
in it, are held by it, rather than: Tomorrow is
kindergarten, what shall I do with them? or,
Well, I am a mother who has help in the house,
so I can sit with my children at the table and
do some cutting out and gluing and drawing.
But Rudolf Steiner advised us to have ordinary,
daily-life situations in the kindergarten.
Freya Jaffke
Obviously not all children do what the mother,
the teacher, does at one time such as baking or
painting. Nor will all children be around her
during other activities. But the work, the activity,
is faithfully carried through each day and each
week and each season, and each child in the
room experiences it and learns something from
it. Into this situation the assistant has to grow.
This is what she has to learn.
Q. How do you help the assistant learn how to
do the activities such as prepare and cook the
snack? Do you show her in the course of the
morning when the children are in the room
or during your meeting with her after school?
The latter is difficult because she cannot
actually see and experience the process.
A. Some people see, hear and are straight-
away able to carry out an activity. They see
immediately, for example, how the children
should change from indoor shoes into outdoor
shoes. If the child has put the shoes on the
wrong feet, they see how to simply act (not
necessarily talking to the child) and change
the shoes over. This asks of the adult a good
measure of consciousness, precision, and width
of perception. If an assistant has difficulties with
this, it is better to stagger her into the different
activities, because the first concern is for the
child and how to secure and protect him. For
example, with painting, the assistant may take
down a few notes and make herself an outline
during our preview. During the morning,
she tries to be as conscious as possible while
the children participate in the preparations
semiconsciously, from out of their dream
consciousness. Halfway through the year the
assistant should be able to carry the process right
through.
93
Working with an Assistant
Q. Do you wait for a question from the
assistant, such as, May I do that?
A. Yes, and no. What is of the greatest
importance, what comes first, is that the assistant
learns the preparation of the snack, the cooking
of the snack, which is an activity so basic to the
life of the kindergarten. Also, from a practical
point of view, should the teacher be sick and the
assistant have to take over, this is the one activity
which must take place.
Then there are methods. During the first
term we focus on puppet shows, during the
second term, rhythmical circle activities and
third term, telling of fairy tales. Also, we meet
every day for review and preview, to discuss
which of us will work so that life proceeds
more smoothly, who does the cloakroom, the
bathroom, etc. Also, during the assistants first
term, because she has to learn continuously
how to do new things with the children, such
as helping them at the cubbies, she experiences
firstly her own boundaries and limitations, and
secondly the childrens limits so that they do not
become chaotic. Both experiences can lead to
questions.
Q. If the assistant does not come with
questions?
A. Some things have to be corrected straight-
away so that there is no danger to the children,
and some corrections can come later. But if
the children are not dressed properly for an
activity such as going outside to the garden,
this can be a problem. For example, the young
child needs to be protected from certain sun
rays, also from the width of a summer sky,
and so they all have sun hats which they wear
outdoors in the garden. Or, for example, if the
process of washing up is not in a good sequence,
then correct straightaway in a clear but gentle
manner.
The Education of the Teacher
Q. How can one correct the superficial, trivial
tone and speedy behavior the assistant may
show to the child?
A. This is very difficult because it is a
question of changing the personality. Children
are looking for the I, not the astrality of
laughter, laughter, laughter. There are some
assistants who are amused about the childs
pranks, who are unable to create a certain
distance. This inability can be one of a lack of
Ego presence.
Q. Is it too much to take a student teacher,
or assistant during the first year after ones
training?
A. In most cases, it is too much. The young
or newly fledged teacher feels more certain of
herself, more secure with the children when she
can work one year by herself. She wants to apply
what she has learned, and try out what she saw
during her practice teaching, and this is right
and good.
Q. How many students, or assistants can one
have at any one time?
A. Once we were five adults in the room.
This was too many. But it did work out with
four: assistant, myself, student teacher, and
for a few days a visitor. They were all able to
report and to discuss with each other what
they experienced in each of their different
kindergarten experiences.
When I have a student teacher at the same
time as an assistant, it may sometimes be
possible for the assistant to guide and instruct
a student under my more distant care and
supervision. They may discuss matters together,
the assistant showing the student around
and together they may enjoy this trust and
responsibility.
94
Q. Regarding clothing, some assistants say
that since mothers wear trousers today, why
shouldnt the assistants or teachers wear them?
A. What does the history of human
clothing show? The essence of clothing is that
it is a wrapping up, a protection from the
surroundings, from nature. Which differentiated
aspects of existence do I teach the young
child when I wear clothing which encloses in
a wholeness or when I wear trousers which
differentiates the parts of the body and makes
them more physical? Also, is there a difference
in my attitude to myself, to life, in my behavior
vis--vis my environment, when I wear jeans
or trousers for a sport or during an outing, or
when I wear a skirt? Often the clothing, the
physical gestures, the gait and outer behavior
of a person are the reflection of aspects of the
life of soul. Furthermore, with my dress I put
myself into a social context. There is a certain
air, dynamic, or attitude which emanates from
me. This varies from one social situation to
another, and through clothing I can say: These
are my intentions and priorities, that which I
wish to foster. (Of course, if the assistant is truly
unhappy with the stance of a teacher, she is free
to find herself a kindergarten which better suits
her.)
Q. Do you wear trousers when working in the
garden?
A. Occasionally. The garden work which
requires trousers I do in the afternoons after
the children have gone home. Of course, the
adults wear trousers when we go tobogganing,
and we wear a skirt at parents meetings
and on home visits. Many adults no longer
experience a difference between clothing for
the indoor life and the outdoor life but rather
It is all one, everything is the same, and so the
children are not used to different clothing for
different occasions. To foster this is part of the
kindergarten teachers task.
Freya Jaffke
Q. How do the teacher and assistant divide up
the daily work of the kindergarten?
A. With division of labor. My point of view
is that the work in the kindergarten has to be
done just as it has to be done in the home. All
activities are the same in the face of need,
e.g., today I may do the washing up, tomorrow
she may do it. We share out the work which
has to be accomplished in this or that way;
all the activities are of equal value. It can be
rhythmically divided up on a weekly basis rather
than daily so that teacher and assistant can
take turns cleaning up the kitchen area, taking
children to the bathroom, etc.
In this way the children may live as if half
asleep, submerged in a homey atmosphere in
which all activities, all events, all procedures,
are natural, obvious, usual and customary.
Therefore, the children join in whatever goes on,
firstly as a matter of course and secondly because
quite simply, things have to be done, they are life
itself. It will then not be necessary to divide the
group of children into subgroups for different
activities, nor to give them tasks, nor to praise
the children. Together, as children and adults, we
find each other within a particular life situation,
and together we learn how to live. Life has to go
on, to be developed, work has to be done and
the children have the opportunity to integrate
themselves into the physical experience.
Q. How frequently do you meet with the
assistant?
A. At teachers meetings the student is
present because she has to learn. But when the
kindergarten group leaders meet, the student
or assistant is not present. She understands
that these meetings take place. We always
communicate with one another.
Every morning, when we meet for the
verse we have time to exchange a few words. At
95
Working with an Assistant
noon, when the children have gone home the
student will first look around in the room to
take hold of where things are and review what
has happened in the course of the morning. She
will then, for about a quarter of an hour write
down some notes. During this time, I often sort
out my desk and finish some letters. A couple
of children may play and wait to be picked up
or fold and seal my letters. When the assistant
has finished her writing, she will either ask if
anything else has to be done and go if there is
not, or wait until all children have gone before
she asks any questions.
Q. Do you review her work with the student or
assistant every afternoon?
A. Yes, for the first two weeks. After that I
leave her free unless there is a special situation to
discuss such as in creative play, or a special event
such as the preparation of a festival.
The student or assistant may occasionally
have her own child in the kindergarten. It is
pedagogically easier when her child is in another
group. While the student and I have the morning
verse, the child must wait in the lobby or hall.
Q. Can you say more about the teachers
clothing?
A. For the male kindergarten teacher a
tunic is best, rather like a short Eurythmy
dress. He too wears an apron when he works,
with two large pockets. It is helpful for the
further development of the child and adult
when the child during these early years does
not experience the details and differentiation
of everything physical, but as yet that which is
fundamentally protective and enveloping. For
that reason I never wear a sleeveless dress or
sleeveless blouse in the kindergarten.
We adults in the kindergarten wear aprons
throughout the morning, and when we work in
The Education of the Teacher
the garden we wear a garden apron. This gives a
picture of protection, of being surrounded and
enveloped.
Q. How do you help the assistant work on the
relationship between child and adult?
A. Let us look at some examples: (1) I have
to settle a quarrel or (2) I have a brief word with
a child as I pass him or (3) two children come to
me and complain, the one about the other, and
so I say Was it you? No. Was it you? No.
Arent we lucky nobody did it! and the two
children leave with a smile, and we are friends.
Such things as these examples the assistant has
to hear. She also has to learn to divert a childs
attention or to beckon a child to her because a
minute later there will be a quarrel.
She has to learn to transform a situation
such as playing engines. With the playing of
engines there can be first a certain rigidity of
limbs, muscles, and larynx that may be harmful,
and secondly this play can be unproductive,
even harmful for the soul of the child when the
child becomes stuck. For example, he builds
with tables and planks and chairs, sits on it and
begins, Rrrrrrrrr. But the adult needs to have
ideas as to how this situation can be transformed
into a human, social process, such as a taxi, an
ambulanceto perhaps offer small pieces of
bark for the tickets on the train.
Now a golden rule: Whenever the adult
takes something from a child, he needs
to give something to the child in return.
When an adult thinks he needs to say stop
it, or dont do that, then he is prohibiting,
suppressing or disallowing a movement of
action and will. It may be quite necessary to
stop the activity, but the adult needs to realize
he or she is intercepting a process of relating
and connecting. As a result, the young child
experiences a sudden disconnection, a type of
loneliness and is pushed back upon himself, on
to his own resources. He needs help to overcome
this, and it is very important that we offer the
child something at such a time. It is not only
a question of successfully diverting the childs
attention but of giving him new possibilities, in
other words, creatively guiding and educating
the child.
Visitors and students may not interfere in the
play of the children by saying, Why dont you
do so and so? or If you do this, then . But
when the children draw the adult into their play,
e.g., ask him to move a puppet, to tell the story
for the puppet show, or offer the adult a cup of
tea in their playhouse, then this is different.
The young child learns through wonder, and
so I use a large saw, or a bow saw, for sawing
firewood or wood for whittling. The children
see it and then may imitate me with small saws
or they take what they observed into their play
and imaginatively transform it. In other words,
they play with two pieces of wood of which one
is a saw. It is the same with cooking and many
other domestic and maintenance activities I
carry out in the kindergarten. Sometimes a child
might say, Mummy lets me have a knife. The
teacher may reply, And in the kindergarten
we do it this way. I try not to separate the
child from life. As he identifies himself with
watching, wondering, the child lives with me,
is integrated into life.
Q. Some assistants praise the children for their
good deeds. Could you comment on this?
A. The child in the first seven years does
not yet need praise from the adult. It does,
however, need help to experience gratitude. This
help can be given in an indirect way when the
adult serves as an example. For instance, every
Saturday one of my kindergarten mothers takes
the dirty laundry home. My inner experience
of gratitude, (more than feeling) my words
of gratitude, work upon the child. When I
96
Freya Jaffke
directly praise and bring gratitude into the
childs consciousness, the child can experience
a separation and can also experience evaluation
which is in part discrimination and judgment.
For the young child, continuous transformation
and creativity are the natural mode of behavior
and awareness. When the child is well on
the way with the change of teeth, i.e., from
grade one onwards, he is led more and more
towards comparison and conceptualization, and
therefore the teacher will now put the childs
drawings and paintings on the wall and his
beeswax models on the table, and together the
child and teacher will look at the results. But in
the kindergarten, teacher and child are happy
together when they have finished a job, when
everything is beautiful, when, for example, the
piece of cheesecloth which is always white and
has only one function, to cover the buttered
bread for snack, is returned to its proper place
where it lives. This joy, which radiates out
from a deed accomplished, the children take
with them into their play corner and into
their activities. Of course, when a child brings
something to school, the teacher will say thank
you, but there is no need to praise the deed.
When a child wants something at snack
time, I often say please for him but do not
have the child especially repeat it. The main
thing is that please and thank you have
been pronounced. By the time the child is 5,
he should say the words of his own accord.
If he does not, and appears to be sloppy and
unformed, then this can be due to lack of form
and support from the adults in his surroundings
and can lead to insecurity. The child will find it
difficult to stand straight and strong in the world
and vis--vis his environment.
Q. What do we do when the children want to
play animals?
A. There are different aspects of animal
play. After the age of three, the child has grown
97
Working with an Assistant
beyond the animal stage, for there is now
verticality, language, and the I. Therefore, the
question to be asked is: Has the child become
caught in wanting to be an animal? Some
children want to play animals day after day. Then
we look to see if the pussy is alone or if it wishes
to be caressed, warmed, and held. Then let us
find a human being to shelter it from harm. Or
has the dog been abandoned and wants a guide,
a master? The animal is transformed through its
relationship with the human master. Sometimes
the child is playing an animal part but as if in
a singing game or as if acting out a fairy tale.
The child has slipped into the movement and
behavior of an animal but will in a minute slip
out of it, again. But if the child is stuck in the
animal form, how can we get the donkeys skin
off again through transformation? Circus play,
too, allows itself to be transformed. The seal may
have a ball on its nose, the same child may be
the dog which jumps over a stick or the circus
performer who holds the stick. Then there is
transformation.
Q. How can the assistant learn to have the
whole room in her consciousness?
A. She works on this step by step, and
week by week. She may begin by observing a
few children and accurately observe only that
small group. She does so during her work and
sees what does Jack need, what does Jill need.
She perceives and takes hold of a particular
group of children. In addition she wants to
allow something to stream from her so that the
children are playing happily, that the children
feel her warmth, enthusiasm and interest when
she cleans up, for instance, so that they join
in with equal interest and enthusiasm. Some
assistants do not have this joy naturally and will
need to be helped without pulling the children
out of their dream consciousness.
The teacher of the young child wants to be a
second in advance of the child at each and every
The Education of the Teacher
moment. She has to see and hear in advance, to
think in advance, e.g., I know there are puddles
in the garden and therefore today boots will be
worn. I see that cows have crossed and dirtied
our path and therefore I lead the children down
another path.
The assistant needs to learn how to bring
children together as a group, how to conduct,
nourish and develop a group. How does she
prepare herself? She prepares herself for her
work by learning to love everything during
her year as an assistant, every gesture, all our
ways, all our objects such as our knot dolls,
described by Rudolf Steiner in The Education of
the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy. It is up
to the kindergarten teacher and the assistant to
develop a love for these dollslet the children
make them in the mornings, wrap them up, care
for them. They may hold the dolls on their laps
during the telling of the fairy tale, put them to
bed and eventually, of course, give them a bath
after undoing the knots. Later, after ironing the
piece of cloth they may help to re-knot the doll
and make the eyes with a blue pencil. Some
Steiner kindergarten teachers have the children,
sometimes each child every morning, knot a
doll, their doll. I can very well see the value of
that. My children often wrap their dolls up and
put them in a corner, under a pillow and expect
to find them there the following day. I have nine
or ten such dolls and a child may, of course,
make himself more.
Q. How is it best to prepare the children for a
student or visitor?
A. Only we, the adults, need to know the
day before or in the morning. The children do
not need to know that a student is coming, nor
is there any formal introduction of the visitor to
the children. Rudolf Steiner said, The child has
to and is able to adapt. A prerequisite is that the
work has been prepared the previous day so that
one is ready for the visitor.
98
Q. How do you help the assistant learn stories,
songs and verses?
A. The student needs to learn songs, rhymes,
and stories by heart regularly so that she has a
good amount of material at her disposal at the
end of the year. Just as a Waldorf kindergarten
teacher does not stand in front of the children
with a piece of paper in her hand on which is
written the nativity play, neither does she have
the fairy tale open in front of her. If she would
read the stories, her relationship to the children
would be dulled and weakened. She could not
connect herself to them so instinctively or
watch them so well. The parent is not always
able to learn stories by heart and therefore
my priority, my advice for parents, is that the
parents should read a story to the child with the
same words every day, rather than that the child
does not have any fairy tales at home at all. The
kindergarten children have a story or puppet
play every week (six schooldays in Germany),
about 15 in a year. It is good when a student or
assistant sees and hears how I struggle to learn
a fairy tale. Students may also tell a fairy tale.
Rudolf Steiner is quite clearyoung children
need true fairy tales rather than little stories,
though occasional nature stories may certainly
be told.
Q. Could you speak on any other aspects of the
assistants work and behavior?
A. At the interview I discuss with the student
or assistant when and where she may take notes
for the Training Course. In the second week
of the second term, she may prepare and carry
through everything pertaining to the snack.
Some people are able to do that already at the
end of the first term. Once the children have
gone home, I discuss with the assistant the
way she has carried out her activities. It is my
intention to help the student or assistant to learn
to see and to act, to help the children slowly
grow more independent, for example, by saying,
Freya Jaffke Working with an Assistant

Slip your arm into the sleeve, instead of using
words which for the young child are meaningless
such as, You are a big boy now, you can do
that for yourself. Furthermore, the student has
to learn to fit and order herself into situations,
to be tidy. This is necessary because order has
to do with gesture and the young child as a
creature of will responds to and learns through
gesture. Thus the chest of drawers is tidy, and the
basket is in the same place. An ordered world,
an ordering of existence, protects the child and
gives him security. Once, after cleaning the
shelves an assistant had put one shelf with its
contents a little lower. A four-year-old boy came
to me and said, We dont have any headbands
today!
To begin with, in the first week or two of
the practicum, the student needs, quite simply,
to learn and live together with the children and
teacher. She may do some practical activities
such as dusting while I water the plants. At this
early time in the practical work of the training,
there is no point in reviewing the manner of her
work. The teacher cannot expect that the student
will already have acquired a method of working.
But it is important that the student remembers
each day to carry out her given tasks, that she
does them with care, that she grows aware of
a certain logic in working, that she becomes
conscious of her own movements and gestures,
e.g., where she puts down an object.
At the end of the year a goodbye present for
the studenta small book or puppetcould be
given and then we perhaps have a conversation,
Do you think you have learned something
during this year?
Yes, I realize that I have to be more caring,
more tidy, that the process of my work has to
be consistent, to be logical, that I have to clear
away before I go on to the next activity. In
other words, it has proved helpful to raise into
consciousness that which has taken place.

Supervising a Student Teacher

Nancy Foster, Acorn Hill Childrens Center

Recognizing the great need for trained We would, in turn, be glad to hear from other
kindergarten teachers, ideally with some schools in this regard.
classroom experience, the faculty of Acorn Hill
In one way, of course, it is a sacrifice to
has been grateful for the work of the Waldorf
accept a student teacher. Our ideal is to provide
Institute in Spring Valley as well as the other
an intimate, secure, and consistent environment
Waldorf teacher training programs around the
for the children, a place in which they can be
country. Since we wish to support their efforts to
allowed to experience the dream consciousness
fill this need, and would like to help by providing
of healthy early childhood. Introducing a
some experience in a classroom for the students,
student teacher into the classroom is clearly
we have accepted several student teachers over
an awakening experience for the children. In
the past years. We thought it might be helpful to
addition, supervising a practicum inevitably
other schools, some of which might in the future
requires extra time and energy on the part of
have the opportunity to accept a student teacher,
the kindergarten teacher. Are these sacrifices
if we shared some of our thoughts about student
justified? We feel that they are. We have found
teachingboth the idea and the practicality.

99
The Education of the Teacher
that if the practicum is handled carefully, the
children soon adjust to the new adult in the
classroom and, with the teachers support, are
able to continue their work and play as before.
The teacher experiences perhaps unexpected
benefits through the necessity of becoming
conscious of many things which need to be
discussed with the student teacher. This can be
a healthy form of awakening! Above all, we feel
that the benefits to the Waldorf kindergarten
movement outweigh the extra effort involved in
working with a student teacher.
The kindergarten practicum is usually five
weeks long. The following is an outline of how
these five weeks might be structured for the
student teacher:
Week I: The student observes in the class.
As with other observers, we ask that the student
be busy with some kind of handwork (sewing,
knitting, etc.), both because it is good for the
children to see adults productively active, and
because it makes the observation less obtrusive.
During the first week the student may also
observe in other kindergarten classes in the
school, but most of the time should be spent in
the class where the practicum will take place.
Week II: The student begins to take part in
the class, joining in at circle time and helping the
teacher at appropriate times. More interaction
with the children begins to take place in an
informal, low-key way. No announcement is
made to the children concerning the student
teachers role; the children simply experience
him or her as a new presence in the room and
become used to this person in a natural way.
Week III: The student takes on responsibility
for preparing and carrying out a craft project
with the children. This project may last for
several days and may carry over to the next
week(s) depending on its complexity and the age
level of the class.
100
Week IV: The student takes on the
responsibility for circle time and story time. At
circle time, the usual morning song and verse
(candle time) have been learned by the student
and remain as before; the student teacher
introduces new songs, finger plays, or singing
games. For story time the student learns and
presents a fairy tale, which is told six to eight
times during the two weeks, and a little story
which is told a few times during this period.
Week V: Continuing to carry out circle and
story time, the student also takes responsibility
for each days rhythm, and takes the teachers
role in most circumstances, although the teacher
is always present in the classroom. The teacher
takes the role of assistant, in effect.
The Waldorf Institute requires that the
supervising teacher have at least three years of
teaching experience, or that such a teacher must
be the one to sign the required evaluations.
There are several evaluation forms which must
be filled out, discussed with the student, and
returned to the Institute at specified times.
A few notes of explanation of our procedures
might be worthwhile:
The supervising teacher meets with the
student at least once each week to discuss plans,
discuss particular children or incidents in the
class, and evaluate the students experiences.
The supervising teacher helps the student
in planning, and discusses with him/her what
activities, songs, stories, etc., are suitable for the
particular class and age group. The supervising
teacher may help the student in gathering
materials needed for projects and advises him/
her about practical details.
If there is an assistant teacher in the class,
his/her role remains as it usually is during the
first weeks of the practicum. We have found
that the extra pair of hands in the room can be
Nancy Foster
a great help! During the later weeks, however, as
the student teacher takes on more responsibility,
it may be a good opportunity for the assistant to
visit and observe other classes in the school.
Recognizing that the childrens need for
security and continuity must be kept foremost,
the supervising teacher never leaves the children
without her presence and support. While details
must be worked out between the particular
teacher and student, it is made clear that
ultimate responsibility for the children remains
with the teacher. While this does not provide the
student teacher with the experience of having
his/her own class, neither would this experience
be provided if the teacher were to leave the room
and turn the class over to the student as a sort of
substitute teacher. This would be unfair to both
children and student teacher. There is, in fact, no
way for a practicum to provide the experience
of beginning the year with a group of children,
creating ones own atmosphere and rhythm, and
building the relationship between children and
teacher.
Nevertheless, the practicum is an important
step on the way to becoming a kindergarten
teacher. The student needs to experience a
kindergarten class, taking part in its rhythm,
its activities, its turmoil and peace, and,
equally important, the student needs a model
to imitate. That is perhaps the primary role
of the supervising teacherto provide such
a model. Through imitating this model in
conscious ways and sometimes not-so-conscious
ways, the student forms a basis in the will life
for beginning to be a teacher. The stage of
imitationthe early childhood of teaching!
101
Supervising a Student Teacher
may last for the first year or more of teaching.
Gradually the growing teacher begins to develop
a feel for what seems right about the work in
the classroom. During this stage there begins a
groping toward a personal teaching style.
If serious study of Waldorf pedagogy and
anthroposophy have continued beyond the
teacher training period, as they should, the
student teacher will then enter the stage in
which an active thinking life can unite with
experience to light up within the willing and
feeling of the teacher. Now that the joys and
struggles of teaching are being experienced, the
fruits of study ripen in the realm of action. The
student teacher begins to have a basis for making
pedagogical decisions.
The teacher must seek the balance, the
interweaving, of thinking, feeling and willing. It
is a privilege to participate in a student teachers
beginning on the path toward this goal. And,
after all, is this not a goal of every inwardly
striving human being? Rudolf Steiners verse,
Ecce Homo, provides a beautiful inspiration:
In the Heart the loom of Feeling;
In the Head the light of Thinking;
In the Limbs the strength of Will
Weaving of radiant Light,
Strength of the Weaving,
Light of the surging Strength:
Lo, this is Man!
 Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the contributors
to this publication, whose names are included
with their articles and the publishers who
allowed us to translate and publish the following
articles:
Von der Wurde des Kindes and Erziehungs-
kunst for the following:
Stages of Development in Early Childhood
Kindergarten Readiness
Sistine Madonna: A Symbol of the Eternal
Spiritual in People
We thank Paula Lane-DeLorme, who
translated the articles listed above; Carol Petrash
for her editorial work; Lydia Roberson for
editorial work and compilation of this volume;
Bella Schauman and Jerilyn Ray-Shelley for
work on past Newsletters; Leslie Bailey for art
102
work; Nicola Main for illustrations; and Bob
Roberson and Clopper Almon for technical
assistance on the computer.
We acknowledge with gratitude the
indications of Rudolf Steiner which are the
basis of Waldorf educations philosophy and
pedagogy. Since 1919, when the first Waldorf
school was created, Steiners insights into
childhood and education have been taken up
and further developed by Waldorf schools which
now number about 600 in over 30 countries. The
Anthroposophical Society, founded by Rudolf
Steiner to cultivate the free spiritual life of the
human being, strives to deepen the work of
Waldorf education and other activities through
its ongoing research and study. The center of
the Society is in Dornach, Switzerland, at the
Goetheanum which is pictured below.