Research Bulletin

Research Bulletin Spring/Summer 2018

Volume XXIII • Number 1 Volume XXIII • Number 1 Research Institute for Waldorf Education

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF PUBLICATIONS at the RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF EDUCATION 351 Fairview Avenue, Suite 625 Hudson, NY 12534 EDUCATIONWaldorf

Table of Contents

From the Editor ...... 2 Ilan Safit

Beyond the Mechanistic Worldview...... 5 Douglas Sloan

Attention to Attention! A Growing Need for Educators and Parents in the Digital Age...... 17 Holly Koteen-Soulé

Raising Narcissus...... 24 Lowell Monke

Building Bridges: Karl König’s Phenomenology of Reading and Writing Disorders and the Current Neuroscience of Dyslexia...... 31 Lalla Carini

Developmental Challenges, Opportunities, and Gifts for Children Coming into the World Today ...... 48 Adam Blanning

A Case for Waldorf Education...... 58 Robert Oelhaf

Book Review: Train a Dog but Raise the Child: A Practical Primer by Dorit Winter...... 67 Cindy Brooks

Report from the Online Waldorf Library ...... 73 Marianne Alsop

Report from Waldorf Publications ...... 74 Patrice Maynard

About the Research Institute for Waldorf Education...... 75

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 From the Editor

Ilan Safit

e welcome Spring, albeit belatedly, with a knowledge-grasp of the qualities of life, meaning, rich and varied issue of the Research Bulletin. beauty, and spirit,” an endeavor to which the WThe current issue opens with a philosophical “whole of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science is treatise by theBulletin ’s very first editor, Douglas devoted.” Sloan. Working his way through the intellectual Moving to the pedagogical, we encounter history that shaped up the Modernist, empiricist next Holly Koteen-Soulé’s article, “Attention view of the world, thereby forming a new to Attention!” in which the author, a seasoned mode of “knowing” the world, Sloan declares Waldorf teacher and trainer of teachers, a fundamental need to overcome it and its underscores the need for self-checking the dominance in contemporary science, society, and quality of attention teachers and parents pay culture. the children under their care. It has become Constructed on principles of empirical customary to complain about the divided and demonstrability, this mode of knowing has extremely limited attention capacities of the reduced the sphere of existence to mere matter- children and students born into the digital in-motion, imposing on the world and on the age, but how about us, adults of a previous human culture that it has shaped a mechanistic century, who have also been swept up by the view that covers everything from nature to the multiple distractions of modern life? Noting how human mind, itself reduced to a soft-tissue children, especially before the age of seven, mechanical computer of sorts. If humans are develop through imitation, Koteen-Soulé raises one more modality of matter-in-motion, Sloan the question, to what extent the degradation argues, then the unique domains of humanity— of the quality of adults’ attention plays a role values, meaning, ideas, and ideals—have been in the increasing number of various learning explained away from the world, as has any notion challenges children are facing today. Bolstered of spirituality, which the human embodies. While by testimonies from Silicon Valley engineers and the dogmatic beholders of such a scientific, insights from recent studies on attention, this mechanistic worldview might have no issue with article also offers some helpful guidelines for the erasure of spirituality from the dominant mindful attention, which are of great importance discourse, they will have to answer to the to parents and teachers alike. paradox of denying the impetus for meaning and Lowell Monke, a professor of education value, which has set human inquiry in motion who specializes in teaching adolescents about to begin with, and which is now banished from technology, makes a compelling connection the realities of the world altogether. As Sloan between adolescent narcissistic behavior summarizes with an astute quote from the British and the effects of social media. In an analytic philosopher and Harvard professor Alfred North description of the narcissistic personality, Whitehead: “Scientists animated by the purpose Monke demonstrates how important insights of proving that they are purposeless constitute an are gained by viewing phases of adolescence interesting subject of study.” The much-needed as being controlled by a subset of narcissistic alternative to the mechanistic worldview, Sloan qualities. These include self-absorption, a concludes, is to develop and sustain “a living, sense of entitlement, difficulty in forming close

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relationships, and an aggressive reaction to classroom. This is a major contribution to Waldorf criticism. Parents and educators, whose role it pedagogy in deepening our understanding of is to guide adolescents through their skewed, reading acquisition and of meeting the needs of self-centered, yet self-blinding view of their place struggling readers without separating them from in the world, are facing a new obstacle in the the main classroom. form of social media. Constructed to reinforce Adam Blanning, out of his practice as an and exploit the narcissistic tendencies to create anthroposophical physician, offers helpful amplified impressions and elicit favorable diagnostic insights that aim to bridge the gaping reactions, social media disposes adolescents to gap between the therapeutic and the pedagogic remain in the blind spot, from which pedagogical support needed by autism spectrum children. guidance and maturation would otherwise carry Blanning moves from an outward, behavioral them away. The cure, Monke suggests, is the description inwards to the highly-specialized narrative of ecology, which reverts the individual anthroposophic grid of the “constitutional to his or her humble place in the order of nature polarities” (large-headed vs. small-headed; as well as in the social order. Such an “ecological earthly vs. cosmic; rich vs. poor mental capacities consciousness,” he argues, can be further of image-formation and memory) that designate enhanced by reviving the notion of stewardship irregular modes of incarnation of the ego in the as the responsibility to compassionately tend physical body. While the article is rich in further to the well-being of all that one is related to: specialized distinctions (the epileptic/hysterical environment, family, community, and especially constitutions, the maniacal and the feeble), which to those who are in need. The promotion of would certainly challenge the non-specialized stewardship in adolescents, Monke reminds us, reader, the general orientation of this important requires adults to reclaim the role of steward if work should be clear: It is the extent to which one they are to steer erring adolescents back into the is at home in one’s own body that affects one’s fold of a compassionate, altruistic society. comportment in the world and behavior towards Following her survey of dyslexia among North others and is manifested by such comportment. American Waldorf students, published a year ago Learning how to read these manifestations in the Research Bulletin (Vol. XXII, Number 1), carefully and compassionately, as disruptions Waldorf teacher and remediation specialist Lalla to the integration of the different levels of the Carini expands her study of Waldorf approaches human being, as described in anthroposophy, to detecting and remediating reading difficulties is paramount to the ability to offer support to while keeping in step with contemporary findings children on the autism spectrum, support which in the field of neuroscience. Carini is encouraged, will allow them to benefit from the remarkable as should all Waldorf pedagogues be, by some gifts that come with their unique constitution. important correlations she finds between Karl In another reaffirming article, teacher, author, König’s anthroposophically inspired study of and economist Robert Oelhaf reviews rising literacy disorders (presented in his mid-century innovations in mainstream and experimental Camphill lectures, On Reading and Writing) and education that tend to repeat and confirm the contemporary studies in the neuroscience of century-old practices of Waldorf education. reading and writing difficulties. By reviewing Among these practices, Oelhaf notes the recent mainstream studies against the backdrop systematic engagement with the arts, a learning of König’s important work, Carini is providing process that proceeds from physical movement a crucial anthroposophical lens through which to aesthetic and emotional feeling, a deliberative better detection, understanding, and remediation rhythm for the school day and year, a consistent of dyslexia can be achieved in the Waldorf relationship with adult-teachers, and even central

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aspects of school self-governance, in which teachers, rather than external authorities, are in charge of the institutional decisions that would support their pedagogical efforts. The “case” Oelhaf makes for Waldorf education might not be necessary for those who have been practicing it in the classroom, where its efficacy is clear, but it certainly provides a contemporary vocabulary and a rich resource of scientific reassurances for teachers and schools who need to explain, at times even justify, the merits of Waldorf practices to skeptical, even anxious, parents. Finally, we highly recommend reading Cindy Brooks’ long review of Dorit Winter’s book, Train a Dog but Raise the Child: A Practical Primer, which offers a sober yet pleasant reminder of what teachers and parents should and should not do, even when they have the best of intentions. On the back-end of this issue, you will find, as always, reports from the world of Waldorf Publications, in print and online, and on the activities of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education. The latter report includes a reminder that the much-anticipated Survey of Waldorf Graduates is approaching its final stages and is slated to be published in the centennial year of Waldorf education. Stay tuned!

Authors who wish to have articles considered for publication in the Research Bulletin should submit them directly to the Editor at: [email protected].

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Beyond the Mechanistic Worldview

Douglas Sloan

ince the beginning of the scientific revolution, qualities.” The primary qualities included such in the 17th century, Western science and phenomena as extension in space, mass, weight, Sculture have been dominated by a materialistic, motion, number, and so forth. In other words, mechanical view of the world and our ability to the realm of the primary qualities was essentially know it. In effect, all non-material, or spiritual that of the quantitative. The primary qualities, aspects have been purged from this worldview, it was thought, could be known with clarity and as well as from the modes of thinking about and certainty through empirical description and understanding the world. mathematics. The secondary qualities at first included such phenomena as color, taste, and The Mechanistic Worldview sound, but eventually were extended to also A quantitative, mechanistic way of knowing can include other such qualitative domains as value, handle quantities and the machine aspects of meaning, and purpose. In this view, knowledge the world with great efficacy. But the qualities of as such was thought to apply only to the primary nature in and around us are disappearing—these qualities, the quantitative. While the secondary are the qualities of life, meaning, beauty, and qualities might well be realities of experience, wholeness, the very qualities they could not, strictly speaking, that have no place in the [T]he qualities of nature be known because they modern dominant conception in and around us are depended on the observer. of how and what we can know. disappearing—these In short, the perception of What cannot be known was first secondary qualities was thought to be secondary, then are the qualities of life, considered to be tainted by unimportant, and finally non- meaning, beauty, and subjective feelings, habits, existent. wholeness, the very predispositions, and so forth. Three main assumptions qualities that have no Consequently, it could provide about what we can know place in the modern no proper material for precise, and how we know have dominant conception objective knowledge as such. dominated modern thinking of how and what we Accompanying this and consciousness. These can know. quantitative, mechanistic assumptions have had assumption were two further momentous consequences for assumptions about what and all of modern life. The first assumption made how we can know. The first of these has been a distinction between what can be known described as the “objectivistic assumption,” objectively and what is perceived subjectively; it which posits a fundamental separation between ultimately views reality as a mechanism whose the knower and the object to be known. This elements are observable and quantifiable. It assumption holds that if we want to know received its modern stamp very early in the something properly, we must detach ourselves scientific revolution in the distinction that from it as completely as possible and describe was made at that time between what were it from the perspective of a mere, uninvolved designated as “primary qualities” and “secondary onlooker. Appropriately, this assumption is also

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sometimes referred to as the assumption of dimensions of the world. The power and the “onlooker consciousness.” It was thought achievements of modern technology in every important not to introduce personal qualities area—in communication, travel, medicine, involving feelings and values into the knowing construction, computation, and so on—would relationship; to do so would distort and skew have been impossible without the development the pure knowledge of reality as objective and over the past four centuries of ever-enhanced independent of the knower. ways of knowing and dealing with the The other assumption that accompanied quantitative and mechanical dimensions of this one has been called the “sensationist” or the world. Mechanistic assumptions are useful “sense-bound” assumption abstractions from the whole about knowable reality. This When [mechanistic that are extremely effective assumption, forcefully expressed, assumptions] are precisely for understanding and for example, by the 17th-century working with the quantitative philosopher John Locke, holds extended to explain and the mechanical. When, that we can only know that which everything beyond the however, these assumptions are is given through our ordinary purely quantitative extended to explain everything physical sense experience and and mechanical, they beyond the purely quantitative through abstractions from sense become exceedingly and mechanical, they become experience. This assumption destructive. exceedingly destructive. Our about knowing further ensured experience of the life, the beauty, the limitation of knowledge to the purely and the meaning in nature comes to be regarded quantitative and mechanical. as merely the complicated combinations of At first the assumptions of this mechanistic dead, passive, and valueless matter in motion. By view were applied mainly to nature. Nature, definition—or really by fiat—the whole realm of according to Descartes and Newton, was the spirit is eliminated. regarded as ultimately quantitative—without A fundamental transformation of our theory qualities and without consciousness. It was to be of knowledge would mean recognizing and understood entirely in terms of physical cause developing capacities for knowledge of the and effect, that is, mechanistically. Nature was spirit, as well as of the material. In the most regarded as essentially “a law-bound system of general sense, spirit refers to everything that is matter in motion, governed by the laws of the not matter, to all that is immaterial, to all that machine.” Gradually, during the 19th and 20th is non-sensory. What are these non-sensory centuries, this view was extended by many to realities, these realities of spirit? We have already the human realm and to the whole of society mentioned them. They include meaning of every and culture. From this point of view, human kind, including our ordinary ideas; values and beings themselves came also to be understood ideals—the guiding ideas for achieving meaning; as essentially matter in motion. In this light, all ultimate purposes and goals—formal and final human culture having to do with qualities and the ends; and qualities. Qualities include color, non-material, such as meaning, values, purposes, sound, and scent that are entwined with sense ideals, and selves, came increasingly to be experience but whose full reality transcends the regarded as merely the surface manifestations— sensibly given—ask any artist if this isn’t true. or epiphenomena—of matter in motion. But qualities also include all that we experience The assumptions of the mechanical as meaning, value, purpose, truth, beauty, worldview have proven dramatically effective in goodness, freedom, love, and selves. Knowledge dealing with the quantitative and mechanistic of the non-sensory spirit can, therefore, also

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Douglas Sloan • 7 be described as knowledge of qualities in Criticisms of the Mechanistic their fullest. Assumptions To recognize and practice capacities for non- Before looking at the criticisms as such, it may sensory, qualitative knowledge—knowledge of be worthwhile, first, to consider briefly the main spirit—would have far-reaching consequences for attempt to accept and come to terms with the the whole of life, both individually and socially. mechanical worldview, an attempt that has A fundamental transformation of our knowing sought, at the same time, to maintain a firm capacities must per force involve a fundamental place for human values. This response can be transformation of ourselves: our feelings, our described as the “two-realm theory of truth.” It is conceptual abilities, our powers most clearly represented in the of attention and concentration, What are these non- long-familiar distinction made our attitudes and values. A sensory realities, these between the truths of natural transforming of our dominant science and the truths of the modern ways of knowing, by realities of spirit? They include meaning of humanities—roughly speaking, putting into conscious practice truth regarding matter, on the the capacities that include every kind, including one hand, and truth regarding knowledge of both the material our ordinary ideas; meanings, on the other. This and the spiritual, and their values and ideals— two-fold approach to truth intimate interconnection, would the guiding ideas for has a long history in western also be a transformation of achieving meaning; civilization. It was given its ourselves and of our world. ultimate purposes and peculiarly modern cast very early It is important to bear in goals—formal and final in the scientific revolution by mind that the assumptions of ends; and qualities. the distinction that was made, the mechanistic worldview have as we have seen, between the become deeply ingrained in primary and the secondary modern consciousness. To the extent that we qualities. During the 18th and 19th centuries, embody modern consciousness, we all share in this two-realm theory of truth was further these assumptions to a greater or lesser degree. refined. It became institutionalized in the modern It is important to be aware that they often university, where it exerts, still to this day, its reassert themselves in our thinking even when influence throughout the whole of modern we are engaged in trying to overcome them. education and culture. Science deals with nature, In what follows, we will ask, first, what have which, of course, is taken to include the human been the main criticisms, historically, of these body. The humanities, as the name suggests, assumptions of modern consciousness? Second, have as their purview the strictly human realm of in light of these criticisms, do these assumptions meaning, values, purpose, and qualities. In this still hold? to what effect? And, third, what division, only the “truths of science,” dealing, have been the main consequences of these through empirical observation and mathematics, assumptions for the human being and for with nature conceived as matter in motion, are the world? viewed as objective knowledge. The “truths of the humanities,” dealing as they do with the realm of secondary qualities, are limited to the subjective realms of faith, tradition, feeling (aesthetic, religious, and cultural), social custom, social action, and so forth.

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This division between science and of our education system has helped produce the humanities (in the German university: a profoundly split consciousness in western Naturwissenschaften—the natural sciences, and civilization. Geisteswissenschaften—literally the spiritual A second problem is that, while in theory the sciences) has had a tremendous influence in relationship between the two sides is supposed shaping the society and culture of the West. In to be symmetrical and balanced, in practice it the face of a thoroughgoing mechanistic science, turns out to be quite unequal. In this division, this double affirmation has helped keep alive as in racial segregation, separate has not been essential human qualities and concerns. Though equal. The quantitative side is nearly always merely subjective and in that respect generally regarded as the more important. This becomes regarded by the dominant especially clear in education, paradigm as inferior to scientific A major problem is for instance, when in times knowledge, the humanities that, from the start, of financial exigency, the first have been a major source for the science/humanities subjects to be eliminated in the creative pursuit of human division expresses and budget cutting are the arts, meaning and values. At their institutionalizes a deep not chemistry, physics, or best, the humanities have alienation of the human computer science. In the helped cultivate a humanely university, the subjects dealing critical spirit that has often being from nature. with the qualitative—literature, stood as a bulwark against philosophy, education, religion, doctrinaire, and even political, infringements the arts—are constantly on the defensive, often upon human freedom and human rights. The tempted to show themselves more quantifiable affirmation of the two-realm theory of truth has and empiricist to prove that they stand on an been the main response of modern religious equal footing in the curriculum with the natural thinkers who have been eager to reconcile sciences. their faith commitments with the materialism Finally, the most serious problem is the of modern science. It seems also to have been tendency for the mechanistic side to constantly the main response of those scientists who are encroach upon the humanities, such that all serious about both their scientific profession semblance of a symmetrical, equal relationship and their personal faith and ethical concerns. It disappears. The claim is increasingly made that would be difficult to overestimate the positive human beings and all that makes them uniquely influence this two-realm theory of truth has human—meaning, values, ideals, love, their had for modern, western society and culture. selfhood—can be understood like everything else Nevertheless, the theory has some extremely in terms of matter in motion. The mechanistic serious problems, including several that have view not only attempts to explain nature, but become increasingly acute. also to explain away the human. This tendency A major problem is that, from the start, has become especially strong in contemporary the science/humanities division expresses western culture, with profoundly negative and institutionalizes a deep alienation of the consequences, as explored below. human being from nature. Nature, handed over A growing recognition that the science/ to science, is seen as dead matter in motion. humanities two-truths dichotomy has serious Completely separated from this nature, and problems, at least the three just mentioned, has standing over against it, are the humanities— led to challenges to the mechanistic worldview. the strictly human concerns of meaning, Each of the three central assumptions of modern purpose, and value. This division at the heart consciousness that we have looked at has been

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subjected, especially during the past century, presuppose a certain intuitive apprehension of to a number of penetrating critiques. We must non-sensory realities even for the possibility ask to what extent, if any, these criticisms have of ordinary sense-bound knowing. The dislodged the dominance of the mechanistic view Whiteheadean philosopher and theologian, and its claim to be the only source of genuine David Ray Griffin, has argued, for example, that knowledge. the assumption that we can have no intuition The assumption of the objectivistic, onlooker and perception of non-sensory entities (such as view of knowing has been, perhaps, the most ideas, moral norms, meaning, cognitive rules of thoroughly criticized of the three. One of the logic) “makes impossible any empirical grounding most important criticisms has come from for many ideas that are inevitably presupposed quantum physics, which in all our practice, including recognizes that in the process [T]he deepest knowledge, our practice of science.”1 of observing, the observer whether of nature or of Rudolf Steiner made a actively participates in and human beings, requires an similar point in showing in effect alters the state of interactive, participatory that all of our thinking what is being observed. This relationship between the presupposes an element of fundamental undermining of knower and the known. clairvoyance, that is, non- the old, detached onlooker sensory perception. From this stance in observing and perspective, moving now from knowing by modern physics is especially telling, a theory of knowledge to its practice, a major since it was within physics that the ideal of the task confronting us today is to strengthen and detached onlooker was originally, and quite further develop these rudimentary, non-sensory dogmatically, advanced. The assumption of the capacities such that we can come to know the detached onlooker has also been challenged by realm of qualities with the rigor, constancy, and participatory conceptions of knowing coming insight necessary to the full transformation of from several other directions. Ecological studies knowing that our times require. and feminist philosophy, for example, both stress that the deepest knowledge, whether of nature Persistence of the Mechanistic or of human beings, requires an interactive, Assumptions participatory relationship between the knower These challenges to the assumptions of the and the known. modern mindset are important. They point The renowned theoretical physicist, David to new possibilities. Anthroposophists need Bohm, is often quoted as having said, “It is clear to be aware of such new directions and be that no mechanical explanation [of the physical willing to cooperate with those, mostly non- universe] is now available.” Process philosophers anthroposophists, who are in the forefront have also challenged the mechanistic view by of developing them. At the same time, arguing that the most adequate metaphor for however, we must ask, How effective have understanding nature is not the machine, but the the criticisms been up to this point? What living organism. is needed to bring the positive potential for Finally, the assumption that all genuine knowledge of the spiritual, the qualitative, to knowledge is sense-bound has been called full fruition? In spite of the criticisms leveled at into question from several sides. Perhaps the the mechanical philosophy from a number of most important challenge to the sense-bound quarters, it remains the dominant view not only (or sensationist) assumption has come from of modern science but also of practitioners of philosophers who point out that we must other disciplines who have not established an

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objective, or spiritual-empirical, epistemology Lest one suppose that this is the view of only one for their disciplines. In spite of the fact, for individual, consider this statement in which Crick example, that modern physics, as we have seen, was joined by the biologists Richard Dawkins and contains certain fundamental challenges to E.O. Wilson, the philosophers Isaiah Berlin, W.V.O. non-participatory ways of knowing and to an Quine, and the novelist Kurt Vonnegut. In this exclusively mechanistic interpretation of reality, statement, which they issued as a justification of modern physics still remains purely quantitative. scientific research into the possibilities of cloning The quantities involved are essentially number, of higher mammals and human beings, they say: force, and motion, which are often dealt with in highly rarified formal ways. The physicists Humanity’s rich repertoire of thoughts, themselves are under no illusions that theirs is feelings, aspirations, and hopes seems to arise other than a quantitative enterprise, and as a from electrochemical brain processes, not from matter of course, they still often describe their an immaterial soul that operates in ways no field not as quantum physics, but as quantum instrument can discover. mechanics. Moreover, most physicists have – “Declaration in Defense of Cloning limited themselves to a purely instrumentalist and the Integrity of Scientific approach that does not even ask about the larger Research,” 1997 implications of their subject. Instead, they still see it as their task to develop mathematical formulae The mechanistic reduction of the human that enable them to predict the outcome of being here is complete (and, of course, it goes further experiments and observations. These completely unchallenged by the simplistic aspects of modern physics have yet to be taken conception of soul that is proposed as an into account by those who are quick to draw alternative). The paradox in such writing lies conclusions about a presumptive new spirituality in the fact that the ideas, values, and positions contained in quantum physics. advanced by these scientists and thinkers must Another major field of scientific research also be regarded as “electrochemical brain today, that of cognitive science (brain research), processes,” thereby losing any qualitative is exceedingly mechanistic and reductionist. Mind advantage over other ideas, values, and positions, is identified entirely with brain, and the whole of all reduced to the same level of electrochemical the human being is reduced to the functioning mechanism. Either these thinkers are making of the neurons in the brain and nervous system. exceptions for their own ideas or they are All of this is interpreted strictly mechanistically. unaware of the implications of the mechanistic The late Francis Crick, the biologist who turned view so deeply ingrained in the modern scientific to cognitive science after his work on DNA, has mind. described the fundamental view of modern Finally, in Neo-Darwinism, the dominant cognitive science this way: contemporary theory of evolution, the mechanistic assumptions reign supreme. In You, your joys and sorrows, your memories fact, Neo-Darwinism, as the sole and exclusive and your ambitions, your sense of personal explanation of all evolution, means the extension identity, are in fact no more than the behaviour of the materialistic, mechanistic assumptions of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their to the whole of life. The fundamental principle associated molecules—you’re nothing but a of Neo-Darwinian theory holds that all of life pack of neurons.2 must be regarded as a law-bound system of matter in motion, in which accidental events in the distant past have led to the current state of

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biological and botanical life. In effect, biological look away; it is tempting, and almost irresistible, and botanical life is what it is by chance; it could to fall into a kind of unconscious (albeit uneasy just as easily have been something else. One and niggling) complacency, as though the “okay of the tragedies of the current battle between world” will continue. Neo-Darwinists and biblical creationists (both It is a temptation, however, which fundamentalist in their own ways) is that the anthroposophists, of all people, are called to reputable biologists who accept evolution, but resist. Rudolf Steiner said: “We need to be not an exclusively Darwinian interpretation of it, awake and alive for the sake of humanity. If are attacked by both sides and eliminated from anthroposophy is to fulfill its purpose, its prime the discussion. task must be to rouse people and make them Despite cogent criticisms brought against really wake up.”3 He said this at the height of it, the mechanistic worldview remains strong World War I, warning at the time that unless and well entrenched. When it has people did wake up and strive to been applied to the undeniable “If anthroposophy is understand the nature of what was mechanical aspects of the world, to fulfill its purpose, happening, further catastrophes the results have been impressive its prime task must could only follow. In light of and often very important. be to rouse people the disasters that have befallen Nothing in what is written here and make them humanity since, his warning should be taken to suggest that really wake up.” remains as significant as when he the quantitative and mechanical issued it. It would be a daunting approaches are unimportant or, task to have to demonstrate that in themselves, harmful, or that they should be our situation today is any less perilous than in rejected. They are abstractions useful for specific Rudolf Steiner’s time. purposes. For their full and beneficent effect, the To be asked to look unblinkingly at the mechanical and quantitative approaches require full dimensions of our situation today might a purposive and qualitative context that they appear at first to be a counsel of despair born cannot provide for themselves. In other words, of a dead-end pessimism. Nevertheless, Rudolf it is in the context of a wider worldview, the one Steiner himself spoke of the necessity at times, defined in terms of value, meaning, and purpose, on one level, of a “justifiable pessimism.” At the that mechanical descriptions of the world are deepest level of our lives, he said, we should be most useful. Without such a context for guidance, neither optimists nor pessimists but do our work. the mechanistic view tends to provide its own But on the level of becoming aware, he said a limited frame of reference as the dominant certain pessimism is justifiable: “justifiable” if explanatory principle for all existence, with it “becomes a challenge to be awake and to try, disastrous consequences. whatever your place in life may be, to awaken souls so that the science of the spirit can send out Consequences of the Mechanistic its impulses.”4 Assumptions Risking this justifiable pessimism, let us The harmful consequences of mechanistic look at the situation the dominant assumptions assumptions have been building in scope and of the modern mindset have helped create, intensity for the past three centuries. Now they assumptions that have worked to block the threaten the future not only of human society development of the science of the spirit. and culture, but also of life on earth itself. It is crucial that human beings become aware of these consequences and of what is at stake. It is easy to

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Fundamentalist Science fundamentalism strives to combat. On the other As I’ve demonstrated previously, modern ways of hand, fundamentalism can only wage this battle knowing, limited as they are to the mechanistic of resistance dogmatically and negatively because and sense world, cannot deal with the non- it has accepted the modern view that ultimate sensory dimensions of human experience— aims and values cannot be known. They can meaning, values, and qualities—except to only be accepted and asserted dogmatically as explain them away as surface epiphenomena of given variously by religious scripture, tradition, an underlying quantitative substratum. These cultural custom, group feeling, and so forth. non-sensory-spiritual realities, however, are The implementation of ultimate values, once the essence of human life, and they do not given, can then be pursued by means of modern go away. They keep coming back, reasserting technology and technical reason. themselves. In the dominant modern view of Non-religious fundamentalisms—political, knowledge, however, they cannot be known scientific, economic—are, of course, not in any proper sense of the word; they can only combating the modern, mechanistic mindset, be asserted arbitrarily and dogmatically, that for they have embraced and are frequently is, fundamentalistically. The dominant modern, major promoters of it. In their own way, mechanistic assumptions make impossible a however, they are as fundamentalist as the knowing of non-sensory realities that transcends religious fundamentalists whom they see as social and cultural boundaries. Such a knowing their archenemies. Unwittingly, their value could, in principle, be shared by all persons, and assertions are just as dogmatic as those of the so serve as a common foundation for cooperation religious fundamentalists. All in the modern and resolution of conflict. Without such a world who would affirm and advance value knowledge basis, however, religious, ethical, and commitments that have no grounding in aesthetic judgments are all rendered dogmatic. qualitative, imaginative, spiritual knowing This holds equally for political, economic, and have to do so dogmatically, drawing upon the scientific, as well as for religious, assertions of givens of tradition, ideological commitments, ultimate ends and values. In short, I would like to emotions, convention, or power interests. In this suggest that the dogmatism of modern science light, modern liberals and conservatives, each demonstrates a fundamentalist tendency akin advancing against the other their contrasting to the one of religious fundamentalism, which value claims, often have more in common with refuses to reexamine its core beliefs even as they one another than either would like to admit. lead to clashes and conflicts with contemporary Because of its dominant sense-bound reality. and mechanistic assumptions regarding From this point of view, we can better the acceptable method and content of understand one of the glaring ironies of knowledge, the modern world in general has religious fundamentalism, namely that it is a quintessentially fundamentalist character. largely a reaction against the corrosive acids The tragedy is that when values clash, as they of modernity and at the same time a prime inevitably do, the arbitrary assertion of ultimate expression of modernity. On the one hand, values can only end in conflict. There is no higher some fundamentalists have seen clearly that a ground or a shared-value base in which a deeper mechanistic worldview is destructive of crucial unity can be sought. human values and experience and have felt keenly the loss entailed: the dissolution and scattering of community, the undermining of identity, the loss of meaning. All this, religious

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The Degradation of the Human Being are its high priests, cultural icons for the whole and the Destruction of Nature of modern society. When science is taken as The great 20th-century mathematician and the highest and sole source of explanation and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, once gave guidance in human affairs, its view of a pointless, a description of the picture of nature presented mechanistic world seeps into all aspects of by the mechanistic view of the universe: “Nature modern society with profoundly negative effects. is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; This nihilism offers no support for affirming merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, the realities of beauty, ethical ideals, and the meaninglessly.”5 Subscribing to this view of the responsible self. Nor does it offer any resources universe, many prominent scientists today affirm for recognizing and struggling with the depths of that their own scientific research reveals to us human existence—the human potential for good an ultimately meaningless, pointless world. and evil, the mysteries of biography, the creativity The Harvard physicist, Steven of human imagination, the Weinberg, has famously stated: When science is taken value of shared community and “The more the universe seems as the highest and sole sacrifice for the other. Perhaps comprehensible, the more it source of explanation the only values—ideals, if they 6 also seems pointless.” The and guidance in human may be called that—supported biologist William Provine wrote: affairs, its view of a by this nihilism are survival “Our modern understanding pointless, mechanistic and self-aggrandizement in the of evolution implies that struggle for survival. ultimate meaning in life is world seeps into all In this view, the machine nonexistent.”7 The astronomer aspects of modern is regarded as clearly superior Sandra Faber said, “The society with profoundly to the fallible, slow and universe is completely pointless negative effects. limited, mortal human being. from a human perspective.” Increasingly we are inundated And echoing the same thought, the Harvard by proposals to “improve” the human being astronomer Margaret Geller asked, “Why should through genetic engineering, nanotechnology, the universe have a point? What point? It’s just and the creation of human-cybernetic machine a physical system, what point is there?”8 Many hybrids. “Improve” in this context means to more similar statements from the highest ranks radically modify human nature. The hope is that of the scientific community could be added. As the human being will no longer be subject to one encounters these commanding nihilistic disease, death, and stupidity. There has even declarations, it is worth recalling Whitehead’s wry been the founding of a “World Transhumanist comment: “Scientists animated by the purpose Association” aiming to promote the enhancement of proving that they are purposeless constitute of human capacities. While it remains doubtful an interesting subject for study.”9 But the irony whether this technological transcendence of here does not seem to shake the view of many the human being as envisaged can be achieved, leaders of the scientific community that ours is this kind of thinking undercuts and trivializes all a meaningless world. Perhaps it is to their credit recognition of the depths of human life in all its that at least they do not shrink from drawing misery, grandeur, and potential. And it offers no the nihilistic consequences of their materialistic, resistance at all to what Owen Barfield has called mechanistic view. the possible creation of a “fantastically hideous These scientists are among the most world.”10 influential of public figures. Science is the Probably the most pressing consequence dominant modern faith and these scientists today of the mechanistic philosophy and its

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accompanying rejection of non-materialistic and China will soon share with America more values is that, by removing the holistic view of and more of the responsibility for the pollution an intrinsically meaningful and valuable nature, and destruction of the earth as the rate of their it has led to the relentless dismantling of nature. industrialization accelerates. The situation Erwin Chargaff, a noted biochemist and one of promises to worsen, and to do so very quickly. the few leading scientific critics of the modern “Resource wars” over diminishing agricultural scientistic faith, has written: land, energy resources, and especially over fresh water are already being fought (as witnessed The over-fragmentation of the vision of nature in the Middle East and Africa), and planning for … has created a Humpty-Dumpty world that more such wars worldwide has long been in must become increasingly unmanageable as process. more and more pieces are broken off. The To add to all of this, if global warming and wonderful, inconceivably intricate tapestry is climate change come to pass as predicted by being pulled out, torn up, and analyzed; and at most of the world’s experts, then all bets on the the end even the memory of the design is lost future are off. and can no longer be recalled.11 We might think that this plundering of the earth is mainly due to thoughtlessness, greed, As several observers of the earth situation have and general human cupidity. Certainly, greed commented, “Nature doesn’t exist anymore”— and thoughtlessness have always been with us, only bits and pieces, fragments, remain. and in all ages have played major roles in the In addition to having direct, disastrous depredation of the earth. But the problem in consequences, the view of nature as nothing our time goes much deeper than that, so long as but matter in motion also nature is regarded as basically supports the exploitation and [T]he view of nature as a dead, meaningless machine, misuse of the earth through an nothing but matter in as only matter in motion. unrestrained economism—the motion also supports the Greed and thoughtlessness— constant drive for unlimited exploitation and misuse and comfortable indifference— economic growth which is of the earth through an are all given a free hand as dependent on consumerism. unrestrained economism. never before, within the The costs to the earth are now doubly disastrous context painfully apparent. The destruction of forests; the of overpopulation and destructive technology. degrading of arable land; the pollution of lakes, As long as nature is regarded as having no rivers, and oceans; the depletion of fresh water qualities—no inner life, no meaning, no sources; the mass extinction of living species; the living wholeness—taking it apart for our own worldwide collapse of fishing stocks—the list of immediate pleasure and economic advantage is destruction goes on alarmingly. The “Living Planet obviously that much easier to justify. Report” by the World Wildlife Fund has recently A vivid example, much overlooked, of how concluded: “People are plundering the world’s a mechanistic view of life, social and cultural resources at a pace that outstrips the planet’s attitudes, greed, habit and complacency, capacity to sustain life.”12 powerful technology, and hardness of heart all A special responsibility for this state of come together and intertwine is the treatment affairs rests with the people of the United States, of animals by modern, industrial agriculture. which contains only six percent of the world’s Apart from the well-documented environmental population and consumes 30-40 percent of the degradation, communal decline, and spread of world’s resources. It is little comfort that India disease associated with the factory farming of

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animals—particularly pigs, cows, and poultry— ever more to our descendants and to the other the suffering of the animals themselves is species with which we share the planet. It is almost never faced. Yet, daily our culture inflicts already very late. It is hard to avoid bitterness cruelty and suffering on millions of animals of about what might have been done and about an intensity hitherto unknown. The animals the additional missed opportunities each day. It are defined as “units of production” and are is hard to avoid resentment toward those who treated accordingly as useful pieces of machinery continue so successfully to block the needed without feelings. Their entire lives are unrelieved changes. wretchedness. A pall of suffering of living, feeling Yet there is hope. On a hotter planet, creatures hangs over our modern culture, and with lost deltas and shrunken coastlines, most of us are complicit in it, if only through under a more dangerous sun, with less arable willful ignorance of what is taking place. The land, fewer species of living things, a legacy suffering of these animals is one of the moral of poisonous wastes, and much beauty disasters of our time—obviously a startling irrevocably lost, there will still be the possibility claim amid all the many other horrendous, that our children’s children will learn at last daily cruelties, but a true one nonetheless. The to live as a community among communities. withholding of mercy to these fellow creatures Perhaps they will learn also to forgive this bespeaks an appalling failure of imagination generation its blind commitment to ever in thinking, a lack of empathy in feeling, and greater consumption. Perhaps they will even a weakness in moral willing. If it be said that appreciate its belated efforts to leave them the suffering of animals pales in importance in a planet still capable of supporting life in comparison to the horrid suffering of millions community.13 of human beings today, then it may be well to remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “The But now, again nearly another 20 years later, greatness of a nation and its moral progress can Cobb has recently written: be judged by the way its animals are treated.” This same lack of imagination, empathy, and Viewing nature as a machine has led human moral determination stands as a barrier to beings to treat it that way. We are moving the development of any powers of qualitative toward a crisis of global proportions, and our knowing. mechanistic vision deters us from taking the drastic steps needed to change direction.14 Justifiable Pessimism In 1971, John Cobb, a leading American We don’t know if there will be a global philosopher and theologian, wrote a book, catastrophe; predicting the future is risky. Most acknowledged by many today as a small classic of the experts failed to foresee the sudden on the state of the environment. It was entitled collapse of the Soviet Union or of Apartheid Is It Too Late? Almost 20 years later, Cobb and a in South Africa. As one wag has commented, former World Bank economist collaborated on a however: “Miracles are possible, but that’s not book on global economics. By that time, near the where you put your money.” It would be blind conclusion of their book they had to write: and irresponsible to ignore the many warnings of impending global disaster. If we do avoid Each passing year we see foreclosed happier the catastrophe (or, more likely, catastrophes), possibilities for the future. The recognition it will only be because human beings learned of possibilities gone forever inspires us with in time to know and attend to the qualities of a sense of urgency. Delay is costly to us and the world. If the catastrophes do come, and it

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may be sooner than later, it will be all the more ENDNOTES important to have individuals and communities 1 David Ray Griffin,Religion and Scientific Naturalism: working together to develop and sustain through Overcoming the Conflicts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), p. 139. it all a living, knowledge-grasp of the qualities 2 Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The of life, meaning, beauty, and spirit—in ourselves Scientific Search for the Soul (London and New York: and in the world. The whole of Rudolf Steiner’s Simon and Schuster, 1944), p. 3. spiritual science is devoted to that end, and in a 3 Rudolf Steiner, The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness way that aims to have fundamental and specific (London: The Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993), p. 16. implications for science, society, and culture. 4 Steiner, p. 21. 5 Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern As far as the future of the earth is concerned, World (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950), any meditative practice or path of spiritual p. 80. development that does not have as a main goal 6 Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes (New York: the transformation of knowledge in science, Basic Books, 1977), p. 144. society, and culture can only be irrelevant. 7 Quoted in Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters(San Steiner spoke of a “justifiable pessimism” at Francisco: Harpers, 2001), p. 37. one level if it helps us to wake up and be alert. At 8 Faber and Geller quoted in John F. Haught, God after Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Boulder, CO: a deeper level, however, as I noted earlier, he said Westview Press, 2000), p. 105. we should be neither optimists nor pessimists, 9 Alfred North Whitehead, The Function of Reason but do our work. In a lecture at the end of World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1929), p. 16. War I, he said: 10 Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), You will preeminently keep the following p. 146. 11 Erwin Chargaff,Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before your souls: “I am, in any case, called before Nature (New York: Rockefeller University Press, to look at everything without illusion; I must 1978), pp. 55–56. be neither pessimistic nor optimistic, so that 12 http://wwf.panda.org/news_facts.cfm/publications/ forces may awaken in my soul which give me key_publications/living_planet_report/index.cfm. the power to aid the free development of the 13 John B. Cobb, Jr., and Herman E. Daly, For the human being, to contribute to human progress Common Good (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), pp. 399–400. in the place and situation where I am.” Even 14 John B. Cobb, “Buddhism and the Natural Sciences,” if the faults and tragedies of the age are very http://www.religion-online.org/article/buddhism- visible to spiritual science, this should not and-the-natural-sciences/. be an incitement to pessimism or optimism, 15 Rudolf Steiner, Social and Antisocial Forces (Spring but rather as a call to an inner awakening so Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1982), p. 28. that independent work and the cultivation of right thinking will result. For above all Douglas Sloan is Professor Emeritus of History things, adequate understanding is necessary. and Education at Teachers College, Columbia If only a sufficient number of people today University, where he has taught for more than were motivated to say, “We absolutely must thirty years. From 1992 until 2000, he was also have a better understanding of things,” then Director of the Masters Program in Waldorf everything else would follow.15 Education at Sunbridge College. His books include Insight-Imagination: The Emancipation This is the beginning foundation for a healthy of Thought and the Modern World and Faith society and culture—and for the healing of an and Knowledge: Mainstream Protestantism and ailing earth. American Higher Education. He and his wife, Fern, live near Harlemville, NY.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Attention to Attention! A Growing Need for Educators and Parents in the Digital Age

Holly Koteen-Soulé

atching a small child pursue a beetle as about the dangers and unintended consequences it crawls through a forest of grass, or follow the of technological innovations, particularly the Wcourse of a silvery raindrop down a windowpane, smartphone. One recent study, according to or all-consumingly lick an ice cream cone is Justin Rosenstein, found that the mere presence a study in devoted attention. As parents and of the smartphone, even when it is turned teachers, we are tickled by the full-bodied, off, damages cognitive capacity. “Everyone is uninterruptible ability of the young child to focus distracted. All of the time.”1 on an object or experience. A former Google employee, Tristan Harris, These delightful images stand in sharp gave a TED talk in Vancouver, in which he said, contrast to the all-too-common sights of “All of us are jacked into the system. All of our a plugged-in park walker oblivious to his minds can be hijacked. Our choices are not as surroundings, or two people at a restaurant both free as we think they are. I don’t know a more looking at their phones rather than into each urgent problem than this. It’s changing our other’s eyes! democracy, and it’s changing What has happened in the What happens to a our conversations and the intervening years? How might child’s developing relationships we want to have these contrasting phenomena capacity to consciously with each other.”2 Harris is be related? How has electronic direct his or her the author of a 2013 memo to media, the smartphone in attention, when the fellow Google employees, titled particular, changed our lives, attention of adults “A Call to Minimize Distraction our children’s lives, and our and Respect User’s Attention,” parenting? and older students is and has subsequently made his We know that electronic divided, distracted, or concerns public. technology can be both useful even deficient? Loren Brichter, who designed and challenging. We also know the “pull-to-refresh’” feature that research strongly suggests that excessive used in many apps, admits that “smartphones media use is deleterious, especially to the health are useful tools, but they’re addictive. … I have and development of children and teens. While two kids and regret every moment that I am not televisions and computers can be sequestered paying attention to them because my smartphone away or turned off, the smartphone has become a has sucked me in.”3 ubiquitous feature of everyday life. As with other electronic media, but to an even greater extent, What Is Attention? the smartphone has tethered the attention of its Attention is a primary factor in both parenting user, mostly unconsciously. and education. We talk about “paying attention,” “attention-getting behavior,” and “attention Warning Messages from Tech Workers deficit disorder,” for example. Most generally A recent special issue of the Weekend Magazine speaking, attention could be understood as of the Guardian featured several designers and a basic constituent and function of human product developers who have begun speaking out consciousness.

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From this point of view, what does it mean all bear witness to how often tantalizing ads for us and for our children that technology has and headlines interrupt our online sessions. “grabbed our attention?” We could even say that our attention has been The American philosopher, William James, commoditized, not unlike the way that labor explored consciousness and attention, along came to be viewed as a commodity during the with many other topics, in his seminal work, The Industrial Revolution. Principles of Psychology, originally published Matthew Crawford supports this view in his in 1890. He describes attention as naturally 2015 New York Times article: selective, explaining that at any moment, outward life presents “All of our minds Attention is a resource; a person itself to us in myriad sensory can be hijacked. Our has only so much of it. And yet possibilities. What interests choices are not as we’ve auctioned off more and us and what we attend to is more of our public space to what forms our experience free as we think they private commercial interests, of life.4 Voluntary attention, are. I don’t know a with their constant demands on requiring an effort of will, is quite more urgent problem us to look at the products on different than the experience of than this.” display or simply absorb some bit involuntary attention.5 of corporate messaging. Lately, When we are online, our freedom to choose our self-appointed disrupters have opened what to pay attention to may be more illusionary up a new frontier of capitalism, complete than real, in part because the interests of others with its own frontier ethic: to boldly dig up are often leading and shaping us, as much or and monetize every bit of private head space more than our own interests. by appropriating our collective attention. In the process, we’ve sacrificed silence—the The Attention Economy condition of not being addressed. And just as The Attention Economy is the title of a book by clean air makes it possible to breathe, silence Thomas Davenport and John C. Beck.6 It appeared makes it possible to think. What if we saw in 2001, but the authors attribute the original attention in the same way that we saw air or concept named in its title to Herbert Simon, an water, as a valuable resource that we hold in economist and computer scientist, who wrote the common? Perhaps, if we could envision an following in 1971: “attentional commons,” then we could figure out how to protect it.8 In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something Davenport and Beck refer to “attention as the else; a scarcity of whatever that information new currency of business,” but their focus is consumes. What information consumes is primarily on the psychological and organizational rather obvious: It consumes the attention of consequences of employees feeling overwhelmed its recipients. Hence a wealth of information by an imbalance of information to available creates a poverty of attention and a need to attention, and on the importance of attention allocate that attention efficiently.7 management. They describe four symptoms of organizational ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder): In the ensuing decades, the limited attention 1. Increased likelihood of missing key of the consumer has been recognized as an information when making decisions increasingly valuable resource in the information 2. Diminished time for reflection on age, especially for online businesses. We can anything else but email, etc.

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3. Difficulty of holding others’ attention voice, as his father was glancing at his phone to without increased glitziness see who had just sent him a message, “Put down 4. Decreased ability to focus when your phone, Dad!” The implication was clear: necessary9 ‘I am talking to you!’ The father complied, of course. When I shared these symptoms with a group During my many years as an early childhood of educators, they agreed that all four could be teacher, I had the opportunity to observe many descriptive of the learning problems they observe interactions between children and adults. in grades and high school students. A young child can readily sense if and when What happens to a child’s developing “someone is at home.” Typically, the child first capacity to consciously direct his or her attention, relaxes and then becomes more animated. The when the attention of adults image that best captures what and older students is divided, We speak about the can happen is of the long- distracted, or even deficient, as in importance of “quality absent spring sun coming out the above description? time” with our children. from behind a cloud! Children Now …we need to be who sense the conscious, Attention and Presence as keenly aware of the generous, fully present We used to speak about the quality of our attention. attention of adults around importance of “quality time” with Are we fully present or them can feel affirmed in their our children. Now, in the midst active devotion to life and of our ultra-busy, multitasking are we only offering a supported to enter more firmly lifestyle, we need to be as keenly shell of ourselves? into their own beings. aware of the quality of our attention. Are we fully present or are we only Imitation in the Formative Early Years offering a shell of ourselves? and Beyond The potency of a conversation or interaction The attention of parents and caregivers is the between two people depends a great deal on critical factor in a young child’s life because the quality of attention that they give to each during the first seven years of life the child learns other. Is there a genuine interest in connecting? everything through imitation. We can recognize How well are we listening to each other? We this fairly easily with regard to how children learn have all experienced going through the motions to speak, but imitation in the young child goes of socializing while being preoccupied with much deeper than what we can readily observe. thoughts, feelings, or plans that have nothing Rudolf Steiner characterizes young children to do with what is happening around us at that as wholly sense organs, such that they take moment. in everything in their surroundings, especially This is particularly poignant in a conversation everything connected to the human beings with between an adult and child. A spouse who whom they have daily contact. Here are Steiner’s does not have the full attention of his or her words to teachers and parents: partner may register an objection and get fuller participation. It is rare for a young child to be able But it is what you are that matters; if you are to do the same. A tantrum may ensue, but if its good, this will appear in your gestures; if you cause is not recognized, it is unlikely to achieve a are bad-tempered, this will also appear in satisfactory resolution for either child or parent. your gestures—in short, everything that you I did witness a four-year-old child say to his do yourself passes over into the children and father, in a surprisingly wise and authoritative makes its way within them. This is the essential

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point. Children are wholly sense organs, and These observations, in addition to recent react to all the impressions of the people research, certainly underscore the foundational around them. Therefore, the essential thing is importance of the early years. I believe that the not to imagine that children learn what is good degradation of the quality of our own attention or bad, that they learn this or that, but to know and its effect on our children is an area that bears that everything that is done in their presence greater study, as it may well have a role in many is transformed in the childish organisms into of the current challenges described above that spirit, soul and body. The health of the children are facing the children in our society today. for their whole life depends My study has been focused on how you conduct yourself …[T]he degradation of primarily on the child under in their presence. The the quality of our own the age of seven. However, inclinations that children attention and its effect on it is clear that further study develop depend on how you of attention in relation to behave in their presence.10 our children … may well children age eight and up is have a role in many of the necessary, given the significant From this perspective, it seems current challenges that developmental effects of clear to me that the quality are facing the children in electronic media on the of attention of the people our society today. capacity for attention in older with whom a child regularly children. Older children are interacts undoubtedly has an influence on the still developing their capacity for attention and child, especially before the age of seven, when attention management and still need healthy role their development through imitation is strongest. models in their parents and teachers, in relation The question that this brings up is how much of to media use as well as in other areas of life. the rise of ADD and ADHD in our children today is due to their own constitutional situations and Attention and Rhythm how much is it the result of, or aggravated by, Parental attention, as we are discussing it, does the quality of the attention granted them by the not mean being focused exclusively on one’s child adults in their surroundings. at all times. That kind of attention tends to be Michaela Glöckler, a medical doctor and stifling and is not necessarily helpful for a child’s former Head of the Medical Section at the development. Our attention, like our breathing, Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, gave has to be rhythmic and fit the demands of the a lecture in Seattle in June of 2017, in which situation. she spoke about the relationship between Some of our activities require us to be fundamental experiences in the first three wakeful and others we can do without a lot years of a child’s life and three major health of focus, as when an activity is very familiar and educational challenges in older children or repetitive. The rhythm of taking hold and and teens. She correlated attention deficiency letting go of our concentration is normal and problems with a lack of concentrated or focused healthy. Working on a computer all day can be attention in the first year of life; problems stressful for many reasons; a leading reason is of depression and aggression with the lack the kind of wakeful attention that is required of a peaceful atmosphere for listening in the for such work. To be able to muster the force second year of life; problems of addictions and of concentration necessary for deep thinking, a dependencies with a lack of feeling accepted, or significant meeting, or the timely completion of a of having an inner space to feel at home during project requires having rested and renewed one’s the third year of life. capacity for attention.

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With the young child, we alternate durations with the world of feelings, and the feelings are of being fully present with durations in which partly cognitive, that is really feeling, feeling the child is free to be fully attentive to his or her toward the outside, not the self-feeling of own activities. There are also times when we are the adult. The wonder of discovery and the engaged in side-by-side activities. In this case wonder of mental experience are still united. our attention has a different, flowing quality, The capacity for devoted attention is much for example when we are walking, cooking, or greater in children than in adults, and this is so gardening together with the child. to the extent that the child does not This kind of attention is Our attention, like yet turn his attention egotistically different than multitasking, because our breathing, has to himself. Psychic experience is the tasks being undertaken do to be rhythmic and multicolored and many-sided and not require the same kind of fit the demands of can be characterized by joy. The attention. Walking with a friend the situation. joy does not apply to the thing can sometimes promote a deeper perceived, but to perceiving itself. conversation than if the two of us were sitting Or rather, perceiving is not yet as separated down in comfortable chairs. Occasionally, my best from the object as for the adult.11 ideas come when I am ironing! Many psychologists, physicians, and A rich tapestry of sensory, feeling, and cognitive educators are recommending screen-free rooms perceptions, that are outwardly oriented and not in the home and screen-free periods in the day egocentric, can arise from devoted attention. and week. These suggestions, if they are built into This way of being and attending to the world, the family’s living habits, can be tremendously which is completely natural in a small child, is the supportive to creating healthy rhythms for both conscious goal of many a mindful adult! parents and children. Toward this end, Kühlewind offers us three relevant pieces of advice: 1) Valuable practical The Re-schooling of Attention experience in freedom of will can be gained This article began with a few examples of the kind by learning to concentrate our attention. of attention typical of the young child. We clearly 2) The intensity of our sense perceptions can enjoy sharing our children’s delight at discovering be strengthened “with light, careful attention.” their world. Those of us who spend time with 3) Both of these practices can help us transform young children are sometimes fortunate to be our cultural addiction to external, passive able to slow down and enter into their mood of pleasures into creative, artistic joy.12 wonder with them. This can be both refreshing Attention is important in a mindfulness and illuminating. practice, but no less important in everyday living, The Hungarian anthroposophist scholar and according to the research of the Hungarian- thinker, Georg Kühlewind, in From Normal to American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Healthy, describes the differences between a Csikszentmihalyi initially studied particularly child’s and an adult’s perceptions: creative and artistic individuals and coined the word “flow” to summarize what was common Above all, perceiving in a child is based far less about their optimal experiences. In a subsequent on predetermined concepts, because these study, he documented stories of ordinary people have not been formed. This is why the activity who also found flow in many aspects of their of the senses is more intense; everything has lives, including work, hobbies, and relationships. to be looked at, touched, and listened to. Also, Csikszentmihalyi characterizes flow as a this intense sense activity is still intertwined state of complete immersion in an activity that is

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intrinsically rewarding and lifts the course of one’s to both of these first two aspects, there is a third life to a different level. The intense absorption “yes” that comes as I let go of my own needs in such a state is more like the joy for joy’s sake or agenda in giving attention to something or of the small child, than it is like an adult’s typical someone else; this aspect is a kind of selflessness pleasure. “The important thing is to enjoy the in the will. To be the recipient of such full activity for its own sake and to attention is to receive a rare and know that what matters is not Our children not only sometimes startling gift. the result, but the control one is benefit from the Simone Weil, the French 13 acquiring over one’s attention.” attention that we offer philosopher, activist, and mystic, He maintains that while it is wrote compellingly about the usually difficult to change the them directly, but also role of attention in life and external circumstances of one’s from witnessing the education: life, changing the focus of one’s quality of attention attention and thereby the that we cultivate in The poet produces something contents of one’s consciousness, ourselves, including our beautiful by fixing his attention is a much more reliable way to interest in others and on something real. It is the same achieve a feeling of fulfillment. the world around us. with an act of love. To know Our children not only benefit that this man who is hungry and from the attention that we offer them directly, thirsty really exists as much as I do—that is but also from witnessing the quality of attention enough, the rest follows of itself. that we cultivate in ourselves, including our The authentic and pure values—truth, interest in others and the world around us. beauty and goodness—in the activity of the human being are the result of the one Attention as Love and same act, a certain application of the Attention and consciousness are all- full attention to the object. Teaching should encompassing topics; it is advisable to study have no aim but to prepare, by training the these topics ourselves and explore our own attention, for the possibility of such an act.15 experiences with young children, as I have done above, in addition to working with the research Supporting the Forces of Life of others. and Growth Through the course of my own exploration, I The concern about our attention being co-opted have also begun to understand that, whether one by values and interests that are not our own, and, is the giver or the receiver of attention, or sharing as such, significantly influencing our own and our an experience with others, attention in the children’s lives, seems well founded. Some of the fullest sense involves all of our soul faculties— young people I know are beginning to be aware thinking, feeling and willing. As Mary Oliver, the of the need to consciously manage their media poet, writes, “Attention without feeling… is only use, but they seem to be exceptions to the norm. report.”14 It is equally clear that attention is a powerful My own experience of genuine attention force that can be transformative. An image involves saying “yes,” inwardly, in three different that kept recurring to me, as I was working ways. Bringing myself to a specific focus is the with this topic, was of two contrasting qualities first “yes,” which is mostly connected to my of light. The light that we associate with our thinking. In my feelings, the quality of “yes” is consciousness, which is largely metaphorical, is a more like a listening, or creating a free space. warm, lively light. The light of our screens is cool, While a portion of will is required in committing and I have often experienced it as drawing life

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forces out of me. It is the former quality that can Oliver’s elegy in photographs and writing to her warm one’s heart, “light up” one’s eyes, nourish partner, the photographer Molly Malone: “It has and heal us. frequently been remarked, about my own writings, that I emphasize the notion of attention. This began If we, parents and teachers, are willing to simply enough: To see that the way the flicker flies look at our own habits of attention and try to be is greatly different from the way the swallow plays healthy models for our children and students, it in the golden air of summer. It was my pleasure to is possible to preserve and even strengthen the notice such things, it was a good first step. But later, best of our human capacities. watching M. when she was taking photographs, and watching her in the darkroom, and no less watching the intensity and openness with which she dealt ENDNOTES with friends, and strangers too, taught me what 1 Paul Lewis, “‘Our Minds Can Be Hijacked’: The real attention is about. Attention without feeling, I Tech Insiders Who Fear a Smartphone Dystopia,” began to learn, is only a report. An openness—an www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/ empathy—was necessary if the attention was to oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley- matter. Such openness and empathy M. had in dystopia?CMP=fb_us. abundance, and gave away freely… I was in my late 2 Lewis, “‘Our Minds Can Be Hijacked’.” twenties and early thirties, and well filled with a 3 Lewis, “‘Our Minds Can Be Hijacked’.” sense of my own thoughts, my own presence. I was 4 William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume eager to address the world of words—to address the One (New York: Dover Publications, 1950), Chapter world with words. Then M. instilled in me this deeper XL: Attention. level of looking and working, of seeing through the 5 William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles. I think Two (New York: Dover Publications, 1950), Chapter of this always when I look at her photographs, the XXVI: Will, pp. 562–579. images of vitality, hopefulness, endurance, kindness, 6 Thomas H. Davenport, and John C. Beck, The vulnerability… We each had our separate natures; yet Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency our ideas, our influences upon each other became a of Business (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review reach and abiding confluence.” Press, 2002). 15 Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (London: Routledge 7 Herbert Simon, “Designing Organizations for an Classics, 2002), pp. 119–120. Information-Rich World,” in The Economics of Communication and Information, edited by Donald M. Lamberton (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Holly Koteen-Soulé served as a kindergarten Publishing, 1996). 8 Matthew Crawford, “The Cost of Paying Attention,” teacher and parent/child leader for 25 years. The New York Times, March 7, 2015. www.nytimes. She currently directs the Sound Circle Early com/2015/03/08/opinion/sunday/the-cost-of-paying- Childhood In-Service Program in Seattle and attention.html?_r=0. Crawford is the author of the Denver and serves as chair of the WECAN Teacher book, The World Beyond Your Head: Becoming an Education Committee. She is also a member of Individual in the Age of Distraction (New York: Farrar, the Pedagogical Section Council and the WECAN Strauss and Giroux, 2015). 9 Davenport and Beck, p. 7. Board. 10 Rudolf Steiner, The Kingdom of Childhood (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1955), p. 18. 11 Georg Kühlewind, From Normal to Healthy (Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Press, 1988), p. 142. 12 Kühlewind, p. 143. 13 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 129. 14 Mary Oliver, Our World (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007). This quote is taken from the following excerpt from

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Lowell Monke

ot long ago, I began teaching a college are generally shy about revealing their long-term course on social media by asking my students influences on culture. Their greatest impacts Nto consider the old adage, “To a man with a tend to come through gradually rearranging all hammer, everything looks like a nail.” I then of our relationships. Who would have thought offered variations on the original adage and asked at the beginning of the 20th century that the them to finish the sentence using other tools— internal combustion engine, for example, a camera, a book, a computer. When we got to: would so rearrange relationships in our physical “To a teenager with a cellphone…” it was not environment that our entire planet would surprising that the students, all in their freshman begin heating up. The most crucial question we year, began with a variety of affectionate need to address in thinking about social media responses. But when one student stated that she is how they might be heating up the cultural felt “naked without it,” the tone changed. And environment. The answer to that question will when another stated that it often made him feel go a long way toward helping us understand why like he was in a “portable prison,” what followed social media has the kind of influence it does over was a torrent of frustrations, even exhaustion, young people’s lives, why their relationship to with the constant demands flowing through it seems out of proportion with the rest of these extensions of their social selves. When I their lives. asked how often they shut the phones off, most Ironically, a good place to start this admitted that outside of class they never turned investigation might be with MTV, the TV channel off their devices. They couldn’t pull away from devoted to feeding, and exploiting, the cultural them out of fear that their social lives—even appetites of American youth, and now of the their friendships—might wither and die. youth worldwide. To that end, the channel As in the case with earlier employs experts on youth culture technological innovations, the New technologies… to get inside the heads of their reaction by older generations to greatest impacts tend consumers. Occasionally they let social media has been the typical to come through slip what they find. confused mix of awe at the skill In 2007, for example, Judy displayed by their offspring and gradually rearranging McGrath, then CEO of the fretful worry that their brains all of our relationships. channel, stated that youth would are turning to jello. Parents flock to its new online social worry about online bullying; teachers complain games because ‘’MTV speaks uniquely to a group that texting erodes writing skills (even as they of people who are endlessly fascinated with and other role models do it themselves—often watching themselves.’’1 eroding their driving skills). We all get annoyed One need not be an expert in Greek that young people seem to prefer to speak with mythology for this comment to evoke the image someone who isn’t present. of young Narcissus, sitting at the edge of a pond, These types of common complaints have transfixed by his own image. Nor must one be merit. But as my students’ comments suggest, young to be aware that one of MTV’s own most it is important to dig deeper. New technologies popular shows in the last decade, Jersey Shore,

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serves as exhibit A in the rash of a “reality” The term narcissism is derived from a Greek programming that follows the lives of young myth with which we are all familiar: A beautiful narcissists. but cold-hearted boy loves and leaves many a There is plenty of evidence that narcissism girl, until the gods are asked to punish him for his is heating up in our culture. The number of callousness. Nemesis obliges, leading Narcissus diagnoses of the severe pathological Narcissistic to the quiet pond where he falls in love with his Personality Disorder (NPD) has doubled in the reflection. He becomes so transfixed by his own last decade.2 More importantly, there is evidence image that he can’t pull away, sitting there until of a substantial rise in narcissistic traits in the he withers and dies. general population. A review of the research Widely known only in this skeletal form, it is on narcissism conducted by psychologists Jean not surprising that it is perceived as a cautionary Twenge and Keith Campbell tale against self-love. But this indicates that “narcissistic [M]ost [students] simple interpretation leaves out personality traits rose just as fast admitted that the most crucial detail of the as obesity from the 1980s to the outside of class they story: Narcissus doesn’t recognize present.”3 never turned off that the image he is falling in love It is this unprecedented their devices. They with is of himself. It is his lack increase in narcissistic tendencies couldn’t pull away of self-awareness that betrays across the entire population that him. Lacking internal knowledge is cause for concern and should from them out of of who he is, Narcissus mistakes push us past the trivializing pop- fear that their social his external image for another culture notion of narcissism as lives—even their person, one who seems totally simply being in love with oneself. friendships—might responsive to his every gesture and Vanity, self-promotion, and self- wither and die. declarations of love. By the time absorption, traits easily linked he finally realizes that he has fallen to self-love, are certainly typical features of in love with his own image, the bond created narcissism. But so too are callous manipulation through this interaction (what we might refer to and use of others, difficulty in forming close in today’s hi-tech lingo as a feedback loop) is too relationships, a sense of entitlement, and strong to break. aggression in response to criticism.4 This feature of the myth is far more helpful It is important to note that these traits are in explaining what is happening today than the not something that one either has or doesn’t more straight-forward story of self-love. Contrary have. Narcissistic traits tend to expand and then to popular perception, narcissists typically have recede in everyone, as we go through stages high self-esteem.5 But with no stable or well- of seeing the world more, and then less, as an developed inner sense of self, they have to extension of ourselves. In fact, a large subset of constantly replenish that esteem by looking for these qualities almost defines adolescence. Even favorable images of themselves in the reactions after that period of semi-insanity subsides, we of others, using everyone around them as need to retain a dash of these personality traits reflective mirrors. Thus, for narcissists, creating in order to feel some sense of power over our impressions is more important than producing environment. Rather than a simple either/or results, making every encounter a performance, condition, narcissism is shorthand notation for keenly tuned to elicit a favorable reaction from a complex set of personality traits that have others. gotten wrenched out of proper proportion with None of this requires social media, of course. each other. But that should not prevent us from considering

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the possibility that these tools not only support “the knack of so arranging the world that we do narcissistic tendencies but might thwart efforts to not experience it.”8 It is probably what my own move beyond them at the very stage in a young father sensed when, after 50 years of farming, person’s life when it is most important to exert he told me that as much as he appreciated the that effort. power of tractors, he enjoyed farming more Marshall McLuhan suggested such a with horses and mules because “I could feel the connection between media and narcissism ground under my feet.” fifty years ago. Sometimes called the godfather All of this was weighing on me as I listened to of media studies, McLuhan saw in the myth those first-year students bemoan their inability a metaphor for the way that technologies— to get away from their cell phones. Without mechanical extensions of much forethought, I cut off the ourselves—subtly desensitize [T]hese tools not only conversation, asked them to set engagement with the world. support narcissistic all of their electronic equipment Noting that “Narcissus” was a tendencies but might on the tables, and sent them play on the Greek word narcosis, outside with instructions to find McLuhan says of the boy: thwart efforts to an isolated place in the large move beyond them wooded area at the center of This extension of himself at the very stage in campus. There they were to sit by mirror numbed his a young person’s isolated from human contact for perceptions until he became life when it is most just 20 minutes. the servomechanism of his own important to exert With their treasured digital extended or repeated image. that effort. devices held ransom in the The nymph Echo tried to win classroom, they all eventually his love with fragments of his own speech, returned to class. I feared they would say that but in vain. He was numb. He had adapted to it had been a waste of time. Instead, one after his extension of himself and had become a another expressed not just approval but gratitude closed system.6 for a respite from the incessant urge to check in. One student offered that it was the longest McLuhan draws our attention to the numbing stretch of time he had been totally “alone” effect of the water’s surface, the mirror that since ninth grade. I was struck not just with how seemed to Narcissus a window to a larger world. eager they were to talk about how rare this What he never understood was that it was also a experience has been, but by their difficulty in barrier to fully engaging others in it. labeling it. The term I finally offered, “solitude,” Tools tend to make us numb because they seemed as foreign to them as what they had always stand between us and the environment just experienced. And they begged for more. we are shaping with them. Philosopher Don Idhe So twice a week for the rest of the semester, in vividly illustrated this with his description of the good weather and bad, these first-year students benefits and detriments of a simple apple picker.7 dropped off their electronic equipment and went This long pole with a small cage and hook at one to their special spaces for what became known as end extends our reach, allowing us to pick many their “fifteen minutes of solitude.” more apples from a tree than we could by hand. These few repeated moments of time alone But we lose our sensual feel for the apples in allowed my students to notice things—squirrels, the process and are thus prone to pick more bad bugs, the blueness of the sky, even a large ones. This characteristic may be what inspired fountain—they hadn’t noticed before. They playwright Max Frisch to define technology as also noticed why they had missed them: Like

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the students they were now observing from a This is the elevation of personal interest to distance, they had typically walked across campus pathological concern. It is the logical outcome talking or texting on their cell phones or listening of a culture so driven by flattery (and the to music on their headsets (often while walking consumerism it serves) that only what reflects with another student doing the same thing). our personal interests matters. They also noticed, to their surprise, how rarely Flattery is, at best, superficial. And though students, absorbed with their media, greeted we often go online seeking some kind of intimate other students they passed by as they walked. contact, the effect seems to be just the opposite. When we eventually came upon McLuhan’s Facebook, for example, has grown to over a passage, my students had no trouble recognizing hundred million subscribers in the U.S. alone, how these and other digital tools each with, on average, 130 “friends,” made them numb to the creatures [M]y students yet the number of Americans who and people sharing the physical had no trouble say they have no one in whom they space around them. recognizing how can confide has increased in the Of course, it wasn’t the past ten years, to one in every four.11 numbness that first captured these and other Being connected is not the same as Narcissus. He was held in place by digital tools made being close. the flattery of a beautiful person’s them numb to Nor does the ability to share slavish response to his every gesture the creatures and intimate moments lead to greater and word. According to media critic people sharing intimacy. The oft-noted ease with Thomas de Zengotita, today’s media the physical space which children today perform in is characterized by this same type around them. front of the ubiquitous camera of flattery.9 Whether it is the silky- may indicate something other than voiced actor/shill assuring you that you deserve just an ability to carry on as if the camera isn’t the happiness her product will bring you, or the there. It may indicate that they have adapted to celebrated anchor relaying today’s news as if he is performing as if the camera is always there. sitting in your living room, or the ease with which It’s easy to see why young people sense one can collect Facebook “friends” like baseball that they are living their lives on the screen. The cards, the underlying message behind so much of latest data from the Kaiser Family Foundation our media interaction is, “I stand at the center of research indicates that the average time that my own electronically-constructed universe. This youth between the ages of eight and 18 spend is all about me.” using entertainment media has increased to over We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the seven and a half hours a day. But because they most savvy marketing media company on Earth, often use more than one medium at a time, “they Apple, years ago began putting an “i” at the actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and beginning of the names of its products. Nor 45 minutes’ worth of media content into those should we be surprised that Mark Zuckerberg 7½ hours.”12 That’s a lot of time performing, a lot once told his Facebook staff to organize users’ of time consuming and tending to images. news feeds by keeping in mind: “A squirrel dying Given such a total saturation of youth culture, in front of your house may be more relevant to the common defense—it’s not the technology your interests right now than people dying in that’s a problem, it’s how you use it—sinks of its Africa.”10 Zuckerberg may have been speaking own weight. What Winston Churchill said about in the spirit of acting locally, but there is no buildings, that “we shape our buildings and indication of an accompanying urge to think thereafter they shape us,”13 is more generally true globally—or to think about anyone else at all. of technologies than most of us want to admit.

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When our youth spend so much of their lives in time. And for decades now, efforts have been virtual habitats constructed to reflect, reinforce, made to teach children a different worldview. and exploit rather than diminish adolescent When we help youth move away from seeing narcissism, it no longer matters so much how nature as something to gain power over toward they use them as that they use them. The great understanding how they fit within it, we are need today is to direct Narcissus’ gaze away from teaching the counter-narrative of ecology. the pool. The key to developing a healthy relationship Of course, that is no easy task. As most with social media is recognizing the parallel that parents will attest, the power offered by social runs between technology’s older impact on the media is so seductive, so convenient, so much a natural environment and its newer impact on the fixture in youth culture that figuring out how to social one. Indeed, Christopher Lasch suggested get their eyes directed away from those digital that the “culture of narcissism” he documented pools can seem an overwhelming challenge. Well- is an outgrowth of an out-of-proportion intended advice nearly always reaction against feelings of meets with skepticism. Years When our youth spend “helplessness and dependence” ago, I gave up suggesting specific so much of their lives on nature, fueled in large part activities to counter the lure of by technologies forged during technology and quit offering in virtual habitats the Industrial Revolution, the rules for media use by children. constructed to reflect, revolution that gave us the I realized that demanding that reinforce, and exploit illusion of God-like power over children act differently in relation rather than diminish nature.14 to this cultural force is futile adolescent narcissism, Thus, the modern Narcissus, and even unfair, unless they it no longer matters who puts himself at the center first are able to see their culture so much how they use of the universe, who thinks of differently. them as that they use others as objects for his own The late Neil Postman argued them. use, is essentially extending that the first, most crucial— to his social relationships the and typically ignored—step in pervasive industrial age attitude helping children develop a healthy relationship toward nature: alienated, exploitative, ill-at-ease with digital media is to offer them a powerful with intimate contact but constantly flattered narrative about how they fit into the world, one and encouraged by his technically-enhanced compelling enough and worthy enough of their ability to manipulate and control the surrounding great energies that they can find a healthy home environment. for technology rather than make technology Lasch believed that developing an ecological their home. consciousness could not only cure our delusion Religion once provided such a narrative for of god-like power over nature, but also cool off most children, with stories and rituals that helped narcissistic tendencies. It is indeed difficult to be them make sense of the world. It still works for a narcissist while acknowledging the vicissitudes some. Patriotism has served that purpose for of nature, which doesn’t cater to our whims or, others. But neither is faring so well against the indeed, treat us as special at all. The sense of competing story conveyed to them today by humility that comes from recognizing that nature technology, which is all about asserting power offers no unearned praise, nor even a hint of over the world. entitlement, helps situate us in the world. Indeed, That narrative has been causing trouble for this humility is our inner world’s vow of fidelity to our relationship with the physical world for a long the external world.

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Ecological consciousness may be the goal, but Thus, friendship is evidenced not just when is there a narrative, a compelling story that we your friend helps you get where you want to go, can pass along to our children that can get them but also when she refuses to let you drift away there? I believe there is. There are likely many, in from your true calling. It is evidenced not just fact. The one I want to suggest here is captured, when a friend “has your back,” but when he calls imperfectly but helpfully, by a concept perhaps you back to your best self. This is, in fact, the as old as the Narcissus myth: It is told by the concept of a friend that moved Aristotle to claim narrative of stewardship. that its opposite was not an enemy but a flatterer. Stewardship is most closely affiliated with Mentoring is a type of friendship that a sustainable use of land. It is a term not all spans generations, and is thus an inherent environmentalists embrace due to its legacy, quality of stewardship. Mentors provide the stemming from medieval times, of viewing the mature guidance youth need to get their social natural world as a resource we humans can relationships in proper proportion: to discover manage for our own use. When I worked, right that to feel needed is as important as getting your out of college, for a community of Mennonite own needs met; that seeking to be admirable in farmers in central Kansas, their extensive use the eyes of a role model is the foundation of a of the term contained none of that exploitative moral life, whereas trying to impress whoever connotation. Perhaps because of their unusually comes along is its abdication. strong emphasis on the social gospel, or perhaps Unfortunately, too many of us have bought because they extended the use of the term into the narrative that in a rapidly changing, to their church and community relationships, high tech society our children live in a different stewardship meant for them a responsibility to world from ours, a world which somehow we lovingly and humbly tend to the health of all to have no right to help shape. Too often our own which they were related: the earth, their families, remote jobs limit our halting efforts to be role the community, and particularly those in need. models and guides. And way too many of us seem That is the way I use the term here. Its unwilling or unable to turn our eyes away from adoption as a lens through which we view the our own reflective screens. world counters the narcissistic urge by fixing Thus, the first step many of us will have to our attention not on how best to use others for take is to put the digital media away ourselves our purposes, but rather on what best serves and invest the time needed to find our way back to preserve and strengthen our relationships into the depths of our children’s lives. Reaching with them. It reclaims the notion of community that depth takes not just a few moments from the trivializing online idea of a loosely of quality time but lots of time from lots of formed common interest group, reaffirming the grown-up people: time for humility, gratitude, commitment and hard work needed to maintain compassion, selfless acts of kindness, generosity, a web of complex relationships spun together in a and civic duty to slip uncelebrated into the fabric common space. of shared daily activity. Similarly, friendship from a stewardship Perhaps the most difficult change we will have orientation is not based simply on good times to make as good stewards to the next generation together. It is rooted in a deep sense of affiliation, is to let our children lie fallow for certain stretches commitment, and mutual responsibility grown of time. By this I mean we need to resist the from the seed of shared experience. It has temptation to focus all of our children’s energies nothing to do with hooking up or hanging out. on activities that are calculated to reap some It has everything to do with holding on and reward, be shown off on a Facebook page, or used hanging together. to impress college recruiters.

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Rousseau argued that the most important if only we are willing to teach them how. To figure thing for a child to do is waste time. I certainly that out we may first have to reteach ourselves to would not go that far. But narcissism flourishes daydream. on a diet of instrumentalism, where every action expects a payoff. We need to make more space ENDNOTES 1 Richard Siklos, “Not in the Real World Any More” and time for things such as free undirected play, [Electronic Version], The New York Times On-line, telling stories, and just wandering around, not September 18, 2006. because it increases creativity or promises higher 2 Jean W. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, The test scores but because these are things that we Narcissism Epidemic (New York: Free Press, 2010). have long associated with a healthy childhood. 3 Twenge and Campbell, p. 2. And sometimes, far more often than we 4 Twenge and Campbell. 5 Twenge and Campbell. realize, young people just need rest, to withdraw 6 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media–The inwardly, to take inventory of their oft-wounded Extensions of Man (New York: Signet Books, 1964). souls if they are to come to terms with who 7 Don Ihde, Technology and the Life World they really are and weave that insight into their (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990). relationship with the world. One of my own 8 Quoted in Rollo May, The Cry for Myth (New York: wise mentors once told me that contrary to the W.W. Norton, 1997), p. 57. 9 Thomas de Zengotita,Mediated: How the Media teacher’s commandment to keep students “on Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It (New task,” I should never interrupt a student who is York: Bloomsbury, 2005). daydreaming—really important work was going 10 David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect: The Inside on behind those glazed-over eyes. Story of the Company that Is Connecting the World. Real experience, as John Dewey endlessly (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 296. argued, is not just ceaseless action, but 11 Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew the constant interplay between action and E. Brashears, “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades.” 15 reflection. It was Narcissus’ lack of internal American Sociological Review Volume 71, Number 3, reflection that left him unable to recognize and 2006. resist the image he projected onto the pool. Our 12 Victoria Rideout, Ulla G. Foehr and Donald F. Roberts, inability, or reluctance, to conserve the time Generation 2M : Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year- and space for our children to be left truly alone, Olds (A Kaiser Family Foundation Study, 2010) 2. denies them the opportunity to strengthen their 13 Winston Churchill, Address to the Nation, 1943. 14 Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (New inner sense of self, condemning far too many to York: Warner Books, 1991). share Narcissus’ fate. 15 John Dewey, Education and Experience (New York: We have not been good stewards of Macmillan, 1938). childhood. Reclaiming that stewardship will certainly not be easy. We will have to create Lowell Monke, PhD, taught courses on the opportunities for activities—and inactivity—that philosophy of education and the impact of media help youth change the way they see themselves on young people at Wittenberg University, OH, and their role in the community. until retiring in 2014. He has authored numerous There are no formulas for this. Social ecology articles on technology and education and is is an intensely local task. The good news is that co-author of Breaking Down the Digital Walls: young people seem to be increasingly aware Learning to Teach in a Post-Modern World. Lowell of the hollowness of a mediated life and are was a founding board member of the Alliance for receptive, even eager, to enlist in something Childhood and served as a technology advisor to that offers them a more meaningful sense of the Washington Waldorf School for eight years. belonging. Many seem ready to be good stewards He now resides in Parker, CO.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Building Bridges Karl König’s Phenomenology of Reading and Writing Disorders and the Current Neuroscience of Dyslexia

Lalla Carini

All our pedagogical and curative-educational of the four foundational senses sufficient in efforts are directed at connecting one shore with addressing dyslexia, or do other aspects need to the other, at connecting what is heard with what be considered? Is a definition of dyslexia and of is seen. – Karl König, Being Human subtypes of specific reading disorders necessary and, if so, when and how are these definitions useful for an understanding of the difficulties n his lectures On Reading and Writing, given faced by children? to Camphill teachers in 1957 and 1961 and first The focus of this study is to look at König’s Ipublished in 2002, Karl König names four broad paradigm through the lens of the current areas out of which literacy difficulties originate: neuroscience of reading and reading difficulties uprightness, attentiveness, the realm of the heard and to show which theories stand to validate his and spoken word, and the realm of the seen typology. The goal is to demonstrate that, in spite word (2002, see figure below). König’s typology of the inherent differences between these equally of literacy disorders is the only comprehensive complex lenses, there is a clear continuum description, written by an anthroposophic between a number of scientific hypotheses and doctor, available to Waldorf teachers in the König’s typology. English-speaking world. König acknowledges The theories of dyslexia I will discuss that learning difficulties can have their origin in relation to König’s typology are: the both at the level of the four bodily senses as well automatization/cerebellar deficit hypothesis, as as in the four higher senses, specifically in the brought forth by British researchers Roderick senses of speech and thought. His description Nicolson and Angela Fawcett (Nicolson, 2008), sheds light on the long-standing question of how in connection to body schema, or uprightness; dyslexia is understood and addressed by Waldorf the dual route model of reading, first developed professionals, namely: Is screening and treatment by Coltheart (2005), which validates König’s description of the dual nature of the word as sound and image; and the more recent magnocellular hypothesis described, amongst others, by French neuroscientist Stanislas Deheane in his book Reading in the Brain (2009). Bringing together these hypotheses into one unified set of phenomena, I will report on the synthesis proposed by Tufts University neuropsychologist Maryanne Wolf, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. It The four realms of literacy difficulties (from König, On Reading and Writing) is not in the scope of this article to

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discuss each of the theories in full, but simply to mental picturing, analytical or synthetic powers point out how they confirm König’s paradigm. at the level of thinking and language processing. The article is divided into two sections. All Waldorf teachers would benefit from Section I addresses the relationship between being able to recognize learning profiles through uprightness and attentiveness as a foundation an anthroposophical lens. Failure to develop for learning and the two memory systems this understanding results in Waldorf teachers’ (procedural and declarative). Section II focuses on becoming insecure in their ability to meet the dual nature of the word and the dual route struggling students. Guiding the parents through model. König’s inquiry addresses both the wide the sea of options available for addressing spectrum of curative profiles, as well as the norm learning challenges is also difficult without a clear of students we meet in the standard Waldorf characterization or diagnosis. classroom. This article focuses on the latter. My interest in the neuroscience of reading stems from a desire to further develop Background our Waldorf approaches for detecting and A survey I conducted in the spring of 2015 among remediating reading difficulties in harmony 57 Waldorf schools in North America showed with scientific findings. I hope the following that, in spite of the incredible work done to description of the science of reading will help address the rise in sensory-motor disorders so other teachers pursue a balanced approach widespread among today’s children, consensus between the extremes of the much advertised has not been reached on how to detect and “early intervention” versus the hands-off stance successfully address different types of literacy that has historically led Waldorf professionals to disorders in the Waldorf context (Carini, 2017). even question the occurrence of something called A collaboration with outside practitioners dyslexia in the Waldorf classroom. is often necessary, and some schools have When I started teaching, 20 years ago, I was built relationships with specialists trained in told that in Waldorf we did not teach phonics. A Orton-Gillingham or in other methods for few years later, I realized that Steiner had a lot remediation. Schools that have established to say about phonology. Then, I read about brain educational support positions are confronted imaging studies and I understood why Steiner’s with the question of whether Extra Lesson method of teaching letters through pictures was screenings are sufficient in detecting a dyslexic nothing short of genius. His indication to connect profile. Many find that there isn’t always a direct the sound to the symbol through a pictorial correspondence between sensory-motor issues image foretold the discovery that, for reading to and language-based dysfunctions. happen, two routes have to be activated in the My professional experience working for three brain. These are equivalent to two bridges: one years as an educational support coordinator bridge from letter-symbols to speech-sounds, in a large urban Waldorf school alongside a and the other from letter-symbols to mental certified educational therapist showed me that, pictures (Deheane, 2009, p. 38). The present in fact, a correspondence is not always there. inquiry, though merely scratching the surface of a Working with groups of struggling readers in the complex science, was spurred by the enthusiasm middle school allowed me to personally verify of that first important discovery. König’s statements regarding different reading styles. Through my experience both as a class teacher and as a remedial teacher, I came to the conclusion that some children need help, at some point in their journey, to strengthen phonology or

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Two Paradigms, One Complex neurons, and genes, all of which have to Phenomenon come together in rapid synchrony to form the Some specialists are still under the impression reading circuit. that we have (if we are right-handed) specific areas in the left side of our brain which are Wolf reports on what Charles Perfetti and connected with our ability to speak, read, write his team at the University of Pittsburgh calls and understand the written word. We can the “universal reading system” (pp. 62–63). imagine the problems faced by such specialists This system, which includes all the ways the when they find that other areas of the brain brain rearranges itself for reading in different are damaged or injured, and yet a person still languages, shows that “areas from all four lobes suffers from one of the thousands of possible of the brain are involved” in the act of reading forms of aphasia! (pp. 63–64). Admitting that “the story of the blind – Karl König, On Reading and Writing men and the elephant remains an apt description of much of this research,” Wolf seems to resort In the 25 years that have elapsed since Karl to a phenomenological approach; she places all König gave his lectures On Reading and Writing, the current hypotheses of dyslexia on a map of enormous leaps forward have been taken in our the human brain. What comes out is a “decent understanding of the complexity of the human approximation of the major parts of the universal brain. Imaging technologies now enable us to reading system.” watch neurons as they fire while a person reads. “We were never born to read” (p. 3) is Yale researcher Sally Shaywitz, in her landmark Wolf’s opening statement. The key finding book, Overcoming Dyslexia, rightly claims that from neuroscience is that reading is a very new we have finally found consensus on the main invention in the evolution of humanity. The cause of reading failure and that we now have structures and circuits that we use for reading proven methods that enable dyslexic people to were “originally devoted to other more basic read (2003, p. 3). Shaywitz is right in that the so- brain processes, such as vision and spoken called phonological principle is now universally language” (2007, p. 5). Reading is the product recognized as the main gateway to reading ability of “brain plasticity”—“the human brain’s (Wolf, 2007, p. 175; Deheane, 2009, p. 238). extraordinary ability to make new connections She is also accurate in stating that a number among its existing structures,” its ability “to be of methods have shown success in teaching shaped by experience” (p. 3). In this sense, the seriously dyslexic children to decode. However, ability to read should be more surprising than just three years after Shaywitz’s book was an inability to read (Nicolson, 2008, p. 12). This published in 2003, Tufts University neuroscientist finding can be interpreted by Waldorf educators Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid: as supporting Rudolf Steiner’s indication The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, that reading should be taught gradually and proposed her cumulative dyslexia hypothesis as a artistically, so as to gently integrate sensory and way to overcome the impossibility of arriving at motor processes and all twelve of our senses one all-encompassing cause: (Steiner, 2004, p. 120). Like Steiner, König does not view the Dyslexia cannot be anything as simple as a human being as determined by mechanisms flaw in the brain’s “reading center” for no such in the brain. He begins by looking at reading thing exists. To find the causes of dyslexia, we and writing as archetypal phenomena. His must look to older structures of the brain and discussion spans across disciplines as varied their multiple levels or processes, structures, as philosophy of language, mythology, and

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 34 • Building Bridges esoteric science. However, the areas of reading Uprightness and Attentiveness and writing difficulties he identifies find a clear Rudolf Steiner traces back all learning to the correspondence in Wolf’s map. König describes interplay of the two poles of the human being, the “landscape” of these complex processes as the metabolic-limb system and the nerve-sense different “countries” between which “we must system, which meet in the rhythmic system of build bridges” in order for reading and writing breathing and blood circulation. In his esoteric to develop. These realms are uprightness, physiology, the first pole is the “night,” the pole attentiveness, the realm of the heard and spoken of “darkness,” where the warm growth forces word, and the realm of the seen word. operate; the second is the “day,” the pole of Areas that form the map of the reading brain “light” where the cool forces of mental picturing include older structures, such as the cerebellum, and thinking reside (König, 2002). Waldorf as well as the most recently developed pre- teachers are familiar with the idea that learning is frontal cortex. Both are largely implicated in the transformation of growth forces into thought learning, in sensory processing, attention, forces. The thought forces are first liberated and memory (Nicolson, 2008, pp. 28–29). when the child completes the process of physical Neuropsychologist and educator Jane Healy incarnation, around the age of seven. describes the “attention loop” (1987, pp. 97–98), In Being Human: Diagnosis in Curative which runs “from the brainstem up to the top Education, König uses the terms incarnation level of the prefrontal cortex” and discrimination in relation with a “feedforward and feedback In looking at the to these two streams of forces. system” of “interconnecting architecture of the Incarnation is the individuality’s loops” throughout the limbic brain, it appears gradual “[taking] possession of his system, or “emotional brain.” that all areas and own bodily organization step by This loop charts the threefold all directions of step” (1989, p. 35). It can equally organization of the human brain space are involved be seen as the integration of the into brain stem, limbic system and four bodily senses to achieve neo-cortex, Paul McLean’s triune in reading: above what is known to physiologists brain (pp. 11–12), which parallels and below, front and as body image or body schema: the three soul forces of thinking, back, left and right. “We perceive our body through feeling, and will. The left and right learning to experience it more hemispheres are directly involved in receptive and more as a totality, as ‘body image’” which and expressive language, and both connect to the “is nothing more than these four senses put left lateral occipital sulcus where visual analysis together” (pp. 35–37). Discrimination is sensory of word forms has its origin (Deheane, 2009, pp. processing, the gradual ability to “distinguish 69–76). In looking at the architecture of the brain, between the objects and beings of the world” it appears that all areas and all directions of (p. 36). Incarnation is a synthetic process. space are involved in reading: above and below, Discrimination is the same as analysis: “We front and back, left and right. The way cognitive experience the world by becoming aware of it functions must be integrated in the brain seems analytically, step by step” (p. 45). König names to mirror in some mysterious way our overall these two poles also as body and world, motor integration in physical space. Building of neural and sensory. pathways between different areas of the brain is In the lectures On Reading and Writing, also necessary. Could these pathways correspond König seems to simply rename the forces of in some way to the “bridges” which König incarnation and discrimination uprightness and describes in his phenomenology of literacy? attentiveness. The power of uprightness, through

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out of movement” (1989, p. 66). What we call receptive and expressive speech, listening (with understanding) and speaking, stream from the two different poles. This is why a person can speak but not understand, or understand while being unable to speak. “These two components— the motor and sensory—work more intimately together in speech than anywhere else” (p. 61). Uprightness and attentiveness are two of the four “lands” that need to be connected if a child is to read and write. Reading and writing accompany listening and speaking in helping to connect, in the child, the pole of night to the pole of day, the Uprightness and attentiveness (from König, On Reading unconscious pole of movement in speaking to and Writing) the conscious realm of thinking in listening and spatial orientation, postural stability, and mature understanding. proprioceptive feedback enables the head pole to become still for learning. This is achievedbody schema or the sum of the four foundational senses. The power of attentiveness König describes as “a soul power—a transcendent ability to create images.” Is attentiveness the same as discrimination? Or is it perhaps the result of the process of developing sensory discrimination? Is attentiveness the ability for conscious mental representation, mental picturing, that is seen around age six-and-a-half, when the child is ready to enter school? König says: “Attentiveness arises in the soul as it becomes permeated by the Ego” (2002, p. 126). The child enters school holding “the staff of uprightness”; around his head is the “magic circle of attention.” In uprightness, the Ego works in the lower motor pole, in the unconscious realm of night darkness. In attentiveness, the Ego works in the upper pole, the conscious realm of day light. The motor and sensory poles, the night and the day, meet in the middle system, where language also has its seat. “Motor activity [works] upward from the limbs, turning into Receptive and expressive speech (from König, Being gestures that accompany speech and enhance Human) and support it, streaming upward into the larynx. In the larynx, with the help of the air element, “the flow of motor activity comes to a halt and is transformed so that sound is born

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Uprightness and the Automatization/ memory of skills as they become automatized Cerebellar Deficit Hypothesis (procedural memory system) (Nicolson, 2008). We can all picture the child who has not achieved This means that any motor skill, from riding a uprightness or a mature body schema. In any bicycle to playing the recorder, to writing, to Waldorf second grade classroom, at least one- speech articulation, relies in some measure on third of the children show some immaturity in the cerebellum in order to become automatic. spatial orientation, vestibular stability, bilateral The same is true for the coordination of multiple integration, or body geography. At least one- skills, such as speaking while moving, writing sixth also display some retention, or resurfacing, while sounding out words, and even reading of primary reflexive patterns that should be out loud: “The cerebellum contributes to the integrated in the first three years. Based on cognitive processes integral to reading” (Nicolson, informal reports given at Waldorf teacher 2008, pp. 165–172). conferences and in remedial workshops, it A general correlation between balance, appears that rates of sensory-motor delay or muscle tone, speech articulation and visual- Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) have increased motor coordination and a number of learning in the last twenty years. This seems to be the and attentional difficulties was proven to exist case outside of Waldorf as well (Harris, 2015), in 1973 by Harold Levinson (pp. 100–102). A and the causes are attributed to a wide range of longstanding evidence of clumsiness in dyslexic environmental factors. children dates back to Orton’s work on laterality Audrey McAllen developed her approach disturbances. However, research by Geschwind to remediation, based on the 1909 lectures in the 1980s points to an unsolved mystery in given by Steiner on the senses, around the “the fact that many of these clumsy children go same time that Jean Ayres developed Sensory on to successes in areas in which high degrees Integration (Ayres, 1972). McAllen’s references of manual dexterity are absolutely necessary” in the scientific literature align very much with (Nicolson, 2008, p. 97). In fact, increasingly, we those of Ayres, which include C.S. Sherrington have been hearing about artists and athletes who and O.L. Schrager & J.B. de Quiro (McAllen, identify as dyslexic. 1998, pp. 35, 75), all of whom worked out of In 1977, Frank Vellutino reported in his the cerebellar deficit model. What is this model? study on the causes of reversals in reading and The cerebellum, or hind-brain, was traditionally writing. Vellutino asked a number of dyslexic considered only a motor area, but one with great people to copy letter symbols in several reversed plasticity, i.e., the cerebellum, when damaged, directions, the way Steiner recommends doing will recover fairly quickly. Later, it was found that form drawing of four quadrant symmetry in third the cerebellum controls the automatization of grade. Vellutino then asked the same subjects any skill, whether motor or cognitive, including to reproduce symbols in Hebrew letters, which balance and language dexterity (Fawcett & was not their native alphabet. Vellutino found Nicolson, 2004). The loop of attention described among his subjects a high level of accuracy in by Healy shows precisely the connectivity that reproducing the forms, consistent across two links the cerebellum to the center of memory, different alphabet systems. Later, Vellutino tested the thalamus, and from there to the prefrontal the same subjects on rapidly naming the same cortex, touching also the Broca area for language English letters they had copied. In this test, he articulation. Its feedback loop to the cerebellum found a significant discrepancy between each shows the reciprocal relationship between subject’s ability to visually track and copy the attention controls in the forebrain, memory shapes and their ability to correctly associate of content (declarative memory system) and names and sounds to each of the letter forms

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(1977, p. 338). Vellutino’s research marked a Automatization and Specific Procedural turning point in proving that the tendency to Learning Difficulties reversals, as well as transposition and omission An interesting development of the cerebellar of letters and words in both reading and writing, hypothesis clarifies exactly which difficulties is “the result of deficiencies in verbal skills” are attributable to a lack of sensory-motor (p. 338), that is, in speedily associating a sound or integration. Nicolson and Fawcett have insisted a name to a visual symbol. on reframing the connection between dyslexia Following these findings, the research and sensory-motor development as a weakness world, divided as it is between highly specialized in “procedural memory, which supports the disciplines, has steered away from sensory-motor learning and execution of motor and cognitive interpretations of literacy difficulties. The focus skills, especially those involving sequence” has turned toward higher order thinking and (p. 190). They have named their framework language (Wolf, 2007, p. 174), what Steiner would Specific Procedural Learning Difficulties (SPLD) call the higher senses. to indicate sensorimotor/cognitive “habits” A host of factors contribute to sensory as “skills” that need to be made automatic. integration difficulties, from organic hindrances Examples of these are the quick recall of times to birth stress, emotional trauma, environmental tables facts, fluent handwriting, and the pattern sensitivities, and poor lifestyle choices. This recognition that enables children to decode is why Waldorf educators words and to recognize place such importance on the ...[M]any of these morphological structures (pp. development of the four bodily [sensory integration] 192–193). In individuals who senses. The multiplicity of difficulties disappear struggle with automaticity, contributing factors is also what when children are given declarative memory, the makes it so extremely difficult storage and use of knowledge for researchers to establish a the space and the time of facts and events, may not be clear causality in the process to integrate naturally. impacted at all. This explains (Nicolson, 2008, pp. 181–184). why a child with strong pictorial Researchers in the field acknowledge that a large memory, associative and reasoning capacities, number of remediation approaches tied to the and even superior verbal language skills may cerebellar hypothesis lack clear evidence and struggle to read or write (p. 191). often exploit the public’s credence in the ultimate The British researchers found that early cure. The tendency on the part of teachers delays in motor development, which can later to over-diagnose sensory motor difficulties, be resolved, may be at the root of the following especially in well-to-do school communities, dysfunctions in the procedural memory system: has been decried by authors such as Madeleine inefficient automatization of writing skills Levine (quoted in Harris, 2015), who cites factual (dysgraphia), problems with articulation and evidence showing that many of these difficulties phonation (apraxia of speech), automatization disappear when children are given the space of auditory pattern recognition and sound- and the time to integrate naturally. In one study symbol correspondence (phonological dyslexia), in which teenagers and adults with a history of automatization of visual pattern recognition dyslexia were tested, the incidence of motor affecting spelling (orthographic dyslexia), and coordination issues, which may range between difficulty in achieving the speed needed for 30% and 50% in school-age dyslexic children reading fluency (reading automatization deficit) (Ramus, 2003a), was found to be about 25% (pp. 204-209). (Ramus, 2003b).

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A significant difficulty found among children Karl König reminds us that one goal in and adults with dyslexia is “tapping to the child development is teaching the head pole to beat,” a difficulty in coordinating foot or hand become still for learning. “I have the impression movement with the sound of a metronome that not enough attention is paid to the fact at progressively higher speeds (p. 99). Usha that the classroom is not a gymnasium,” König Gotswami, of Cambridge University, speaks of states. The original meaning of the word school rhythmic entrainment as the specific skill that is in Greek, scholeion, is “rest” or “leisure,” schole. lacking in children with phonological dyslexia. “This means that children should sit down, and, Proving that a close relationship exists between if possible, remain seated.” This König claims movement and hearing, Gotswami points to specifically in relation to reading and writing, tonal music and rhythmic movement as avenues which are both activities that belong with the for remediation (2013, p. 109). The connection upper body (2002, p. 109). In regards to reading between movement and hearing is at the heart of in particular, König states that, “while we need Rudolf Steiner’s physiology. These findings should attentiveness in order to learn to read, it is also encourage more extensive studies on the effects true that reading trains attentiveness” (2002, of eurythmy therapy. p. 126). I have witnessed the power of attentiveness Attentiveness and Memory Formation in several children in second grade who, The important role played by the feeling according to our screenings of balance and visual life in developing attentiveness cannot be tracking abilities, seemed to be far from ready underestimated. The child remembers and to take up reading. All three boys observed were learns from experiences that are engaging and highly distractible, but alert, enthusiastic and relevant. The International Dyslexia Association divergent thinkers. They were all reading a month (IDA) estimates that 30% of children who struggle or so after the second grade screening with no to read and write have some difficulty with prompting or pushing from their parents. Reading attention (Dakin, 2008). A child did help these smart children, with attentional difficulties is The International and many others I have met since either not ready for the level and Dyslexia Association then, settle into their bodies. Such type of attention that is expected (IDA) estimates that cases should encourage teachers of him, or he is overloaded with 30% of children to observe the distinction drawn too many sense impressions, often who struggle to by König between difficulties that including also heavy exposure to read and write have originate in uprightness versus electronic media. These children some difficulty with those that have to do with a lack of live too strongly in the head pole attention. attentiveness; it is also a reminder of sensory consciousness, with to trust more in the power of overactive stress responses that the Waldorf art of education in impede mental imaging and memory formation. supporting developmental integration over time. Brain-learning expert and teacher educator Eric We can sum up our discussion of uprightness Jensen, author of Teaching with the Brain in and attentiveness by stating that in the earlier Mind, brings an abundance of research in support years, sometimes up to age nine, the “I” of the of the centrality of emotions in learning. Jensen child is busy trying to make the physical body its explores many aspects of school ecology that home, while at the same time as a spirit-soul, are well understood by Waldorf educators and through all its senses, it is striving to connect stresses the influence of rhythms in sleeping and with the world and make sense of it. We can waking in relation to cognition (2005, p. 49). literally interpret “making sense” as an impulse

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of the soul to unify the sense impressions consciousness are the shadow existence of these into a single sense, a mental representation.* living images (König, 2002, p. 34). This is why in The making of this sense begins in the middle his first course for teachers,The Foundations of system, the feeling life, where memories are Human Experience, Steiner states that a teacher’s formed. According to both Jensen work is to teach a child to sleep and and Steiner, the rhythm of night “[W]hile we need to breathe, to move between the and day, of physical sleeping and attentiveness in poles of conscious and unconscious waking, is essential to the making image formation (1966, p. 22). of memory and learning. This is order to learn to The word lives in the middle where the writing, the “inscribing” read, it is also true system as the mediator between of the world, happens, and where that reading trains the warm unconscious night pole reading of the world first takes attentiveness.” and the cool pole of daylight place. When these processes are consciousness. The word shares disrupted or incomplete and these two domains in the dual nature of sound and image. “In the are disconnected, we cannot expect the child to larynx the flow of motor activity is transformed achieve literacy. so that sound is born out of movement” (König, 1989, p. 66). In the middle system, the two poles The Spoken and the Seen Word of night and day are no longer on a vertical axis of body versus head, but rather on a relationship Memory and Understanding as Archetypes of center versus periphery and front versus for Reading and Writing back. Vision moves forward and backward in the When the Waldorf class teacher asks a child frontal plane and requires a focus as the center to recall a story or a lesson the day after it was between left and right. The organs of hearing, delivered, the child calls up images that had on the other hand, are placed at the periphery “gone to sleep” the previous day. Rudolf Steiner and stimulate our back space, rather than the explains how these images or concepts “become front. Thus Steiner speaks of musical-rhythmical alive” in the unconscious, acquiring a significance and sculptural-pictorial forces intersecting in the that is unique. To bring them back means to allow middle system (Balance in Teaching, 2007). the child to recreate them for himself. This is why It is a person’s whole body that expresses König states: “We should be quite clear that the itself in speaking. In listening and understanding, child can read in the broader sense before he in receptive language, we take in the entire comes to school: He can read the sky, the tree, individuality of the speaker, the images, the mother, sister; he can recognize and name; he grammar, down to the level of the individual can read images” (2002, p. 124). sounds. Receptive and expressive language are Every kind of understanding, in Steiner’s view, the meeting of the two poles. This is shown in comes about through images: “To understand autistic people who cannot speak because, as means that I meet myself” through these König explains, they are so caught up in the world images. The concepts we evolve in day-waking that they are not able to distance themselves enough for the individuality to stream out freely ______through speech (p. 70). *I use the expression mental representation to intend The integration of the eye and the ear is any type of inner representation of sense impressions which uses the visual code as its primary mean. This especially strong in speaking and listening. In includes the pictorial images stimulated by the Waldorf speaking, we transform our mental pictures into narrative approach as well as symbolic visual-spatial speech sound; in listening, we transpose the representations that are developed through schooling. speech sounds we hear into mental pictures.

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They form a double bridge between two lands, a Writing is speaking on paper. The organs bridge which is essential to literacy development. of the larynx and mouth give way to the hand, When this bridge cannot be built, we have fingers, paper, and pen as tools for inscribing the various forms of aphasia. Without entering word into a physical visual form. Reading, on the the domain of curative education, we must other hand, is listening to the realm of “silent acknowledge that in the public school classroom, light” in order to bring back speech. Writing is a vast majority of literacy issues have their origin an analytical process, moving from the whole, in an impoverished language environment at the image or thought behind the words, down to home, which puts many children the single sounds. Reading is a at a severe disadvantage (Wolf, With writing, the word synthetic process, reconstructing 2007, pp. 102–104). Wolf recalls is en-graved, made levels of meaning from the single the eloquent apology of Socrates to die from its living letter, to the syllables, words, for an oral culture centered nature as speech; it all the way to the sentence (pp. in the meaningful dialogue is committed to the 43–47). between teacher and student. physical world. With In Balance in Teaching, She likens Socrates’s position Steiner describes these same to that of Russian educational reading, the word forces of analysis and synthesis theorist, Lev Vygotsky, who held must be resurrected, as musical-rhythmical and that “social interaction plays brought back to the sculptural-pictorial. Here he a pivotal role in a child’s ever- spiritual dimension of shows how the artistic curriculum deepening relationship between living images. given in the grade school years words and concepts” (p. 73). harmonizes these two poles and Wolf argues with Socrates against the dangers brings them into balance. Teachers recognize of superficial understanding resulting from the that children may have an affinity for one or the diminished role of conversation between teachers other of these forces, the musical or the pictorial. and students. She sees this danger especially At the level of language, this translates into an relevant today with the seemingly limitless affinity for the speech sense versus the sense of information available to young people through thought (both as concept and image) which is media technology (p. 77). Wolf’s argument also manifested through speech. These two types strongly validates Steiner’s overall emphasis on of children correspond to what have become a culture of oral language rich in conversation, popularized as the auditory-sequential and the storytelling, speech, poetry, and drama. visual-spatial learners, as we shall see (2007, see Introduction by Douglas Gerwin, p. xiv). Reading and Writing as a Resurrection Mindful of Steiner’s discussion of “the Process reversed perception of eye and ear,” König states König speaks of reading and writing as a that “all disturbances in reading and writing resurrection process. He states, with Steiner, stem from the fact that the translation or bridge that the current discourse on reading and writing between hearing and seeing is possible only in misses “the way in which the Word—as Logos—is some partial and fragmented way, or perhaps functionally alive in the human being” (2002, not at all” (Being Human, 1989, p. 71). As long p. 45). With writing, the word is en-graved, as a child is unable to write under dictation, she made to die from its living nature as speech; it is has not crossed the bridge from ‘silent light’ to committed to the physical world. With reading, ‘resounding darkness.’ Only when the child is able the word must be resurrected, brought back to to read silently has she succeeded in crossing all the spiritual dimension of living images.

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the way from the pole of ‘resounding darkness’ to (2002, p. 42). König observes that “the eye itself that of ‘silent light.’ does not read, it just directs the Ego onto the The Steiner method begins with writing, text, the script or the print. The Ego uses the with an analytical process, from the whole sense of touch in feeling, moving, fingering along to the parts, and in the movement pole. For the written line. It fingers along the text just as reasons of space, I will not review it here. A fingers move along the strings of a [musical] beautiful presentation is given by Arthur Auer in instrument… but out of the words an image three articles published in the Research Bulletin appears and immediately understanding arises between 2006 and 2007, offering an essential (p. 43). resource for new teachers. In what follows, we König indicates that a written text is a form, will see how König recognizes the analytical/ just as a musical instrument is. The Ego “frees” or synthetic polarity in the way children take up releases the form and “we understand.” The child reading. who struggles with sound symbol associations cannot cross the bridge from the pole of light to A Tale of Two Readers the pole of sound. The child who has difficulty König holds that speaking and understanding synthesizing the meaning of words or phrases, never happen at quite the same time. The child who lacks the intuition for context clues, cannot who lives in the light element and rushes to build the bridge from sound to light. synthesize meaning without carefully recreating the voice of the writer is avoiding crossing the Lessons from Students bridge to the sound pole. The child who lives on Six years ago, I began working with a small group the shore of sound may have difficulty crossing of four sixth-graders who possessed, collectively, the bridge to understanding. König begins his all the skills needed to work with the compelling exploration of reading issues young fiction my colleague had by observing two types of The child who lives in chosen for her class. Laura, readers whom he designates the light element and nerve-sense, curious, could as the “laughing” and the rushes to synthesize remember all the details in a “weeping” types. König meaning without carefully story if she listened to it, but associates each of these two recreating the voice of could not decode accurately types with a form of breathing. the writer, is avoiding enough to read fluently. Jacob, In the first type of reader, crossing the bridge to left handed, with a strong the “acoustic type,” the eye visual-spatial mind, could read goes slowly in short, broken the sound pole. The child quite well silently, but not out movements from left to right who lives on the shore of loud; he had very poor spelling. along the line and then sweeps sound, may have difficulty Marney, with a medical in a long coherent movement crossing the bridge to condition affecting the retrieval back from right to left again, understanding. of memories, could read out only to move forward to loud with good expression the right again in short jumps. The exhale is in and express the deep message in a story, but short breaths; the inhale in long. In the second remembered very few descriptive elements; type, “the weeping, or visual type,” “the eye she could form beautiful sentences, and could first moves along the line in a long sweep, then sing beautifully. Sasha, very phlegmatic, also moves back to the beginning of the next line in articulated thoughts beautifully and occasionally short steps. It “skims over the script,” exhaling went off on interesting tangents, but struggled in the long sweep, and then inhaling in steps with procrastination and the ability to synthesize

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essential themes. The warmth and cold poles, a specific learning disability that is thick- and thin-skinned, indicated by Steiner in his neurobiological in origin… characterized by Curative Education Course, were clearly visible difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word in the constitutions of these four sixth-graders: recognition and by poor spelling and decoding Marney and Sasha, physically warmer in their abilities. These difficulties typically result from bodies and warm in their manners, rounder in a deficit in the phonological component of shape, more articulate in speaking, both musical; language that is often unexpected in relation Jacob and Laura, both skinny, awake in their to other cognitive abilities and the provision of sense perceptions, nimble in peripheral space, effective classroom instruction. (IDA, 2002) able to recall images with ease, and classic in their inability to analyze words into the small A closer look at Steiner’s indications reveals units of sound. that he acknowledges the phonological principle These examples showed me the value of when he says that “training in careful listening working consciously with the synthetic/analytical lies at the basis of spelling,” and that “if we polarity. cultivate accurate listening, we will also bring about accurate visual observation” (2006, p. The Realm of the Heard and Spoken Word: 106). Steiner’s method of teaching sound symbol The Phonological Principle associations through pictographs is brilliantly Based on functional magnetic resonance images prescient of the findings that have led to the (fMRI), which register the blood activation in creation of the dual route model of reading. brain regions involved in reading, Yale researcher Sally Shaywitz was able to observe the route from The Heard Word and the Seen Word: the visual word-form area in the left occipito- The Dual Route Model temporal cortex to the phonological centers for The dual code model of reading was originally speech recognition and articulation in the left developed by Max Coltheart from studying the temporal regions (the Broca and Wernicke areas). effects of brain lesions on reading. At the brain Shaywitz reports that this pathway is used by level, this model recognizes both of König’s every child who decodes effectively. According bridges, from the eye to the ear and from to Wolf, 25% of struggling readers do not cross the ear to the eye, as actual pathways, which this bridge (2007, p. 189). The problem for these light up in images in the reading brain. French children lies in the sequential processing of neuroscientist and author of Reading in the heard speech sounds, or phonology, as well as Brain, Stanislas Deheane, distinguishes two in the ability to recognize phonemes, phonemic routes for reading, starting from the “brain’s awareness (PA), connecting vowel and consonant letterbox” in the occipito-temporal region: the patterns to their corresponding sounds. The phonological, or indirect route (left hemisphere) existence of a phonological principle has been leading to the language centers, and a direct verified across languages the world over. In the lexical route, leading to centers in the superior U.S., where its incidence is highest due to the temporal regions of the brain, called our “mental opaque nature of English spelling, it has led to dictionary” (Deheane, 2009, pp. 61–68). This the mandate for explicitly teaching phonemic upper dorsal pathway is called “direct” because awareness in order to help all children cross it connects directly the word-form to meaning. this bridge. This principle informs the current Research shows that this pathway is successfully definition of dyslexia as used by expert readers, who can recognize words by sight. However, it is not an efficient route for beginning readers, who fail to develop the

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phonics skills necessary to successfully decode brained. In reality, the interaction between new words. A percentage of children who display the two hemispheres is much more complex, phonological dyslexia are the strong visual spatial as shown by Iain McGilchrist in his extensive thinkers, König’s weeping types, who don’t review of neuroscientific findings in his book, naturally develop the bridge to sounding. The Master and His Emissary (2009). McGilchrist The visual word form area (Deheane’s characterizes the difference between the two “brain’s letterbox”) is the starting point for hemispheres as different approaches to the translating symbol to sound. This is a small world: one, the left, more conceptual, strongly portion of a center that also enables the dependent on verbal language; the other, the recognition of shapes, objects, faces, and even right, more perceptual, associative, favoring colors. The fine recognition of letters is made visual and spatial representations. Based on possible in this center by a complex adaptation this description, we can think of the left/right Deheane calls neuronal recycling (p. 74). The brain polarity as tendencies which are bound to phenomenon of synesthesia (seeing forms in come into a unique and different balance in each color), not infrequent in children under the age individual. of eight, proves that the brain needs to undergo It is widely recognized that the connecting a reorganization in order to establish a secure bridge between the two hemispheres, the corpus bridge from image to sound (p. 215). This finding callosum, is not fully developed until school age, is definite proof that Steiner’s idea of teaching which is when we detect a transition to left brain each letter sound through a pictorial image processes of sequential analysis. From this, we greatly facilitates the building of both pathways. could deduce that children with phonological The lexical route is essential for developing dyslexia, who struggle to make a bridge to left fluency. When this connection is less active, we brain processes, may be somewhat younger see the second most common type of reading developmentally, appearing to resist accessing difficulty, designated as surface dyslexia. This the conceptual realm. Conversely, children who difficulty may be affecting 20% of struggling show a lack of intuition for contextual clues and children who don’t succeed in becoming fluent slowness in recognizing unusual orthographic comprehending readers. These are analytical patterns appear to struggle to make a bridge, at readers, König’s “laughing” types, often girls, the brain level, between the language centers in whose difficulty easily goes undetected. The term the left hemisphere and the mental dictionary surface may have to do with the fact that these center in the right hemisphere. children can be very diligent in applying decoding rules, stumbling mostly on irregular words. They Hidden Gifts and Special Learners: The may, with practice, become fluent readers. Their Magnocellular Theory of Dyslexia weakness is a lack of synthetic forces, manifesting A movement toward better understanding the as slowness in decoding words that don’t follow “neurodiversity” of reading has been growing the rules, and a lack of intuition in using context exponentially. This movement affirms that the clues when reading passages, which goes with less efficient non-phonological route does not weak inner picturing, lack of fluency, and spotty mark a dysfunction, but rather a different wiring comprehension. König places in this category of the brain, one that we are coming to associate shortsighted children and those with a squint. with people who have a highly creative mind and The dual code model of reading has the gift of making sweeping connections across become popularized as right or left hemispheric distant regions of the brain and mind. dominance, developing the notion that people Not all people with a reading or spelling can be securely classified as right- or left- difficulty have special creative gifts. However,

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according to Brock Eide and Fernette Eide, is a completely different brain architecture, a authors of The Dyslexic Advantage, 20% of the different neurological profile, which is especially population show gifts in realms of thinking they disorganized in the left temporal region, and yet define as “material, narrative, dynamic and capable of establishing far-reaching connections interconnected.” These are all characteristic of between disparate parts of the brain (Deheane, an approach to the world that is more perceptual 2009, pp. 243–250). This may be the origin and less conceptual, more creative and less of the gifts of synthetic pictorial thinking sequential, more experiential and pictorial (Eide that accompany the deficits characteristic of & Eide 2012). Dyslexia, a significant difficulty in phonological dyslexia. Evidence shows also a learning to read, is one feature of this profile. genetic component to this profile (p. 254). This The magnocellular theory supports these theory accounts for difficulties in fine grain observations. This model analysis of auditory and visual distinguishes between Experienced Waldorf stimuli, which correspond to magnocells (large cells) teachers who have taught the two types of dyslexia we and parvocells (small cells) one or more of these bright discussed, phonological and in the cerebral cortex. The individuals with dyslexia surface dyslexia. magnocells form pathways The phenomenon across the brain for fast recognize that the Waldorf described as disorientation recognition of visual and curriculum honors their by author Ron Davis in his auditory stimuli. The gifts of flexible creative book The Gift of Dyslexia, parvocells support detailed thinking. At the same time, can be seen as the effect analysis of the same they realize that teaching of magnocellular activity. (Nicolson, 2008, pp. 32–33). these resistant learners In Davis’s description, the We could say that there are to decode may require a reversals, omissions, and in the neocortex different specific approach which is transpositions of letters pathways for fast synthetic beyond the scope of the experienced by some students thinking, as might be needed class teacher. with serious phonological in order to quickly detect dyslexia are distortions a predator coming toward of perception which the us from a distance, as opposed to analytical dyslexic brain enacts “at an unconscious level pathways, as might be needed to develop a in order to perceive [the letter symbols] multi- future plan for protection from predators. dimensionally” (1994, p. 17). The inability to Unique studies of the anatomy of dyslexic access meaning by sequentially processing letter brains conducted by Geschwind and Galaburda correspondence to speech sounds pushes the in the late 1970s showed that the brains of child with dyslexia to disorient in order to find a bright people with dyslexia lack the kind of synthetic path to meaning. asymmetry between left and right hemisphere Experienced Waldorf teachers who have that is assumed in a normal brain, where the taught one or more of these bright individuals left side is bigger around the language regions. with dyslexia recognize that the Waldorf These brains were more symmetrical (Wolf, 2007, curriculum honors their gifts of flexible, creative pp. 202–204). They also showed microscopic thinking. At the same time, they realize that abnormalities (ectopias) in language areas of teaching these resistant learners to decode may the cerebral cortex. Ectopias are patterns of require a specific approach which is beyond the scarring that follow neuronal migrations during scope of the class teacher (Carini, p. 63). fetal development. The result of these ectopias

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The Landscape of Reading and Writing In this inquiry, I have attempted to validate Disorders Karl König’s comprehensive typology of literacy Each child with a learning difficulty has unique difficulties through the most current research traits that the teacher or therapist must learn to in the neuroscience of reading and dyslexia. interpret. König’s typology of writing and reading Proper detection of these different types should disorders can help us recognize the bridges that happen primarily through deep observation and must be built so that the child can move across child study. It is hoped that more anthroposophic the four lands that make up the landscape of doctors will also take interest in describing literacy. these profiles and their possible connection to In the table on the following page, I have constitutional polarities. It is important that we connected each of König’s types to recognized keep updating our knowledge of the scientific syndromes derived from paradigm and that we current models of dyslexia I advocate that we develop evaluate carefully when and (2002, p. 127). For each area, I further our strategies for how this knowledge is helpful also include König’s suggested remediation, and that we in the Waldorf context. avenue for remediation. empower class teachers I hope to have König clearly did not mean demonstrated that the two to be exhaustive with his to keep dyslexic children paradigms are not only indications; rather, he pointed in the Waldorf classroom compatible, but also that the the way, so teachers could where they belong. overall Steiner method serves go on to develop, out of well the struggling child. I their own intuition, the strategies most suitable hope this description will strengthen the claim for to the needs of each individual child. In the a slower timeline for struggling students in the section on uprightness, I included the puzzling standard classroom, and for pointed support of question brought by Frank Vellutino’s research the foundational senses across the grade school on the origin of reversals. Further studies on years, which is already strong in most of our remediation should address parallels between schools. Last but not least, I advocate that we König’s suggestions and methods developed from develop further our strategies for remediation, mainstream research. and that we empower class teachers to keep dyslexic children in the Waldorf classroom where Conclusion they belong. The Dyslexia Survey showed that, in spite of a growing investment in educational support, a thorough understanding of reading difficulties has been lacking in many Waldorf schools (Carini, p. 64). Two opposing tendencies surfaced through the data: a discounting of the reality and implications of dyslexia and, conversely, an excessive reliance on mainstream programs for remediation. What also surfaced was a strong wish to better articulate a specifically Waldorf approach to these difficulties, to fine-tune screenings and observational assessments, and to think further about what effective strategies for remediation stem directly out of anthroposophy.

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Area of difficulty WRITING READING SYNDROMES

Uprightness Laterality disturbances Laterality disturbances For writing: difficulty with spatial having to do with having to do with the orientation and balance causes poor (1) the horizontal plane sagittal plane (left-right) letter formation, crowding and (above-below), or spacing issues (Dysgraphia) (2) the sagittal plane (left-right) Left-right mirror form For reading: Difficulty with analytical drawing sequential processing may originate at the magnocellular level, causing the phenomenon of “disorientation” *Rod & balance exercises; [An open question: (Davis) above-below and left- Laterality disturbances right mirror form drawing causing reversals, omissions and transpositions may have their origin in the pole of attentiveness]

Attentiveness [See below. Attentiveness There are difficulties For reading: Difficulty with affects writing indirectly with attention whereby automatization (Specific Procedural through overall memory fluency is weak. Learning Difficulty, SPLD) weakness and weak sequential processing of Exercise fine-motor memory pictures.] skills, eye-hand coordination and walking & speaking

Realm of the The analytical forces The bridge from seeing For writing:Oral & Written Language Heard and are weak. The child cannot to sounding is not Disorder (OWL LD), difficulty with Spoken Word translate into words what built due to a lack of listening comprehension he wants to communicate analytical powers. The on paper. This points to a letters never become For reading: Phonological Dyslexia, difficulty with the familiar enough to difficulty with phonetic patterns, sequential processing of translate symbol to especially with new words and with memory pictures. sound. non-words

Exercise mental imaging Sing the text [or read involving sequences texts with strong (‘How many steps will prosody including poetry] it take to cross the yard?’)

Realm of the Difficulties in establishing The child cannot For writing:Oral & Written Language Seen Word memory of letter symbols synthesize the word out Disorder (OWL LD), difficulty with as well as symbol sound of its several component memory and mental imaging connections letters and gather their meaning. For reading: Surface Dyslexia, Singing the text to be difficulty with irregular words, with read Enliven fantasy, preview context clues and, in general, with in pictures before synthesizing meaning reading

*Konig’s scant indications for remediation shown in italic

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WORKS CITED Nicolson, R. & Fawcett, A. (2008). Dyslexia, learning and Auer, A. (2006a). “Reading in Waldorf schools begins in the brain. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. kindergarten and avoids clouding the mind’s eye.” Ramus, F. (2003a). “Developmental dyslexia: Specific Research Bulletin, 11(2), 7–15. phonological deficit or general sensory-motor Auer, A. (2006b). “Reading in the Waldorf schools, part dysfunction?” Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 13(2), II: Beginning in flow and warmth.” Research Bulletin 141–260. 12(1), 7–12. Ramus, F. (2003b). “Theories of developmental dyslexia: Auer, A. (2007). “Reading in the Waldorf schools, part insights from a multiple case study of dyslexic adults.” III: Beginning in sound and form.” Research Bulletin Brain 126(4), 841–865. 12(2), 17–25. Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia: A new and Carini, L. (2017). “Dyslexia in the Waldorf classroom.” complete science-based program for reading Research Bulletin 22(1), 60–65. problems at any level. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Coltheart, M. (2005). “Modeling reading: The dual route Steiner, R. (2007). Balance in teaching. Great Barrington, approach.” In M.J. Snowling, The science of reading: A MA: Steiner Books. handbook (pp. 6–23). Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2007. Steiner, R. (1966). Study of man. London: Rudolf Steiner Dakin, K.A. (2008). Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Press. Disorder (AD/HD) and dyslexia fact sheet. Retrieved Steiner, R. (2004). Teaching language arts in the Waldorf from International Dyslexia Association: https:// school. R. Trostli (Ed.). Fair Oaks, CA: AWSNA dyslexiaida.org. Publications. Davis, R.D. (1994). The gift of dyslexia: Why some of the Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and smartest people can’t read and how they can learn. science of the reading brain. New York, NY: Harper. New York, NY: Perigee Books. Dawson, P. & Guare, R. (2004). Executive skills in children and adolescents: A practical guide to assessment and Lalla Carini is a Waldorf class teacher and intervention. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the brain: The new science Extra Lesson remedial teacher with 20 years of how we read. London: Penguin Books. of experience as an educator. Currently a block Eide, B.L. & Eide, F.F. (2012). The dyslexic advantage: teacher at The New Village School in Sausalito, Unlocking the hidden potential of the dyslexic brain. CA, Lalla also holds a private practice working New York, NY: Penguin Books. with individual students with learning differences Fawcett, A. & Nicolson, R. (2004). “Dyslexia: The role of through high school. Her experience includes the cerebellum.” Electronic Journal of Research in the establishment of educational support in a Educational Psychology, 35–58. Gotswami, U. (2013). “Dyslexia: In tune but out of time.” large independent urban Waldorf school, early The Psychologist, 106–109. childhood and adult education. She is currently Healy, J. (1987). Your child’s growing mind: Brain completing a Master’s thesis on the Waldorf development and learning from birth to adolescence. approach to the remediation of reading and New York, NY: Random House. writing difficulties. Lalla lives in San Francisco IDA. (2002). Definition of dyslexia. Retrieved from with her husband, Paolo, also a Waldorf teacher, International Dyslexia Association: https://dyslexiaida. org. and their three children. Jensen, E. (2005). Teaching with the brain in mind. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. König, K. (1989). Being human: Diagnosis in curative education. New York, NY: Anthroposophic Press. König, K. (1969). The first three years of the child. Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press. König, K. (2002). On reading and writing. Camphill Books. McGilchrist, I. (2009). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Developmental Challenges, Opportunities, and Gifts for Children Coming into the World Today*

Adam Blanning

question that often comes up in therapeutic challenges children meet in claiming and circles is, “Are the children coming into the world inhabiting the hereditary body. As a society, Atoday different from the children of previous we have become quite aware of how the generations?” The answer is undoubtedly yes. unfolding of higher social and moral capacities Many teachers and doctors have observed is hampered for these children. By learning that things are changing. The reasons for those about the different constitutions, we come changes are less certain, however, as they to recognize that the ability to fully meet and come from many different sides. It is clear, sense another human being depends on how however, that there are an increasing number of at home we are in the body. In the language incarnation challenges that make it more difficult of the polarities, the process of connection to properly meet the physical body and then to (through the nerve–sense system) builds upon a come into healthy connection with the world healthy process of integration (which builds the around it. metabolic–limb system). So it is not unexpected A related comment, or concern, is that to see, for example, that the formal diagnostic many of the steps of development that seemed criteria for autism fall into categories of both to unfold more naturally, more instinctively, in challenged perceiving and reciprocating with the the past do not seem to unfold in the same way outside world and patterns of body-directed, now. Many of today’s children seem like a puzzle, self-stimulating behaviors. These closely mirror needing extra attention and support. This means the outwardly-directed and inwardly-directed that we are being asked to look with new eyes. sensing pathways that make up the circle of the We are being asked to understand what underlies twelve senses. the most fundamental capacities of our humanity. If we look, we can see how the Such knowledge informs the way we can nourish developmental gestures of the polarities relate the life of all children. When anthroposophic to autistic behaviors. It is necessary to look medicine and Waldorf education were first from several sides, because it is hard to identify being developed, there was perhaps a clearer one single pole or even one single polarity as distinction between the developmental supports being the main challenge in autistic behaviors. needed for general education (pedagogy) and Nonetheless, we can find clues that give us very those needed for individualized (therapeutic) practical therapeutic orientation. support. That distinction is blurred in many The diagnostic criteria begin by introducing classrooms today. the outer, more social expressions of autism (in The increasing prevalence of autism italics), with additional commentary that relates spectrum disorders is one expression of the to the constitutional polarities following:

______A. Persistent deficits in social communication *This article appears as the final chapter in Adam Blanning’s book, Understanding Deeper Developmental and social interaction across multiple contexts, Needs: Holistic Approaches for Challenging Behaviors in as manifested by the following, currently or by Children, published by Lindisfarne Books/SteinerBooks, history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive): October 2017.

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1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, when information is shared by the child, it ranging, for example, from abnormal social commonly comes without inflection or nuance. approach and failure of normal back-and-forth The more individual aspects of “thought” and conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, “I” do not necessarily enter in, because they emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or are not experienced. This necessarily affects respond to social interactions.1 the possibility for “normal back-and-forth These criteria show a spectrum of connection conversation” and results in “reduced sharing” or, perhaps better said, lack of connection. We and even a full “failure to initiate or respond to can think of this by asking, “How far out into social interactions.” These children can really the outer world can the child reach to sense the engage only with what they experience. They do other?” Clearly part of the pathway through the not respond in the usual way because there are outwardly-directed senses is being blunted. The parts of the encounter that are not felt. path from vision, to warmth, to hearing, to word, to thought, to sense of “I” is not easily traveled. 2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative We can gain insight by following this progression behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, and asking, “Where is a step skipped, or where for example, from poorly integrated verbal and does the sensing stop?” nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in Generally, for children with eye contact and body language autistic behaviors, the sense of We can gain… insight or deficits in understanding and vision is intact, but the next step, by asking, “Where use of gestures; to a total lack of the sensing of warmth, may be is a step skipped, facial expressions and nonverbal 2 underdeveloped. Bringing warmth or where does the communication. into an interaction or responding sensing stop?” Here, again, there is a to another person’s warmth spectrum of connection—how (social, emotional, or spiritual) much is felt? Now the sensing may not routinely enter into social exchange. So process depends not just on our sensing through we should look to see how the sense of warmth is the outer senses but also on how an outer present in any autistic behavior. perception resonates within our own bodies. Next in the pathway comes hearing, and Children’s understanding of facial expression, as we move further along, we may see another body language, and gesture depends on the disruption, for although children with autistic health of their own inner sense of movement, behaviors may well be able to hear that another balance, and even the life sense. People know person is speaking (the hearing sense) and that a sad expression is sad because one even understand the words (the word sense), imitatively reflects the other person’s muscle they may not be able to reach further on to the movements (even if it is not outwardly visible), ideas behind the words (the thought sense) or which then resonate into a child’s own feeling the nuances of experience and interpretation life. If children have trouble sensing their own behind the thoughts (the “I” sense). Because body, have trouble connecting their feeling sensing stops, communication is hampered. life with their own physical movements and There is no easy flow through the higher activities, then the ability to sense into the senses, with the result that communication is physical expression of another person will also sometimes puzzlingly concrete. To the child with be compromised. These challenges—though an autistic experience, a word means a certain they express themselves as limited outer social thing; interpretation is very literal, because interaction—are really grounded in an incomplete sensing may stop with the word sense. Similarly, development of the lower senses. This second set

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of sensing activities, grounded in a sensing of self, inner sensing pathway and the development remains opaque. of the lower senses. It blunts their ability to self-soothe in very real ways (i.e., repeatedly 3. Deficits in developing, maintaining, offering a screen to a restless or bored child). This and understanding relationships, ranging, for overemphasis on the middle senses also pulls example, from difficulties adjusting behavior attention away from the social / moral interaction to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in that allows us to perceive beyond ourselves (as sharing imaginative play or in making friends; to when a family is sitting at a table in a restaurant, absence of interest in peers.3 all gazing independently at their These behaviors can be subtler We must work to smartphones). It is no wonder, and may be the only perceptible stretch past the then, that our ability to sense other sensing imbalance with children middle senses. This human beings has stiffened and who have Asperger’s syndrome. is emerging more narrowed. We are all, as part of a This social challenge may relate not and more as an modern, technological society, less so much to a specific sense (like the practiced in using all twelve of our sense of movement or the sense of urgent therapeutic, senses. That change is pervasive. thought) as to the whole physiology moral task. We should consider the possibility of the limbs. that autism spectrum disorders Let us consider the capacity for social represent an accentuation of this process to the connection in yet another way. We are living point of an illness, a karmic challenge to stimulate in a world that overstimulates and prioritizes us to learn and remember what it means to truly several of the middle senses—particularly smell, perceive the other. We must work to stretch past taste, and vision. Those sensory windows are the middle senses. This is emerging more and bombarded continually, so that we are pulled more as an urgent therapeutic, moral task. to their activity over and over. Such a narrowed The next set of diagnostic criteria relates to overemphasis distracts children from their the ways children anchor themselves in their bodies. These patterns can give us very helpful clues about how to meet them therapeutically. While they are listed as “disorders,” as part of a diagnosis, these patterns are more truthfully part of the innate wisdom that lives inside these children—they are sensory-seeking and orientation-seeking behaviors. When outer experiences or interactions are too difficult to navigate, returning to familiar patterns of self-stimulation helps a child feel safer and more grounded.

B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive): Inwardly- and outwardly-directed senses 4

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1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor a more balanced relationship with the physical movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple and etheric bodies are very helpful, especially motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping the indications for consciously helping children objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).5 to know that you are feeling with them and Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements understanding their experience, that you help fall very much into the realm of anchoring guide their hand (as with a paintbrush). Subtle through the lower senses. Hand flapping, “shocks,” in the form of humor or distraction, rocking, or bouncing can be effective measures can also help to ease some of this “insistence for following the inward pathway to the life on sameness.” sense, and if a child feels better inwardly, then outer experiences of disorientation are not so 3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that distressing. Even the examples of repetitive are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong speech—“echolalia” (the repeating or parroting attachment to or preoccupation with unusual back of another’s speech) or “idiosyncratic objects, excessively circumscribed or repetitive phrases” (repeating a stock phrase or set of interests).7 words, which are often not in context)—are much These repetitive patterns can be part of a more about inner anchoring and self-stimulation retreat to safe or known objects. Or they can than an attempt to outwardly communicate. speak to a rigidity of the body that extends into Many of the therapeutic indications for the soul life. Or they may be part of a repeated imbalanced movement (feeble / maniacal) and attempt to more fully penetrate the physical and for strengthening the lower senses can be very etheric bodies, either via a more feeble pattern helpful in these contexts. (repetitive gross motor) or an epileptic pushing through (working to connect over and over again 2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible with an outer element). It is good to look to see adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns whether the perseverative pattern is more an of verbal or nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme expression of retreat (hysteric) or an attempt— distress at small changes, difficulties with however limited in its focus—to connect, transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting connect, connect to what is outside (epileptic). rituals, need to take same route or eat same food Both this pulling back and pushing out can every day).6 be seen. “Extreme distress at small changes” and consistent retreat to familiar patterns have been 4. Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input discussed as aspects of the hysteric constitution. or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the Many children with autistic behaviors exhibit environment (e.g., apparent indifference to distinct pockets of soul-soreness, which are pain / temperature, adverse response to specific compounded by the challenge of not being able sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching to rely on some of the usual sensing pathways of objects, visual fascination with lights or (as discussed earlier). Some sense activities may movement).8 be heightened to help compensate for others These behaviors speak to the fact that that are numbed. This is a little bit like the for an autistic child, constitution may need to vulnerability that comes from being in complete be considered in pieces, that is, that it is very darkness (unable to use the vision sense) and possible for a child to have an epileptic pattern being surprised by an unexpected loud noise (a with one sense (needing to smell over and over de facto hypersensitive). Steiner’s therapeutic or touch and rub over and over) combined with indications for bringing the astral body back into a more hysteric pattern related to another sense

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activity (tremendous fear of loud or unexpected duality in the sensing realm was just discussed noise). The relationships of body and spirit are (hyper- and hyposensitivity). Epileptic patterns (a more complicated on this incarnation pathway, thick-skinned numbness) and hysteric reactions as the higher members may flow too far past (a true soul-soreness) may present in different the physical and etheric in one area yet be held sensory realms—like being numbed to self- back so strongly as to be nearly numbed in movement but hypersensitive to sound—or both another. Therapeutic support, looking through patterns may appear in the same sense organ, the epileptic and hysteric lens, may need to with a varying activity of the higher members be differentiated for specific sensory organs or flowing through (to be either thick-skinned or sensory pathways. thin-skinned, depending on the specific stimulus The diagnostic criteria make clear that and on the specific day). there can be a broad diversity of incarnation Given all of these variations, it can be hard to challenges in autism, but we can help the child know where to start. Here are a few observations find footholds through thoughtful that can help prioritize and observation and individualized Many children with organize therapeutic support. therapeutic support. autism benefit First, if we are faced with An additional and sometimes from foundational imbalances on both sides of challenging aspect of working digestive support. a single polarity (say, both with autism spectrum imbalances feeble and maniacal movement is that we may see incomplete This …follows the patterns), it is usually better development on both sides of a archetypal patterning to start with the more body- polarity, that is, that a child may of childhood, that out oriented side of the polarity— have sluggish, heavy movement of metabolic health that is, start by making the that alternates with quick, and ripeness, thought density of the physical body more unpenetrated, and unguided and sensing activities accessible and more comfortable. movement. We may come to the emerge. Then, once we have worked to conclusion that a child’s body warm and stir the body, we can is both heavy from a dominant invite the higher members in— hereditary stream and unpenetrated because loosening, then inviting, warming, then inviting, the “I” and astral body are only superficially and so on. It does not work as well to ask the engaged. In this way the child is both earthly and higher members to overcome their superficial cosmic. This is an unusual situation, for most engagement when the body is still hard to enter. children truly do fall on one side or the other of Similarly, if a child exhibits both a metabolic– the constitutional polarities, but when there are limb system that is out of order (a small-headed greater incarnation challenges, both sides of tendency) and a nerve–sense system that is a child’s physiology may need to be sculpted out of order (large-headed), we should work to and guided. strengthen digestion first. Many children with We can see a similar paradoxical pattern autism benefit from foundational digestive with the other polarities as well, that a child with support. This should not seem unusual because autism will sometimes show patterns of being it follows the archetypal patterning of childhood, both large-headed (challenged to really liberate that out of metabolic health and ripeness, forces away from the body in order to sense the thought and sensing activities emerge. outside world) and small-headed (challenged Within the epileptic-hysteric polarity, to fully meet and transform digestive substance protecting hypersensitivity is often the best taken into the body). Finding this constitutional place to start. This does not mean that the

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child should be buffered to a place of constant only humble partners in a seen and unseen retreat or isolation—no, there does need to be developmental orchestration. encounter. Firm, steady touch can feel very good As a closing thought, we look at the for hysteric sensing too; it just needs to start from gifts of the different constitutions. Most of an experience of safety and security and create our considerations have been devoted to opportunities for the child to initiate contact. understanding the challenges of leaning too far to If support with anthroposophic medicines one side or the other, but one should indeed ask is being given, and there are imbalances on what is gained by working through a process that both sides of a polarity, supporting the rhythmic does not archetypally unfold. The answer—gifts system can be very helpful. (We can think of of greater consciousness and experience, which medicines such as Cardiodoron, Aurum, even arise out of the will activity that is part of any Belladonna). Specifically supporting the middle constitutional rebalancing. can be helpful with other therapeutic modalities Children preparing for birth gather the as well, such as eurythmy therapy, music therapy, substance of their astral body in relation to the and so forth. knowledge they already carry (like Another important They are being iron filings responding to a passing consideration is to respect the guided through an magnet). How well the heart, biographical age of the child, which archetypal wisdom. sense of balance, or eye is formed may not necessarily be the same depends on how deeply the activity as the developmental age. In the We are, in fact, only of those organs has been known. first seven years, strengthening humble partners in When a hereditary body is chosen the integration process of the a seen and unseen that does not have a healthy metabolism should be the priority developmental liver, it might be because the liver for an autistic child. From seven orchestration. process has not yet been met in to fourteen years, give special full consciousness. Constitutional attention to the rhythmic realm, to the feeling imbalances ask us repeatedly to meet a specific life, and to how etheric forces are being liberated. part of our physiology. When that imbalance can From ages fourteen to twenty-one, work to be worked with and transformed, riches come. foster deeper, fuller sensing connection with The fruits may not be immediately visible; they the outside world. Supporting the appropriate may not be evident for many years—or with a developmental process for a particular age really significant imbalance, perhaps not even speaks to the soul and spiritual development of until a future incarnation—but they do come. the child. This is still coursing forward, even if the We can be reassured that there are indeed soul and spirit are not able to fully shine through gifts associated with each constitution if we the physical and etheric bodies. remember that a meditative activity has been All of these suggestions should, naturally, presented in concert with each of the three major be considered with flexibility. When we really polarities. This points to the fact that there is look with sincere interest and devotion, answers indeed a relationship between the developmental are often whispered to us. If we are still totally work of coming into the body and higher spiritual without orientation, we can remember to look or moral capacities. at the child’s own (perhaps troubling) behaviors What kinds of gifts are related to and ask what they are trying to accomplish. What constitution? They come from two different experience are these children seeking, trying to sides. The first aspect is not hard to recognize, create for themselves? They are being guided in that we are naturally good at doing what through an archetypal wisdom. We are, in fact, comes naturally, that is, when one aspect of our

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physiology naturally tends to lean to one side, of having wrestled repeatedly with the density we feel comfortable with it, and we know well and heaviness of the earthly body. The child has how to live there. Such one-sidedness can be a learned how stiff or unwieldy physicality can, in challenge, but it can also act as a virtue. In other fact, be refined and transformed. Sculptors and words, if one naturally connects to details (a builders, architects and engineers, gardeners small-headed inclination), then there will be lots and farmers all benefit from carrying this kind of of situations where that ability to analyze will be special relationship to the earthly element. This very helpful. Loving and living in details is then gift also expresses itself as optimism, especially a great boon. Such innate gifts about what is possible and what are granted to us as part of our [T]here is indeed a can still come into being. constitutional tendencies—we relationship between A broad, impartial, but receive them as part of our entry the developmental dedicated gaze: The child with into life. work of coming into a cosmic / maniacal constitution The secondary category the body and higher carries a certain natural freedom of gifts is perhaps not quite so spiritual or moral from earthly worries, a capacity obvious and certainly not as capacities. for objectivity, and a skill for easily won. They come out of the abstraction (as there is no burden work we do with our own one- of excessive sentimentality). sidedness when we consciously strive to move Those qualities are innate, even as they are past an inclination and to balance it. It might be part of a certain superficiality. If that inherent very easy for a feeble child to sit all day and look tendency has really been worked with and at a well, to stay in the heaviness of the physical transformed, inquisitiveness and a new reverence body, but for a maniacal child to learn to gaze in emerge—something along the lines of “I never reverence—that has special potency. Children realized how many different kinds of leaves there with a maniacal inclination have had to embrace are in the world, until I started looking more their superficiality and move beyond it. We do closely.” Learning to observe in this way brings not just happen into that activity—we help found powers of observation that are still flexible, it; we are a conscious participant in its creation. not too enmeshed, yet quite astute. When There is a will element involved, which lends a this capacity for gazing with reverence ripens, particularly moral quality to the new capacity. many different ideas, topics, and interests can The exact gifts revealed are, of course, be pursued and investigated over the course of as manifold as the individual variations of a lifetime. This could express itself in a love of constitution. Here are some of the “fruits” that invention, of inquiry into constitutional law, of have been observed: anthropology or botany—all activities where a A love of work, optimism for what can broad gaze needs to be combined with the power become: Children who have really worked to penetrate very specific topics or activities through the earthly / feeble constitution have and impartiality with a real reverence for ideas strengthened their own capacity for initiating become manifest. and sustaining activity. The practice of stirring Making archetypes practical and and loosening the physical body, over and over perceptible: The child with a large-headed again, brings knowledge about how the earthly constitution often carries a kind of emotional realm can be worked with in order to make it a and social shielding from life and stays a little good home for the spirit. Steadfastness, a love of innocent. Awareness emerges more slowly, as it real work and labor—those are some of the fruits is first preceded by metabolic maturation. This

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means that there has been a stepwise, growing to meet the outside. The physical and etheric capacity to fully digest whatever is taken in, be it bodies have not fit like a glove; they are not a nutritional, social, or sensory. Inner preparation natural vessel. Connecting to the outer world comes before outer activity. This is innate. is always a task. This brings a certain sheltering When a child then learns to move past the for the child, since with thick-skinned sensing amalgamation of large-headed thought (lumping often only the strongest stimuli are felt. That can it all into one) and instead finds connection to the make one better able to bear physical hardship. details of the surrounding world, then a capacity The repeated practice of working to push into emerges to make larger truths and through the substance of and archetypes approachable. We learn to observe, the body literally strengthens The beauty or artistry of the to know the patterns the process for resculpting the whole is held, even as the and pathways of growth physical and etheric. In this details are being dealt with. A and development, and way, the body can be pushed symphony conductor, grassroots then take a step to to do what might not usually organizer, novelist, or graphic help someone who is be tolerated. Battling with an designer all benefit from epileptic constitution brings a living in these larger realms of struggling. strong drive to make the body a harmony, idealism, narration, more fitting vessel for the spirit and proportion, while making sure the practical and to connect that spirit with the outside world aspects are not neglected. and its elements. Many great athletes, warriors, Seeing nuance, with a potent sense and explorers show this capacity. They carry this for quality: The child with a small-headed kind of conquering spirit. An additional quality constitution, who from early on has experienced of the epileptic constitution is that while outer an acute awareness of the world, is often very connection is not easy, when it is made, it is often aware of the effect of outside influences on the genuine and forthright. body. This can be in the realm of substance, of Finely-tuned encounters with tremendous food, of drink, of tone, or of form. When that receptivity: The child with a hysteric constitution sensing process evolves beyond distraction or has always felt far out into the world, easily brooding awareness, it can become a discerning beyond the borders of the physical body. sense for quality. Nuance, variation, freshness, Outer mood and expectation have never been and wholesomeness are evident and accessible. a mystery; in fact, the outer environment has Most of the world’s great chefs were probably been so well known that it often determines not (large-headed) children who grew up content the state of the child’s inner world. Knowing to eat anything. No, they knew right away what one’s place in the world therefore comes quickly was good and what was not. Orienting toward and naturally, as does swiftly perceiving one’s the details of things but moving beyond that to influence on the surroundings. While this can a place of relation and comparison can make make for vulnerability, it can also evolve into someone a wonderfully practical connoisseur. a gift for connection and communication. These are very healthy traits for an editor, a Sympathy is strong—an actor on the stage weaver, an accountant, a wine taster, or even an greatly benefits from noting and responding Olympic judge. to the inflection of another performer while Perseverance, pushing to find new skill and being able to simultaneously perceive the mood capacity: The child with an epileptic constitution and attention of the audience. The artistry of has had to push and push from the inside in order encounter, whether through a finely tuned

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performance, a counseling session, a debate, we are generally not adequately aware of the or a nuanced negotiation, benefits from such importance of something until it falls far out strong sensing. Being able to feel and anticipate of balance. When we then work to reclaim the other’s reaction stands out as an important something, it becomes more truly ours than it part of the process. Such receptivity makes for ever was before, and we own it in a different way. quick assessment and adjustment in all forms of We learn to know things better through interaction. imbalance. One response to this is distress, Each of these deeper gifts grows out of a to lament the loss of more instinctive, less process of self-knowledge. There are several complicated pathways into life. Indeed, when we archetypal steps. focus on the immediate consequences of those challenges, there is reason to mourn, but if we • First comes the step of recognizing one’s own can see the broader process and appreciate that inclination or a pattern. This can be great something is also being learned, we find courage. surprise, because up until now it was just By working through a process over and over— natural—innate. experiencing what it truly means to move, to feel, • Next, gather information about it. This allows to sense, to connect—we know ourselves better. us to step back from it a little, in order to The same process stands behind therapeutic begin to see it more objectively (perhaps work with children. We learn to observe, to even to begin to see it as an archetype or at know the patterns and pathways of growth least a pattern). and development, and then take a step to help • Then we can take the additional step of someone who is struggling. Steiner brought a actively engaging with that pattern in order lovely imagination for this process with the image to transform it or refine it. This third step is of a white rose: a will activity. What is the difference among the sentient soul, It is also what Steiner described as an essential intellectual (mind) soul, and consciousness aspect of personal development and which soul? The sentient soul operates when we are he related to the consciousness soul. Steiner merely gazing at the things of the external characterized this modern world. If we withdraw our phase of history we are in We are being challenged attention for a while from the right now as the time of the —socially, emotionally, impressions of this outer world consciousness soul, where physiologically, and work over them inwardly, we—as a whole social cohort morally—to recognize then we are given over to the of human beings—are being mind soul. But if we now take asked to move beyond mere what belongs to our full what has been worked over in sensing (which belongs to the humanity and then act thought, turn again to the outer “sentient,” or sensing, soul) and in ways to claim and world, and relate ourselves to beyond characterizing (which nurture those aspects. it by passing over to deeds, belongs to the “intellectual” then we are given over to the or “mind” soul). We are being challenged— consciousness soul. For example, as long as socially, emotionally, physiologically, morally—to I am simply looking at these flowers in front recognize what belongs to our full humanity of me and my feelings are moved by the pure and then act in ways to claim and nurture whiteness of the rose, I am given up to my those aspects. This third step is an important sentient soul. If, however, I avert my gaze and part of any illness and healing process, for no longer see the flowers but only think about

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them, then I am given over to my intellectual Adam Blanning, MD, works as an educational (mind) soul. In thought, I am working on the and developmental consultant for the Denver impressions I have received. If I say to myself area Waldorf schools and has lectured about now that—because the flowers have given anthroposophic medicine and child development me pleasure, I will gladden someone else by throughout the U.S. and Canada. He is currently presenting them to that person and then pick serving as vice president of the Association them up to hand them over—I am performing for Anthroposophic Medicine and Therapies a deed. I am passing from the realm of the in America (AAMTA); he sits on the board of mind soul into that of the consciousness soul the Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic and relating myself again to the outer world. Medicine (PAAM) and teaches in its training Here is a third force that operates in human courses. beings and enables us not only to work over the impressions of the outer world in thought, but also to relate ourselves to that world again.9

From this process we can see how working with the constitutional polarities contributes—one small step at a time, however humbly—toward the process of finding our true humanity. This is true when we work to help children find more balanced relationships with their bodies and with the world around them and when we look toward the future fruits that will come out of their growth and experience and to the greater knowledge we all carry forward as fruits of our communal striving and spiritual work.

ENDNOTES 1 “Diagnostic Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https:// www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html, accessed Oct. 29, 2016. 2 “Diagnostic Criteria,” CDC. 3 “Diagnostic Criteria,” CDC. 4 Adapted from Rudolf Steiner’s blackboard drawing, Aug. 8, 1920, in Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms (New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1986). 5 “Diagnostic Criteria,” CDC. 6 “Diagnostic Criteria,” CDC. 7 “Diagnostic Criteria,” CDC. 8 “Diagnostic Criteria,” CDC. 9 Rudolf Steiner, lecture of Mar. 22, 1910, in Macrocosm and Microcosm, D.S. Osmond and Charles Davy, eds. (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1986).

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 A Case for Waldorf Education

Robert C. Oelhaf

he case for Waldorf education is clear demonstrated that students who had music for anyone familiar with pedagogical and classes did better on math than those who did Tphysiological research of the last few decades. not, even if the music classes replaced some of Although Waldorf schools have been working and the math classes. Students taking music classes teaching in much the same manner as the original also scored better in foreign languages and were school established by Rudolf Steiner in Stuttgart noticeably more socially conscious (Stokes, 2002; in 1919 (see Stockmeyer & Craddock, 2009), only Uhlig, 1999). recently has independent research confirmed the Music plays a significant role in Waldorf soundness of Steiner’s pedagogy. Furthermore, schools from grade one through high school. international comparisons of test results for high All students learn to play recorder in first school students have also produced support for grade and are encouraged to take up an the salient Waldorf school program elements. orchestral instrument in third grade. Students in This kind of support is especially relevant to neighboring classes play together in orchestras. parents who often have questions about a school Vocal music is also introduced already in first system which is in many ways different from the grade, with the complexity of choral and solo conventional, even though students are usually material increasing by age level. By high school, quite happy attending Waldorf schools. The students are often presenting musical dramas, present report seeks to summarize the relevant from Mozart’s The Magic Flute or Handel’s research results. Messiah to modern musicals. Monthly or bi- monthly assemblies for parents give students Building Brain Cells opportunities to perform for parents and peers. As children grow, their brains grow along with There may also be evening recitals. the rest of their bodies. A larger brain capacity Art. Specific pedagogical studies have offers larger opportunities for registering and verified the positive relationship between art and processing information. Research has shown academic achievement (Gardiner et al., 1996). that there are five ways to increase brain cell In Waldorf schools there is a strong numbers (Begley, 1996; Hancock, 1996; see also presence of the visual arts: painting, drawing, Chugani, 2011). These are: music, art, handwork, sculpture. Already in first grade, students are movement, and personal connections to adults. introduced to watercolors used in both abstract All of these ways are strongly represented in and representational art. Crayons and colored Waldorf education. pencils are also used by students to construct Music. We all know that Albert Einstein their own Main Lesson books, in which they played the violin. Whether this influenced his depict and describe the main stories or concepts intelligence is anyone’s guess. However, several of the content of the Main Lessons. An artistic research projects have shown the positive approach to all subjects, including mathematics, influence of musical experience on learning. helps to connect the more intellectual students Musical training stimulates brain development with feeling life. Sculpture is also part of the (First Evidence, 2006; Kingsbury, Overy & Woo, curriculum, culminating in stone carving in 2005). And comparison studies in schools have 12th grade.

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Handwork. Fine motor movements are now grade and increase in complexity, culminating recognized as contributing to intelligence and in the lower school with a Shakespearean success in school (Gardiner et al., 1996; Auer, production in the eighth grade and a more 2001). complex modern drama or musical in 12th grade. In Waldorf schools, handwork begins in first Personal connections to adults (see Richtel, grade and continues through high school, with 2011). This is one area where Waldorf schools ever more challenging projects. First graders knit stand out dramatically from the trend in public recorder cases for their first musical instruments. and other private schools, where teachers and Later they advance to weaving, books are increasingly being and they also learn to make yarn Fine motor movements replaced by computers. from raw wool and then design are now recognized The lower school class and make their own clothing. as contributing to teacher, who normally carries a There is also handwork in other intelligence and success class from first through eighth media, including wood and in school. grade, comes to know personally metal. As children grow, projects each child, as well as the family, become more complex and demanding. As eighth through class meetings, parent conferences and graders and later in the 12th grade, students home visits. Teachers are expected to keep each carry out independent projects that range from child in mind as they prepare their lessons. They clothing, jewelry, or musical instruments to are also sensitive to the developmental stage electronic equipment. of each individual student, recognizing those Movement. Aside from boxing and football, who are able to push ahead to advanced work, sports generally have a good reputation as far as and giving special attention to those needing intelligence goes. After all, sports require focus more time and attention. Each student can be and strategic thinking as well as skill (Zauer, recognized for his or her positive contribution to 2010). Waldorf schools have always included the class. Through class projects, plays, outings, eurythmy and gymnastics. Sports are played in and camping trips, teachers and children get to the Waldorf upper grades, though generally those know each other personally. A deep and abiding with potential head injuries are not encouraged. sense of respect and care between child and Movement is an important part of Waldorf teacher is the ideal. The respect with which school method and curriculum. In the early children in the early grades respond to the grades, students stamp or clap out their times deep care they receive from their class teacher tables as they march around the classroom. is transferred in the upper grades to a respect (This exercise is especially important for young for great men and women in science, history, boys, who much enjoy making noise and literature, and so forth. stamping around to please the teacher rather Waldorf schools generally do introduce than irritating her or him, which is too often computers and calculators in the upper school, as the case in conventional schools.) Eurythmy, a useful tools. As with other modern technology, mode of physical movement in which gestures Waldorf schools are more interested in the are matched with speaking, musical sounds, and inner workings of a machine, its historical feelings, is taught from the first grade, with more development, appropriate use, and effect on complex movements and coordination introduced modern society. However, all students learn the as the students progress. Next to some of the times table and how to do long multiplication regular sports, gymnastics is also learned to and division, learning to trust themselves prior to foster a sense for orientation in space. Dramatic trusting the machine. productions and recitation begin already in first

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Readiness fashioned, recent research has demonstrated A brilliant economist, Knut Wicksell (1851–1926) that handwriting activates the brain in ways that developed Keynsian economics prior to or typing does not. Even at the university level, parallel to John Maynard Keynes, but received writing notes in class by hand results in better at the time little international recognition given understanding and retention of material than that he published his work in his native Swedish. when a laptop is used (Klass, 2016). Today, Wicksell is recognized as the one who brought Sweden out of the Great Depression long Foreign Languages: The Early before any other nation began its own recovery. Language Window Wicksell did not wish his sons to be subject to the Children find it especially easy to assimilate a state school system, so he sent them to live on a foreign language during the first seven years of farm in the countryside until it was time for them life. Around age seven, the language window to attend high school. Still, one son became a begins to close, but children are still able to learn mathematician and the other a medical doctor. fairly easily throughout the lower school years With a sensitivity to learning readiness, (Hancock, 1996; Kluger, 2013). Beyond their Waldorf schools do not try to push children obvious advantage of the ability to communicate forward before they have reached the in other languages, people who become fluent appropriate developmental in more than one language have stage, when learning is more [O]lder multilingual been shown to have definite efficient and also more fun and people appear to learning advantages over rewarding. Furthermore, the have a slower rate of those who are monolingual. top results on the Programme mental deterioration Bilingual brains are more for International Student as they age and have efficient, apparently because Assessment, or PISA, tests on average a four- they can automatically switch between languages, or “task come from countries where year advantage over schooling begins late, not until switch,” making this act easier age six or seven, and education monolinguals in terms in other mental domains. Being proceeds through games and of mental clarity before multilingual also proves to be stories, much like in Waldorf age-related brain cognitively beneficial later in kindergartens (Crehan, 2016). deterioration sets in. life, as older multilingual people As in the highest scoring appear to have a slower rate of countries, Waldorf schools also generally do not mental deterioration as they age and have on divide students by ability, although upper level average a four-year advantage over monolinguals high school math classes are often split between in terms of mental clarity before age-related brain calculus and consumer or business math. Tracking deterioration sets in (Kluger, 2013). students condemns the slow starters or late The language-learning window is recognized bloomers to perpetual second class status. and made use of by Waldorf schools, teaching foreign languages from grade one. (A relatively Handwriting recent experiment at Utah’s public school system While many schools today view handwriting as no has begun introducing foreign language study in longer important in the contemporary keyboard first grade in a growing program that expands to world, Waldorf schools teach all children print several more school districts every year [Kluger, and cursive writing, and all expect written work 2013].) to be handwritten, at least through eighth grade, Generally, two foreign languages are if not through 12th. While this may appear old- introduced in Waldorf schools in first grade. The

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Robert C. Oelhaf • 61 introduction of the new languages is first done Computers and Technology through simple songs and poems, to develop a Waldorf schools introduce high school students feel for the languages’ sounds and rhythms. Later, to the major areas of modern technology through vocabulary, grammar, conversation, literature, the science and mathematics classes. In addition, and culture are introduced as appropriate. In many schools also have separate technology high school, through the worldwide network blocks, factory visits, and opportunities to spend of hundreds of Waldorf schools, students may several weeks working and learning in a modern arrange to attend schools in other countries or industrial setting. To use technical equipment participate in an exchange with a student in a without any idea how it works is a kind of sister school, for example, in Germany, Spain, “dumbing down,” a loss in our confidence to France, or Colombia. It is not uncommon for understand and control our environment. students from abroad to appear as regular The use of personal computing technology— students in Waldorf schools. calculators, computers, laptops—is strongly discouraged in the lower school. In the high Ability to Focus school, these are made use of as appropriate, More than the assimilation of facts or the ability namely, as tools to enable efficient complex to pass tests, success in life requires focus analysis. In a 1984 computer workshop for (Tough, 2012). Waldorf schools instill this ability Waldorf teachers, Joseph Weizenbaum, computer through the Main Lesson system and through de- science pioneer at MIT, stated that computers are emphasizing testing and the rote to be avoided prior to high school, memorization of facts. [R]ecent research has and when introduced, they Each morning the school demonstrated that should be specifically presented day starts with a Main Lesson. handwriting activates as tools. The best preparation for This is a double period (or university computer study is the longer), in which one subject is the brain in ways that liberal arts: art, music, language, the main focus for three or four typing does not. history, and so forth. Learning to weeks, for example, English, view modern technology as tools mathematics, physics, geography. The longer which humans control helps avoid the tendency time-slot and daily instruction give the teacher to leave the human element out, to fall victim opportunity to develop a topic thoroughly. to the “tyranny of convenience,” in which all Students write reports, often carry out individual decisions are turned over to a computer and the or class projects, and complete their own Main human is then “out of the loop” (Wu, 2018). Lesson books, which generally include daily essays and drawings or pictures illustrating the Learning and Forgetting course material. There may be a written review Over a hundred years ago the German (test) at the end of a block of study, but student psychologist, Hermann Ebbinghaus, discovered participation and the written record are at least that when people relearn something, they as important. In the elementary school, teachers penetrate to a deeper level of understanding. In submit written evaluations rather than grades. Waldorf schools, we return to a subject after a In the high school, written personal evaluations year’s break to relearn and penetrate to a deeper of each student in each class continue, together level. This is the Main Lesson block schedule, with a letter grade, which generally include all with subjects coming once a year for an intensive aspects of the course, not just test results. three to four weeks—for example, high school physics, chemistry, biology—instead of a whole year of memorizing and forgetting (Boser, 2017).

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Artistic Teaching Private Schools, School Choice Deep learning takes place through emotional Besides Waldorf schools, a variety of attempts or artistic connections, awakening the feelings have been tried to make alternative inroads (Foer, 2011). Certainly we remember best if the into the mainstream public school system in material is connected to our feelings. Waldorf this country. Such alternatives include prep teachers design their classrooms and their schools, Montessori schools, free schools, and lessons with this in mind. home schooling. More recently school vouchers, The classroom itself is aesthetically pleasing, charter schools, including some Waldorf inspired with walls painted in flowing colors, wooden schools, and for-profit schools have been tried. cabinets, and generally few The available studies often or no right angles, in order Certainly we remember show improvements in school to encourage “thinking best if the material is achievement among students outside the box.” Human connected to our feelings. attending independent schools experience and the struggles Waldorf teachers design (Free, 2007; Bohlmark & of historical personalities make their classrooms and their Lindahl, 2012). Furthermore, history and science come when school choice was alive. Excitement, wonder, lessons with this in mind. introduced in Sweden, not expectations can awaken only did the achievement of connections. Teachers are encouraged to be students in independent schools improve, but creative in their approach, designing their own the students remaining in public schools also lesson plans as they envision the children in their improved their test scores. The speculation was own particular class. that competition had caused the remaining state schools to improve as well. Breaks between Classes Controlled studies of university students have Art and Academics: Are Waldorf demonstrated that taking a break after a learning Students Left Behind? session, prior to going on to new material, Parents often wonder if students at Waldorf significantly improves retention of what was just schools are prepared with sufficient academic learned (Richtel, 2010). rigor in mathematics and writing to succeed in In Waldorf schools, following the first other high schools and in college or university. (double) period of the day, the Main Lesson, A detailed survey of Waldorf school there is a long break of generally a half hour. graduates was carried out in Germany several Then a series of perhaps three lessons follows years ago (Barz & Randoll, 2007). The general prior to lunch. However, although there may be findings of this study were that Waldorf no breaks between these classes, generally one, graduates at first found it more difficult to often the middle one, is non-academic, such as orient themselves in the higher academic world. chorus, orchestra, eurythmy, or gymnastics. Thus However, once they made the transition, they a good break often occurs between all academic were better able than their peers to set a course classes. After the morning classes, lunch marks and pursue goals successfully. (As far as I know, the break in the day, after which follow the the study, published in Germany as “Absolventen afternoon classes, consisting mostly of arts or von Waldorfschulen: Eine Empirische Studie zu handcraft projects. Bildung und Lebensgestaltung” [Graduates of Waldorf Schools: An Empirical Study of Education and Life-forming] has not been translated.)

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With regard to written expression, a key be, and many researchers have traveled to element in any college curriculum or profession, Finland to try to find out (Alvarez, 2004;The Waldorf students develop writing skills well Economist, 2006; Finland, 2006; The Economist, above the typical high school graduate, whose 2010; Sahlberg, 2010; Guttenplan, 2012; ability in this area is often bemoaned by college Wooldridge, 2013; Ripley, 2013). professors. Waldorf students, throughout their Teacher-run Schools. The Finnish school upper school years, constantly write reports and system turns out to have much in common with essays, which are corrected by their teachers and Waldorf schools. One thing it obviously does must be revised. In addition to regular English not have in common is independent schools. In classes, writing is part of all Main Finland, the schools are part of Lessons, including those in math Waldorf students a government system. However, and the sciences. develop writing this system is totally different Another survey, of North skills well above the from the government systems American Waldorf school alumni of other countries, including (available from AWSNA), included typical high school the American system. Each some 600 graduates. The results: graduate, whose school is independent and run 94% of graduates proceeded to ability in this area is by the teachers themselves. The college (most to elite, selective often bemoaned by role of the administration is to institutions), 88% of students college professors. provide administration, facility graduated, and over 50% had done management, etc., while all or were planning to do graduate work. As college pedagogical decisions are made by the teachers. students, they were often recognized by their As in other top-performing school systems, college professors as self-directed, eager to learn, teachers receive feedback from peers rather and demonstrating problem-solving abilities, than evaluations by administrators (Crehan, communication skills, and social awareness 2016). Generally, the teachers work collegially, (Mitchell & Gerwin, 2008). As a Waldorf college planning classes and programs together guidance counselor, I have visited over two dozen (Guttenplan, 2012). (This is also true in Chinese colleges and universities in the Northeast. Most schools studied, certainly in the case of big city admissions officers recognize the Waldorf name schools.) The Finnish schools do use testing, and had a very positive attitude, encouraging but the tests are designed by the teachers, our students to apply. Rare is the applicant primarily as diagnostics. Because teachers are who comes in with the beautiful portfolios our treated as professionals, who are allowed to students put together. They stand out also in exercise their creativity and take initiative, there their ability to express themselves verbally. is a high demand for the available teaching positions. Applications to mandatory teacher International Comparisons: training institutes far exceed available places. The Relevance of Finland The profession has the top talent even though it For several years, international student pays comparatively low salaries. Still, given their performance comparisons of 15-year-olds professional status, teachers generally enjoy a have been carried out using standardized tests, high regard in the wider community. In short, the so-called PISA studies. The school system the state school system is essentially a system of which has consistently topped all the others is independent, teacher-run schools. that of Finland. (Finland’s scores have dropped The similarity to Waldorf schools is clear: somewhat in recent testings. See below.) There Waldorf schools are also independent and has been much speculation as to why this might teacher-run. All pedagogical decisions are

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made by the teachers themselves within set several key elements we have recognized: faculty committees and the College of Teachers. teacher training and status and improving the Certainly, Waldorf teachers are generally trained education of all students, including poor and in the traditions and methodology designed disadvantaged. The downside of these systems by Rudolf Steiner and practiced throughout a is the extreme academic pressure and the lack of hundred years of Waldorf school experience, balance, as academic subjects fill the whole day but teachers and school communities are free from morning to night. Creativity, a key element and encouraged to develop new approaches in future success, is neglected. Furthermore, and material appropriate to in China the poorer children their students today and in the [I]ndependent schools from the countryside are often particular region and culture in which are teacher-run not admitted to the city school which the school is located. systems, thus giving results an Beyond being teacher-run, give the best results, upward bias. the Finnish schools (and Finland whether in a state It is worth noting the solution in general) have other features system or not. All of proposed by Finnish educators reminiscent of Waldorf Schools: these findings support for addressing lower test scores. Waldorf education. In contrast to the United States’ • There is little homework “Common Core” program, with before high school (age 16) (Hancock, 2011). its focus on drill and memorization, Finland • Lower school teachers often continue with a is planning to increase music and art and class for five or six years. phenomenon-based learning in the schools. They • There are breaks between classes for view the decline in test scores as related to the students to go outside, play music or games, influx of cell phones, which, in Finland as here, snack, or just relax and let the last class sink occupy students in free moments, replacing in. conversation, sports, games, music, and reading, • The State subsidizes music lessons, so playing which used to occupy students during their music is not just for the upper classes. breaks. • There is a strong handwork and craft tradition in Finland. Cell Phones The bane of all children and school systems today, The Finnish example demonstrates that the main cell phone use, is generally banned in Waldorf solutions often offered, namely, more funding schools, except for emergencies. In addition and independent schools, though helpful, are not to impacting test scores negatively, recent necessary for a first-rate school system. On the observations by the author in local public school contrary, schools which are teacher-run give the gym classes revealed a remarkable decline in best results, whether in a state system or not. All social interaction. Teachers confirmed a dramatic of these findings support Waldorf education. change in student behavior. Although some In the results of the 2012 PISA testing (Finn- students still play on traditional interscholastic ished, 2013), Finland fell behind several East teams, the majority display neither cooperation Asian systems, particularly in mathematics, but nor competition in their school gym classes. also in reading and science. (The lower scores Gym teachers report that this behavior began continued in the latest round of testing.) The about four or five years ago (2012), when cell top performer was the Chinese city of Shanghai, phones became ubiquitous. In free play on the though it does seem unfair to compare a city basketball court, students choose neither team with national scores. Still, these systems display nor individual competition, rather, they simply

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toss loose balls at the nearest basket. During two REFERENCES days of observing six classes a day, with ten tables Alvarez, Lizette. “In Finland, the ABCs of Success: in each class, there was one competitive game. Educators Seek Key to Schools’ Top Rank” International Herald Tribune. 9 April 2004. In all the others, students simply lobbed the ball Auer, Arthur. Learning about the World through back and forth, as if in a trance, until the end of Modeling. Fair Oaks, CA: AWSNA Publications, 2001. the play period, when they could return to their Barz, Heiner and Dirk Randoll. Absolventen von phones. Waldorfschulen. Eine Empirische Studie zu Bildung und Lebensgestaltung. Springer Fachmedien, 2007. Conclusion Begley, Sharon. “Your Child’s Brain.” Newsweek 19 Feb. 1996, pp. 41–46. Through this brief review of current research Bohlmark, Anders and Mikael Lindahl. “The Impact of and pedagogical trends, we can see how School Choice on Pupil Achievement, Segregation Waldorf education has been practicing for close and Costs: Swedish Evidence.” Institute for the Study to a century many of the approaches that are of Labor (IZA) #2786, reviewed in “Schumpeter: Exit now being recommended in the mainstream. Albert Hirshman.” The Economist 22 Dec. 2012, p. 106. Boser, Ulrich. “Why It’s Good to Forget.” The New York Waldorf’s engagement with music, the arts, Times International 6 July 2017, p. 11. handwork, and movement is shown today to “Charlemagne: Back to School.” The Economist 25 Mar. be beneficial to the students’ development in 2006, p. 33. various areas. Similarly, the students’ personal Chugani, Harry T. “Human Brain Development: connection to adults, through the model of a Windows of Opportunity.” www.house.mi.gov/ SessionsDocs/2011, Committee 5-9-28-2011. consistent class teacher, and their exercises Crehan, Lucy. Cleverlands: The Secrets Behind the Success in handwriting, recitation, and focused study of the World’s Education Superpowers. Unbound, through the Main Lesson system all correspond 2016. to current mainstream recommendations. “Finland.” The Economist 25 Mar. 2006, p. 33. Waldorf’s emphasis of second-language learning “Finn-ished.” The Economist 7 Dec. 2013, pp. 62f. in early grades is being implemented in emerging “First Evidence That Musical Training Affects Brain Development in Young Children.” Science News 20 alternative school systems, while its rhythms Sept. 2006. of relearning, longer breaks between classes, Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and appealing to the students’ feelings are and Science of Remembering Everything. London: being picked up by research and classroom Penguin Press, 2011. Reviewed in Michiko Kakutani. application. Finally, the Waldorf model of school “How to Memorize Everything, Even This Book.” NY International Herald Tribune 11 Mar. 2011. self-governance is now showing signs of decisive “Free to Choose, and Learn,” The Economist 5 May 2007, success when studied in other school systems pp. 60f. governed by its teachers, who are granted Gardiner, Alan Fox, Faith Knowles and Norman Jeffrey. creative freedom within the guidelines of a “Learning Improved by Arts Training.” Nature 381 23 clearly laid-out pedagogy. May 1996, p. 284. All these findings make the case for Waldorf Guttenplan, D.D. “Comparing the Success of Nations in Schooling.” International Herald Tribune 12 Nov. 2012, education as an approach that has recognized p. 6. and practiced the successful pedagogical Hancock, Lyn Nell. “Why Are Finland’s Schools methods, the value and efficacy of which are only Successful?” Smithsonian Magazine 2 Sept. 2011. now being discovered by mainstream education Hancock, Lyn Nell. “Why Do Schools Flunk Biology?” through empirical research and study. Newsweek 19 Feb. 1996, pp. 44–47. Kingsbury, Annette. “Music Education and Childhood Brain Development.” www.EduGuide.org. Klass, Perri. “In a Keyboard World, Handwriting Still Matters for Children.” International Herald Tribune 12 Nov. 2012, p. 6.

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Kluger, Jeffrey. “The Power of the Bilingual Brain.” Robert C. Oelhaf, PhD (economics), taught TIME Magazine 29 July 2013, pp. 42–47. science and mathematics in Waldorf high schools Mitchell, David and Douglas Gerwin. Survey of Graduates, for 16 years and was a founding teacher of the Phase III, Research Institute for Waldorf Education. www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/download/ Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School. He has also e-books/phase3.pdf. been an instructor in economics, business, and “Overhauling Schools: How to Get Good Grades.” technical English at the university level. His four The Economist 27 Nov. 2010. children attended Waldorf schools grades 1–12. Overy, Katie. “Can Music Really ‘Improve’ the Mind?” He is the author of Organic Agriculture: Economic Psychology of Music 26(1) 1 Apr. 1998, pp. 97–99. and Ecological Comparisons with Conventional Richtel, Matt. “For High-Tech Families, a Low-Tech School Methods (Hallsted-Wiley 1978) and of articles Is the Way to Go.” NY International Herald Tribune 24 Oct. 2011, p. 17. and books on Waldorf high school mathematics, Richtel, Matt. “Is an Idle Mind Such a Terrible Thing to physics, and chemistry, all available free in PDF Waste?” NY International Herald Tribune 25 Aug. 2010. from the Online Waldorf Library (OWL) www. Ripley, Amanda. The Smartest Kids in the World: And How waldorflibrary.org. They Got That Way. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013. Reviewed in The Economist 17 Aug. 2013; and in The Global Edition of The New York Times 24–25 Aug. 2013, p. 19. Sahlberg, Pasi. Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? New York: Teachers College Press, 2011. Sahlberg, Pasi. “Global Lessons from Finland’s Schoolrooms.” International Herald Tribune, 29 Dec. 2010. Stockmeyer, E.A. Karl and Stephen Craddock. Rudolf Steiner’s Curriculum for Waldorf Schools. Stourbridge, UK: Steiner Schools Fellowship, 2009. English translation and summary of E.A. Karl Stockmeyer, Angaben Rudolf Steiners für den Waldorfschul- unterricht. Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen, 2001. Stokes, Paul. “Mozart ‘Makes Math Easier’.” The Daily Telegraph London 19 Oct. 2002. Sylvester, Robert. A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator’s Guide to the Human Brain. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1995. Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. Wilmington, MA: Mariner Books, 2013. Reviewed in “Stay Focused.” The Economist 19 Jan. 2003, p. 81. Uhlig, Robert. “Piano Puts Children in Tune with Maths.” Daily Telegraph 20 Mar. 1999. Woo, Elaine. “Gordon Shaw: His Work Led to ‘Mozart Effect’ Learning Theory.” Boston Globe 2 May 2005. Wooldridge, Adrian. “More for Less. Special Report: The Nordic Countries.” The Economist 2 Feb. 2013, pp. 5f. Wu, Tim. “The Tyranny of Convenience.” The New York Times International Edition 17–18 Feb. 2018, p. 7. Zauer, Carl. “The Brain: Why Athletes Are Geniuses.” Discover Apr. 2010.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Book Review Train a Dog but Raise the Child: A Practical Primerby Dorit Winter

Cindy Brooks

For the rest of the life span, the right hemisphere that has been imprinted and organized by early relational experiences is Train a Dog, but Raise the dominant for the nonconscious reception, Child: A Practical Primer expression, communication, and regulation of Paperback: 220 pages emotion, essential functions for creating and 5.5 x 8.5 inches maintaining social relationships, especially 1 First edition May 2017 intimate ones. ISBN# 978-1-545441-99-2 This vertical integration of the right hemisphere, established in the first year, is also seen as the neurological basis for the child’s later any parent education books now focus development of trust, empathy, and morality.2 on helping parents with two dimensions of the Researchers also have found that parents Mparent-child relationship: (1) fostering secure who attune to and guide their children with attachment and parent-child connection and (2) emotional intelligence throughout childhood promoting children’s emotional intelligence. Ever raise children who are more likely to have better since the 1995 publication of psychologist Daniel physical health, academic success, and social- Goleman’s groundbreaking best-seller, Emotional emotional well-being; fewer behavior problems, Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, including less violence; fewer negative feelings and the concurrent development of and research and more positive feelings; better self-regulation with brain imaging technologies, parenting skills; and higher levels of resilience when faced educators have focused their attention more and with distress.3 more on parenting skills that build emotional So it makes sense that parent educators have intelligence and neural integration. been exploring how to help parents grow more Brain-imaging studies of infants and parents emotionally-intelligent children. The central have clarified the critical significance of parent- capacities being taught to parents include: child interactions in the first year of life for the noticing the child’s emotion and one’s own; child’s later development. During an infant’s recognizing the child’s emotion as an opportunity first year, neurological development takes place to have intimacy with and give help to the child; primarily within the right hemisphere where listening empathically and validating the child’s repeated experiences of parental soothing feelings and needs; responding empathically help establish connections between limbic and to the child’s expression of feelings, wants and cortical centers. These physical connections, needs; and setting boundaries for behavior while built through the soothing activities of attuned helping the child solve the practical problems that parents, provide the neurological foundation for are causing the child’s emotional distress. the child’s emotional maturity and resilience for Waldorf education also values the emotional the whole of life: health of the child, and many Waldorf schools

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and teachers are adopting strategies such as an overly intellectual parenting style can lead these to promote healthy communication and to anxiety, dysregulation and poor adjustment conflict resolution practices in their communities. in a young child. During these years adults As a child therapist and parenting educator, I have can best support a child’s healthy growth by welcomed the increasing interest in fostering providing many opportunities for imaginative emotional intelligence and neural integration in play, establishing a predictable life rhythm, children. The one aspect of this flood of attention engaging alongside the child in purposeful work, to emotional intelligence that concerns me is and communicating through action and action- the emphasis on talking to children about their words when relating with the child. This is what feelings and asking them to reflect and be self- I have emphasized in my parent education work aware about their emotional and in my own parent education lives before age 12. [W]hen we talk to materials. My concern stems from children abstractly, ask In the second phase of Rudolf Steiner’s insights too many questions, childhood, children thrive when regarding child development and or regularly ask them they experience nourishment the three phases of childhood, to be aware of adult for their heart and life (etheric) which I first encountered as concerns and concepts, forces. If we emphasize I was beginning my work as and activate the thinking of a child and family therapist including their feelings, elementary-aged children and which I have continued to then their integration through talking to them using explore in depth. It also stems with the physical body our intellect, explaining and from my own observations is weakened. giving reasons about why we of children’s developmental want them to do certain things, needs and difficulties, which I have encountered involving them regularly in adult concerns, or while working with children in play therapy and talking about abstract concepts, including about supporting their parents and from my work as feelings, the child’s heart and life forces are a Waldorf parent educator. What has become weakened. True nourishment for the heart at this clear to me from all these experiences is that time comes from imaginative, artistic experiences children under the age of 12 are not ready for filled with wisdom and truth, such as stories from intellectual conversations with adults; in fact, the world’s great mythologies or biographies such conversations work against their well- and stories of the great figures and events of being. Many other Waldorf parenting educators human history. It also comes from activities and emphasize this as well.4 experiences that call forth what is noblest and Young children thrive when they can have best in the child (and in us), especially adventures plenty of physical movement, rich sensory in places that are life-giving and full of beauty. experiences, purposeful work, and learn through Family or community celebrations, regular imitation and doing. A regular daily and weekly moments of reverence and ritual, creative play, routine is also essential for well-being in these artistic and musical activities,5 experiences of years, as is protection from adult concerns and graceful, flowing movement—all these are the adult-style conversations. In the early years, kinds of activities that open and nourish the heart when we talk to children abstractly, ask too many and life forces of the child and build emotional questions, or regularly ask them to be aware intelligence, far more effectively and healthfully of adult concerns and concepts, including their than conversations about feelings. feelings, then their integration with the physical If we ask our children to talk and think a body is weakened. I have seen first-hand how lot about their feelings before age 12, we are

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encouraging them to use self-awareness, a diminish the fullness and vibrancy of their life capacity that belongs to the ‘astral body,’ which body. normally becomes active around age 12. The Waldorf communities understand the critical more we wake up a child’s astral body in the need to develop strength in the etheric body in years before 12, the more the child begins to feel the second phase of childhood. As such, we have and behave like a teenager—full of sass, with a a unique responsibility to the next generation desire for independence and teen-like interests, to educate parents about how to nourish and and less inclined to admire and revere parents. protect their children’s etheric bodies so that It is healthier for children to grow a strong and their children will have the strength they need vibrant life body during the years 7-12 and not in their years of maturity! This seems especially have their astral body awakened urgent given that our world8 does early. Early awakening of the …[W]e have a unique not understand the importance astral body floods children with its responsibility to the of protecting children’s life forces teenage impulses at a time when next generation to and is bursting with trends that they are still children and not educate parents work against a strong and healthy ready to handle these forces. about how to nourish etheric in the child.9 Abstract thinking is an activity and protect their Dorit Winter, a retired master of the astral body. It is in the Waldorf teacher and mentor, nature of abstract thinking to children’s etheric has written a book for parents combust etheric forces.6 This is bodies so that their and teachers about how to raise why reading for a long time can children will have children to become what only make one tired. This is also why the strength they human beings can be: self- too much abstract thinking is need in their years directed, mature, free-thinking harmful during the second phase of maturity! agents of positive moral action of childhood, which is the phase in the world. This is also a book dedicated to development and strengthening of about fostering the emotional intelligence of the child’s etheric forces.7 In the years between the child, however one that is more in keeping 7 and 14, a person’s life-store of etheric forces with a Waldorf understanding of childhood. Ms. is being created; these are the forces that will Winter focuses on developing healthy habits support one’s well-being and physical health and a healthy parent-child and teacher-child for the rest of his or her life! So it is important relationship without recommending intellectual to protect children in this phase of childhood conversations with the child. from activities which weaken their etheric Reading Winter’s book, Train a Dog but forces. All of the activities mentioned above, Raise the Child, is a bit like going for a hike in that help build emotional intelligence without the mountains: at first you walk through dense intellectual conversations, are also activities that forest enjoying the plants, rocks, and creatures add to the vibrancy and strength of a child’s life that are in close view; then the trail mounts a forces. In contrast, intellectual conversations hill and a panoramic vista unfolds that takes your (as well as digital media) use up the child’s life breath away. There is plenty of food for thought forces. Too much talk and self-awareness during in this unpretentious book, for parents and the elementary years produce a thinking that teachers alike. It is written without reference to uses astral forces which eat the child’s etheric Waldorf methods or the principles of the Waldorf forces—this is another adverse effect of an approach to education, so that any reader will be over-intellectual child rearing. It is important to able to relate to the truths and common sense of protect children from activities which inhibit or her approach.

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The idea for Train a Dog emerged a few children’s dislikes and encourage parents to insist years ago while Winter was training her new on children doing things they don’t want to do. dog, Scamp, to behave himself enough that the Still, many parents want so much to have their two of them could enjoy living together. Much own unmet emotional needs fulfilled through was required for Scamp’s training that reminded the parent-child relationship that the concept of Winter of the training that first grade teachers parenting with authority, however loving, is not engage in to help young children develop healthy an easy one for them to take up. classroom habits when they enter first grade. Winter’s book speaks to the difficulty While being clear that training a dog and raising that parents naturally have in relating with a child are two very different endeavors, and authority to their own children. The book deftly highlighting the immense potential in a child that distinguishes the different roles of parents and a dog will never approach, Winter teachers and encourages parents manages to weave in humorous [The book] is written and teachers to understand anecdotes from her life with without reference to their different roles so that they Scamp together with stories from Waldorf methods or can appreciate each other’s her years in the classroom. The the principles of the perspectives as they collaborate. result is a compelling account Waldorf approach to The adult capacities which of profoundly significant tenets education, so that any are needed to help children of upbringing and education for develop healthy habits in their parents and teachers who are reader will be able to early years are explored through striving to do right by the next relate to the truths the lens of Winter’s escapades generation. and common sense of in training Scamp as well as From the beginning Winter her approach. through examples from her years insists that it is the responsibility of teaching and mentoring other of the guiding adults in each child’s life, both teachers. The importance of establishing good teachers and parents, to look at themselves if habits in the child is seen as central to healthy something is not going well with the child. This development. The capacities of firmness, fairness, requires “being a grownup,” an achievement consistency, and what it takes to really have these which is not a given even when someone capacities (BE CONSISTENT, PRACTICE, HAVE reaches or surpasses the age of maturity. Being CONSEQUENCES, NO EXCEPTIONS) are brought a grownup means, in part, that one can muster to life through illustrative stories. These picture and hold a position of authority with children and the adult as loving authority without using not let them run their own lives or the lives of the heavy-handed methods while keeping children adults who are guiding them. Children may have on track, with a quiet sense of humor in the wills full of gusto that can daunt the wills of their background. Winter further brings balance to parents and teachers, but Winter reminds us that this call for form and order as she insists that the children always lack judgment in varying degrees instilling of habits in a child must be done without throughout childhood; hence there is a need for suppressing that child’s individuality. It is a child’s adults to take responsibility and an authoritative individuality, after all, that becomes the free- role in guiding the child. thinking, mature, resilient, moral adult. Authority is a concept with such negative The author also explores the central need for connotations for many parents that asking them objectivity. While she compassionately recognizes to be an authority in relation to their child can be that parents have a much harder time being almost anathema. Many parent educators discuss objective when considering their children’s needs the importance of parents’ tolerating their and behaviors, Winter suggests repeatedly that a

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dose of objectivity will carry parents a long way Inspired by seeing real spiritual strength in the in being effective and serving their children’s true adult, the child responds with deep admiration developmental needs. Objectivity is also seen as and is moved to trust and attune with that adult’s an absolute necessity for the teacher. guidance and direction. In neuroscience, this kind Other important lessons learned over of activity is called “co-regulation”: the adult’s many years are explored or touched upon: regulated, integrated neural state moves the how to shape children’s behavior in positive child’s neural networks into “resonance.” directions using only a whisper or no words at all, Another well-tackled question in the book accompanied by meaningful gestures that engage concerns children’s happiness and whether the child’s interest; how to anticipate children’s they will love the teachers and parents who needs so as to keep order and avoid chaos; are guiding them with authority. Winter how to be a model worthy of recognizes that, in considering admiration; how to lead through [A] dose of objectivity such questions, it is important enthusiasm rather than fear; how will carry parents a to understand the changing to develop and gradually increase long way in being consciousness and needs of the the capacity for concentration effective and serving child from preschool through in children; how to give rewards their children’s true eighth grade (and beyond). that foster health in the child and developmental needs. What makes a preschooler help build a positive sense of self; happy is very different from how to choose consequences for what makes a fifth grader misbehavior that are effective in preventing the or eighth grader happy. Whether the child is next impulse toward inappropriate action; and happy reflects in part the degree to which the how to help children have a healthy relationship child’s true developmental needs are being to food. met: Young children need freedom to move All of the skills that the book explores require and play imaginatively; older children need being comfortable with taking a position of deep engagement with their subjects and to be authority when parenting or teaching children. challenged by their teachers and parents. The They also involve being ‘’cool,” which means bottom line seems to be: Children are happy being detached from particular outcomes and when they have confidence in their teachers, and also from the search for fulfillment of one’s own that confidence needs to be earned. The same ego needs. Winter repeatedly recognizes that this goes for parents. It is a big responsibility to guide is more easily done by teachers than by parents, the next generation to adulthood! We have to be who have much more reason to be subjective, models worthy of imitation in the early years and warm and invested in their own ego needs when worthy of admiration in the elementary years. relating to their children. Yet the benefits of The remainder of the book opens our eyes cultivating a ‘cool’ approach even for parents to even bigger questions. How do we protect are clear. and foster the inner strength, vitality and spirits In fact, Winter suggests that an outwardly of our children in the face of cultural trends cool demeanor can be paired with an inwardly which interfere with or threaten their free and strong wish or intention in relation to a child and healthy development? Here Winter introduces us that the pairing of outward cool with inward to researchers and experts who have examined warmth is what helps achieve positive outcomes several central areas of modern life that she for teachers and parents. Perhaps this is because suggests are wrecking havoc with children’s the spiritual strength involved in managing such inner lives: a pairing is unconsciously recognized by the child.

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• the penchant for frequent travel which leads Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child (New York: to sensory overwhelm in a young child and to Simon and Schuster, 1997); Harville Hendrix and armoring, habituation, and suppression Helen Hunt, Giving the Love That Heals (New York: Atria Books, 1997); Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell, of self; Parenting from the Inside Out (Penguin Books, • competitive sports that can lead to hardening 2004); and Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, of the body and depression of the spirit; The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies • the ubiquity of technology so that children to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind (New York: now live in a world of distracted adults Bantam Books, 2012), No-Drama Discipline (London: as well as a world in which technology Scribe Publications, 2015), and The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience In Your companies market to even very young Child (New York: Bantam Books, 2018). children. As a result, many if not most 4 See especially Kim John Payne and Lisa Ross, children experience the digital world as: Simplicity Parenting (New York: Ballantine Books, (1) alluring and addictive, (2) full of chaotic 2010), and Kim John Payne, The Soul of Discipline and intrusive sense impressions that regularly (New York: Ballantine Books, 2015). overwhelm their nervous systems and 5 Musical activities that are nourishing to the etheric include singing and playing instruments and listening activate their lower brain centers (fight or to music that is not amplified or played on electronic flight), (3) a regular source of distraction, instruments. inattention, mindlessness and perforated 6 Our bodies have both anabolic and catabolic concentration, and (4) detracting from the processes. Anabolic processes build up the body; development of good judgment and moral catabolic processes tear down the body, releasing values such as empathy and compassion. energy. Thinking is a catabolic process in which etheric forces are metabolized so that the process of thinking can occur. There is much to contemplate in this grand finale 7 Pictorial thinking, however, is strengthening to the of chapters: What makes for true sustenance etheric. Pictorial thinking is found, for example, in in the world of the child? What will make for stories and imaginative activities. a future world reflecting the highest and best 8 The First World, at least. in the human being? How can human spiritual 9 Loss of imaginative play due to over-scheduling capacities be protected and strengthened? children after school; the so-called Nature Deficit Disorder that is a growing phenomenon; children’s There is much for parents to decide if they increasing access to all forms of digital media; and dare confront a culture that seems increasingly depletion of the soil and nutrient loss in our food inimical to deeper spiritual values. supply due to the widespread use of chemical Perhaps Winter will consider a sequel to fertilizers and pesticides are some of these trends. provide even more of the hows and whys for parenting with loving authority, for it is clear that she has unique insights into the art of raising Cindy Brooks is a California licensed marriage spiritually strong children. and family therapist, a trained Waldorf early childhood teacher, and a Waldorf-inspired parent ENDNOTES educator. She is co-author of Discovering Joy 1 Allan Schore, “Attachment, Affect Regulation and in Parenting: The First Seven Years and other the Developing Right Brain: Linking Developmental Waldorf-inspired parenting materials. She lives in Neuroscience to Pediatrics,” Pediatrics in Review, Aptos, CA. For more information about her parent June 2005. education work, see www.inspiredfamilylife.com 2 Schore. 3 See especially Maurice Elias, Steven Tobias and Brian Friedlander, Emotionally Intelligent Parenting (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999); John Gottman,

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Report from the Online Waldorf Library

Marianne Alsop

he Online Waldorf Library continues to be a The OWL is excited to also include a new popular and helpful site for information about Mandarin Chinese translation of “Listen and TWaldorf education with a total of 171,000 You Will Hear” by Patrice Maynard. Books in site visitors in 2017. It is exciting to see where Mandarin Chinese can be found by going to the Waldorf education is growing and where the “Books” tab on the Home page and scrolling OWL is meeting the need for freely accessible down. Books in Spanish can be found by clicking information, as indicated by increased visitors on the Libros en Español tab on the Home page. from China, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. English-speaking countries still claim the highest As always, back issues of the Research visitor rate at 65%. Bulletin and Gateways (published by Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America), In the first months of 2018, new Spanish Pedagogical Section/Rundbrief, and a number eBooks added include: Selección de textos de of other international publications are available Química; Los Temperamentos y las Artes: Su online in our Journals section. relación y función en la pedagogía waldorf (Temperaments and the Arts by Magda Lissau); The Online Waldorf Library welcomes your Vidas de romanos (Roman Lives by Dorothy questions and we are happy to help you with Harrer); and El Misterio del Grial y las siete your research projects. Artes Liberale (The Grail Mystery and the Seven Liberal Arts by Frans Lutters). In late 2017, we www.waldorflibrary.org included these eBooks in Spanish: Panorama de los Jardines de Infancia Waldorf (Overview of the Waldorf Kindergarten, ed. Joan Almon); and El Hijo del Rey de Irlanda (The King of Ireland’s Son by Padraic Colum).

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Report from WaldorfArticle TitlePublications

PatriceAuthor’s Maynard Name

n addition to publishing its twice-yearly retired, and the consolidation makes diminished Research Bulletin, the Research Institute for staff viable. A recent settler in the Hudson Valley IWaldorf Education (RIWE) is busy with the and graduate of the Seattle Waldorf Elementary continuing work on the Survey of Waldorf High School has joined WP as a part-time assistant in School Graduates. Connie Stokes reports a strong shipping and handling. response from graduates spanning the period 1990–2017, with close to a thousand graduates WP is enjoying a welcome increase in the taking part in the initial online survey. A total of volume of submissions for proposed new books. 40 Waldorf schools across the continent have It might become necessary to pause from been helpful in stimulating this good response. accepting prospectuses for a time while we catch up in publishing schedules. This indicates RIWE’s Executive Director, Douglas Gerwin, a maturing in our Waldorf community that is has been overseeing this project, as well as appropriate given the Waldorf 100 centennial traveling across North America and to Brazil, approaching, with teachers recognizing the depth in working with the International Forum for and breadth possible in the endlessly flexible Steiner/Waldorf Education on the Waldorf 100 Waldorf curriculum. celebrations and teacher training curricula, teaching both adult and high school students, and The Annual Appeal this year included a leading the Center for Anthroposophy in its own map illustrating the reach of RIWE through all teacher training endeavors. its efforts. Visitors from 194 countries around the globe made use of RIWE’s resources in Under the careful guidance of Marianne 2017. They checked for articles, eBooks, and Alsop, the Online Waldorf Library continues to journal pieces on the Online Waldorf Library, build its remarkable library, reaching ’round the www.waldorflibrary.org; they subscribed to the world including Spanish-speaking countries and Research Bulletin; they used RIWE’s website, now Chinese-speaking teachers as well. And the www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org, to find much-appreciated course on Teaching Sensible research on a variety of topics; they purchased Science, led by Michael D’Aleo, continues to fill books from WP. Along with more than 51,000 the halls of schools with striving teachers and friends on our much-trafficked Facebook page phenomenological science. and the rich and informative blogs of the Library Lady at www.waldorfpublications.org, the reach Waldorf Publications (WP) has reorganized of the Research Institute is long and the interest itself in a new location, revitalizing a languishing is growing—just about everywhere! “big box building”—a former Walmart—and settling in as a neighbor to the Rudolf Steiner Library. For the first time the WP office, shipping and handling, and inventory are all in one place at 351 Fairview Avenue in Hudson, NY. One longtime and loyal WP employee, Robin Bellack,

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 About the Research Institute for Waldorf Education

he Research Institute for Waldorf Education books published by the Waldorf Early Childhood (RIWE), founded in 1996 in order to deepen Association of North America (WECAN) and the Tand enhance the quality of Waldorf education, Pedagogical Section Council (PSC) of the School engages in sustained dialogue with the wider for Spiritual Science, as well as AWSNA’s twice- educational-cultural community and supports yearly magazine Renewal. research to serve a wide range of educators in As an initiative working on behalf of the their work with children and adolescents. Waldorf movement, the Research Institute The Research Institute supports projects receives support and guidance from the PSC dealing with essential contemporary educational and financial support through the following issues such as computers and the effects of organizations: media on children, alternatives to standardized • Astoria-Stiftung testing, physical health and psychological well- • Foundation for Rudolf Steiner Books being of students, science teaching with a • Freunde der Erziehungskunst phenomenological approach, the role of the arts • Marshall and Margharite McComb Foundation in education, and the philosophical underpinnings • Rudolf and Clara Kreutzer-Stiftung of Waldorf education. • Rudolf Steiner Charitable Trust As a sponsor of colloquia and conferences, • Sprout Foundation the Research Institute brings together educators, • Waldorf Curriculum Fund psychologists, physicians, and social scientists • Waldorf Educational Foundation for discussions on current issues related to • Waldorf-Stiftung education. RIWE publishes a Research Bulletin twice a year and prepares educational resources, The Research Institute is a tax-exempt including collections of eBooks and articles (a organization and accepts contributions through growing number of them newly translated into its annual giving campaign and special appeals. Spanish). Many of these publications are available without charge on the website of the Online Summary of Activities Supported by the Research Institute Waldorf Library (OWL), a virtual library created and managed by the Research Institute: avalon initiative www.waldorflibrary.org. A think tank for questions of freedom in education In 2013 the Research Institute took over the colloquia (with published proceedings) on teaching: Chemistry publications arm of the Association of Waldorf Computer and Information Technology Schools of North America (AWSNA) and re- English branded it as Waldorf Publications. It includes Life Sciences and Environmental Studies resources for teachers and administrators, Mathematics readers and children’s books, collections of plays Physical Sciences and poetry, science materials and kits, science U.S. History World History: Symptomatology and math newsletters, inspirational essays, online waldorf library (owl) proceedings of colloquia, and a range of publicity Over 2500 articles and 850 book titles materials about Waldorf education. It also carries

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 76 • About the Research Institute recent research projects Research Bulletin ActionWave study Editor: Ilan Safit Alternatives to Standardized Assessment email: [email protected] Computer Technology in Waldorf Schools Cover design: David Mitchell Human Sexuality Curriculum Copy editing: Douglas Gerwin Survey of Waldorf Graduates Proofreading: Alice Brown Waldorf High School Curriculum Research Projects Production/layout: Ann Erwin research bulletin Two issues per year of essays, articles, reviews, Research Institute for Waldorf Education and commentaries on educational themes Douglas Gerwin, Executive Director retreats of the research institute Milan Daler, Administrator Presentations and discussions exploring P.O. Box 307 • Wilton, NH 03086 contemporary questions related to education Phone: (603) 654-2566 email: [email protected] riwe website Patrice Maynard, Director of Publications Collections of articles and news features on and Development current educational issues 351 Fairview Avenue, Suite 625, Hudson, NY 12534 teaching sensible science Phone: (518) 828-9999 • Fax: (518) 684-1588 Three one-week courses on teaching science in email: [email protected] elementary grades using a phenomenological Marianne Alsop, Librarian, Online Waldorf Library (OWL) approach www.waldorflibrary.org waldorf publications email: [email protected] Over 400 book titles, plus science kits, publicity Tom Stier, Webmaster of the RIWE website materials on Waldorf education www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org

Board of Directors Franz E. Winkler Center for Adult Santa Cruz Waldorf School Arthur Zajonc, President Learning Santa Fe Waldorf School Stephen Bloomquist, Treasurer Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner Seattle Waldorf School Natalie Adams, Secretary School Shining Mountain Waldorf School Douglas Gerwin, Executive Director Green Meadow Waldorf School Sound Circle Center for Arts and Frederick Amrine Haleakala Waldorf School Anthroposophy Virginia Flynn Hartsbrook School Spring Garden Waldorf School Eva Handschin Hawthorne Valley School Summerfield Waldorf School Elan Leibner High Mowing School & Farm Jost Schieren Highland Hall Waldorf School Susquehanna Waldorf School Douglas Sloan Honolulu Waldorf School Toronto Waldorf School Wilfried Sommer Kimberton Waldorf School Vancouver Waldorf School Les Enfants de la Terre Waldorf Academy Supporting Members Maine Coast Waldorf School Waldorf High School of Academe of the Oaks Marin Waldorf School Massachusetts Bay Anchorage Waldorf School Monadnock Waldorf School Waldorf School at Moraine Farm AWSNA Pasadena Waldorf School Waldorf School of Garden City Camphill Special School-Beaver Run Portland Waldorf School Waldorf School of Lexington Center for Anthroposophy Prairie Hill Waldorf School Waldorf School of Orange County Chicago Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto Waldorf School of Pittsburgh Cincinnati Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner College Waldorf School of Princeton City of Lakes Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor Waldorf School of San Diego Denver Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner School, NY Waldorf School of the Peninsula East Bay Waldorf School Sacramento Waldorf School Waldorf Teacher Education Eugene Emerson Waldorf School San Francisco Waldorf School Washington Waldorf School Eugene Waldorf School

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2018 • Volume 23 • #1 Research Bulletin

Research Bulletin Spring/Summer 2018

Volume XXIII • Number 1 Volume XXIII • Number 1 Research Institute for Waldorf Education

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF PUBLICATIONS at the RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF EDUCATION 351 Fairview Avenue, Suite 625 Hudson, NY 12534 EDUCATIONWaldorf