uring his closing address to the researchers sharing their insights, as well as their International Kolisko Conference this past summer unresolved questions. Indeed, the purpose of this Din Sweden, Christof Wiechert, Leader of the Kolisko conference of teachers and physicians— Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum, divided held every four years in the name of Eugen the first century of Waldorf education into three Kolisko, the first Waldorf school doctor—is to fur- distinct periods.1 The first phase began with the ther collaboration among Waldorf educators, on original Waldorf School in 1919 and lasted some the one hand, and physicians and therapists, on 30 years into the early 1950s; he characterized the other. At Wiechert’s prompting, some 40 con- this period as “the descent of the Waldorf peda- ference participants interested in how Waldorf gogical impulse into the world.” During this time school graduates fare after high school met twice Waldorf education took root, first in Germany, during the week-long gathering to hear initial then spread to other parts of Europe and, gradual- findings of a joint survey of Waldorf alumni in ly, to other continents, starting with the United North American and Europe. Results of this sur- States in the 1920s. vey, which involved some 550 North America and Then came a second phase, which Wiechert more than 2,000 German and Swiss Waldorf characterized as the “age of pedagogical heroes.” school graduates, are previewed in this issue of During this time a gradually increasing number of the Research Bulletin and will appear later this year Waldorf schools were shepherded by strong and in a separate monograph. often beloved individuals, who served essentially This is only one of several collaborative proj- as self-reliant leaders surrounded by dedicated cir- ects under way between the Research Institute cles of teachers and parents. This phase, lasting and the Pädagogische Forschungsstelle (the somewhat more than 30 years, carried Waldorf research arm of the association of German education into the late 1980s. Waldorf schools, based in Stuttgart). An addition- Now, we have entered into a third and final al joint research venture, still in its early phase, phase of Waldorf education in this century in concerns the effects of testing and other forms of which individual heroes have either passed away assessment on children. It is planned that the col- or, at least, handed on the leadership of their laborative work will result in a paper in support of schools to a new generation of teachers—and to a children everywhere in the world who are con- growing number of administrators. These groups fronted by high stakes testing. Alternative meth- face the task of leading their schools, not simply ods of student assessment from Waldorf schools as single individuals, but in strong circles of collab- will also be explored. If you have contributions oration. The key to success in this third phase, that you would like to have considered, please according to Wiechert, is that all of the colleagues contact us. in a school, not only those designated as its lead- On the North American continent, the ers, feel part of this circle of leadership. Research Institute continues to sponsor individual Otherwise, there is the risk that schools will research projects and surveys, some of which are attempt to hearken back to earlier—but by now described in this issue, and to facilitate a new outdated—forms of governance, or that the cycle of “Teaching Sensible Science,” a program impulse of Waldorf education will simply with- for Waldorf school class teachers designed to draw from the field of education altogether and deepen their teaching of science in the elementary await another century and a new set of impulses. grades. Beyond these special projects, the Wiechert’s clarion call for a more intensive Research Institute provides ongoing support to collaboration among Waldorf school educators teachers in the form of the Online Waldorf underscores the importance of Waldorf Library—www.waldorflibrary.org—and its own

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 4 · Report from the Co-Directors website—www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org. • Research on the effects of testing on children With the steady backing of the Waldorf • Joint publication with the Waldorf Early Educational Foundation, the Waldorf Schools Childhood Association of North America Fund, a small circle of individual and anonymous (WECAN) and the Association of Waldorf donors, and a growing number of supporting Schools of North America (AWSNA) on members and individual subscribers, the Research research in Sweden and Germany on first Institute has been able to stimulate new research grade readiness and school entry. projects within the Waldorf school movement and reach out to like-minded groups engaged in the The Research Institute for Waldorf Education educational issues of our times. The next cycle of has several projects worthy of funding beyond the projects includes: foundation grants that we currently receive. If you have the desire to support and further these • Further analysis of the Survey of Waldorf efforts, a tax-deductible donation would be grate- Graduates (Phase III) fully received. • Survey of Waldorf school parents • Research into the teaching of grammar ______• Publication of a new set of education lectures 1. Christof Wiechert, Lecture at the International Kolisko by Rudolf Steiner, not previously translated, Conference, Jårna, Sweden, August 2006. Education, Teaching, and the Practical Life (see · excerpt in this edition of the Research Bulletin) • Commissioning of articles by Institute Research Fellows

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 From the Editor

Stephen Keith Sagarin

larity, depth, and perspective—attributes bracingly drawn from our conventional thinking of sight—characterize the contents of this issue of into a new engagement with Steiner’s work. This Cthe Research Bulletin. Reading the contents of this can only renew us and our work. issue we can experience the clarity, depth of field, In his report on schools’ festival lives, Eugene and perspectives these authors bring to their Schwartz tempts controversy by challenging us to material. What will we do, however, with this reverse a trend toward inclusive festivals that are clarity? How will we employ our new sense and subsequently drained of real meaning. Can we knowledge? The articles collected here aim to recover the meaning of festivals without the risk affect the way we teach, the way we think about of offending one or another group of parents or our students, and the way we live in the commu- teachers? A question that he does not ask but nities of our schools. Clear sight can lead to confi- that we pose here, possibly for future considera- dent action. tion, regards the appropriate role of festivals in The clear sight of some of our authors, how- Waldorf schools to begin with. Steiner wrote pro- ever, reveals potentially controversial points of foundly about education. He wrote profoundly view. Judy Lubin, an economic theorist and about festivals and their meanings. But it is not Waldorf school parent, describes ways in which clear that festivals necessarily or even appropri- the U.S. economy is changing—has already ately need to find expression in Waldorf schools. changed—in ways that make Waldorf school stu- We invite readers to respond in writing to dents particularly well suited to success. This is these or other views; conversation among readers not to say that Waldorf school students will can help to clarify our understanding of Steiner’s become the wealthiest members of a ruling class, work and its implementation in Waldorf schools. but that their creativity and flexibility of thinking Not all of the articles and reports here neces- will enable them to gain and retain employment sarily contain seeds of controversy. Arthur Auer more easily than someone educated better to fill a beautifully limns the teaching of reading, deepen- pigeonhole. Further, Lubin makes clear that ing and grounding what many of us believe we Steiner’s view of the appropriate role of a truly know already, even if we do not know the why independent individual in a tripartite social organ- and how. Dorit Winter uses the polarity between ism is as an entrepreneur. Given cooperative, non- objective love and subjective love to examine the competitive interpretations of Steiner’s social sometimes difficult relationship between parents work, it is refreshing to read Lubin’s possibly con- and teachers regarding their students and chil- troversial interpretation and realize that it is dren. Susan Johnson offers a holistic look at the grounded firmly in Steiner’s work. constitutional challenges that occupy many of our Daniel Hindes, similarly, bases his look at students. Jane Swain relates cognitive develop- teaching left-handed children on Steiner’s words. ment to body and, especially, hand development Any Waldorf school teacher who believes that in young children. Finally, Rudolf Steiner, in a pre- there is a pat “Waldorf” approach to left-handed- viously unpublished excerpt from a book forth- ness will find him- or herself confronting descrip- coming in English, challenges us to understand tions that are nuanced and that leave room for and take seriously the idea of spiritual research. experimentation and engagement with actual stu- The contents of this issue achieve more fully dents, not images of pathology. than usual our aim to speak in each issue to When interpretations of Steiner’s work are teachers of high school, elementary school, and based clearly on his words and yet still strike us early childhood. The articles examine and present as controversial, assuming we are willing to think much that we know is good and right about what through what we believe we already know, we are happens in Waldorf schools. They also describe

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 6 · From the Editor ways in which we can do better by our students. rectly, and, consequently, we may need to change We may have wondered how good we are—how old habits and practices. And some perspec- close are we to fulfilling Steiner’s view of good tives—I’m thinking particularly of Dorit Winter’s education? The answer, in part, is that we are here—ask us to think in ways we may not have very good at some things and virtually ignorant previously in order to find solutions to the chal- of others. Where controversy appears, we must lenges that face us. acknowledge that we may have seen things incor-

The Research Institute is seeking financial support to undertake new research. If you wish to make a contribution or are aware of an individual or a Foundation that may be interested in supporting the research of Waldorf education, please contact David Mitchell or Douglas Gerwin at:

[email protected]

(603) 654-2566

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Reading in Waldorf Schools, Part II: Beginning in Flow and Warmth Arthur Auer

Early Reading Flow How we are able to extend ourselves into life is intimately connected with how we inhabit our hen creative human capacities such as physical bodies and minds as malleable instru- imagination are inhibited through misguided edu- ments of the spirit and its intentions. Conditions Wcational methods, persons can find it challenging such as premature hardening and fixity, according or impossible to realize their fullest potentialities to Steiner, interfere with the penetration of a in life. Rudolf Steiner observed that the effects of human ego into an organism. How a child inter- reading too early combined with “faulty meth- acts with and learns from the world can either ods,” which he was personally spared in his early strengthen her natural instinct to connect, and years, can interfere with a person’s destiny. In his stay connected, or isolate and cut her off from words, they “make bodies unfit” physiologically life. Steiner provocatively states that a major goal and “harden” them so that the individual spirit of education is to teach a child to breathe proper- “cannot enter fully into the body”: ly. Not only does he refer to the physical process, …It may not be at all beneficial for such a child but also to educating a balanced breathing and a to learn to read too early. For by doing so flowing in and out of the soul and spirit in rela- something is being blocked for life. …For it is tion to the body and the world. possible to trace back a hardening of the entire The life-filled nature of young children calls human organism…to a faulty method of intro- for, above all, imaginative and inspired artistic ducing reading to a child.1 movement, flow and “breathing” in the educational process. Rhythmic flow promotes connection In various other lectures, Steiner cites similar 2 and growth and helps dissolve the hardening ele- effects attributable to one-sided and overly intel- ments and influences to which he refers. To attain lectual early reading programs, including: fullest expression, the human spirit or ego needs • Weakening of the breathing process, conges- to be able to shape a growing organism that is tion, and asthma3 fluid, permeable, and flexible—and one that also • Migraine-like conditions4 allows it to retain the child’s innate spiritual capacity to creatively flow out into the world and • Overtaxing the [brain’s] gray matter, incurring be at one with it. According to Steiner’s physiolog- unusual salt deposits5 ical insights, it is no coincidence that our bodies • Diverse forms of sclerosis, such as arterioscle- consist of so much water and other flowing ele- 6 rosis ments. The younger a human being, the more she consists proportionally of water, the embryo Steiner refers to these negative effects, how- being mostly water! In speaking of the education ever, as “subtle,” which probably means that in a of children, Steiner makes a striking correlation strict medical sense they are physically hard to between learning and our fluid and gaseous measure, even today with our chemical analyses, natures. Water and air allow life, warmth, con- MRIs, and other technologies. Each of the indica- sciousness, and learning capacities to enter and tions cited above needs to be examined in more flow flexibly through a child’s being in a human, depth to identify correlations with recent findings moral way: of other researchers.7 Too little attention is paid by people with a materialistic outlook to the mutual interaction between the soul and spiritual nature and the

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 8 · Reading in Waldorf Schools, Part II – Beginning in Flow and Warmth

physical body...it no longer has an understand- [Water] is the magic elixir for learning, the ing of the material processes, which it “secret potion” if you will. Water is one of the observes only externally, and that it no longer most important and most abundant inorganic recognizes that a moral element enters the substances in the body. It makes up from 45% physical...90% of the human body consists of to 75% of our total body weight…. Water liquid substances which are in constant flow comprises more of the brain (with estimates of and which, consequently, cannot be drawn in 90%) than of any other organ of the body, fixed outline…. We are [also] part of the air with muscles next at 75%, and then kidneys.9 surrounding us, which is constantly fluctuating within us. And what of the conditions of Hannaford describes many different ways in warmth? In reality we have to discriminate which “water assists learning and thought.” It between our solid, liquid, aeriform, and plays, for example, a vital role in nerve net warmth organizations….[If the] human being development, dendritic growth and the is a solid organism [as the physi- healthy “dissolution of salt,” which ology textbooks misleadingly corresponds with Steiner’s concern depict and imply] —if this were about the “incurring of unusual really the whole truth, then it It is essential to salt deposits.” Water is also criti- would be little wonder if the [be aware that cally responsible for the proper moral element, the life of the maintenance of cellular polarity soul, could not penetrate this there is] a unity that in our mental processing solid bone matter or this appar- between what is means “faster information process- ently rigid blood circulation. The ing for higher level reasoning” and physical and moral life would physical and what “allows selective focus.”10 have to have separate existences. is of moral nature. But if you include the liquid, The water/electrolyte balance is so gaseous and also the warmth critical to the living system…. organizations in your picture of the individual, High cellular polarity (membrane potential) then you have a fine agent, a refined entity— raises the threshold of sensitivity at the cell for example, in the varying states of warmth membrane, effectively increasing the integrity for allowing the existing moral constitution to of the cell membrane by lowering its sensitivity also extend into the physical processes of to outside stimuli. Surrounded as we are by a warmth…. This unity between what is physi- world of stimuli, high membrane polarity gives cal and what is of a moral nature. …It is us a choice. It takes more of a stimulus to acti- essential to have this awareness. … It will vate a nerve impulse, so we can choose what enable us to know how to treat the child who stimuli we wish to focus our attention on and otherwise will develop inner opposition not be distracted by irrelevant stimuli. As we towards what it has to learn. It should be our will see, this enhances selective focus for aim to allow our young pupils to grow gradu- increased learning, strengthens immunity and ally and naturally into their subjects, and then health, and protects against the effects of they will also love what they have to learn. external electromagnetic fields.11 But this will happen only if their inner forces 8 become fully involved in these new activities. Healthy breathing of the flowing element of Accordingly, the path to reading as a culmi- air and oxygen is also another indispensable fac- nating cerebral activity does not begin with pre- tor in the learning process, according to maturely hardened, fixed letter outlines of fine Hannaford. She finds it significant that “the brain machine print but rather with warm and flowing makes up only one fiftieth of the body’s weight and yet it uses an amazing one fifth of the body’s artistic activity that appropriately invigorates and 12 prepares the soft organism of the child in her ten- oxygen.” Such facts can be related to Steiner’s der, formative state. statements that a healthy education is really Carla Hannaford similarly stresses the signifi- learning to breathe properly and that a weaken- cance of water and flow in the functioning of ing of the breathing process and congestion inter- learning and intelligence: fere with learning.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Arthur Auer · 9

Logic (Left) Hemisphere Gestalt (Right) Hemisphere Pieces observed first Whole picture observed first Parts of language Language comprehension Language syntax, semantics Image, emotion, meaning Letters, sentences Rhythm, flow, dialect Language oriented Feelings/experience oriented Technique Flow and movement Art (media, tool use, how to) Art (image, emotion, flow)

Equally interesting are Hannaford’s charac- of their being and to multiple intelligences. terizations of the functions of the right or Gestalt Children then learn to flow back and forth with brain hemisphere compared to left or logic hemi- versatility not just between their cerebral hemisphere, several of which indicate the importance spheres but also within their whole bodies and of flow in learning. Above is a partial list of com- with the world. parative functions.13 On this topic of flow and learning, the work Lively six and seven year olds enter first of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at the University of grade relating to the world in a right hemisphere Chicago is also interesting. He characterizes very mode. The Gestalt hemisphere becomes enlarged high states of learning, engagement, and per- and articulated itself during the ages of roughly formance as “flow.” In this condition, human four to seven years. In an evolutionary sense, its beings become joyfully absorbed in a given pur- mode can be viewed as the older one and echoes suit in an extraordinary way.16 These studies the consciousness of ancient peoples, which was caught the attention of educational psychologists configured for mythic image and flow in nature like Daniel Goleman, who developed the idea of rather than logic and literacy. In contrast, the left, emotional intelligence, and Howard Gardner, origi- logic hemisphere does not typically develop and nator of the theory of multiple intelligences. expand until ages seven to nine.14 At school age, Goleman believes: the conventions and requirements of modern civi- being able to enter flow is emotional intelli- lization dictate that children learn how to make gence at its best; flow represents perhaps the the evolutionary switch to an increased emphasis ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the on left hemispheric modes of learning. Ideally, service of performance and learning. In flow they do this in an organic and developmentally emotions are not just contained and chan- appropriate way so that valuable right brain neled, but positive, energized, and aligned with capacities such as imagination are not eclipsed the task at hand.17 and lost; and so that they can utilize the abilities of both hemispheres and move between them at And, later: will via the corpus callosum. Some studies have shown that females are more versatile in using the [T]he flow model suggests that achieving mas- tery of any skill or body of knowledge should corpus callosum to go back and forth between ideally happen naturally, as the child is drawn hemispheres than are males. to areas that spontaneously engage her—that, Given this developmental sequence, in essence, she loves. That initial passion can Hannaford concludes, “The most natural way… be the seed for high levels of attainment.18 for children to learn when first in school at age five and six is through image, emotion and spon- Gardner, according to Goleman, “sees flow, taneous movement.”15 This is just what Waldorf and the positive states that typify it, as part of education strives for—a balanced development of the healthiest way to teach children, motivating thinking as picture, feeling, and willed activity— them from the inside rather than by threat or of head, heart, and hands. It seeks to educate promise of reward.”19 Such psychological descrip- children so that they have ready access to all sides tions of the flow state contain many striking par-

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 10 · Reading in Waldorf Schools, Part II – Beginning in Flow and Warmth allels to how Steiner believes children should expe- origins in the deeply felt image-making faculty of rience the learning process with love, devotion, the human being. As he points out, “Every kind of and joy. They become engaged in their whole understanding comes about through images.”20 being and feel a subject right into their toes. Such Image making or imagination is the core function a heightened state of learning is more than mere of our human mode of cognition. And, according self-absorption in an activity but includes the to Steiner, “the work of the imagination shapes capacity to flow into the whole environment and and builds the forms of the brain.”21 These live into other beings and other objects in a insights correlate with current research. warm, loving, and deeply interest- Neuroscientist Antonio Dimasio, ed way. It involves being at one for example, holds that we trans- with them in consciousness, and Warm love is the main late almost all of our experiences learning from and understanding into mental images or mental them compassionately from the element intended by patterns that are the primary inside—a capacity Steiner calls nature and spirit to units of our minds. Furthermore, intuition. mental images are not just visu- make this fused al, but also encompass “auditory emotional-cognitional [images], olfactory, gustatory, Warmth learning system [and] somatosensory.” The Like water, warmth is another somatosensory is a “modality vital flowing element that is at function and flow [that] includes …touch, muscu- the core of our human nature and effectively at the lar, temperature, pain, visceral, of the Waldorf schools’ method of and vestibular [images].”22 education. In a healthy writing performance levels of Equally significant, each of our and reading process, children genius for which it mental images has an emotional need to warm to the letters and was designed. component. Neurologically, we words they are learning in order cannot just perceive or know to digest them properly and inte- something in a neural fashion. grate them into their beings. For We are always moved within— this reason, Waldorf school teachers warmly ani- we experience “e-motion”— feel the thing on mate the alphabet letters so that they become some level, even if it is not conscious. familiar and lovable friends. (I will give examples of how this is done in part III of this paper.) The …[F]ew if any perceptions of any object or children come to love drawing and writing their event, actually present or recalled from memory, are ever neutral in emotional terms. letter companions. Love is the ultimate human Through either innate design or by learning, warmth, love that welcomes the incarnating indi- we react to, perhaps all, objects with emo- vidual into the body and into the learning process tions.…23 in the most efficient and penetrating way. The role played by love, warming, and passionate Virtually every image, actually perceived or interest—being fired up, as adolescents say— recalled, is accompanied by some reaction however, goes far beyond making the learning from the apparatus of emotion.24 process pleasant and palatable. Warmth and love Certainly on a conscious level we all have evi- are, I believe, the driving forces of human cogni- dence of how strong, vivid emotions or feelings tion and of its central core, called imagination, cognitively call up and are linked with strong vivid the inner image-making capacity of the mind’s memory images. Emotion and feeling are without eye. This is because human beings are naturally doubt major organizers in our cognitive life. designed so that every perception and experience Dimasio describes how the flow of our feeling and has its image in us and every image is imbued emotional life is inextricably bound up with the with an emotion or feeling. flow processes of our perceiving, knowing, and In several thought-provoking lectures on the learning. The multiplicity of images we gather physiology of writing and reading, Dr. Karl Koenig from experiences is integrated and coordinated in explains and illustrates how the alphabet has its a wondrous mental flow process we call thinking: Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Arthur Auer · 11

The process we come to know as mind when Anchoring the learning of writing and read- mental images become ours as a result of con- ing firmly in the activity of imagination at the sciousness is a continuous flow of images core of human cognition and in the warm energy many of which turn out to be interrelated.... of deep human feeling powerfully fosters this Thought is an acceptable word to denote such 25 commitment to learning—one that is educational- a flow of images. ly woven into the very fibers of a child’s being for The currents of this image flow of our think- life. ing, centered in the watery brain, intimately (In a concluding article, “Reading in a Waldorf weave together with the image flow of emotion School, Part III,” I will illustrate and discuss specific exam- and feeling, centered in our liquid blood and moist ples of various approaches to introducing writing and reading.) breath. Both become connected in the process of learning: [A]ssociative learning has linked emotions with thoughts in a rich two-way network. Certain Endnotes thoughts evoke certain emotions and vice 1. Steiner, R. (1988) The Child’s Changing versa. Cognitive and emotional levels of pro- Consciousness and Waldorf Education, CW 306. 88. cessing are continuously linked.26 2. Readers are encouraged to study these physi- ological indications in contexts of the full lectures, In my experience, warm love is the main ele- which often include example of how to introduce read- ment intended by nature and spirit to make this ing in a healthy manner. While he was not trained as a fused emotional-cognitional learning system func- physiologist, Steiner did have an extensive scientific tion and flow effectively at the performance levels education and kept himself up to date with research in of genius for which it was designed. An education many fields, including the neuroscience of his times. of fear or cold, dry, information inputs, geared to Many of his pedagogical recommendations anticipate test results, does not make biological, psychologi- the neuropsychological discoveries of the last fifteen cal, or spiritual sense, is uninformed, and ignores years and their enormous implications for teaching children. Steiner strove to anchor Waldorf school meth- current neuroscience. It freezes and hardens the ods firmly in physiology and charged the Waldorf flow system and reduces and deadens human school doctor with a vital role in working with the fac- potential dramatically, even human electrical ulty. potential. It is no coincidence that our mental life 3. Steiner, R. (1997) Essentials of Education,CW is reflected in the beautiful wave and flow pat- 308. 33. terns of synaptic firings within us. Even on a cellu- 4. Steiner, R. (1996) Education for Adolescence, lar level we become literally fired up and ener- CW 302. 63. gized in our thinking, feeling, and doing. This 5. Ibid., 62-63. physical firing is not just a nice metaphor for a 6. Steiner, R. The Child’s Changing Consciousness warm fired up interest on a mental and emotional and Waldorf Education,86 level but is a part of how we are created as inte- 7. We can conduct some informal research on grated beings of energy and imagination. ourselves individually and observe such ill effects when Hannaford well summarizes in general terms the we experience how our eyes, heads, and bodies feel implications of such neuropsychological findings when we have read and studied too much and too for education when she concludes: long, say for an examination. We feel too full of something, emotionally pent up, nervous, frazzled, and even Our mind/body system learns through experi- burned out. We need to get up, move about, and seek encing life in context, in relationship to every- fresh air outside. Motor activities like walking and exer- thing else, and it is our emotions, our feelings cising bring balance and refreshment. Raking leaves that mediate that context. In order to learn, can be surprisingly restorative with its rhythmic and think or create, learners must have an emo- satisfying grooming of the earth, the smell of leaves, tional commitment. Otherwise education the sensory feast of everything in surrounding nature. becomes just an intellectual exercise…. One hour of vigorous activity in the front yard can Students who are highly motivated to learn, wipe away the hangover of four hours of work on the already possessing an emotional commitment, computer. will learn because they love to learn.27

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 12 · Reading in Waldorf Schools, Part II – Beginning in Flow and Warmth

8. Steiner, R. (1988) The Child’s Changing References Consciousness and Waldorf Education, CW 306. 87-88. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of 9. Hannaford, C. (1995) Smart Moves: Why Optimal Experience, Harper & Row, 1990. Learning is Not All in Your Head, 138. Dimasio, Antonio. The Feeling of What Happens: Body 10. Ibid., 139. and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Harvest 11. Ibid., 140. Books, 1999. 12. Ibid., 146. Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence, Bantam, 1995. 13. Ibid., 79. Hannaford, Carla. Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All 14. Ibid., 83. in Your Head, Great River, 1995 15. Ibid. Koenig, Karl. Camphill Conferences and Seminars on 16. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The Reading and Writing, vol. 1. Publisher unknown, Psychology of Optimal Experience. 1957. 17. Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional Intelligence, 90. Steiner, Rudolf. The Child’s Changing Consciousness and 18. Ibid., 94-95. Waldorf Education, CW 306. Anthroposophic 19. Ibid. Press, 1988. 20. Koenig, K. (1957) Camphill Conferences and ______. Education for Adolescence, CW 302. Seminars on Reading and Writing, vol.1, 16. Koenig was Anthroposophic Press, 1996. founder of the Camphill/Steiner communities for the ______. The Education of the Child, CW 34. mentally challenged. Anthroposophic Press, 1996. 21. Steiner, R. (1996) The Education of the Child, ______. Essentials of Education, CW 308. CW 34. 20. Anthroposophic Press, 1997. 22. Dimasio, A. (1999) The Feeling of What Happens, 318. Interestingly, Dimasio does “not use the word image to refer to… the neural aspect of the process [for which he] use[s] terms such as neural pat- –––––––––––––––––––––––– tern or map.” 317. Arthur Auer, M.Ed., is Coordinator of the Waldorf 23. Ibid., 94. Year Round Teacher Training and Internship Program 24. Ibid., 58. at Antioch University New England. He teaches curriculum, human development, drama, sculptural 25. Ibid., 318. modeling, philosophy of education (a course for pub- 26. Ibid., 71. lic school teachers), and a professional seminar for 27. Hannaford, C. (1995) Smart Moves: Why interns. He was a class teacher for 18 years at the Learning is Not All in Your Head. 56. Pine Hill Waldorf School. 28. Editor’s note: “CW” refers to Steiner’s Collected Works. This designation often appears also as GA, an abbreviation of the German Gesammt Ausgabe.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Rudolf Steiner on Teaching Left-Handed Children Daniel Hindes

udolf Steiner’s position on the pedagogical is reasonable to reject Steiner’s position outright. Rtreatment of left-handed children has been much That said, Steiner’s statements deserve scrutiny. misunderstood over the years. This is partly due to the obscurity of the references. Steiner’s indications concerning the pedagogical treatment of Steiner’s Indications left-handed children are buried among the tran- Steiner’s complete statements on left-handedness scriptions of his spoken indications on education. in children come from the following sources: the They are not in written works or essays. Some of two volumes in English (three volumes in German) them were only officially published in English in of Faculty Meetings (GA 300 a, b, and c), volume 1998, and others remain unavailable to this day. 309 of the complete works (translated as The Roots The “telephone effect” also contributes to this of Education; the translation, however, is lacking misunderstanding. When a complex statement is the question and answer section that contains the retold from memory through a chain of three or statement on left-handedness), and the lecture four people, it is inevitably simplified and altered, cycle published as The Renewal of Education. and this appears to be the case with several mis- The most reliable summary of Steiner's views understandings that circulate to this day in is most likely found in the untranslated portion of Waldorf school circles. The Roots of Education. This is a word-for-word Contrary to what we occasionally hear, stenographic reconstruction of Steiner’s direct Steiner did not advocate answer to the question. It is switching left-handed children also chronologically the last of to make them right-handed. Rudolf Steiner’s comments Steiner’s indications on the Steiner’s actual position, on dominance and on subject. From the question and detailed below, was that answer session following the ambidextrous children switching children from lecture of April 15, 1924: younger than nine should be left- to right-handedness Question: How is one to intro- encouraged to write with one are more thoughtful and duce writing to left-handed dominant hand, preferably children? the right. His remarks were complex than many made under specific circum- teachers believe. Rudolf Steiner: With left-hand- stances, and with a number ed children it is necessary that of qualifiers. you attempt to do as much as Some advocates of left-handedness maintain possible to change them into that such a switch is improper, and even that it right-handed children. Only, if you notice in practice that it is not working at all, then natu- constitutes child abuse. The most extreme varia- rally you must then work with their left-hand- tion of this argument is that anything that inter- edness. But what we really want is that such feres in any way with the inclinations of children left-handed children become right-handed to write with whichever hand they prefer is abu- ones; this is usually successful, especially in sive. This position raises the question: Does any the case of writing, longhand writing. It is nat- pedagogical treatment whatsoever that interferes urally necessary that one closely observe the with a child’s natural inclination to do anything child that one is attempting to switch from also constitute child abuse? Or is this only true left-handed to right-handed writing; observe when considering the writing hand? Since much how subtly, at a certain stage, when he or she education consists of guiding and modifying chil- has made an effort for a time, a certain fluidi- dren’s natural inclinations, I do not believe that it ty arises in the manipulation of ideas. Observe

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also how the child under certain circumstances reconstruction of Steiner’s statements, and these continually stumbles over his or her speech are not at all his actual words. There was consid- due to thinking too fast, and the like. You must erable debate whether or not even to publish observe this with the greatest care and then them, but, since even less complete versions were make the child him- or herself aware of such circulating, the Archives decided to proceed. things, because the relationship between the A teacher asks about writing with the left- development of the arm and hands and the hand. development of the speech center in the brain is considerably more important to the develop- Dr. Steiner: In general, you will find that those ment of the whole human being than we gen- children who have spiritual tendencies can erally think. Many other things besides this write without difficulty as they will, left- or have an influence on whether a child is left- or right-handed. Children who are materialistical- 1 right-handed. ly oriented will become addled by writing with both hands. There is a reason for right-hand- This quotation shows how easy it would be to edness. In our materialistic age, children who misunderstand Steiner’s position. If we look only are left-handed will become idiotic if they alter- at the first sentence, it would appear that Steiner nately use both hands. That is a very question- intended teachers to forcibly switch all left-hand- able thing to do in those circumstances that ed children. But Steiner’s actual position is not involve reasoning, but there is no problem in drawing. You can allow them to draw with nearly that simple, and in practice could even 2 leave a child to write with the left hand. Notice either hand. also Steiner's basic approach—the emphasis on Note that the state Steiner wishes to avoid is close observation, the warning to discontinue if writing with both hands, not writing exclusively the treatment is not working, with the left. If this quotation and the clearly stated pedagogi- Prescient, too, is accurately reflects Steiner’s posi- cal goals. Prescient, too, is Steiner’s observations tion, it would clearly be preferred Steiner’s observation of the rela- by Steiner that a left-handed child tionship between fine motor of the relationship remain exclusively left-handed in skills and cognitive development, between fine motor his or her writing than that he or an area that is just beginning to she start writing occasionally come into prominence eighty skills and cognitive with the right hand. This state- years later. development. ment is quite a bit shorter than The next quotations are the answer of April 15, 1924; it taken from the volumes Faculty Meetings with may well be abridged, missing qualifiers and Rudolf Steiner. The contents of these volumes explanations. Further, we should note that the belong to the least reliable portion of Rudolf phrasing is a bit harsher than is typical of Steiner’s works. What we read is a translation of Steiner—particularly the word “idiotic” seems a summary by an editor of the notes of some of atypical. Concluding anything from such fragmen- the people who attended the faculty meetings. tary indications is difficult. These are not word-for-word stenographic record- A question about piano playing sheds a bit ings, and not anything Steiner ever reviewed him- more light: self. Editors Erich Gabert and Hans Rudolf Niederhäuser, working at the Steiner Archive, con- A music teacher: I would like to ask about structed these volumes using primarily the notes learning to play the piano in connection with of Dr. Karl Schubert, one of the founding teachers using both hands. at the first Waldorf School, and complemented by Dr. Steiner: That is a very correct perception. It the notes of other participants. As Gabert and is true that it is possible to correct left-handed- Niederhäuser note in their preface, “...the notes all ness quite easily through practicing the piano. have a very fragmented quality. The editors’ task That is something we need to keep in mind. was to position the fragments so that they sup- We should always correct left-handedness. port one another, thus giving the most complete However, in this connection, we should also picture possible.” Heavy editing went into the take the child’s temperament into account so

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Daniel Hindes · 15

that melancholics give the right hand prefer- one of karmic weakness. Allow me to give an ence. You can easily find a tendency with them example: People who overworked in their pre- to play with the left hand. We should empha- vious life, so that they did too much, not just size the left hand with the cholerics. With physically or intellectually, but, in general, phlegmatics you should see to it to that they spiritually, within their soul or feeling, will use both hands in balance, and the same is enter the succeeding life with an intense weak- true for the sanguines. That is very important. ness. That person will be unable to overcome It would also be an advantage if you tried as the karmic weakness in the lower human much as possible to train children away from being. (The part of the human being that simply mechanical feeling when playing the results from the life between death and a new piano, but have them learn to play the keys as birth is particularly concentrated in the lower such. They should learn to feel the various human being, whereas the part that comes places on the piano up and down, right and from the previous earthly life is concentrated left, so that they feel the piano itself. It is also more in the head.) So, what would otherwise a good idea to have them play without any be strongly developed becomes weak, and the written music, at least in the beginning.3 left leg and left hand are relied upon as a crutch. The preference for the left hand results The answer already indicates that the ques- in the right side of the brain, instead of the tion is incomplete. What is a correct conception? left, being used in speech. Inasmuch as we can reconstruct the thought process from this fragmentary source, Steiner If you give in to that too much, then that appears to be addressing lateral dominance issues weakness may perhaps remain for a later, a in general, indicating that piano playing has a third earthly life. If you do not give in, then the beneficial effect especially for the left-handed. He weakness is brought into balance. also appears to be warning that in observing If you make a child do everything equally well handedness, the educator should be aware of the with the right and left hands, writing, draw- possible influence of temperament on the diagno- ing, work and so forth, the inner human being sis. Steiner also gives general tips on piano will be neutralized. Then the I and the astral instruction. This paragraph in particular seems to body are so far removed that the person be abbreviated. becomes quite lethargic in later life. Without Here is Steiner’s later answer to a more direct any intervention, the etheric body is stronger question: A teacher asks whether the tendency toward the left than the right, and the astral towards left-handedness should be broken. body is more developed toward the right than the left. That is something you may not Dr. Steiner: In general, yes. At the younger ignore; you should pay attention to it. ages, approximately before the age of nine, However, we may not attempt a simple you can accustom left-handed children to mechanical balance. The most naive thing you right-handedness at school. You should not do can do is to have as a goal that the children that only if it would have a damaging effect, should work with both hands equally well. A which is very seldom the case. [See the faculty desire for a balanced development of both meeting of December 18, 1923. The notes of hands arises from today's complete misunder- one teacher at the December meeting relate standing of the nature of the human being.4 the following: “That [the need to switch to the right hand for writing] is not true for clearly This is the second longest passage on the sub- left-handed people. Those who are clearly left- ject. Even if these words are not an oversimplifica- handed should be allowed to write with their tion in the notes of the participants, and accurate- left hand.”] Children are not a sum of things, ly reflect Steiner’s actual statements, it is impor- but exponentially complicated. If you attempt tant to note Steiner’s caveat, consistent with the to create symmetry between the right and left Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm. with the children, and you exercise both hands A final quotation from the Faculty Meetings: in balance, that can lead to weak-mindedness later in life. A teacher: S.J. in the 7th grade is doing better writing with her left hand than with her right. The phenomenon of left-handedness is clearly karmic, and, in connection with karma, it is

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 16 · Rudolf Steiner on Teaching Left-Handed Children

Dr. Steiner: You should remind her that she ambidexterity, and not specifically left-handed- should write only with her right hand. You ness. could try having her lift her left leg so that she Now I come to a question I have often been hops around on her right leg, that is, have her asked and that has some significance, namely, jump around on her right leg with her left leg the question of left-handedness or ambidexterity. drawn up close to her. She is ambidextrous. Right-handedness has become a If there are children who are [I]t would clearly be general human habit that we use clearly left-handed, you'll preferable to Steiner for writing and other tasks. It is need to decide. That is some- certainly appropriate to extend thing you can observe. You that a left-handed child that by making the left hand, in a need to look at the left hand. remain exclusively sense, more dexterous. That has With real left-handed children a certain justification. When we the right hand appears as left-handed in his or discuss such things, however, our though exchanged; the left her writing than that discussion will bear fruit only if hand looks like the right we have some deeper insight into hand in that it has more lines he or she start writing the conditions of human life. than the right hand occasionally with the When we move into a period in (Footnote: The notes of one which the entire human being of the teachers contained the right hand. should be awakened, when we following: “That is not true move into a period in which, in for clearly left-handed people. Those who are addition to the capacities for abstraction that clearly left-handed should be allowed to write are so well developed today, the feeling for cul- with the left hand.”5 ) ture and a capacity to feel as well as act would play a role, we will be able to speak quite dif- This could also be done through the eyes. You ferently about many questions than we can could have children who are really left-handed now. If education continues as it is today, so raise the right hand and look at it with both that people are always stuck in abstractions eyes. Observe how their eyes cross as they (materialism is precisely what is stuck in move their gaze up their arm until they reach abstractions) and education does not help us the right hand and then move their gaze back. to understand the material through the spiritu- Then have them stretch their arm. Do that al then, after a time, you will become con- 6 three times. vinced that teaching people to use both hands In this quotation Steiner is again specifically for writing will trap them in a kind of mental weakness. That results in part from how we addressing ambidexterity. This is clear even are today as human beings, and how we through the fragmentary notes of the partici- presently use the right hand to a much greater pants, each of whom appears to have understood extent than the left. The fact that the whole the ideas in his or her own way. Steiner’s recom- human being is not completely symmetrically mendation is specifically for one student, known formed also plays a part, particularly in personally to him. His diagnosis is that this stu- regard to certain organs. When we use both dent is ambidextrous, and for that reason should hands to write, for example, this has a deep be encouraged to write with the left hand. Steiner effect upon the entire human organism. further gives indications to the teachers as to how they are to distinguish true left-handedness from I would not speak about such things had I not done considerable research in this area and ambidexterity. Like the other passages, it shows a had I not tried, for example, to understand great deal of flexibility in Steiner's approach to what it means to use the left hand. When peo- the whole question of how to handle children who ple develop a capacity for observing the use the left hand for writing. human being, they will be able to determine Rudolf Steiner made the following remarks through experimenting what it means to use during a series of lectures to an audience of public the left hand. When human beings reach a cer- school teachers in Basel, Switzerland. This quota- tain level of independence of the spirit and tion is from the lecture of May 7, 1920. Again the soul from the physical body, it is good to use remarks deal primarily with the question of the left hand; but the dependence of modern

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Daniel Hindes · 17

people upon the physical body causes a prompted much research into identifying centers tremendous revolution in the physical body for other cortical functions,11 research that con- itself when the left hand is used in the same tinues to this day. After much investigation, it has manner, for example, in writing, as the right. been determined that there is no one-to-one corre- One of the most important points in this spondence between handedness and lateralization regard is that this would stress the right side of higher cortical functions in the brain. Despite of the body, the right side of the brain, beyond what modern people can normally tolerate. the absence of a strong form of correspondence, a When people have been taught according to weak form is evident, in that “close to 99 percent the methods and educational principles we of right-handed people… [and] at least 60 percent have discussed here, then they may also be of left-handed and ambidextrous people… have ambidextrous. In modern society, we may not left-hemisphere language” localization of higher simply go on to using both hands. These are cortical functions. The significance of this is not things I can say from experience. Statistics understood. would certainly support what I have said Summing up research on switching, the today.7 Encyclopedia Britannica notes, “The consistency These stenographically reconstructed state- with which children use one hand in preference to ments were not revised by Steiner, but there is lit- the other increases with age, at least through the tle reason to doubt that they accurately represent preschool years and probably longer.” That is, the his words. Consistent with his other statements preference is gradually built during the early years on the subject, Steiner strongly objects to when the brain is still developing most, and ambidexterity, either natural or acquired, and becomes increasingly set. “Most children can be gives a number of expla- trained to use and to prefer the right hand for any nations for this view. He activity, and many also hints at the signifi- [N]euroscience as a whole does not have been so trained cance of the larger issue without obvious harm- of laterality in the entire have anything close to a unified ful effects…. The wis- body. Most interesting is opinion on brain-dominance issues. dom of interfering with a child's spontaneous the statement, repeated Left-handedness is an aspect of a week later, that stu- preference, however, laterality. No one is purely right- has been ques- dents properly educated 12 in the Waldorf school handed or left-handed, but one tioned.” method would be able to Although the ori- write with the left hand side is generally dominant, and gin, purpose, and sig- without any harmful this has a relationship to the nificance of laterality effects. are not completely hemisphere of the brain involved. understood, anthro- posophists would prob- Neuroscience and Steiner’s View ably see much of the research as confirming As far as I have been able to determine, neuro- Steiner’s model. For example, Steiner’s statement science as a whole does not have anything close above—“Without any intervention, the etheric to a unified opinion on brain-dominance issues. body is stronger toward the left than the right, Left-handedness is an aspect of laterality.8 No one and the astral body is more developed toward the 13 is purely right-handed or left-handed, but one side right than the left” —appears to be confirmed is generally dominant, and this has a relationship by research into laterality, such as, “The left hemi- to the hemisphere of the brain involved. Further, sphere also appears to be more involved than the the causes of left-handedness are not known.9 Nor right in the programming of complex sequences of is there an agreement on the significance of later- movement and in some aspects of awareness of 14 ality. one’s own body.” These are largely functions The brain center for articulate speech was related more to the etheric body, while “The right located in 1861 by Paul Broca (1824–80) as the hemisphere, then, appears to be specialized for third convolution of the left frontal lobe.10 This some aspects of higher-level visual perception,

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 18 · Rudolf Steiner on Teaching Left-Handed Children spatial orientation, and route finding (sense of Conclusion direction)…”,15 indicating aspects with more of a Steiner’s recommendations are not easily summa- relationship to the astral body. rized, and can appear at first glance to be some- Steiner seemed to be indicating that in issues what contradictory. In all cases he recommended of laterality, a left-hand dominance for writing that ambidextrous children be encouraged to will subsequently have an influence on character- write with only one hand, preferably the right. istics of developing thinking. That is, what hand Further, he warned that intentionally training chil- we write with as young children will influence the dren in ambidextrous writing would be harmful. development of our ability to think. An interesting Truly left-handed children (and he gave a few tests area of inquiry is the relationship between envi- for determining true left-handedness) should be ronmental influences and brain development. allowed to write with the left hand. Other children Whether students use the left or right hand for who simply prefer writing with the left hand writing would be considered an environmental should be encouraged to switch to the right, with influence on neurological development. At least a few caveats. Steiner was careful to repeat that one study found that it does. The study examined any switching should never harm the child, and the question of whether neurological development that the teacher must pay close attention to the can be influenced by pedagogical treatment, and child before, during, and after the intervention to specifically just the type of treatment that Steiner properly evaluate the effects. Finally, Steiner gave indicated by telling teachers to encourage left- detailed explanations for why the issue was dominant children to write with their right hand. important, explanations that have not been con- The study found: tradicted by subsequent advances in neuroscience, though neither have they been confirmed. In the Results indicate reading skill performance is end, Steiner’s position on the pedagogical treat- dependent on the relationship between hand preference and the direction of brain asymme- ment of left-handed children is not a policy or a try. Right-handed students whose left temporal doctrine, but a set of indications for educators to plane was larger than the right demonstrated study and contemplate as they consider individu- superior reading skills when they came from alized solutions for individual students. an average or high socio-economic environment. Right-handed children with reversed asymmetry were at risk for reading failure, especially if they came from a poor family.16 This study does not definitively answer any questions, but it does indicate that there is indeed a relationship among how children write, the way their brains develop, and their subsequent cognitive abilities. In summary, neuroscientific research does not provide a definitive answer to either clearly support or refute Steiner’s recommendations. Indications are mixed; however, there is some evidence to indicate that Steiner’s recommendations may have practical benefit.

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Endnotes 16. Ramey, Paul E. “UF Study: Brain Structure 1. Rudolf Steiner. "Anthroposophische Pädagogik May Play Role In Children's Ability To Learn To Read.” und ihre Voraussetzungen." Dornach: Rudolf Steiner- University of Florida. 2 Nov. 1998. 20 Jun. 2005 < Nachlaßverwaltung, 1972. Page 90. (GA 309. http://www.napa.ufl.edu/98news/reading.htm>. Unrevised stenographic reconstruction of the actual words of Rudolf Steiner. Translated by Daniel Hindes. Published in English as The Roots of Education; the English edition is missing the Question and Answer section that contains the statement on left-handedness.) 2. Rudolf Steiner. Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press 1998. Page 100. Translated by Robert F. Lathe and Nancy Parsons Whittaker from the German (GA 300a,b,c). 3. Ibid., 345–346. 4. Ibid., 635–636. 5. In other words, only cross dominant left- handed children were to be taught to write with the right hand. 6. Ibid,.695–696. 7. Rudolf Steiner. The Renewal of Education. Great. Barrington, MA: Anthroposophic Press, 2001. Page 213. (GA 301). 8. “Some authors believe such laterality is inher- ited; others, that the child is trained to it; and still others, that biases are initiated in an infant during pregnancy by some organization of intrauterine forces, such as those producing twinning, or some extrauter- ine environmental influences. It is possible all three hypotheses are, in some measure, correct.” "Laterality." Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition. CD-ROM. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica , 2002. 9. Ibid. 10. "Laterality." Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition. CD-ROM. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica , 2002. 11. "Human Nervous System: Higher Cerebral Functions." Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition. CD-ROM. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2002. 12. "Laterality." Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition. CD-ROM. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2002 13. Rudolf Steiner. Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press 1998. Page 635-636. Translated by Robert F. Lathe and Nancy Parsons Whittaker from the German (GA 300a,b,c). 14. "Laterality." Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition. CD-ROM. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2002. 15. Ibid.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 20 · Rudolf Steiner on Teaching Left-Handed Children

References ––––––––. The Renewal of Education, GA 301, Great Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition. CD-ROM. Barrington, MA: Anthroposophic Press, 2001. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2002. ––––––––. The Roots of Education, GA 309, London Ramey, Paul E. “UF Study: Brain Structure May Play Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982. Role in Children's Ability to Learn to Read.” University of Florida. 2 Nov. 1998. Accessed 20 June 2005 at http://www.napa.ufl.edu/98news/reading.htm. –––––––––––––––––––––––– Steiner, Rudolf. Anthroposophische Pädagogik und ihre Voraussetzungen, GA 309, Dornach: Rudolf Steiner- Daniel Hindes, a former Waldorf school student, Nachlaßverwaltung, 1972. received his M.S.Ed. from Sunbridge College. He currently teaches high school history at the Waldorf -––––––––. Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner, GA 300 a, b, c. Robert F. Lathe and Nancy Parsons School of Garden City, N.Y. Whittaker, translators, Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1998.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 The Tricky Triangle Children, Parents, and Teachers Dorit Winter

ny school community has three distinct less true, to say that the entire trajectory of edu- populations. But, in Waldorf schools at least, cation consists of transforming subjective love Aafter 78 years, the relationship among them has into objective love. We can grasp how difficult this changed. There are the children. There are the transformation is when we consider that we have children’s parents. There are the children’s teach- been engaged in it for thousands of years. In this ers. Children—parents—teachers. Why are these sense, education is a microcosm of the evolution relationships so tricky?1 of human consciousness. Inherent in the blood relationship of parent and Objectivity in any form is challenging. We child is intimacy at the cost of objectivity. In the cannot help but see everything from our own best of circumstances, a mother’s or father’s love point of view, subjectively. Intention, discipline, is unconditional; the parent is strongly bonded schooling, and effort are required if we are to with the child. They are united in a tight nucleus. overcome our inherent natural inclination for sub- In times gone by this tight bond might have jectivity. extended to the larger family, to the tribe. Tribal Pure objectivity is not the ideal. Pure objectivi- behavior does not concern itself with an individ- ty is machine-like. A machine does not make ual. Tribal loyalty precludes objective perception exceptions. It does not see the individual circum- of the differences between one person and the stance, the individual need. Bureaucracies are next. Much evil has resulted from tribal conscious- maddeningly objective; objective to a fault. They ness, a consciousness which ruled in ancient civi- care nothing for individual circumstances. A tele- lizations when individual development was vouch- phone “menu” is perfectly objective. So is the safed the entitled few—pharaoh, priest, chief- computer. tain—who determined the fates of their tribes. The ideal is tempered objectivity. Objectivity Since the Renaissance, civi- tempered by love. lizations have tended to reward The entire trajectory But whereas love is inherent the achievement of individuals. of education consists in subjectivity, it is acquired in For individuals to succeed, they of transforming objectivity. must leave behind the circum- The love of a parent for a scription of their tribe. Fictional subjective love into child is subjective. The love of a heroes and heroines often take objective love. teacher for a child is, or should this route. So do real people be, objective. The love of a parent who must often clash with “the for a child must be subjective. old”—the family, the ancestors—in order to The love of the teacher for a child must be objec- assert “the new,” the individual. We call that tive. But neither the sympathy of a subjective rela- growing up. tionship, nor the distance of an objective one, can In a sense, parents and children need to be flourish by itself. “tribal” in their disposition. Loyalty, unconditional In a Waldorf teacher training, the fundamen- love, support through thick and thin are requisite. tal goal is to enable the adult student to jettison This is a subjective love. her or his own sack of rocks, so that he or she can Objective love is quite a different thing. approach a child without the distorting weight of Objective love is not tribal; it does not exclude, it personal predilections. Such imbalances are part includes. Objective love does not love only its and parcel of each of us. We have our biogra- own, does not love only the familiar, but can phies, or life circumstances, or likes and dislikes, enfold the separate, the individual. sympathies and antipathies. Waldorf education is It may sound simplistic, but that makes it no predicated on the notion that a teacher aims to

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 22 · The Tricky Triangle: Childten, Parents and Teachers see through these screens, to see a child as the They become subjective. They lose their objectivi- child is. Such objectivity includes compassion, but ty. it is the compassion of which the higher self is Seventy-eight years ago2 there was still some capable. Parental love is, so to speak, a “given”. formality in the relationship of parent and child to We are meant to love our families, to stick to one teacher. The teacher was endowed with some another through thick and thin. But such an atti- inherent authority. In the 33 years that I’ve been tude does not easily embrace the “tough love” involved in Waldorf education (45 years if we that a teacher must cultivate. start when I entered the 10th grade at the Rudolf A Waldorf school teacher strives to connect Steiner School in New York City) this authority his or her higher self to the nascent higher self of has gone the way of most formalities. It has evap- the child or youngster. This objective attitude, if orated, along with all sorts of expectations, which achieved, leaves the child free. The child is not in that bygone era were considered normal. Dress, made in the teacher’s image. The child is not there language, behavior… all have become informal. to satisfy a teacher’s needs, certainly not the In all that informality it’s little wonder that par- teacher’s need to love. Yet love the children the ents and teachers are confused about their roles. teachers do. If they are not conscious of the But if we don’t clarify these roles, if this con- appropriate form of their love, troubles abound. fusion persists, Waldorf education will also And parents feel, rightly, compromised. become confused, vitiated, and porous. Thus we arrive at the fundamental reality of Waldorf teaching is a profession. The Waldorf the tricky triangle with which we started. The role teacher has skills and knowledge that are specific of a parent is different from the role of a teacher. to the Waldorf teacher. Any teacher must have They play different roles in the life of a child. skills, must know what she or he is talking about, It is obvious. But in a Waldorf school commu- have the knowledge she or he is mandated to nity, these essentially different roles can become impart. But, in addition, the Waldorf teacher is confused. schooled in self-knowledge. And this self-knowl- Many Waldorf school parents gratefully align edge comes through the Waldorf teacher’s study their home life with school ideas, with a “Waldorf of anthroposophy. Anthroposophy informs a lifestyle”: no TV, healthy diet, bedtime rituals, Waldorf school curriculum, but it also provides daily rhythm, and so on. Furthermore, they are the framework for the Waldorf teacher’s inner encouraged to become active in their children’s striving, without which she or he will not become school. Without this active parent engagement in a Waldorf teacher. the schools, the schools would likely grind to a And this striving is largely hidden from par- halt. In truth, parent volunteers constitute an ents. Parents may catch glimpses of it, but essen- indispensable asset in any Waldorf school. And tially, they are shut out from it, unless they take that’s where the confusion of roles can easily the trouble to engage in such a schooling them- become an issue. If a parent becomes indispensa- selves. ble to the running of any aspect of the school, Thus the parents may find themselves looking how is that parent to understand the limit of his at a scene they cannot quite penetrate. What are or her role? those teachers up to? Why won’t they “open up”? Waldorf school teachers are nothing if not Why do some of them act as if their classrooms committed to their calling. Theirs is not a profes- have an invisible threshold that parents may not sion, we are wont to say, theirs is a vocation. cross? Parents feel that something mysterious is Many graduates of Waldorf teacher training pro- going on. Some parents join the teacher training grams will tell you that they became Waldorf or a study group in their school. But others may school teachers in order to do something mean- start to criticize, to complain, in an attempt to ingful in the world. make comprehensible what is otherwise not com- They are, generally speaking, passionate prehensible. In so doing, they unwittingly weaken about their work. “Teachers-as-artists,” theirs is the very thing that makes a Waldorf school what more than a job. The danger for them is that they it is. identify too much with the children they teach. As anyone who has tried it knows, a good marriage requires a good measure of independ-

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Dorit Winter · 23 ence by both parties. Two strong individuals are that just as continual evolution is inherent in the more likely to last in that relationship than two picture of the growing child, so it is also inherent needy people who have joined forces to overcome in the picture of the teacher, who must also con- their loneliness. Strength in the individual, inde- tinue to grow. The rate of growth is slower for the pendence of the individual, will mean less suspi- adult. And the adult must become his or her own cion, more trust; less imposed restraint, more best teacher, always striving, striving especially acceptance of the other as he or she is. Generally, for true self-knowledge, which cannot easily lull it’s a long path to reach that goal, a path strewn itself into complacency, especially as regards self- with boulders of our own making. Most of us have lessness. Without understanding from the par- not had “marriage training.” When we fall out of ents, a teacher’s achievements are much harder to love, we either find a new founda- accomplish. And without under- tion for the relationship, or cause standing from the teacher, par- one another endless grief. But Selfless compassion ents’ achievements are much what would “marriage training” harder to accomplish, too. be? One of its goals would have in the teacher can Support from a strong part- to be self-reliance. For only when educate the child ner is not blind support. But if we are self-reliant can we have a both parties, parents and teach- healthy, free, and independent for life. ers, can meet each other through relationship with the other. the security of their very different Parents are never “free” of their children. roles in the life of the child and in the life of the Theirs is a lifelong connectedness. But a teacher school, Waldorf education has a much better must always be “free” of the children. If parents chance of flourishing into the future. and teachers understand the difference in their Knowing that the role of the parent in his or relationship to a child, then parents and teachers her relationship to the child is fundamentally dif- will be able to have a self-reliant relationship to ferent from the role of the teacher in his or her one another. They will not fear encroachment by relationship to the children can help us recognize the other on their own territory. Then a true col- that the role of the parent to the life in the school laboration can support the growing, maturing, must also be different from the role of the teacher developing child who must master so much, learn to the life in the school. Because every Waldorf so much, cope with so much. school is its own independent entity, each school “Love,” says Rudolf Steiner, “is the experienc- will have to find its own way to the practical ing of another being in one’s own soul.”3 Such details of parent-teacher collaboration. What, for surrender, if it is not to result in maudlin and co- instance, is the task of the College of Teachers? dependent sympathy, requires strength. Waldorf What is the task of the Board? teacher training is not a panacea, but, through These questions vex us in our Waldorf school the study and schooling of anthroposophy, it can communities because we are unable to delineate provide a means for garnering this type of our roles clearly. Any decision regarding the wel- strength so that the teacher can, by experiencing fare of the children should be in the hands of the child in his or her own soul, recognize what those working with the children, the teachers. the child truly needs in order to gain access to his Any decision regarding the welfare of the institu- or her highest self. This can only work if the child tion should be in the hands of those legally is in no way being used by the teacher. Selfless responsible for the institution, namely, the Board. compassion in the teacher can educate the child But simple as this sounds in theory, it seems end- for life. lessly complicated in real life. In real life we get This is a noble calling. And a challenging one. confused about our mandate, we lose sight of the It is an ongoing process. A Waldorf teacher is common goal, we get polarized. Our great striv- never a finished product. If a Waldorf teacher is a ing is to keep the whole child before us: head, finished product, she or he is no longer a true heart, and hands; thinking, feeling, and willing; Waldorf teacher. Of course, self-development can- spirit, soul, and body. Only by recognizing the not be undertaken at the cost of a healthy rela- true task of each of these three will we be able to tionship to the children, but it really is the case educate the child to withstand the storms of life.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 24 · The Tricky Triangle: Childten, Parents and Teachers

And only if parents and teachers recognize their that we might consider facing it together. distinct tasks will schools withstand the fracturing 2. The Rudolf Steiner School in New York City forces loose in the world. Then parents and teach- was founded in 1928. ers can all be proud of the amazing work, the 3. Steiner, R. A Road to Self-Knowledge and the daily miracles that grace life in Waldorf schools. Threshold of the Spiritual World, Ch. 9. Steiner Press, London: 1975.

Endnotes –––––––––––––––––––––––– 1. In the greater San Francisco Bay Area, five Dorit Winter is Director of the Bay Area Center for Waldorf school teachers, including several long-time teachers, from four schools have been dismissed since Waldorf Teacher Training and Coordinator of the Easter 2006. One teacher officially resigned–but that Santa Cruz Arts Festival. She began her Waldorf may be a case of splitting hairs. In each case, serious school career in 1973. She is a lecturer, consultant, concerns about the process, and in particular about and mentor. Her publications include fiction, peda- parent influence on the process, have been raised by gogical studies, and commentary on contemporary teachers and parents alike. What follows is an attempt phenomena. She is currently coordinating Binary to find some clarifying thoughts. Ultimately each Being: Staying Human in the Computer Age, a sym- school, as an autonomous institution, will have to find posium to be held in the San Francisco Bay Area, July its own method of dealing with this ever difficult ques- 26-29, 2007. tion, but clearly the phenomenon is now so widespread

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Healing Children Who Have Attentional, Emotional, and Learning Challenges Susan R. Johnson, M.D.

here is an epidemic in our society. More and All of these labels affected my brother’s self more children are being assigned more and more esteem. I believe he saw himself as not being nor- Tlabels, labels such as Attention Deficit Disorder mal or smart enough. As he grew older, he lacked (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder the confidence to follow his dreams and the (ADHD), receptive or expressive language disor- courage to risk failure because he felt he had ders, learning disabilities that include visual or failed so many times. Because of his experience, I auditory processing disorders, and the autistic have never believed in labels. Labels place children spectrum disorders like Pervasive Developmental into boxes from which they can’t easily escape. Delay (PDD), Asperger’s syndrome, and autism, to Labels are meaningless to me when a child like my name only a few. What is happening to our chil- brother could move from one box to another while dren? What do these labels really mean? the experts couldn’t agree on which box to put While I was growing up, my brother was him in. diagnosed as autistic at a major university center During my fellowship training in behavioral in California when he was 2 1/2 years old. He had and developmental pediatrics, I learned that 70% fine motor and gross motor delays, made poor of children labeled with Attention Deficit Disorder eye contact, cried a lot from frustration, and did- also have some form of auditory or visual learn- n’t speak words. When he finally started to talk, ing disability, but no one can explain why. Most around age four, he wasn’t so frustrated anymore, of the therapies given to these children were what he became more social, and he no longer fit the I call “sit down therapies.” Movement therapy, like definition of autism. So his diagnosis was occupational therapy, was seen as a way to get changed to a speech and language disorder, espe- children from the door of the classroom to their cially since his speech was so difficult to under- chairs. Once the children were seated, I was stand. He still became frustrated when trying to taught that the brain could be educated through communicate. He had trouble expressing his ideas speech therapy, practicing phonics, or drilling and getting others to understand his speech. math concepts. These children were often placed Because he had many temper tantrums during in special education classes. Regardless of their those early years and seemed to be in constant intelligence, however, I never saw these children motion, he was also given the label of Minimal get out of special education classes. I watched Brain Dysfunction (the word used in the 1960s for while they fell behind their peers and their self- Attention Deficit Disorder) and placed on medica- esteem suffered. tion. The birth of my son really taught me to look When my brother started school, he struggled more closely at what was beneath all of these with reading and writing. He had a brilliant mind labels. First of all, because my son never crept on and could remember almost everything that was his belly and had a persistent stiff neck after his c- said to him, but he couldn’t write his ideas down section birth, other parents convinced me to take on paper and he had difficulties with spelling and him to a gifted osteopathic physician for handwriting. Book reports and papers were hard Biodynamic Cranial Therapy. Next, it was my to write, and he was labeled lazy by his teachers son’s Waldorf-trained preschool and kindergarten throughout grade school. It wasn’t until college teachers who first taught me about the impor- that a professor realized how gifted he was, and tance of movement in the development and heal- how difficult it was for him to express his ideas in ing of neurological pathways. My son had a gifted writing. He was reevaluated at that same universi- kindergarten teacher who worked with him after ty center and now labeled as having a non-verbal school for 2 hours, twice a week, for 1 1/2 years, learning disability. doing lots of harmonious, noncompetitive, rhyth-

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 26 · Helping Children Who Have Attentional, Emotional, and Learning Challenges mic movements. It was calming to be in her pres- normal still has difficulty with auditory processing ence. She lived in the present. When she sliced following verbal instructions, then strengthening apples for the children to make applesauce, the his or her balance will help. If a child has low mus- thoughts of her mind, feelings in her heart, and cle tone and a tendency to drool and lisp during the actual movements of her body were all speech, then working with movement, specifically aligned with the task of slicing apples. In her balance, will strengthen that child’s overall muscle speech and in all of her movements, her mind, tone and improve the articulation of consonants. heart, and body were as one. My son went from There is also a relationship between proprio- grasping a crayon with his fist and scribbling at ception—a child’s ability to know where his or the age of 4 1/2 years to finger knitting and her body is in space—and the child’s ability to sit weaving during the next 1 1/2 still and pay attention. A child will years. He went from being have difficulty focusing his or her unable to catch even large balls The birth of my son attention if the proprioceptive sys- easily to juggling tennis balls tem is not fully formed or integrat- with her across the room. His really taught me to ed. During the first seven years of balance, auditory processing, look more closely at life, a child’s mind needs to map and speech articulation all dra- the location of pressure receptors matically improved. He became what was beneath within the muscles, tendons, and a social being who could relate [the labeling of joints of the entire body. You to and play imaginatively with children]. might say that there is a universal his peers while his oversensitivi- law that the mind must know ty to touch seemed to disap- where the body is at all times. If a pear. child’s mind can’t locate the differ- I had to know what his Waldorf preschool ent parts of his or her body when sitting still, and kindergarten teachers knew about the rela- then the child will need to actively move the mus- tionship of movement to brain development. I had cles or sit on his or her feet in order for his or her already completed four years of medical school, mind to feel connected to the body while the child three years of pediatric residency, and three years is looking at the blackboard and paying attention of a fellowship, training in behavior and develop- to the teacher. Unfortunately, a child who wiggles mental pediatrics. I had learned how to identify in his or her chair while gazing at the teacher will the various pathways of learning, whether audito- often be seen as not paying attention and, per- ry, visual, or kinesthetic, but I didn’t learn any- haps, labeled as having Attention Deficit Disorder. thing about sensory integration. After watching In addition, this same child, who hasn’t devel- my son’s transformation, I completed a three-year oped a sense of spatial awareness and doesn’t feel Waldorf teacher education program, and then where his or her body is in space, also lacks an spent another year studying sensory integration inner sense of movement when looking at with Ingun Schneider, a physical therapist and abstract forms like letters or numbers. The child’s sensory integration specialist at Rudolf Steiner eyes will follow the movement, the lines and College. I attended numerous workshops by neu- curves of the letters and numbers, but the forms ropsychologists like Judith Bluestone of the HAN- won’t imprint. The child will forget the shapes DLE Institute and Carla Hannaford, who works and not remember which way the number 2 or 3 with Brain Gym. What I have learned from all of goes or which letter is “b” and which is “d.” In these experiences is that movement forms the addition to being labeled as having ADD, a child neurological pathways in a child that are later with proprioceptive difficulties often gets labeled used for reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, as having visual processing and visual memory focusing of attention, and creative thinking. types of learning disabilities. There is a relationship between the develop- Finally, if a child’s sense of touch is not fully ment of the vestibular system, which includes bal- integrated, which can happen after a rapid vagi- ance and muscle tone, and auditory processing, nal birth, a c-section delivery, or the use of suc- which includes the ability to understand and fol- tion forceps, then the child will be hypersensitive low verbal instructions. If a child whose hearing is and sometimes even hyposensitive—relatively

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Susan R. Johnson, M.D. · 27 unresponsive—to tactile stimulation. Such a child dilated, their hands and feet are often cool, they wants the labels removed from the back of his or are hyper-vigilant and easily distracted, they are her clothing or he or she wants socks turned hypersensitive to sounds, and they have difficulty inside out so he or she doesn’t feel the seams. focusing their attention. Their movements are Such children often don’t like wearing long pants, jerky and mechanical and their digestion is com- long sleeves, or jackets because they feel the wrin- promised. They are also extremely sensitive to the kling of the fabric against their skin when they effects of sugar and caffeine and have temper move their arms or legs. Their scalp is hypersensi- tantrums and melt-downs throughout the day. In tive and they don’t like to have their hair brushed this survival state, such children can’t access their or combed. They don’t like their nails to be higher centers of learning, and therefore new clipped. These are the children who often with- pathways and neurological connections are not draw from a group of peers and appear shy easily formed. because they are afraid of being inadvertently Labels like ADD, ADHD, speech and language touched by another child. A simple touch can disorders, learning disabilities, and the autistic sometimes feel like a hit or slap. Sometimes these spectrum disorders may actually represent an children appear aggressive, hitting other children increasing severity of sensory integration dysfunc- in what they perceive as self-defense after being tion. Children labeled with ADD have poorly inte- touched or bumped into by another child. It is as grated proprioceptive systems and this may also if this gentle touch or bump is magnified one hun- create visual processing disorders. Children dred times. labeled with auditory processing problems, espe- In general, children with any of these sensory cially if they forget what they are supposed to do integration issues often have difficulties with peer when moving their bodies, may have vestibular relationships. Their minds and eyes are too busy difficulties. Children labeled with autism will have just trying to help them maintain balance, figure severe impairment of their proprioceptive, vestibu- out where they are in space, and avoid bumping lar, and tactile systems, in addition to having into other objects and other people. These chil- weak metabolisms and, potentially, leaky intestin- dren are multi-tasking, and they do not have the al tracts. luxury or the freedom of their When a child has a history minds and thinking to pay of frequent antibiotic use, espe- attention to the subtle non- There is a relationship cially in the first two years of verbal cues of other children between the development life, has a diet high in simple around them. Since much sugars, or has undergone lots communication is non-verbal, of the vestibular system, of stress, then he or she may their peer relationships suffer. which includes balance be missing most of the healthy In addition, because chil- and muscle tone, and intestinal bacteria. The intes- dren with one or more sensory tine may be overgrown by integration difficulties are auditory processing, yeast organisms that cause always multi-tasking, their which includes the ability inflammation and loss of nervous systems are constant- to understand and follow integrity of the intestinal wall. ly stressed. These children live Partially digested proteins from in their “fight and flight” sym- verbal instructions. various foods, like soy, gluten pathetic nervous system just from wheat, and casein from to survive each day. Children milk, are absorbed through the predominantly functioning under this stress are by inflamed, leaky intestinal wall instead of being definition not in the present moment. They can’t eliminated with bowel movements. These partially pay attention or focus on just one stimulus at a digested proteins are broken down inside the body time because their survival depends upon being and their toxic by-products can pass across the able to pay attention to many different things in blood-brain barrier into the central nervous sys- their body and in their environment all at the tem, affecting speech centers and other sensitive same time. These are the children who are often areas of the brain. labeled as hyperactive. Their pupils are often

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 28 · Helping Children Who Have Attentional, Emotional, and Learning Challenges

So what can be done to help and heal our videogames for teaching, are not developing our children’s nervous systems? First, I support rhyth- children’s minds and senses. Competitive sports in mic, harmonious, noncompetitive movement very young children overstimulate and activate activities like walking, hiking, and swimming. I the sympathetic nervous system. Sugary foods, a support movement therapies that strengthen bal- lack of essential omega 3 fatty acids (found in cod ance, proprioception, and touch. These movement liver oil, fish, walnuts, flax seed oil, algae, dark therapies, which are done to help integrate a green leafy vegetables, and breast milk), inade- child’s sensory system, must be gentle and slow. quate sleep, a sedentary lifestyle all make it hard Care must be taken not to further activate the for children’s neurological pathways to be myeli- sympathetic nervous system. If the movement nated and formed. In addition, toxins in our envi- therapies are done too quickly or too competitive- ronment, including mercury in some of our vacci- ly, then proper pathways can’t form. The child nations, also may have affected these sensitive needs to be in the relaxed, parasympathetic nerv- pathways. ous system in order to make new pathways. The It is time to stop labeling our children and child needs to be fully engaged in the moment, putting them on medications that just alter their full of love and enthusiasm for what he or she is neurohormone levels. It is time to slow down and doing. Movement therapies cannot be prescribed focus on being in the present moment. It is time to like recipes from a cookbook or items from a list. start promoting a healthy lifestyle including nutri- The therapist needs to be present to the child’s tious foods, adequate sleep, and turning off televi- movement and fully engaged with the child in a sions, videos, and computers. It is time to provide loving way so that child can relax, move, and cre- lots of healthy rhythmic movement for our chil- ate neural pathways. dren to do at home, in school, and out in nature. Next, it is time to stop medicating our chil- It is time to start healing our children. dren with stimulants. These stimulant medications may dampen or inhibit pathways competing for a child’s attention, but we still don’t know what these drugs may be doing to that child’s future capacity for learning. –––––––––––––––––––––––– I also support an educational environment Susan Johnson, M.D., is a certified Waldorf school that teaches our children about the world using teacher and a behavioral and developmental pediatri- all of their senses, including vision, hearing, and, cian. She has a private practice in behavioral and especially, hands-on learning experiences. Our cul- developmental pediatrics at Raphael House in Fair ture and even some educational institutions, with Oaks, California, and works as a school doctor for the their reliance on television, computers, and surrounding Waldorf schools.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 What Will Today’s Children Need for Financial Success in Tomorrow’s Economy? Judy Lubin

The growing “creative age” economy calls for the In almost all cases, the types of white-collar development of human capacities, capacities that jobs that are leaving economies like ours are those Waldorf schools have cultivated for nearly a century. that rely on routine cognitive skills. For example, while computer programming requires cognitive abilities, much programming is routine enough A Changing Economy that it can be done by computers themselves, precisely because it is so heavily rule-dependent. The common website development tool PageMaker is oday’s economy is changing. While Waldorf just one example of a program that writes pro- school educators have long believed in the impor- grams as it translates graphic displays into HTML Ttance of educating children to develop into capa- code. ble, competent human beings, we are entering a Two separate studies, one by NYU economics time in which economic success increasingly professor Edward Wolff3 and the other by Frank depends on these same principles. The skills and Levy and Richard Murnane,4 economics professors capacities needed for financial success in the new at MIT and Harvard, respectively, have shown economy are those that are already a focus of that, over the past decades, we have seen little to development in Waldorf education: creativity, no growth in jobs that require either manual or social skills, self-knowledge, and an inner sense of routine cognitive skills. The output of routine cog- responsibility or virtue. nitive, or rule-based, skills is A quick look at anecdotal invariably a product that is evidence shows a shift in skill [E]ducating the whole itself routinely enough pro- categories and job types. duced that it can be coded and Computer programming, work human being is becoming sent through a wire. This that we used to consider white- an economic necessity, means that routine cognitive collar and highly skilled, is not simply an alternative work, like manufacturing, can increasingly done, not just out- be done wherever it is cheap- side the United States, but lifestyle. est, by a machine or in a low specifically in economies that wage country. In Bangalore, we would call developing or less developed. India, for example, IT workers currently earn Summarizing various sources, journalist Daniel about one-seventh of the wages that the same Pink finds that, within the next two years, one in work used to earn in the U.S. Accordingly, ten computer or Internet technology (IT) jobs will Bangalore is currently absorbing a large portion move overseas. By 2010, one in four will leave the of outsourced IT work. United States. Forrester Research predicts that, by In this context, the SATs and other standard- 2015, more than 3 million white-collar jobs, with ized tests, like writing computer programs, require an accompanying $136 billion in wages, will move cognitive work, but, precisely because the to lower-cost countries.1 Developed nations like answers must fit into one of several boxes, can Japan and those in Western Europe will see simi- only test routine cognition. Increasingly, those lar patterns of white-collar job movement. with high SAT scores and little else to show on The IT industry is not the only one experienc- college applications will find themselves prepared ing this trend. The white-collar financial services only for low wage jobs. industry, over the next five years, will transfer approximately half a million jobs to lower wage The Creative Age areas of the world, according to an AT Kearney The type of work that is on the rise and still earns estimate.2 Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 30 · What Will Today’s Children Need for Financial Success in Tomorrow’s Economy? a decent living is work that involves not only working class.9 Florida’s definition of “creative uniquely human skills, as opposed to skills that a worker” stretches the common sense definition to computer can copy, but skills that are not stan- include managers and others who perform jobs dardized across humans. Both Wolff and Levy and that still can be done in the old fashioned, non- Murnane find that nearly all job growth over the creative way. This comes from the attempt, how- past several decades has come in the form of jobs ever, to recognize that even old jobs are being requiring complex communication and complex done differently. UCLA education professor Mike cognitive work or expert thinking.5 By “expert Rose agrees with a multi-industry analysis that thinking,” the authors primari- finds that, these days, even ly mean solving problems that jobs that we would consider have not yet been solved. To [T]he human being is the blue-collar require high levels simplify their terminology, job economic driver of the of cognitive capacity.10 growth has occurred in those Their insights are support- jobs that require creativity and modern economy, a stark ed by researchers like David relationships. contrast to the machine- Angel,11 who finds that pro- Case studies of Silicon duction engineers in Silicon Valley show that the manufac- driven economy of the Valley are responsible for ture of commodity products industrial age. almost as much innovation, has long ago moved offshore. through problem solving dur- Companies that remain are ing manufacturing, as design those that innovate and those that produce cus- engineers. Concurrently, these engineers earn sub- tom products for a small set of clients. The suc- stantially higher wages than production engineers cess of these custom shops depends substantially in the same industry, who work under different on the ability of the people within the company to policies that confine creativity to the design stage. maintain stable relationships with clients.6 Incidentally, Silicon Valley firms have continually Even if we haven’t yet agreed upon a new outperformed firms with more hierarchical struc- name—the “creative age” gets my vote—we have tures, structures that confine innovation. realized that the term “information age” barely begins to grasp the concept of our current reality. Structures Today, more Americans are employed in the arts, When skimming across the surface of today’s new entertainment, and design industries than are economy, we may wonder if these changes are employed as lawyers, accountants, and auditors. not just the latest fad. But an examination of Compared to the mid 1990s, ten times more peo- these changes at the structural level of the econo- ple work as graphic designers. Our economy also my shows that we are moving into a time in has more artists and writers than ever before.7 which broader human skills form the basis for Using a stringent definition of creative indus- success. tries that includes primarily artistic work or inno- Before examining the structural foundation of vation, business consultant John Howkins8 esti- the new creative economy more deeply, however, mates that the value of the creative economy in we will explore the structure of the industrial age 1997 was $2.2 trillion (seven percent of world economy that we are leaving behind. The goal is GDP), and is growing at five percent per year. The to trace the economic forces that pressured socie- United States and other developed countries con- ty to emphasize the human-as-automaton para- tain the greatest share of this creative economy. digm and to show how the creative economy is Attempting to account for changes in the way reversing this pressure, so that economic success work itself is done, Carnegie Mellon economics is becoming more aligned with personal goals and professor Richard Florida uses a more liberal defi- the process of becoming human. nition of creative work. He finds that more than The industrial age was a time in which first thirty percent of the work force belongs to the manual and then routine cognitive skills were “creative class,” a group of people whose primary emphasized. We have found that the work of both occupation involves creativity-based human capi- of these skill categories can be replicated by tal and whose numbers now surpass those of the machines. Yet, there is something deeper, at the Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Judy Lubin · 31 structural level of the industrial age economy, single most important capacity for financial suc- that reinforced a less human-centered path. cess for those who had jobs and did not own the While the industrial age was driven by the means to their livelihood. Our system of public creative innovation that led to the machines that corporations, by the way, ensures that even CEOs then dominated the economy, the machines them- have bosses—the shareholders. selves quickly became more salient than their invention. At the beginning of the industrial age, Obedience most of the new machinery was used to increase The story of management consultant Frederick productivity at pre-industrial tasks, like farming. Taylor shows the extent to which the ability to But, for individual economic success, the impor- obey was monitored. In the early 1800s, Taylor tant point was not so much the increase in pro- timed workers while they dug holes. Setting the ductivity, but, rather, that the machines them- standard at the time of the quickest worker, selves were scarce. While we had invented our Taylor rewarded those who dug faster and pun- way into higher productivity in many tasks, we ished those who dug more slowly. With the inven- had not yet invented a way to produce the tion of the pay for performance contract, Taylor machines themselves quickly and easily. Because set the stage for employment relations for the of its scarcity, machinery generated economic whole of the industrial age. value. Physical capital, not human skill, became Modern evidence from the field of the main wealth-creating asset of the economy. psychology13 clearly shows that these types of Unlike human skill, physical capital is stored exter- contracts work as intended only with highly nally to humans and is fully transferable from one measurable, standardized tasks that involve no person to another. learning—at the time of measurement, the work- In the industrial age, physical capital did ers already knew how to dig a hole. The rest of transfer straight up the capitalist hierarchy, the time, they inhibit an employee’s inner motiva- despite the clear violation of decentralized eco- tion and sense of responsibility. Such methods nomic power required of foundational free market particularly hinder the development of creativity theories. By the early 2000s, the wealthiest ten and, therefore, suppress the productivity of cre- percent held ninety percent of the nation’s mar- ative work because they keep responses within ketable wealth. With forty percent of the nation’s the set of known answers. Such fences are anti- wealth owned by just one percent of the popula- thetical to creativity. Yet pay-for-performance con- tion, our modern democracy is exactly as top- 12 tracts were widespread by the end of the industri- heavy as England’s monarchy in the 1700s. al age. This is likely because the type of work In other words, the industrial age was a time most often done during the industrial age was in which the single most important capacity for either manual or routinely cognitive, work that is the generation of wealth was wealth itself. This less distorted by Taylor-style incentives than is recognition tells us what concerned industrial-age creative work. That the system became wide- parents wanted to do to ensure their children’s spread is also due to the fact that asset holders success—build wealth and pass it on. held enough power to enforce it. For most, this was easier said than done. Whatever the reason, industrial-age workers With an uneven distribution of capital and an who wanted access to assets in order to earn uneven ability to generate new wealth, the indus- some share in financial success had to accustom trial age saw a new game that looked surprisingly themselves to being measured at standardized like the old game of aristocracy. Asset owners tasks. The higher the stakes on these contracts, needed workers to use the owner’s assets for pro- the more the ability to cheat convincingly found duction in the same way that kings needed peas- its place on the path to monetary success. The ants to work their large land holdings. For asset likes of Enron and WorldCom show us how far the owners, the ability to be creative and to take risks economy has gone in this direction. with their assets led to success. For those who did Once this system and its results are recog- not own financial assets, success depended on an nized, it becomes clear why testing became a ability to continue working with someone else’s major tool by which asset owners could choose financial assets. The ability to obey became the employees, employees to whom access to assets Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 32 · What Will Today’s Children Need for Financial Success in Tomorrow’s Economy? would be granted. It also makes clear why parents We do not live in a world in which everyone is would play along with this system of testing, and an entrepreneur, but we are much closer now than why public schools—whose seed was planted in we were during the industrial age. Pink estimates the mid-1800s under the guise of socializing chil- that, in 2001, thirty percent of Americans were dren to participate in the industrial-age econo- entrepreneurs in that they were self-employed, my—would expend so much effort to acclimate contract workers, or involved in a micro-business children to measurement and to rate children of fewer than four employees.15 Although large according to their ability to perform on highly corporations, because of their political power, still measurable tasks. predominate, the number of smaller companies is on the rise. Today, more than half of U.S. businesses, and ninety percent of engineering firms, Everyone an Entrepreneur 16 These are some of the very issues that Rudolf are micro-businesses. Steiner’s threefold social organism was meant to With high rates of job turnover in modern address.14 They are also the very issues that are times, even many of those who work for large becoming outdated in the modern economy. To companies do so with an understanding that the this end, it is useful to remember that Steiner employment relationship is but a part of the career that they themselves manage. By the mid- explicitly envisages his threefold social organism 17 to create a situation in which everyone is an 1990s, economist Henry Farber found that, for entrepreneur. No person will sell his or her labor, the entire economy, approximately half of all jobs only the product of the labor. There will be no last less than one year. In creative economies like worker-boss relationship as we know it today. Silicon Valley, these numbers can be even higher. Up to sixty percent of Silicon Valley engineers quit Instead, every individual will be in charge of his or 18 her own career. A system of rights will help entre- in a given year, with almost eighty percent of preneurs negotiate on equal footing, so that eco- resignations reflecting movement to another nomic cooperation can occur in an environment of Silicon Valley job, showing that, instead of being dignity for everyone. committed to a single firm in the fashion of the While this description is a far cry from the late industrial age, these engineers are committed to their own careers in the Valley. Management industrial-age economy that dominated Steiner’s 19 day, it is the very direction in which we are mov- expert Suzy Wetlaufer interviewed some of ing. No evidence suggests that we are on track these highly successful high-tech workers and soon to reach the full promise of a threefold social found that they will stay at a company only if the organism. We do, however, increasingly see the work delivers a constant stream of growth and need for the same entrepreneurial skills that are challenge that engages their hearts and minds. needed to make Steiner’s vision a reality. Further, Not only is the creative economy more entre- the primary assets that creative economy partici- preneurial, but its roots are structured differently. pants use to ply their entrepreneurial talents are By the 1980s, economic and sociological those that are uniquely human in nature. In other researchers had coined the term “agglomeration words, educating the whole human being is economy” for areas like Silicon Valley that were becoming an economic necessity, not simply an the beginnings of what Howkins and others now alternative lifestyle choice. call the creative economy. These agglomeration We must expect that we will invent ourselves economies both begin with and thrive on an influx into a new system that is more in keeping with of human thinking capacities. While the ability to the entrepreneurial nature of a human-based continually increase aggregate levels of human economy. The uneven wealth distribution brought cognition is the make-or-break criterion, a snow- about during the industrial age means that the ball effect means that the more competent work- “have-nots” have the same incentives to over- ers an area has, the easier it is to attract even throw the “haves” as peasants have to overthrow more workers, each of whom values working with an unjust monarchy. Rather than revolution, how- other competent people. Growth becomes endogenous and the area experiences high levels of inno- ever, incentives also exist to invent a new system 20 around the old, as we are currently doing. vation and high levels of new start-ups.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Judy Lubin · 33

Florida goes further to find that the whole of been solved, which includes the ability to think today’s economy is moving toward an agglomera- flexibly about technical problems, social problems, tion style and that success today depends upon and all manner of other problems. But the capaci- the level to which any area can master the three ty of creativity also includes the ability to run the T’s: Technology, Talent, and Tolerance (openness entire creative process from idea generation to, to new ideas, cognitive flexibility).21 potentially, the formation of a tangible product. Technology, of course, encompasses more In this use of the term, thinking, feeling, and will- than just computers and machines. The machines ing, qualities well known to Waldorf educators, themselves are actually the product of the process are all necessary components. of technology, which represents the know-how Because they will be plying their own human and ability to create a tangible product. Indeed, assets in their entrepreneurial endeavors, today’s since machines like laptop computers are so children will need to know how to make full use of cheaply and easily available, the cognitive aspects their human assets. In other words, they will need of technology are more readily apparent in the to know themselves. To make money from some- process. Technology, then, is dependent upon thing as simple as a machine requires an under- human cognitive capacities, as are talent and tol- standing of how the machine works. The same is erance. In other words, the human being is the true of our own human resources when we put economic driver of the modern economy, a stark those resources to the money-making tasks in our contrast to the machine-driven economy of the lives. Included in this capacity is the ability to industrial age. know one’s skills and interests, the ability to There is both good news and bad news in this muster the self-confidence needed to take a cre- realization. The good news is that an economy in ative risk, the ability to get oneself into the high which the main resources reside within individual productivity state of “flow”, as psychologist humans should lead to a wider dispersion of eco- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it, and much more. nomic resources. We also have an opportunity to We can discover additional necessary capaci- experience a more entrepreneurial environment. ties by examining the form and structure of mod- As owner of his or her own cognitive assets, ern economies. A typical industrial- or financial- everyone is an entrepreneur. age firm is organized in a hierarchical manner, as The bad news comes from the flip side of the is the industry itself. It can be charted as a pyra- same argument. Since we can’t directly transfer mid, with the CEO on top and layers of increasing today’s economic assets without teaching and numbers below. Firms are connected by formal experience, society cannot simply hand economic ownership, by rigid ownership-like legal agree- success to its children. Instead, we must help them ments, or by competitors. to develop their own human capacities. It should Agglomeration economies, like Silicon Valley, be noted that the United States is quickly slipping however, are organized by dynamic, flexible net- from its leadership of the creative economy and works of firms and of people. They can be charted that its “innovative infrastructure” is decaying.22 as a pattern of interconnected “players” with little or no implied hierarchy. Relationships or “soft” Creative Capacities contracts—agreements to work things out when Let’s take a closer look at the capacities that a disagreement arises—replace the formal owner- workers in today’s and tomorrow’s creative econ- ship arrangements and exacting legal contracts omy will need to develop in order to succeed. Of used by industrial-age industries. Competition course, in a creative economy, they will need the and cooperation are interspersed, with the same companies sometimes facing each other both as capacity of creativity: the ability to create value 24 from the combination of human ingenuity and competitors and as partners. raw materials. While parts of the new economy In this world, relationships matter. UC- are making use of artistic creativity, the underly- Berkeley Information Management Professor ing skills are those of creative problem solving and AnnaLee Saxenian finds that all business in Silicon innovation in general. Levy and Murnane23 see it Valley flows through a rich network of people and as the ability to solve a problem that has not yet that these relationships determine everything from new firm formation to daily work flow.25 In

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 34 · What Will Today’s Children Need for Financial Success in Tomorrow’s Economy? the modern economy, as a whole, relationships will experience, depends upon the capacities of matter. Princeton economist Alan Blinder and his creativity, self-knowledge, social skills, and virtue, colleagues find that eighty-five percent of non- however labeled. The main point is that today’s farm goods and services are sold to people with children will need to succeed on the terms of whom the firm has an ongoing relationship.26 entrepreneurs and not as laborers. There is evi- Since a firm is not a person, these relationships dence to suggest that these skills, or something must be managed by the people within the firm. akin to them, have always been necessary for success. We are, however, coming, in the main- Relationships Matter stream, to an increased understanding of their The formation of London’s St Luke’s advertising importance. agency is a case in point. In 1995, Omnicon bought the advertising agency of Chiat/Day. Downsides Fearing layoffs, the people of Chiat/Day’s London While I have so far painted a fairly rosy picture of office did not want to be under Omnicon’s con- the creative economy, we should note that there trol. En masse, the employees quit Chiat/Day and are downsides to this change. I have worked in started a new company, St Luke’s, which main- the bastions of both industrial capitalism—Wall tained all previous client relationships and operat- Street—and the creative economy—Silicon Valley. ed just as it had under the Chiat/Day name, leav- In every manner, I experienced Silicon Valley as a ing Omnicon holding an empty bag.27 Omnicon place more supportive of human beings and of may have owned the “company,” but the employ- human ideals, as well as a more enjoyable and ees owned the relationships with the clients. The more egalitarian place to work. Working in the company’s entire value was stored in the client Valley, however, was no walk in the park. Hours relationships. were long, high levels of responsibility were Relationships matter not just because the expected, and I would not have survived without economy is structured by levels of relationships a continually fueled inner drive. among firms, but because the primary economic In general, in the creative economy individual assets reside within individuals. Before an innova- markets and firms are notoriously unstable, even tion becomes a marketable product, it is an idea as the system itself remains stable. For those who that lives within the mind of the innovator. Few do not manage personal change well, the level of ideas get to market without the help of other flexibility required by the creative age may bring ideas. This means that the people holding correla- about nostalgia for the industrial age. Further, tive ideas must work together in order to create while the cooperative nature of creative age mar- tangible products. Relationships and interpersonal kets does ease competition, this can be a double- cooperation are part and parcel of the creative edged sword. With a minor decrease in competi- economy. tiveness, there is more room for everyone to The emphasis on relationships brings to light breathe and plenty of room for cooperation. But, another necessary capacity. In an economy in if easing competitiveness goes unchecked, we can which relationships and “soft” contracts replace easily find a single firm dominating an entire mar- exacting legal obligations, trust and trustworthi- ket, a situation that rings of exploitation, not of ness become essential. If Chiat/Day’s employees freedom. had trusted Omnicon not to implement mass lay- Most important, even though there is clearly offs, they would not have left Omnicon with an a push toward a more human-focused economy, expensive empty shell of a company. A reputation the dehumanizing forces that took hold during the for trustworthiness is an important asset in the industrial age are far from banished. As during creative economy. Developing such a reputation any change, a careful eye on the direction of the requires the ability to act with responsibility and change and a strong participative hand are need- with a sense of ethics. I call this capacity virtue, ed to ensure that the creative economy lives up to although many other terms could be used. its more humanizing potential. Success, then, in the type of economy toward We can take heart, however, from the under- which we are moving, and that today’s children standing that, increasingly, parents will face less

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Judy Lubin · 35 pressure to socialize their children to fit into a 17. Farber, Henry S., “The Analysis of Interfirm dehumanizing system and will be increasingly Mobility,” Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 12, Issue 4 interested in finding an education system that (October 1994): 554-593. emphasizes fuller human capacities like creativity, 18. Saxenian, 1996. cognitive flexibility, social skills, and the will force 19. Wetlaufer, Suzy, “Who Wants to Manage a of an entrepreneur. Waldorf education, with its Millionaire?” Harvard Business Review, July-August 2000. foundations in the entrepreneurial environment of 20. Adams, James D., “Endogenous R&D Spillovers Steiner’s envisaged threefold social organism, has and Industrial Research Productivity,” (January 2000) NBER Working Paper 7484; Almeida, Paul and Bruce long been prepared for this challenge. Kogut, “Localization of Knowledge and the Mobility of Engineers in Regional Networks,” Management Science, Endnotes Volume 45, Number 7 (July 1999): 905-917; Angel, David P., Restructuring for Innovation: The Remaking of the U.S. 1. Pink, Daniel H., A Whole New Mind: Moving from Semiconductor Industry, Guilford Press, New York, 1994; the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, Riverhead Books, Audretsch, David B. and Maryann P. Feldman, “R&D 2005. Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and 2. Ibid. Production,” American Economic Review, Volume 86, Issue 3 3. Wolff, Edward, “Skills and Changing (June 1996): 630-640; Gilson, Ronald, “The Legal Comparative Advantage,” The Review of Economics and Infrastructure of High Technology Industrial Districts: Statistics, Volume 85, Issue 1 (February 2003): 77-93. Silicon Valley, Route 128 and Covenants Not to Compete,” 4. Levy, Frank and Richard J. Murnane, The New New York University Law Review, Volume 73 (1999), Number Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job 3: 575-630; Jaffe, Adam and Manuel Trajtenberg and Market, Princeton University Press, 2004. Rebecca Henderson, “Geographic Localization of 5. Ibid. and Wolff, 2003. Knowledge Spillovers As Evidenced by Patent Citations,” 6. Saxenian, AnnaLee, Regional Advantage: Culture Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 108, Issue 3 (August and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, Harvard 1993): 577-598; Saxenian, 1996; Stolpe, Michael, University Press, 1996. “Determinants of Knowledge Diffusion as Evidenced in Patent Data: the Case of Liquid Crystal Display 7. Pink, 2005; Florida, Richard, The Rise of the Technology,” Research Policy, Volume 31 (2002): 1181- Creative Class and How It Is Transforming Work, Leisure, 1198; Zucker, Lynne G. and Michael R. Darby and Community and Everyday Life, Basic Books, 2002. Marilynn B. Brewer, “Intellectual Human Capital and the 8. Howkins, John, The Creative Economy, Penguin Birth of U.S. Biotechnology Enterprises,” American Economic Press, 2001. Review, Volume 88, Issue 1 (March 1998): 290-306. 9. Florida, 2002. 21. Florida, 2005. 10. Rose, Mike, The Mind at Work: Valuing the 22. Ibid. Intelligence of the American Worker, Viking Press, 2004. 23. Levy and Murnane, 2004. 11. Angel, David P., Restructuring for Innovation: The 24. Bradenburger, Adam M., and Barry J. Nalebluff, Remaking of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, Guilford Press, Co-opetition, Doubleday, 1996; Lewis, Jordan D., The New York, 1994. Connected Corporation: How Leading Companies Win through 12. For current numbers, see Kelly, Marjorie, The Customer-Supplier Alliances, The Free Press, 1995; Powell, Divine Right of Capital, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2001. For Walter W., “Neither Market or Hierarchy: Network Forms historical numbers, see Guelzo, Allen G., The American of Organization,” Research in Organizational Behavior, Volume Mind, The Teaching Company, 2005. 12 (1990): 295-336; Holmstrom, Bengt and John Roberts, 13. Deci, Edward L. and Richard M. Ryan, Intrinsic “The Boundaries of the Firm Revisited,” Journal of Economic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior Perspectives, Volume 12 (1998), Number 4: 73-94. (Perspectives in Social Psychology), Plenum Press, 1985. 25. Saxenian, 1996. 14. Steiner, Rudolf, Towards Social Renewal: Rethinking 26. Blinder, Alan, Elie R. D. Canetti, David E. LeBow the Basis of Society, 4th Edition, Rudolf Steiner Press, and Jeremy B. Rudd, Asking about Prices: A New Approach to London, 1999. Understanding Price Stickiness, Russell Sage Foundation 15. Pink, Daniel H., Free Agent Nation: How America’s Publications, 1998. New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live, 27. Kelly, Marjorie, The Divine Right of Capital, Berrett- Warner Books, 2001. Koehler Publishers, 2001. 16. Florida, Richard, The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition For Talent, Harper Business, 2005.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 36 · What Will Today’s Children Need for Financial Success in Tomorrow’s Economy?

References Jaffe, Adam and Manuel Trajtenberg and Rebecca Adams, James D., “Endogenous R&D Spillovers and Henderson, “Geographic Localization of Knowledge Industrial Research Productivity,” (January 2000) Spillovers As Evidenced by Patent Citations,” Quarterly NBER Working Paper 7484. Journal of Economics, Volume 108, Issue 3 (August 1993): 577-598. Almeida, Paul and Bruce Kogut, “Localization of Knowledge and the Mobility of Engineers in Regional Kelly, Marjorie, The Divine Right of Capital, Berrett-Koehler Networks,” Management Science, Volume 45, Number 7 Publishers, 2001. (July 1999): 905-917. Lewis, Jordan D., The Connected Corporation: How Leading Angel, David P., Restructuring for Innovation: The Remaking of Companies Win Through Customer-Supplier Alliances, The the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, Guilford Press, New Free Press, 1995. York, 1994. Levy, Frank and Richard J. Murnane, The New Division of Angel, David P., “The Labor Market for Engineers in the Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market, U.S. Semiconductor Industry,” Economic Geography, Princeton University Press, 2004. Volume 65 (1989): 98-112. Pink, Daniel H., A Whole New Mind: Moving form the Audretsch, David B. and Maryann P. Feldman, “R&D Information Age to the Conceptual Age, Riverhead Books, Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and 2005. Production,” American Economic Review, Volume 86, Pink, Daniel H., Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Issue 3 (June 1996): 630-640. Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live, Blinder, Alan, “Offshoring: The Next Industrial Warner Books, 2001. Revolution?” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006, 113- Powell, Walter W., “Neither Market or Hierarchy: Network 128. Forms of Organization,” Research in Organizational Blinder, Alan, Elie R. D. Canetti, David E. LeBow and Behavior, Volume 12 (1990): 295-336. Jeremy B. Rudd, Asking About Prices: A New Approach to Rose, Mike, The Mind At Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the Understanding Price Stickiness, Russell Sage Foundation American Worker, Viking Press, 2004. Publications, 1998. Saxenian, AnnaLee, Regional Advantage: Culture and Bradenburger, Adam M., and Barry J. Nalebluff, Co-opeti- Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, Harvard tion, Doubleday, 1996. University Press, 1996. Deci, Edward L. with Richard Flaste, Why We Do What We Steiner, Rudolf, Towards Social Renewal: Rethinking the Basis of Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Penguin Books, 1996. Society, 4th Edition, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, Deci, Edward L. and Richard M. Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation 1999. and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (Perspectives Stolpe, Michael, “Determinants of Knowledge Diffusion as in Social Psychology), Plenum Press, 1985. Evidenced in Patent Data: the Case of Liquid Crystal Farber, Henry S., “The Analysis of Interfirm Mobility,” Display Technology,” Research Policy, Volume 31 Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 12, Issue 4 (2002): 1181-1198. (October 1994): 554-593. Wetlaufer, Suzy, “Who Wants to Manage a Millionaire?” Florida, Richard, The Rise of the Creative Class and How It Is Harvard Business Review, July-August 2000. Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, Wolff, Edward, “Skills and Changing Comparative Basic Books, 2002. Advantage,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, Florida, Richard, The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Volume 85, Issue 1 (February 2003): 77-93. Global Competition For Talent, Harper Business, 2005. Zucker, Lynne G. and Michael R. Darby and Marilynn B. Gilson, Ronald, “The Legal Infrastructure of High Brewer, “Intellectual Human Capital and the Birth of Technology Industrial Districts: Silicon Valley, Route U.S. Biotechnology Enterprises,” American Economic 128 and Covenants Not to Compete,” New York Review, Volume 88, Issue 1 (March 1998): 290-306. University Law Review, Volume 73 (1999), Number 3: 575-630. –––––––––––––––––––––––– Guelzo, Allen G., The American Mind, The Teaching Judy Lubin holds a Ph.D. in economic theory from the Company, 2005. University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the Holmstrom, Bengt and John Roberts, “The Boundaries of structure and organization of firms, markets, and the Firm Revisited,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, employment in a post-industrial economy. She is also Volume 12, Number 4 (1998): 73-94. an active parent volunteer at the Chicago Waldorf Howkins, John, The Creative Economy, Penguin Press, 2001. School. This article is adapted from a talk she gave at the school on May 11, 2006.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 The Development of the Hand in the Young Child Jane Swain

his article describes some of the intricacies this completes the total pattern. Similarly, when and the abundance of amazing stages through the baby nurses, occasionally the hands also per- Twhich infants and toddlers progress in their fine form a sucking movement, as if the entire body is motor development, so that professionals familiar sucking. The grasp reflex is in full force; if one with the basic concepts of motor development can touches the palm of the hand, the fingers will curl. begin to recognize these movements in their work Her motor and startle reflexes are also strong, so with children.1 I avoid giving specific ages for that if her head drops backward slightly or she motor milestones, since each child will progress hears a sudden loud noise, she will cry, her arms wisely at her own pace, and the quality of the and fingers will extend or open and then flex or movement is what is most important, not the close across the body in a two-part response. timetable.2 While each child develops uniquely, I One really can’t speak about the hand with- present an archetype of development. If the child out commenting on the eyes and the breathing, skips a stage or two, all is not lost. All of us, at because these are related. The newborn’s eyes can any age, have potential for fur- focus at about seven inches, ther growth and development. I which is the distance to the do not wish to support a deficit One really can’t speak mother’s face when she is being model or a fix-it mentality on the about the hand held in the nursing position. The part of teachers and caregivers of newborn is a “belly breather.” infants and very young children, without commenting While breathing actually occurs but rather to help them see the on the eyes and the in the chest, we see the in and genius of the child at work in the breathing, because out motion in the abdomen. unfolding of her fine motor devel- Time passes, and the baby is opment. I encourage profession- these are related. not so flexed anymore. At rest, als to supplement knowledge the arms and legs roll out, a little such as that contained in this article by honing farther away from the body, and the elbows are their own skills in observation for a short period straighter. The arms move more, in a windmilling of time each day. sort of motion. The hands open more, although Her position in the womb influences the new- the grasp reflex still manifests strongly if some- born. It gets quite tight in the womb during the thing is placed in the palm of the hand. The baby last months so that, at birth, the baby is over- still can’t keep her head in the midline position, stretched on her backside and somewhat contract- and the neck is still extended. In fact, the baby is ed in her arms and legs. Her shoulders are elevat- even more asymmetrical than she was at birth. ed toward her ears, so that it looks as if she does- This is when the asymmetric tonic neck reflex n't have much of a neck. Her hands are generally influences the baby’s movements. In this reflex, if held in fists when she is resting. Her head is rotat- the head is turned to one side, the face-side arm ed to either side, the neck extended. The newborn and fingers straighten, and the skull-side arm and cannot keep her head in the midline position. fingers flex or curl. Now the baby begins to notice The newborn may have tremors, as myelina- her hand and spends much time looking at it. tion of the nerves is not yet complete. Random What is this? Could this possibly be part of me? movements of arms and legs are jerky, unsophisti- Gradually vision and movement become more cated, and without voluntary control. The baby integrated. moves in undifferentiated total patterns. For Time passes, and early stages of head control example, if her arm moves out to the side with the emerge when the baby is lying on her back and elbow straight, the hand will usually open too, as her head can come to midline and stay there. The

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 38 · The Development of the Hand in the Young Child baby learns to tuck her chin, instead of keeping it The reach is visually directed, that is, she extended, as in the earlier months. This new head must see her hand and the object. She needs position is liberating. Now the eyes start to con- vision because her sense of where her body parts verge, better tracking occurs, and the baby can are in space and what they are doing—proprio- shift her gaze more easily between two objects. ception—is far from fully developed. Spending The shoulders lower, and the neck starts to be more time bearing weight through her hands in revealed. The hands come to the midline position. the prone position and in crawling will help her to The grasp reflex fades; the hands are predomi- develop this sense of proprioception. The baby nantly open at rest, and the very early stages of a now bangs objects with a strong downward volitional grasp begin. The baby still can’t com- motion. She can’t yet control how hard the mus- bine reaching out with grasping, however. cles are contracting. With all this activity of the Grasping is a flexion pattern, and reaching is an hand, the baby begins to develop a concept of extension pattern. Combining the two is too com- cause and effect, of consequence: she purposely plicated, but the baby can grasp at her clothes at reproduces an interesting result that occurred ini- her chest, because here the fingers and arm are tially by chance. This is a lovely example of the both flexing. intimate relationship between As more time passes, the movement and learning. baby comes more fully into With [the] activity of the When she lies on her this glorious stage of symme- hand, the baby begins to back and plays with toys, the try and midline orientation, a develop a concept of cause baby starts to work on more noteworthy accomplishment. complex hand skills. The head comes to the mid- and effect, of consequence: Transferring an object from line position for longer peri- she purposely reproduces one hand directly to the other ods of time. The hands play is too hard, so she uses an together at the midline posi- an interesting result that interesting strategy with her tion, and everything goes in occurred initially by mouth. She takes an object the mouth. The hands also chance. This is a lovely from one hand, puts it in her find the knees. In another few mouth, and then grasps it weeks they find the feet— example of the intimate with her other hand. which also go in the mouth. relationship between Once she has the capaci- As the baby plays with her ty to roll to her tummy, the knees and feet in the midline movement and learning. baby explores the prone posi- position, she may turn to tion. She learns to push down look toward the side, and, into the supporting surface. It surprisingly, plop over to lie fully on her side. This is very important to know where down is. Think characteristically happens at first by accident, how disturbed we feel when we lose this funda- and then the baby learns to do it intentionally. mental relationship to gravity, for example, in an Time passes and she will learn to roll all the way earthquake or on a carnival ride. Older children over into the prone position, and also from prone who have poor balance and are fearful of move- to her back. ment very often have difficulty finding their orien- At this time of symmetry and midline orienta- tation to the supporting surface beneath them. tion, the baby reaches out for toys. The reflexive Initially, the baby pushes down through her fore- grasp fades as the volitional grasp comes more arms to come up on her elbows. With time, she and more into the picture. This early volitional shifts her weight onto one side in order to reach grasp is a primitive pattern whereby the baby for a toy with the other arm. After a while, she grasps from the pinkie side of the hand with no pushes down and comes up onto extended, involvement of the thumb, called an ulnar palmar straight arms. In this position, she experiences grasp. She reaches with poor aim, and overshoots deep pressure into the base of her hand, and when she reaches. The cerebellum has not yet begins to work on wrist control. On extended developed fully; it will later correct the reach in arms, she gradually learns to shift more onto one midstream and fine-tune her aim.

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Jane Swain · 39 side in order to reach with the other arm. Soon active, they pull on the ribs, and this changes the she pivots in both directions. orientation of the ribs to slant downward, as in All this work in the prone position lengthens the adult ribcage. The activated abdominal mus- and strengthens the muscles that stabilize the cles also stabilize the ribcage, and this alters the shoulder blades on the rib cage. The shoulder interplay of the breathing muscles. As a result, the blades can gradually hold themselves in various baby’s breathing gradually changes to a thoracic positions on the rib cage, depending upon where breathing pattern. We see the in and out motion the hand is used in space. of breathing now in the This work in the prone chest, rather than in the position also provides the In educational action research belly, and the baby’s lung brain with wonderful deep this form of attention needs to capacity increases. She pressure and joint sensa- be acknowledged and taken into can cry louder and tion coming from the hand longer. She also has more and especially from the the arena of conscious, creative lung capacity for bab- thumb side of the hand. inquiry. . . . It is by the bling, and this favorably So the baby’s brain regis- influences speech devel- ters more accurately gateway of [consciousness] that opment. All this work in where her thumb is and we bring the self-understanding the horizontal position what it is doing, which in of science in touch with moral helps the baby to control turn promotes more coor- her trunk, so that she has dinated use of her thumb. life and the cosmos. a stable base from which Now the grasp changes to control her head. Good from the pinkie side of the hand—ulnar palmar head control contributes to coordinated eye move- grasp—to the thumb side of the hand—radial ments, which in turn affect eye-hand coordina- palmar grasp—which also has no opposition of tion. the thumb yet. With improved proprioception, she The baby becomes more and more active in has less need for visually directed reaching. the prone position. She assumes the “airplane” The grasp is voluntary now, but the baby has position, arms and legs up off the floor, and then no concept of pressure when she grasps. She will “swims” in this position. She crawls on her belly. grasp objects very tightly. This primitive pattern She rises onto extended arms, and pushes her sometimes still remains in older school-aged chil- body backward. During this motion, the shoulder dren and can be observed when they grasp a pen- blades glide downward on the ribcage, and the cil with excessive pressure. At this point the baby muscles and tissues are further elongated. This is has mastered the extremes of grasping and reach- significant transformation from the newborn’s ing, that is, she grasps too tightly, and she releas- shoulder elevation toward the ears. es a toy with a fling of the entire arm, a total The baby plays freely on her side, on her extension pattern. Now she scratches at a surface, elbow, and also up on her extended arm. Only such as the crib sheet or the carpet, with her fin- now does she come into the sitting position on her gers, and this activity works on the midranges of own. She transitions through various positions, grasp and release. for example, from sitting to hands and knees to The baby employs her new hand skills by lying on her side. exploring toys and objects. She is using judgment, The baby starts to crawl, and tries a variety spatial perception, and she is learning about the of crawling options. She may crawl using her qualities of objects. Cognitive development does arms in the normal way and bend her trunk to indeed go hand in hand with fine motor develop- the side so that her legs are not really engaged. ment. She may crawl with the same-side arm and leg As the baby masters rolling and uses rolling moving together. And she will crawl reciprocally, to get from one place to another, she rotates her which involves a complicated counter-rotation in trunk, activating the abdominal muscles. In the the trunk whereby the upper trunk rotates in one newborn, the ribs are initially horizontally orient- direction and the lower trunk rotates in the oppo- ed. As the abdominal muscles become more site direction. During all this work in the prone

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 40 · The Development of the Hand in the Young Child position and on her hands and knees, the weight the sides, and her hands are up in the air when of the body is transferred through the hand in she initially stands alone and walks freely. This various patterns. This weight transfer helps to helps to stabilize her in the upright position. develop the arches of the hand. Gradually the arms relax and come down as the Reciprocal crawling, especially, and the transi- child’s balance improves, and the hands are freed tions through the various positions, shift the for activity in the standing position. The toddler baby’s weight through the thumb side of the masters a more sophisticated form of opposition hand. The shifting of weight enlivens the thumb; where the tip of the thumb opposes the tip of the the brain receives further proprioception and deep index finger, a superior pincer grasp, rather than pressure from the thumb, and now the baby using only the pads of the fingers. begins to master thumb opposition in a variety of Toddlers love to give an object to another per- ways. In one pattern, the thumb pad opposes the son and then have it returned. This game cele- side of the index finger, a lateral pincer grasp. In brates the capacities of the hand. Giving and another pattern, the thumb pad opposes the pad receiving are archetypal movement of the hands of the index finger, an inferior pincer grasp. In a that she has worked so many months to master. third pattern, the thumb pad opposes the pads of Fine motor development continues as the child the index and long finger, the three jaw chuck grows older, but, at this point, she has achieved grasp. The baby now becomes very active in an incredible amount, and has laid a solid foun- exploring and picking up every piece of fuzz dation for all that is yet to come. around the house. The crawling specifically elongates the index finger tendon, readying it for more coordinated work. The baby learns to point and poke with her index finger. She can isolate one finger from the Endnotes others, rather than use the total patterns of the 1. I write this article from my experience as a newborn period. The baby frequently crawls with physical therapist, and specifically from my postgradu- a toy in her hand, which further stretches out the ate pediatric training in the neurodevelopment treat- tendons of the wrist. Crawling also offers the ment (NDT) approach. Bena Bobarh and Karel Bobarh, opportunity to enhance coordination of the eyes. M.D., developed this approach, and I am indebted to The baby looks from one hand to the other and their genius. I also gratefully acknowledge my NDT back again when she crawls, in the same pattern instructor, Judy Bierman. Additionally, the work of Emmi Pikler has deeply influenced me. Her work is a that the eyes later use for reading. The baby looks healing balm that aids infants and young children in down at her hands and then across the room and the development of healthy fine motor skills. In Pikler’s back down again in the same pattern that the approach, the caregiver gives the infant generous floor eyes later use for copying from a blackboard to a time for self-initiated gross motor and fine motor paper on a desk. movement, because the caregiver understands that the At this time, the baby picks up objects of dif- child has an innate capacity to guide this unfolding ferent weights. Her arm initially falls and then motor development, if given the time and space to do readjusts according to the weight of each particu- so. I also acknowledge my Spacial Dynamics® training lar object. She can release an object into a con- under the direction of Jaimen McMillan, and my study tainer if her wrist is stabilized on the container’s of sensory integration, originated by Jean Ayres. edge. She no longer needs to fling her arm or use 2. I choose to use the female pronoun through- her mouth. With more time, she releases an object out. in the air without needing to support the wrist. The baby masters bear walking. She pulls her- –––––––––––––––––––––––– self up to a standing position, first using mostly Jane Swain is co-director of Sophia’s Hearth’s train- her arms, and then increasingly using her feet. ing course, “The Child in the First Three Years” in She cruises along a coffee table or other surfaces Keene, New Hampshire. at a helpful height and then learns to walk freely. Her shoulder blades pull back, her arms are out to

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 On Spiritual Research

Rudolf Steiner

The following is an excerpt of a chapter, entitled ferent field. One discovers gradually that there are “The Supersensible in Human Beings and the forces hidden in the souls, which remain unused in Universe,” from Rudolf Steiner’s untranslated book, ordinary life and ordinary science. One discovers, Education, Teaching, and Practical Life, edited by little by little, that the soul, spirit, and physical- David Mitchell © AWSNA Publications 2006, available sensory are really not yet separated in the very in Spring 2007. young child, and that the child to some extent pours into speech, into thinking, into upright walking, forces that previously existed in super- would like to indicate here briefly some essential sensible form. Everything which pours into the points on how one can become a spiritual blood during the first stage of life, everything Iresearcher today, completely in keeping with the which vibrates in the organs, all this pours itself organization of today’s human body. out to the extent that the human being is oriented Not everybody needs to become a spiritual outward; it pours out into speech, and especially scientist, but some people aspire to do so. Up to a into thought. certain point, everybody can at least become an But we can turn back the flow. The oriental experimenter in spiritual science, by taking up the sage’s disciple attempted to attain through chant- exercises I have described in my books and lec- ing, meditation, or inner speaking what one might tures. But whoever wants to become a spiritual call the connection between the supersensible in scientist nowadays must no longer do it through man and the supersensible in the world. Modern the physical chanting of mantras, but use instead humanity must turn thinking itself inward. We the purely supersensible practice of must be able to tell ourselves in thought. complete earnestness: We have Now, we have learned to think Modern humanity come a long way with the obser- precise thoughts. If I look at the must turn thinking vation of external nature. We are starry sky in scientific astronomy, I looking at the exact thoughts of am dealing with precise thinking in itself inward. the star constellations and the physics and chemistry. We are striv- planetary paths. We are looking ing for the same in biological research, the explo- at the exact thoughts of electricity, magnetism, ration of living beings, and we feel especially sat- warmth, sound, and light. We look into the isfied if we know how to investigate the material world—exact thoughts re-create this world within world in the same manner in which we train our us. As spiritual scientists we must be able to put thoughts to solve mathematical problems. This ourselves in a situation in which we look away has even led to the saying that there is only as from all the thoughts that lead us outward to the much exact natural science as there is mathemat- stars, electricity, magnetic, and warmth phenom- ics in the sciences. For this reason one speaks of ena. Like the old sage turning his mantras inward exact sciences. Everything must be surveyed in and thus allowing the logos to reveal itself to him, observation and experiment, in the same way we we must be able to turn the power of thinking survey the matter when solving a mathematical inward. We must learn to soar inward in our problem. This is what “exact science” means. thinking with the same energy we apply outward- Anthroposophical spiritual science speaks in ly through our senses. The senses are bodily struc- the same way about “exact clairvoyance.” As the tures that help us, so that we need not use up our contemporary scientist investigates the world own strength, the strength of soul. Thus our medi- exactly, the person who becomes an anthropo- tative thinking will become so strong that our sophical researcher does the same, only in a dif-

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 42 · On Spiritual Research thoughts, even while developed in the inner soul already needed now, these will be substantially being, become as vivid as sensations. stimulated if one restores confidence to human Just think how alive, how intense everything social life. Those deserve our trust who, from the is when you hear sounds, when you see colors, depth of their soul, speak about spiritual super- when sensations of warmth and cold pervade sensible worlds because as spiritual scientists they your body. Think how dry and abstract those arise to them. thoughts are that you retain from your experience Wherever souls can live in intimate closeness, of the outer world. Meditation consists in so so that the intimacy of the supersensible world strengthening, so intensifying the thoughts that can be shared in the supersensible being of dawn within us when we hand ourselves to the humanity, in such a social order forces will be impassive observation of our thoughts, that they revived that can uniquely fortify our social life. become as bright and clear as sensations. In this Therefore it is entirely unfounded and only egotis- way, we achieve a new level of thinking. Ordinary tical to say: I do not value the results of anthropo- day-by-day thinking is such that one feels passive: sophical science research about the supersensible, these thoughts are actually devoid of strength, for I cannot see things for myself. We all are so mere images, copies of the outer world. It is possi- constituted that we each have a predisposition for ble, through meditation, to learn to live in the truth, not for untruth. Not everybody can do world of thoughts as one lives in one’s forces of research about the supersensible world, just as growth, as one lives in hunger and thirst, as one not everybody can paint a picture. As everybody lives in an inner sense of physical ease—this is can admire an image that was painted artfully, so the fruit of meditation. One only needs to learn anyone can acknowledge the truth of spiritual sci- one thing in order to experience the thought ence as described here, provided he is fully world in this manner: one must learn to weave human, with a predisposition for truth, not out of lovingly in thoughts. blind faith but out of an inner experience of the Being a spiritual scien- truth of spiritual science. tist means having to prac- This spiritual science can tice this science with the Meditation consists in so only be obtained insofar as same devotion as the physi- strengthening, so intensifying through meditation, cist practicing year-round in the thoughts that dawn through (thoughtful) con- his lab. The astronomer centration in the thinking practices all year at his within us when we hand life itself, one can progress observatory. It is really no ourselves to the impassive from abstract thinking to a easier to be a spiritual sci- concrete pictorial thinking, entist than to be an observation of our thoughts, to a thinking that is inward- astronomer or a physicist. that they become as bright ly alive. In this thinking, Everybody can verify the and clear as sensations. cosmic thoughts are resur- spiritual scientist’s claims. rected. In this thinking, the All it takes is a little atten- person will feel he is on the tion, as I described in my book How to Know first step of the path to the supersensible world. Higher Worlds. But just as little as it is necessary Ancient humanity proceeded from something to become an astronomer in order to apply the more material, from speech directed inwardly. fruits of astronomy in one’s worldview, just as lit- Modern humanity must start from something tle does one need to become a spiritual scientist in more spiritual, from thought directed inwardly, order for spiritual science to become an element find a connection with the supersensible in the of our civilization, of our cultural life. Quite the world, and regain the ability to speak of this contrary, the kind of interpersonal connections supersensible realm in the world. If one thus which it can bring about, and which actually enters the supersensible world by way of inwardly must arise in the not-too-distant future—in order experienced thinking and the supersensible in to stop the decadence—the kind of social cooper- one’s own being partakes of the supersensible in ation, of community between human beings that the universe, what one finds will not remain will become necessary and possible, and which is empty words. In precisely the same way the mate-

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Rudolf Steiner · 43 rial world surrounds us with the multitude of alize the last thing one experienced in the day, plant forms, animal forms, and the light stream- then what was experienced earlier in the day, and ing down from the stars, just so to some extent so forth until morning. By visualizing the course the material world will fade of nature in reverse before spiritual contempla- sequence, the person can tion is revealed in pictorial By visualizing the course of think beyond the natural thinking and a spiritual nature in reverse sequence, flow of events, the person world dawns for us. We thinks at cross-stream. This now do not just experience the person can think beyond strengthens the activity of the sun’s physical radiance; the natural flow of events, the will in thinking. This is par- we see a world of spiritual person thinks at cross-stream. ticularly the case if one beings, whose physical pays attention to very image is the physical sun. This strengthens the activity small details. Say you We draw the physical of will in thinking. imagine climbing stairs: appearance of the sun into instead of picturing your- the spiritual being of the sun. And through the self climbing the staircase, visualize yourself physical appearance of the moon, we penetrate to standing on the last step, going backward break- the spiritual moon-beings. We learn to see that ing loose from the actual experience and present spiritual moon-beings lead the human soul out of the ascent as a descent. This strengthens the will spiritual-soul worlds, through birth, into earthly activity in thinking. I can also fortify this will life, where the mother and the father receive them when undertaking my self-education by telling into the body. We learn to know how, in the spiri- myself: I have such and such a habit; I will alter it; tual sun beings, lie the forces that later lead the three years from now I must in one particular human being through death, and we learn to see respect have acquired a completely different the path of the human soul out of supersensible habit. There are hundreds of such exercises, will worlds. exercises, aimed directly at transforming the will, This knowledge is still amplified if instead of so that it is loosened from the restrictions of mere training the will by adopting body postures, as physicality. the ancient Orientals used to do, one develops the In so doing, modern man performs an exer- will in the same way one has developed thinking cise similar to the one practiced in the Eastern into a precise clairvoyance. It was a training of sage’s postures. We cannot return to these old the will, when human beings suppressed their ori- exercises for reasons I have explained. But in this entation to the outside world, crossed their legs way, modern humans can achieve an immediate and sat on them in order to receive from the relationship between their own supersensible supersensible world, through the human being, being and the supersensible being of the world. perceptions from different streams in the world. This can be clarified with a metaphor. Take Modern humans cannot do this. Their organism is the human eye: what makes it a seeing organ? different, they must work directly with the will. Imagine the cataract: it is a hardening of the lens Whatever the ancient Easterner might have devel- or the cornea, which shows that if matter oped in a more physical fashion through body becomes dominant in the eye, the eye can no postures (also by turning the body to the east, the longer be used to see. In order to serve vision, the west, the south), all this has become an imposture eye must be absolutely transparent in particular for modern people. Modern humans must take parts of its organ. It must to some extent be “self- their will immediately in hand. And you will find less” to serve the human being. Just so our body, in How to Know Higher Worlds and Esoteric Science a when we fortify it through exercises, becomes a whole series of exercises for self-control, self-edu- spiritual sense organ. Our body at particular cation, especially cultivation of the will. Here are a moments of cognition, not in ordinary life, is no few. longer penetrated by compulsions, instincts, A person who is used to following the course desires. It becomes purified, as does the eye, in of external events earlier to the later may change order to become transparent. And just as one sees his/her thinking: for instance in the evening, visu- the world of color through the transparent eye, so

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 44 · On Spiritual Research with a wish- and desire-free body, the body is not universe, just as it was originally released into always transparent but it can be made transpar- earthly life by the supersensible world. We learn ent for particular times. It gets trained for trans- to see now the supersensible realm of the world. parency to the spiritual world, the supersensible In living thought achieved through meditation, we world to which one belongs as supersensible learn to see behind the sun the spiritual sun- essence. world, behind the moon the spiritual moon-world, Thus we learn to know what is truly super- these spiritual beings that lead man into earthly sensible in man. To see through what happens existence and that lead him out of earthly exis- with a person who made his body transparent tence. And then we know that after death our liv- and lives in the purely supersensible world, means ing soul is received by the living being of the having solved the riddle of death. In that contem- world, the living being of the Universe, the super- plation, we have life out of the body—we know sensible Universe. Just as our body is received by how one lives after relinquishing the physical the material world and called to death, so too our body and crossing the gate of death. One knows human soul is called to life in the eternal realm by what it means to live in the world without the those beings which one sees through in the super- body. In this fashion one learns to know one’s sensible realm of the world. own supersensible being. And insofar as we learn We can then see the path followed by human to know it, as we see it crossing the gate of death civilizations as one that gives us strength to incor- while alive, we learn that it can be taken up in a porate morality and religion into the natural supersensible world, just as, at conception it was world order, by cultivating the will, a cultivation released into earthly life by the supersensible which can be effected in very precise exercises, world. And by learning to know our own human just like mathematics, through thought exercises supersensible nature, by learning how in life the that lead to an exact clairvoyance. This is what soul can cross the gates of death, we also learn we need today. that the soul can be received by a supersensible

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Work of the Research Fellows

Do the Festivals Have a Future? Eugene Schwartz

s the Waldorf school movement continues precisely this gray area in the Waldorf move- to expand in North America, the risk grows that ment, making individual teachers and even Athere will be some dilution of its basic principles. independent schools reluctant to do anything With this in mind, it is not surprising that the pas- that would appear remotely religious. Myriad sionate and comprehensive celebration of the legal, religious, and personal issues stand as Christian Festivals that characterized the Waldorf obstacles to the celebration of the Festivals in school movement in its earlier years is fading. these settings, and there is little that inde- What follows are some thoughts on how this pendent Waldorf schools can do to ameliorate important change has come about and how the this situation. future of these Festivals may be understood. • Because of their popularity, it is relatively Why have the Christian Festivals become less painless to get families to engage in the cele- important to schools in the past few years? bration of such non-controversial holidays as Several factors play into this: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and May Day. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has taken on the • A decreasing interest in and commitment to importance that Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday, the Christian basis of anthroposophy among which is no longer a national holiday, once teachers. Although Waldorf educators will held. I should note that I have never taught a generally agree that it is impossible to work Waldorf class fourth grade or older that did- with the Waldorf method without under- n’t demand that Rudolf Steiner’s birthday standing its anthroposophical basis, many should be a school holiday, i.e. a day off, so younger teachers do not see anthroposophy perhaps this occasion, too, will one day be as their personal spiritual path. They will added to the list. The term “holiday” has stage Festival celebrations “for the children,” itself drifted far from its “holy day” meaning but not necessarily feel an inner link to the to connote a more generalized time of celebra- pageantry and traditions. tion and vacation from school or work. • The expansion of Waldorf methods into char- American children are exposed to ceaseless ter schools, public schools, and home schools. advertising campaigns that emphasize the fun Such expansion is undoubtedly necessary to of consuming in celebration of many of these bring even a modicum of the Waldorf experi- holidays, and it is difficult for the relatively ence to children whose social or economic cir- obscure Festivals celebrated in Waldorf cumstances prevent them from finding their schools to compete with the consumerist way to independent Waldorf schools. Over drive of corporate America. the next decades, charter schools, public • The growing pluralism of the Waldorf school schools, and, above all, home schools are like- population. One mark of the success of inde- ly to be the points of most significant growth pendent Waldorf schools is the diversity of in the Waldorf school movement. At the same religions in their student bodies. For the past time, these schools are also the least likely to few years, more attempts have been made to emphasize the Christian Festivals as a pillar incorporate non-Christian religious symbols of Waldorf education. Critics often focus on

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 46 · Work of the Research Fellows

and stories into the Christian Festival celebra- the cosmos brings the spiritual to man - a tions, e.g., the lighting of a menorah at the time when the spiritual, which animates and Advent Garden. At the request of non- weaves through everything in nature, is Christian families, some schools have given revealed.1 their Festival celebrations and pageants more It seems significant that the only time that generic names, so that Michaelmas becomes the word “Christian” appears in these descrip- the Fall Festival and the Advent Garden is tions is in the phrase “pre-Christian.” Except for called the Spiral of Light. In situations where the Michaelmas paragraph, every description it is not possible to soften or eliminate the describes precisely those aspects of the ancient “Christian message,” e.g., a performance of festivals that Rudolf Steiner emphasized the the “Shepherds’ Play,” parents may keep chil- Christ Being had come to change or even com- dren home on the day of its performance. pletely transform. In order to make the Christian Any one of these bulleted points could serve Festivals palatable to parents interested in as a field for future research into the viability of Waldorf education, the author of the Waldorf the Festivals, but I want to pay special attention Resources web page turns them back into pre- to the fourth point, the watering down of Christian Festivals. Christian Festivals in independent Waldorf The pluralistic student body that is served by schools. This increasing tendency to smooth over independent Waldorf schools in North America differences by pretending they don’t exist is repre- should be a fructifying source of inspiration for sented well by the answer to the frequently asked the sort of renewal of the Christian Festivals that question (FAQ), “What are Michaelmas, St. John’s Steiner repeatedly described. In practice, howev- Day, etc.?” provided by one of the better-informed er, faculties make few efforts to take up such an “Waldorf” web sites: undoubtedly challenging task as creating Festival celebrations that speak to the “universally The four seasonal festivals are human”—Festivals that would be clear about dif- Michaelmas (fall), Christmas (winter), Easter ferences while finding the ties that bind us all to (spring), and St. John (summer). one another. Instead—especially at Advent and Hanukkah time—many schools go out of their Michaelmas, September 29: St. Michael is way to placate nervous parents by staging known as the conqueror of the dragon, the Festival celebrations that are the equivalent of heavenly hero with his starry sword (cosmic milk that has been homogenized and pasteurized; iron) who gives strength to people. no one will be harmed by the event, but little Christmas: An ancient festival; celebrated really nourishing remains. when the sun sends the least power to the The Waldorf school in which I taught for earth, as a festival which awakens in the many years was distinguished by significant pop- human being an inkling of the very wellsprings ulations of observant Jewish families. The seem- of existence, of an eternal reality. It is a time ingly endless weeks of Advent preceding when the soul withdraws into the innermost Christmas, that is, Winter Break, not to speak of depths to experience within itself the inner the Three Kings’ celebration following the break, spiritual light. were often agonizing for them. As a proactive measure, I offered a lecture on “Religion in the Easter derives its name from pre-Christian god- dess symbols of rebirth, fertility and spring. Waldorf School” in November, followed by two The renewal of man's being is celebrated with more lectures on Steiner’s Christian perspective: that of the earth. Ancient symbols of the hare “Cosmic Christianity” and “Christianity on and egg are both known as signs of the return Earth.” The audience grew in number every of life after winter's sleep. week, and, though no one was converted, parents appreciated the school’s willingness to be St. John - June 24 - Midsummer Day: Ancient transparent about its philosophical foundations. peoples, watching the sun reach its high point If the celebration of the Festivals was merely at this time, lit bonfires to encourage it to another line item on that nebulous list called the shine and ripen their crops. It is a time when “Waldorf curriculum” there would not be too Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Work of the Research Fellows · 47 much cause for concern about the present state of alike would suffer from what might be called affairs; many aspects of the curriculum are being nature-deficit disorder, not in a clinical sense, questioned and changed. In regard to the but as a condition caused by the cumulative Christian Festivals, however, we have Rudolf human costs of alienation from nature, includ- Steiner’s admonitions that the very relationship of ing diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emo- the earth to the heavens is in the balance and tional illnesses.4 that this relationship depends on the Festivals being rightly understood and rightly celebrated. On both the macrocosmic and microcosmic A phenomenon such as “global warming” levels we ignore the world of nature at our peril. reflects the kind of homogenization of the four The Christian Festivals and their renewal and seasons that in turn reflects the listless relation- expansion, as described by Steiner, provide a vital ship that many Americans have to the turning and comforting space in which children and points of the year and their enlivened celebration. adults alike can renew and expand their relation- Research conducted by the University of Illinois ship with the earth and its relationship with the recently discovered that significantly less meteoric sun, moon, and stars. iron—a substance Steiner described as carrying powerful Michaelic forces—is reaching the earth: Polar clouds are known to play a major role in the destruction of Earth’s protective ozone Endnotes layer, creating the springtime “ozone hole” 1. http://www.waldorfresources.com. above Antarctica. Now, scientists have found 2. These lectures are available on CD at that polar clouds also play a significant role in www.millennialchild.com. removing meteoric iron from Earth’s mesos- 3. http://www.news.uiuc.edu/NEWS/04/0415 phere. The discovery could help researchers meteoriciron.html. refine their models of atmospheric chemistry 4. http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05- and global warming.3 4om/Louv.html. Which, we may ask, came first—our alienation from the cosmic significance of the seasons, or the atmospheric blurring of the clear boundaries between the seasons, with all of the conse- quences that may ensue for life on earth? On a purely pedagogical level, there is growing concern about the newly-labeled phenomenon of “Nature-Deficit Disorder.” Describing recent research that points to the benefits of immersion in natural settings for children with ADHD, Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, writes: If a greener environment can play a role in cur- ing ADHD, few if any studies have explicitly examined whether the converse is also true: that ADHD may be a set of symptoms initiated or aggravated by lack of exposure to nature. By this line of thinking, many children may benefit from medications, but the real disorder lies in the society that has disengaged children from nature and imposed on them an artificial environment for which they have not evolved. Viewed from this angle, children and adults

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Spirituality in Higher Education A UCLA Study Arthur Zajonc

he week before Thanksgiving I found myself will help them develop emotionally and spiri- at the University of California in Los Angeles tually. T(UCLA) among approximately sixty academics • Many are engaged in a spiritual quest, with invited to be part of a proactive effort to support nearly half reporting that they consider it spirituality in higher education through both cur- “essential” or “very important” to seek oppor- ricular and co-curricular means. Ten teams of four tunities to help them grow spiritually. had been invited from diverse colleges and univer- • Eight students in ten attended religious servic- sities, including Carnegie Mellon, UC Irvine, Bates, es during the past year and similar numbers and Wellesley. We were at UCLA’s prestigious discussed religion with both friends and fami- Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the ly. behest of Professors Alexander “Sandy” and Helen • More than two-thirds pray, and four in ten Astin, founders of HERI, who have been research- consider it very important that they follow ing the spiritual life of students and the professo- religious teachings in their everyday life. riate in recent years. Some years ago they came to the realization that • Almost eight students in ten believe in God, with more than half perceiving God as “love” …the relative amount of attention that col- or as the “creator,” and about half experienc- leges and universities devote to the “exterior” ing God as a “protector.” and “interior” aspects of students’ develop- • As they begin college, freshmen have high ment has gotten out of balance... we have increasingly come to neglect the student’s expectations for the role their institutions will inner development—the sphere of values and play in their emotional and spiritual develop- beliefs, emotional maturity, spirituality, and ment. They place great value on their college self-understanding. enhancing their self-understanding, helping them develop personal values, and encourag- The Astins and their research team, therefore, ing their expression of spirituality. set out first to “examine the spiritual development of undergraduate students during their college Some of the leading indicators from the sur- years,” and then to do an analogous study of spir- vey are: ituality in the professoriate. In 2004 HERI’s Spirituality in Higher Believe in the sacredness of life 83%* Education research project surveyed 112,000 first- Have an interest in spirituality 80%* year students at 236 colleges and universities Search for meaning/purpose in life 76%* with a follow-up survey scheduled for 2007; in Have discussions about the meaning 2005 a similar survey of professors was per- of life with friends 74%* formed. I offer a sampling of their findings con- My spirituality is a source of joy 64%** 1 cerning incoming freshmen: Seek out opportunities to help me grow spiritually 47%*** • College students show a high degree of spiritual interest and involvement. Three-fourths *Describes students to some or a great extent say that they are “searching for meaning/pur- **Agree strongly or somewhat pose in life” or that they have discussions ***Consider it essential or very important about the meaning of life with friends. Similar numbers have high expectations that college The statistics for professors are similarly revealing:

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Consider myself a spiritual person 81%* they will develop a meaningful philosophy that Goal: Developing a meaningful touches on the core dimensions of their humanity. philosophy of life 70%** Too often they leave without this aspect of their Seek out opportunities to lives being addressed. Those gathered at UCLA grow spiritually 69%* recognized value in developing curricular offerings Engage in self-reflection 68%*** and in developing non-academic supports for stu- Goal: Integrating spirituality dents as they explore and deepen their spiritual in my life 47%** lives. The issue of language, and even the use of *To some or a great extent the word “spirituality,” was thoroughly discussed, **Essential or very important especially by representatives from large public uni- ***To a great extent versities. While we all agreed that colleges and universities should do much more to deepen stu- When faculty members were asked whether dent engagement around meaning, purpose, and colleges should facilitate students’ spiritual devel- values, some did not agree that we should frame opment, only 30% agreed. This was in accord it as a spiritual or religious issue. We will be work- with the results of a smaller study of college jun- ing on these matters in the years to come, both iors who said that faculty rarely or never offered through research and through direct innovation at them the opportunity for spiritual or religious some of America’s leading colleges and universi- discussions or conversation around meaning, ties. purpose, and values. The recent UCLA meeting I attended had the explicit intention to redress this lack of opportunity afforded to students and to address the core Endnotes dimension of their lives. Students come to cam- 1. Full results available at www.spirituality.ucla.edu. puses in their first year of college life with the hope that, in addition to traditional academics,

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Quicksand and Quagmires of the Soul The Subconscious Stimulation of Youth through Media David S. Mitchell

wenty-five years ago I read a report from exposure, violence in real life, and the creation of Liverpool, England, in which a researcher estab- an internalized climate of fear. Tlished a high correlation between adolescent A published report claims that today’s aver- crime in Liverpool and its suburbs and American age American child watches 28 hours of television television programs. The report established a ratio per week. That same child typically sits down to between a crime committed and the portrayal of at least an hour a day playing video or computer the crime in a television drama. Reports like this games. Several more hours each week are spent one on “copy-cat crime” are popular among soci- watching movies and videos and listening to ologists and researchers. They show, however, a music, tallying far more hours than a child spends statistical correlation, not a causal relationship. in school or with his or her family. By the age of Did young people, for example, watch violent tele- 18 that same child will have watched more than vision programs and then commit acts of violence, 200,000 acts of violence on television, including or were young people prone to committing acts of 16,000 murders.1 violence drawn to watching these shows on television? Keeping this in mind, and intrigued by the possible implications of this research, I kept a If Music Be the Food of Sex watchful eye out for research establishing a rela- Music lyrics also influence the subconscious minds tionship between visual and audio impressions of youth. The average youth listens to music 1.5 and how they make an imprint on the souls of to 2.5 hours per day.2 A study, based on tele- young people. phone interviews with 1,461 participants aged 12 The following represents some current to 17, in Pediatrics, released in August 2006,3 and research, much of which may seem intuitively entitled “Exposure to Degrading versus obvious, that provides teachers and parents with Nondegrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behavior research-based reasons to steer their offspring Among Youth,” was conducted by a team4 from away from television violence, particularly as it is the RAND Corporation.5 Among heavy listeners of found in professional wrestling, and music with music with explicit references to sex acts and sexual lyrics. lyrics6 that depict women as sexual objects, 61 percent of teenagers began having sex within two years, versus 29 percent of those who said they Monkey See, Monkey Do never or rarely listened to such music. Federal sta- Consensus reports have now been released by the tistics show that about 750,000 teens around the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American country become pregnant each year, and an esti- Psychiatric Association, the Surgeon General, the mated 4 million contract sexually transmitted dis- National Institute of Mental Health, and more eases.7 than 1,000 reports and studies conducted by lead- “These portrayals objectify and degrade ing figures within medical and public health women in ways that are clear, but they do the organizations. These studies point overwhelming- same to men by depicting them as sex-driven ly to a causal connection between media violence studs,”8 said Steven Martino, a RAND psycholo- and aggressive behavior in some children. gist who led the study. Explicit lyrics are more A connection has also been established likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those between viewing acts of violence and the subse- in which sexual references are more veiled and quent desensitization that occurs following that relationships appear more committed. In addition, exposure to sexually degrading music may also

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Work of the Research Fellows ·51 have worrisome implications for what boys and weapons, fight on dates, and exhibit other violent girls come to expect from their future relation- behavior. Robert DuRant, the leader of the study, ships. said girls who watched wrestling six or more Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music times over the two-week period had a 170 percent gives young people a specific message about sex. higher chance of starting a date fight than those Boys learn they should be relentless in pursuit of who didn’t watch wrestling. For boys, there was a women and girls learn to view themselves as sex 77 percent higher rate of initiating a fight among objects. “We think that really lowers kids' inhibi- those who watched wrestling.16 tions and makes them less thoughtful about sexu- Considered more entertainment than sport, al decisions,” Martino said.9 Martino explained professional wrestling pits colorful wrestlers por- that the researchers tried to account for other fac- traying demons and heroes against each other in tors that could affect teens' sexual behavior, choreographed violence. It is dominated by World including parental permissiveness, and yet they Wrestling Entertainment Inc., which airs shows still found that explicit lyrics had a strong influ- such as RAW, Killer in the Cage, Smackdown, and ence.10 David Walsh, a psychologist who heads SummerSlam. The WWE reported about $47 mil- the National Institute on Media and the Family, lion in net income during its last fiscal year. said the results make sense, and echo research on World Wrestling Entertainment spokesman the influence of videos and other visual media. Gary Davis rejected the findings of the Wake The brain's impulse-control center undergoes Forest study. “In contrast to the findings of this ‘major construction’ during the teen years at the flawed study, many of our fans attest that watch- same time that an interest in sex starts to blos- ing World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) pro- som, he said.11 gramming has been a positive experience for them Benjamin Chavis, chief executive officer of the and their children,” he said. Vince McMahon, pro Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, a coalition of wrestling’s promoter icon, blasted the study as hip-hop musicians and recording industry execu- “junk science”17 and said the WWE is threatening tives, said explicit music lyrics are a cultural the University with a lawsuit for doing the expression that reflects social and economic reali- research.18 ties.12 Another recent survey from the U.S Department of Health suggested that most sexu- Be Awake ally experienced teens wish they had waited It should be clear that adults need to exercise longer to have intercourse; other data indicate renewed wakefulness and a high level of con- that unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmit- sciousness with regard to the well-being of their ted diseases are more common among those who children because moral quicksand and ethical begin sexual activity earlier.13 quagmires exist around every corner. One can The RAND study recommends that parents never be sure today that young people will have set limits on what music their children can pur- solid ground upon which to walk. chase and listen to and be careful not to listen to sexually degrading music themselves when their children are around. Endnotes 1. http://www.babyzone.com/features/content/ display.asp?TopicID=75&ContentID=968. Professional Wrestling 2. A separate study by the Wake Forest University http://www.rand.org/news/press.06/08.07.html. School of Medicine14 also published in Pediatrics15 3. You can read the full study at: found that teenagers who watched professional http://pedatricsaappublications.org/cgi/content/ wrestling on television were likelier to behave vio- full/118/2/e430. lently than other youth and, surprisingly, girls 4. The researchers included Steven C. Martino, seem to be more influenced than boys. The study Ph.D., Rebecca L. Collins, Ph.D., Marc N. Elliott, Ph.D., found that teens of both sexes who watched Amy Strachman, M.A., David E. Kanouse, Ph.D., and wrestling more often were more likely to carry Sandra H. Berry, M.A.

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5. RAND Health, a division of the RAND ute any differences in teens' sexual behavior to their Corporation, is the nation's largest independent health exposure to sexual content in music. policy research program, with a broad research portfo- Teens who said they listened to lots of music with lio that focuses on health care quality, costs and deliv- degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely ery, among other topics. to start having intercourse or other sexual activities 6. Examples of degrading sexual lyrics include: within the next two years, compared with teens who "Half the ho's hate me, half them love me/The ones listened to little or no sexually degrading music. that hate me/Only hate me ‘cause they ain't fu****** Among heavy listeners, fifty-one percent started hav- me/And they say I'm lucky/Do you think I've got ing sex within two years, versus twenty-nine percent of time/To fu** all these ho's?" – from Ja Rule, "Livin’ It those who said they listened to little or no sexually Up." degrading music.” 7. http://www.rand.org/news/press.06/ 11. http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parent- 08.07.html. ing/08/07/sexlyrics.teens.ap/. 8. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/ 12. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/arti- content/full/118/2/e430. cles/2006/08/07/lyrics_linked_to_teen_sex_in_study/. 9. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/ 13. http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id= content/full/118/2/e430. 6321&department=CWA&categoryid=pornography 10. “This study tests the prospective relationship 14. A team led by Robert H. DuRant, a professor between exposure to degrading and nondegrading sex- of pediatrics, social science, and health policy at Wake ual music content and subsequent changes in adoles- Forest's Baptist Medical Center, surveyed about 2,000 cent sexual behavior. We collected longitudinal data on students in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County public adolescents' media use and sexual behavior, conduct- high schools in the fall of 1999 and again in April ing three surveys. Music listening was assessed in the 2000. Just over half the group was male. second of these three surveys and used to predict initi- 15. You can read the full study at: http://pedi- ation of sexual activities in the following 2 years atrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/118/2/e265. among participants, taking into account sexual experi- 16. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/ ences before the second survey. This design allowed for reprint/118/2/e265. the possibility that sexual experience influences teens' selection of sexual music content and accounted for 17. http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2006/ that possibility in testing for the effects of music on 2006_08_07_v2.jsp. sexual behavior. The design also allowed us to take into 18. The WWE also issued a brief press statement account baseline characteristics that might contribute condemning the findings: "We find the study flawed both to sexual behavior and exposure to sexual content and ridiculous and we are contemplating legal action." in music, including several individual and family characteristics. By controlling for these possible confound- ing variables, we were able to more confidently attrib-

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute

Waldorf Graduate Research, Phase II Update Arthur M. Pittis, Survey Administrator

Phase 2 Survey Process rently attending (12 questions) or graduated from college/university (14 questions) 3) Employment/occupation for Waldorf school uring the spring of 2005, the Research alumni/ae who did not attend college or uni- Institute for Waldorf Education contracted with versity (11 questions) Dme to administer the Survey of Waldorf Graduates, 4) Workforce experience (19 multiple choice, Phase II. The first phase of this research project, rated questions) published a year ago in the Research Bulletin, list- 5) Cultural and social activities (16 questions; ed both the colleges and universities to which 15 sub-questions rating importance and fre- Waldorf high school graduates were accepted quency of activities) and the schools that the graduates actually entered. 6) Relationships (7 questions) Phase II of this project delves more deeply 7) General experience of life (5 questions) into the lives of Waldorf school alumni/ae with 8) Lasting role of Waldorf education in life (10 the intention of determining: questions, including 37 multiple choice sub- questions ranking the influence and impor- • Colleges and universities attended and com- tance of Waldorf education on aspects of the pleted participants’ lives) • Fields of study pursued in college or universi- 9) Health and wellness (6 questions) ty • Degrees and level of degrees earned I subcontracted with the on-line provider • Occupations pursued after college or univer- SurveyMonkey.com. In addition to posting the sity, or after high school survey, SurveyMonkey.com also provided on-line • Personal and social interests and values mailing list management software and a variety of filtering tools and downloading options, includ- • Quality of personal relationships ing comma separated value (spread sheet), tabu- • Quality of personal health lar report, and HTML formats. • Perceptions by professors and employers of In November 2005, I sought assistance from Waldorf school graduates Courtney Lipscomb to manage mailing lists, mail- ings, phone calls and, where needed, to trouble- shoot the on-line software, and transfer the print Phase II Survey Design and survey to electronic format, which was then test- Administration ed and retested for ease of use and workability. The survey tool, developed by David Mitchell and Douglas Gerwin, consists of both statistical and open-ended questions, grouped into the following Collection of Contact Information from categories: Waldorf High Schools Of the 37 Waldorf high schools in North 1) Participant information (6 questions) America, 26 had graduating classes in 2004. In 2) Education for Waldorf school alumni cur- addition, one graduate from a Waldorf high

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 54 · Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute school that closed some years ago opted to take take part; of this number 523 answered a suffi- the survey, bringing to 27 the total number of cient number of survey questions to be included in Waldorf high schools represented in the survey. the results. Some of the remaining 33 respondents All of the 26 schools included in Phase I of the had attended only one or more years of a Waldorf survey were requested in the fall of 2005 to sup- elementary school and were therefore deleted ply full contact information—mail, telephone, and from the pool; a handful of graduates asked to be email—on six alumni/ae from each of the follow- removed from our contact list. The remaining 341 ing high school classes: 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, graduates either ignored the offer or responded and 2002. In other words, each school was asked after the survey had closed. to provide current contact information for thirty- Of the 523 participants, 87% graduated from six graduates. While a small handful of schools mature schools and 13% from medium and responded immediately with the requested infor- young schools. Though the survey did not specifi- mation, contact with the appropriate person in cally ask the participants to identify themselves the majority of the schools was difficult to estab- by gender, from their first names it was possible lish. It was here that a problem, already experi- to determine that about 57% were female and enced during Phase I of the project, reappeared— 43% were male. These percentages are roughly namely, inadequate record keeping. Only a half- comparable to the ratio of boys to girls in the dozen schools had up-to-date contact information Waldorf high schools across North America. on their graduates; the rest had spotty informa- Initially I divided the respondents into three tion. It was heartening, however, that almost all groups: the schools made the best effort possible to provide the requested information, thereby allowing • Those who had completed college or universi- the survey to commence. ty (331 participants) By late December 2005 Lipscomb and I had • Those currently attending college or universi- gathered a contact list of approximately 500 e- ty at the time of the survey (160) mail addresses; in early January we sent the first • Those who did not attend or complete college invitations to all of the names on this list, result- or university (65) ing in a bounce-back rate of approximately 10%. We followed up on bounce-backs with postcards As we collated the responses there were many and, eventually, phone calls, when phone num- more responses from the older schools than from bers were available. A week after sending the ini- the younger schools. Consequently, we looked at tial invitation we supplied the graduates with an the respondents first as a whole group and, sec- email link to the on-line survey, followed by three ond, as two groups—namely graduates of reminders and re-invitations to those on the list Waldorf high schools before 1994 (220 partici- who had not responded. pants, mostly from mature schools) and gradu- Because this first invitation resulted in rough- ates from 1994–2005 (303 participants from all ly a 50% response rate—or about 250 respon- schools). In addition, to determine whether the dents—the Research Institute decided to extend data was skewed by the results from two older the survey to all Waldorf alumni/ae who had schools that had provided 50% of the responses, graduated between 1994 and 2004, and to as key elements of the data were analyzed separate- many pre-1994 alumni/ae as older schools could ly. For instance, colleges attended, degrees supply. This decision ultimately yielded contact earned, and occupations pursued by participants information on 900 alumni/ae. The on-line survey from these two schools were compared with the remained available to graduates for just over four profiles of alumni/ae from all of the remaining months, until April 30, 2006. schools. No significant differences emerged from this exercise and, therefore, those two schools were included in the full data collection. Participants Of the 900 Waldorf school alumni/ae invited to participate in the on-line survey, 556 agreed to

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Most Respondents Attended Mature High Schools

Age of School First Graduating Number of Number of Percent of Total Class Schools Participants Participation

Mature Schools 1943–1994 12 456 87.2% Medium Schools 1995–1999 5 21 4.0% Young Schools 2000–2004 9 46 8.8%

Total 26 523 100%

Waldorf High Schools Where Respondents Attended School’s Age: Mat (mature); M (medium); Y (young)

Austin Waldorf School (Y) 11 Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor (Y) 1 Chicago Waldorf School (M) 2 Sacramento Waldorf School (Mat) 18 Denver Waldorf School (M) 3 San Francisco Waldorf School (Y) 9 East Bay Waldorf School (Y) 2 Shining Mountain Waldorf School (M) 8 Eugene Waldorf School (Y) 1 Summerfield Waldorf School (Mat) 14 Green Meadow Waldorf School (Mat) 23 Tara Performing Arts High School (Y) 12 Hawthorne Valley School (Mat) 6 Toronto Waldorf School (Mat) 17 High Mowing School (Mat) 153 Vancouver Waldorf School (Mat) 25 Highland Hall Waldorf School (Mat) 11 Waldorf High School of Mass. Bay (Y) 6 Honolulu Waldorf School (M) 4 Waldorf School of Garden City (Mat) 35 Island Oak Waldorf School (Y) 2 Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs (Y) 2 Kimberton Waldorf School (Mat) 103 Washington Waldorf School (Mat) 23 Rudolf Steiner School NYC (Mat) 28 Youth Initiative High School (M) 4

Sorting Collected Data included in the Research Institute’s analysis of the The data collected from the statistical questions survey. were much easier to sort and organize than were the anecdotal and narrative answers to open- Analysis of Data ended questions. A similar situation arose when Following an initial review of the data, the participants entered more than one answer to a Research Institute for Waldorf Education has single question. All data were passed to the begun a more in-depth study, identifying trends, Research Institute for evaluation and analysis. describing relationships, evaluating anecdotal responses, and developing a systematic statistical analysis of quantifiable sections that will be pub- Professor/Employer Supplementary lished in January 2007. Survey Beyond the survey of Waldorf alumni/ae, separate surveys were sent to 105 professors and 20 employers whom respondents had identified. Replies from over 40 professors and several work supervisors regarding school alumni/ae with whom they had established relationships will be

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 56 · Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute

Teaching Sensible Science Bob Amis with Contributions from Michael D’Aleo

s Waldorf school class teachers, we strive brought with him a wealth of experience to share to fulfill the potentialities of Rudolf Steiner’s vision with the group. Ain our own classrooms. This is a daunting task, The course is led by Michael D’Aleo, a but perhaps nowhere is it more intimidating than mechanical engineer with expertise in thermal in the science curriculum of the middle grades. As physics, a scientific researcher, and an experi- teachers, how do we transcend rote practice of a enced Waldorf school teacher and teacher educa- string of demonstrations and experiments in the tor at the Center for Anthroposophy and at physical sciences, and embody a phenomenologi- Sunbridge College. His insights into the phenome- cal approach to science? How do we empower our nological approach to science and science educa- students to become active participants in develop- tion form the backbone of the course. He is assist- ing their own relationship with the world, rather ed by Barbara Richardson, Lylli Anthon, and Bob than passively accepting the concepts that are Amis. Barbara is a gifted and experienced euryth- handed down to them by others? mist, eurythmy instructor, and Waldorf school In an effort to help teachers meet this chal- class teacher. Lylli is a highly experienced class lenge, Douglas Gerwin, director of the Center for teacher, taking a class from first through eighth Anthroposophy, and Michael D’Aleo, high school grade and then repeating the middle school years science teacher at the Waldorf School of Saratoga many times. Bob has been a middle school Springs, co-founder of SENSRI (Saratoga teacher for the past five years after a career in Experiential Natural Science Research Institute), business. and co-author of Sensible Physics Teaching, created Our days begin with eurythmy, followed by a training program focused on physics and chem- an epistemological presentation and discussion istry curricula for grades six, seven, and eight. led by Michael. A second eurythmy session brings Now in its second cycle, the course is composed of the morning to a close. After lunch, we conduct three one-week sessions. The first session took experiments and demonstrations that are appro- place this past June and focused on sixth grade priate to the physics curriculum of the grade in physics. Session two convened for five days in question, followed by a lively discussion about the early October and centered around seventh grade principles and relationships that unite the phe- physics and chemistry curricula. The third session nomena in the experiments, and how best to will take place over a full week in February 2007 bring these experiences to students. Chemistry is and will cover eighth grade physics and chem- covered in evening sessions. istry. The most recent meeting of the “Teaching Participants in the course represent schools Sensible Science” course, in October 2006, focused from all over North America, from New England on seventh grade physics and chemistry, begin- down the eastern seaboard to Baltimore, and ning with an evening session in which D’Aleo led across the continent to Arizona, Washington, us to a nearby pond to observe. This served as an California, British Columbia, and Ontario. They excellent introduction to the seventh grade optics teach classes ranging from grade three to grade curriculum, but also provided a springboard for eight. Most are in their first cycle and are prepar- him to help us understand the importance of the ing to enter the upper elementary school years. intention of the observer in a sensory experience. Others are in their second or third cycle and are In our discussion the next morning, we were all seeking to deepen their knowledge of phenome- impressed by the variety of observations that peo- nology and share it with their colleagues back ple had made around the pond the night before. home. One participant is a veteran woodworking These included reflected images of objects across and science teacher from New Hampshire who the pond, the quality of the light on the pond’s

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute ·57 surface, the presence and absence of color, the cussion by taking us through Rudolf Steiner’s patterns of shadows, the effect of ripples, and description of levels of motivation for action, objects floating on the surface of the pond. showing us how we can guide students toward Taking the idea that observation is informed higher levels of motivation in the way we teach by conceptual understanding a step further, science. He also led us through a conversation D’Aleo showed the group a series of images, like about the role of our twelve senses in relationship the Necker cube, that can be seen in multiple with the outside world. ways, and other images that may first appear to In our afternoon sessions, we tackled experi- be random collections of light and dark shapes ments in the fields of optics, mechanics, and elec- but that—with insight—are recognized as images tricity. Anthon, Amis, or D’Aleo led some of the of familiar objects. This exercise highlighted the experiments, while participants led others. Those way in which we constantly organize sensory who chose to lead a demonstration got valuable experiences in order to “make sense” of the world. experience in the art of guiding a discussion and This capacity is necessary in order to function in helping students to uncover the principles that the world, but we need to be keenly aware of it if unite the phenomena. Although this process is dif- we are to develop our observational skills. If we ficult, it is rewarding when a student has his or are to perceive the world clearly, we must con- her own “Aha!” moment, one that arrives follow- stantly distinguish between what in our con- ing willful striving. sciousness is sensory experience—percept—and Although our schedule was full, we took the what is a mental organizing, or naming, of that time to explore each experiment as thoroughly as experience—concept. This ability enables us to seemed fruitful. Discussion of the experiments distinguish between what we actually experience was also given its full due, as it has to be in the in the moment and what we have learned in the classroom if students are to come to their own past. It keeps us awake to the moment, and it also insights. Participants were much more confident opens us up to the possibility of a new way of see- in their use of the language of phenomenology ing or interpreting what we experience. This activ- during this second week than they had been at ity is fundamental to innovation and scientific dis- our first meeting. They were able to describe their covery. observations more precisely, distinguishing more Distinguishing between percept and concept comfortably between percepts and concepts. This is also one of the key capacities we can nurture in allowed us to move more quickly through the dis- our students during science courses. In setting the cussion of each experiment. Among the more mood for these courses, D’Aleo encouraged us to impressive demonstrations we conducted and invite students into fresh explorations of phenom- observed were the camera obscura, the law of ena, as if they are seeing them for the first time. rotational balance, the human mouth as a source The teacher must also intend this if the students of wet-cell electrical activity, and the lime kiln. are to take each experience seriously. We can The lime kiln is part of a Waldorf chemistry point out to students that most scientific discover- curriculum, which was covered in two evening ies occur not because someone witnesses a radi- sessions. During the first night, Anthon presented cally new and different physical phenomenon for an overview of a seventh grade chemistry curricu- the first time on the planet, but because someone lum, and then took the group through a study of notices something in a familiar phenomenon and acids and bases. The second evening session cen- then begins to think about it in a new way. This tered on a discussion of the lime cycle. A lime kiln invitation is especially important for those stu- was constructed during a lunch break and then dents whose heads are full of half-understood sci- fired up the next morning. The following day, entific concepts, who may recognize one of the when we dug through the smoldering ashes, the phenomena in an experiment, believe that they chalk and limestone were barely recognizable. know what is going to happen and why, and then When D’Aleo poured some water on them, howev- stop observing carefully, or, worse, blurt out some er, they hissed and fizzed and smoked and disconcerting prediction. steamed and crackled in a satisfying manner, elic- Later in the week, D’Aleo deepened the dis- iting “ohs” and “ahs” from onlookers. We com-

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 58 · Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute pleted the cycle by using our newly made mortar problems. Then, as so often happened, Richardson to adhere two bricks together. provided us with the perfect passage, this one Our curricular activities were leavened by from Steiner’s The Michael Mystery, and with it an Richardson’s insightful eurythmy sessions. Always abiding image for our time together: striving to complement classroom topics, she led One imagination of the Archangel Michael is us through a number of activities that helped us the following: He reigns through the course of to find our places in the cosmos and in the group, time clad in cosmic light as his essential being, work cooperatively with others, explore the power shaping cosmic warmth as the revelation of his of effective speech, and provide a much needed nature. As a being he conducts himself like a out-breathing in the rhythm of the day. world, asserts himself only as he asserts the In our final session together, D’Aleo provided world, guiding forces earthward from every cor- a societal context for our work. He observed that ner of the universe. modern science has lost its aesthetic sense. There For those interested, a third cycle of the is too much emphasis on the final product, and Teaching Sensible Science course is being planned not enough on the activity of the process. When to begin in the autumn of 2007 on the West technology embraces the activity in which it is Coast. For more information, please contact engaged, a new sense of beauty will arise, along Michael D’Aleo at [email protected], or with a deeper, more meaningful relationship with Douglas Gerwin at [email protected]. the process and the product. This will go a long way toward solving our current environmental

Copper distillate Copper salt

Electricity experienced

The experience of a tingle from a low electrical charge Building a limestone kiln Exploring limestone extrusions

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Working with Slower-Paced Math Students Lori MacKinder

ast year (Research Bulletin XI, 1, Autumn dyslexics have special talents of perception, imagi- 2005) I wrote about three distinct qualities of nation, and intuition. They cite talented and bril- Lslower paced or hands-on math students. To liant figures from Leonardo da Vinci through review briefly, these math students are typically Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill to Walt feeling-based persons. This means that their feel- Disney to support their claim. In the classroom, ing lives dominate their will and thinking. Second, these talents mean that these students may intuit they are highly intuitive. They often somatically the teacher’s mood and the moods of others in sense their surroundings and they are impacted the room. It is especially important, therefore, for and swayed by impressions they receive. Third, a teacher to work at becoming open and welcom- they are commonly picture-image learners who ing. When open students read lack of health or frequently need to form mental pictures or stories disease in others, they often shut down, deeming before they can understand a concept. As a unsafe the environment or persons in it. Self-care teacher, it is helpful to be aware of the special and self-nurture are keys to a healthful inner qualities of these students who commonly are world. For teachers, time for self-care can be chal- identified as dyslexic, are diagnosed with ADD or lenging to find and yet so important to a produc- ADHD, are contending with emotional issues, or tive learning environment for our students. In this have experienced a trauma in their earlier years. vein, a teacher’s wellness is an essential part of Given this picture, how are we to teach these stu- classroom preparation. (See Mitchell, D., “Soul dents? What is required for feeling-based, intu- Hygiene and Longevity for Teachers,” Research itive, picture-image math students to succeed? Bulletin XI, 1, Autumn 2005.) Unfortunately, there is not one answer to these questions. Teachers may choose among various methods. Some common methods include Classroom self-paced student work groups in which the How are such elements as the room’s cleanliness, grade is dependent upon assignments completed, light, circulation, warmth, aesthetics, spacious- one-on-one teaching from student to adult, or reg- ness, smell, and sound? How does the environ- ular classroom instruction with groups of 6 to 20 ment affect the twelve senses: touch, life, self- students. movement, balance, smell, taste, sight, tempera- This report will examine building a strong ture, hearing, speech, concept, and ego? How are lower level math class, using regular classroom these senses affected by or nurtured in the class- instruction, through teacher preparation. To room? I have experienced, for example, my stu- begin, it is fundamentally important that the dents’ complete unwillingness to begin a day’s slower-paced math teacher focus on everything learning on days when our classroom has been through the lens of assessment and have a will- recently sanitized. The odor in the room repels ingness to change. The teacher should assess the sensitive students. On some summer days, leaving following before each class begins: self, classroom, the lights off may increase participation and materials, warm-ups, and content. awareness. Colored chalk has a way of keeping students’ attention at the board when used in an organized manner. Teachers can also open up Self their own senses and be in the classroom before How am I this year, this month, this week, today, class in order to get a feel for what students may and in this moment? Am I healthy and loving? Do experience. I enjoy what I do? Ronald Davis and Eldon Braun conclude in their book, The Gift of Dyslexia, that

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 60 · Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute

Materials keeping a class on track with the required materi- How will I meet the needs of my students with al for a year. We worry about covering enough such materials as books, supplies, writing uten- material to prepare students for their next educa- sils, paper, compasses, straight edges, and colors? tional step. We can feel burdened by the responsi- It is important for slower-paced math students, bility of delivering a large amount of content in a who tend to be disorganized and forgetful, to short amount of classroom time. If a student is have a safe backup supply of what is needed to pushed through learning too quickly the material learn during a day of math. Many of these stu- becomes deadened. Balancing quantity with qual- dents struggle with remembering to bring their ity or content with assimilation is difficult. backpack and supplies to school each day. It can An important aspect of content is teaching in greatly add to the ease of the room if the students large picture images and with the use of manipu- know that they can still do the work assigned latives and colors wherever possible. A strong using borrowed books, paper, and pencils for a bridge needs to be built for the slower-paced math day. student between the semi-abstract and the abstract. Teach, for example, using stories to explain math concepts. David Berg of Making Warming Up Math Real, Berkeley, teaches an Algebra 1 course What is in my warm-up bag? Do I have warm-ups for teachers that is wonderfully heavy in stories. that could induce laughter, connection, breath, Work with manipulatives such as Algebra Tiles, centering, relaxation, depth, or an increase in GeoMags, or origami. Color code chalkboard energy, if necessary? Am I ready to use them work. Have students create models of current based on how the students show up? Sometimes, work whenever possible. Relate math to sports or teachers will have worked diligently to prepare for money. Write clear, easy-to-follow steps on the class but students show up emotionally shut board for any problem that requires more than down or intellectually blocked. This can happen three steps to solve. for a number of reasons, many beyond teachers’ The method that I find most effective is the control. Students may, for example, be exhausted color-coding of chalkboard work. Not only is it from the other lessons of the day, upset with a pleasing to look at but it is also a way to organize friend, hungry, or sleepy. It then becomes the task the board for typically disorganized students. of the teacher to enliven the students and reopen Take, for example, the difficulties of the subtrac- their feeling life and mental capacities. Nothing tion step in polynomial long division. The most works better for this than movement coupled with common error for slower-paced math students laughter. Five to ten minutes of movement exercis- with this topic is to add or subtract incorrectly. If, es, rhythm activities, or a game can be enough. however, in the subtraction step, all the signs Theater and improvisational games are teenage change color as well as value, it is easy for stu- favorites. Sensory integration activities, Extra dents to work correctly and spot their own errors. Lesson exercises, or simply a quick jog around the The same is true for subtracting algebraic frac- track work well here, also. These warm-ups have tions. When the subtraction signs are color coded potential to build community, trust, and open- first, it is easier for students to identify the tricki- ness; they can offer a bit of healing, too. Theater er problems that need distribution. Solving for a Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook,by variable becomes quicker and easier when the Viola Spolin, is full of wonderful and quick games unknown is a special color throughout the equa- that work well as classroom warm-ups. tion. I often give extra credit to students who color-code their quiz sheet before they begin to work on the problems. I have noticed a direct cor- Content relation between this color work and a decrease in Am I prepared for today’s lesson with multiple simple errors on these quizzes. teaching methods? Am I prepared to throw the lesson out the window if necessary? Am I prepared to go faster or slower today based on the students’ availability? Teachers work hard at

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Remediation and Further Research are incorrect pencil grip and ear infections. I have Teacher preparation is only part of what is neces- noticed this past year that approximately one sary for students’ success. Other elements that third of my slower-paced math students have an contribute to success are actual class time and the incorrect pencil grip and many of them suffer or responsibility of the students themselves. In many suffered from frequent ear infections. Other teach- cases, students arrive in class needing remedia- ers may discover other signs that add to a com- tion before higher-level work can begin. Some plete picture of a math student in need of extra signs of needed remediation, not intuitively obvi- help. ous, that could be examined in future research,

Report on the Online Waldorf Library Marianne Alsop

ach day brings a variety of questions from all riculum (parents and teachers) groups; the impor- over the world. Over the past five months tance of imitation in early childhood; and remedi- Einquiries have come from individuals in many al education. I continue to receive requests to countries including Japan, India, Canada, Ireland, translate our online articles. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the United Newly published and reissued books continue Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil as well as to be added weekly; in the past months I have teachers and parents in Waldorf schools across added nearly 30 new titles and over 40 new arti- North America. The summer brought many more cles not including those in past issues of the inquiries from home schooling parents in the U.S. Research Bulletin and Gateways. New articles from and Canada, while those inquiries from the south- the Rundbrief can be found through the search ern hemisphere decreased. database by subject and publisher. Articles from Topics of interest include the Oberufer Kindling, the Journal for Steiner Early Childhood Christmas Plays, which have been requested four Education in the U.K., are also being posted twice times in the past five months. Interestingly these a year. Requests have been received for more requests all came from abroad. Research ques- online issues of the Waldorf Science Newsletter and tions included math instruction for first graders; the text of lectures from the most recent AWSNA the link between drawing, writing, and reading; teachers conference. foreign language instruction in first grade; and Over the past months the most frequently vis- making the case for combined classes. ited areas on the website include the Search data- Informational questions also included physics base and the back issues of the Research Bulletin. instruction in 6th grade; school administration; Great interest continues in the Waldorf Journal working with mandates; developing early child- Projects. hood programs; developing movement education programs; homework; forming multicultural cur-

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Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 Contents from Past Research Bulletins

Volume I, Number 1 Volume III, Number 1 Waldorf Education in an Inner City Public School System Schooling and the Postmodern Child – Research Report – David Elkind Encounters in Waldorf Education—A Tribute to Ernst Boyer Developing a Culture of Leadership, Learning, and Service in – Eugene Schwartz Waldorf Schools Waldorf Education Research Institute in North America – Christopher Schaefer – Susan Howard and Douglas Sloan The Third Space – Henry Barnes Volume I, Number 2 What Conditions Are There for Taking Responsibility in an Independent Culture? Racism and Waldorf Education – Heinz Zimmermann – Ray McDermott and Ida Oberman Reflections on the Education of Consciousness – Douglas Sloan Volume III, Number 2 Standardized Testing in a Non-Standardized World Educating the Whole Person for the Whole Life – Eugene Schwartz – Gerald Karnow, M.D. Africa Understanding the Etheric Organization in the Human Being: – Betty Staley New Insights through Anthroposophical Research – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. Research in the Life Sciences – Craig Holdrege Endangered Childhood – Joan Almon

Volume II, Number 1 Volume IV, Number 1 Technology issue including: ADHD–the Challenge of our Time Violence and the Electronic Media: Their Impact on – Eugene Schwartz Children – Joan Almon Helping Children: Where Research and Social Action Meet – Joan Almon Building on Shifting Sands: The Impact of Computer Use on Neural and Cognitive Development Computers, Brains, and Children – Donna M. Chirico – Stephen Talbott Meetings with a Snake Movement and Sensory Disorders in Today’s Children – Stephen Talbott – Peter Stuck, M.D. Can Waldorf Education Be Practiced in Public Schools? – Patti Smith Volume II, Number 2 A New Educational Paradigm – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. Volume IV, Number 2 Changes in Brain Formation Human Biography and Its Genetic Instrument – Michael Kneissle – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. Organology and Physiology of Learning Challenges and Opportunities in Evolution Education – Wolfgang Schad – James Henderson New Health Problems of Children and Youth The High Stakes of Standardized Testing – University of Bielefeld (Germany) – Edward Miller Rudolf Steiner’s Efforts to Encourage Cultural Diversity Ecology–Coming into Being versus Eco-Data – Detlef Hardorp – Will Brinton The Middle Passage—Out of Diversity We Become Whole Genes and Life: The Need for Quantitative Understanding – Cindy Weinberg – Craig Holdrege

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Volume V, Number 1 Did Rudolf Steiner Want a Seven-Grade Elementary School Configuration? The Real Meaning of Hands-On Education – Mark Riccio – Frank Wilson, M.D. Phases and Transitions in Waldorf Education America’s Gold Rush: Can It Be Redeemed? – Harlan Gilbert – Dorit Winter Waldorf High School Research Project: Who Is the Teenager Atopy in Children of Families with an Anthroposophic Today? Lifestyle – Douglas Gerwin – Johan S. Alm, M.D., et al. Initial Report of the Waldorf ADHD Research Project – Kim Payne, Bonnie River-Bento, Anne Skillings Volume V, Number 2 International Survey of the Status of Waldorf Schools Balance in Teaching, Balance in Working, Balance in Living – Earl Ogletree – Roberto Trostli Case Study Research: The Waldorf Teacher Adult Education in the Light of Anthroposophy – Nina Ashur – Michael Howard Setting Priorities for Research: Attention-Related Disorders Volume VII, Number 2 (ARD) Study – Kim Payne and Bonnie River-Bento On Forgetting to Wear Boots – Stephen Talbott Learning Expectations and Assessment Project (LEAP) – Leap Project Group (Staley, Trostli, K. & B. Organizations as Living Organisms: Developing a Seven-fold Anderson, Easton) View – Magda Lissau Sexual Abuse in Children: Understanding, Prevention, and Treatment Educating the Will—Part II: Developing Feeling Will in – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. Contrast to Sense/Nerve Will – Michael Howard Recapitulation and the Waldorf Curriculum Volume VI, Number 1 – Alduino Mazzone Confronting the Culture of Disrespect – Langdon Winner Volume VIII, Number 1 Where Is the Waldorf School Movement Going? – Johannes Kirsch No Such Thing: Recovering the Quality of Rudolf Steiner’s Educational Work Computers in Education: Why, When, How – Stephen Keith Sagarin – Lowell Monk and Valdemar Setzer Beyond Innovation: Education and Ethos in an Era of Low SES Minority Fourth-Graders’ Achievement Ceaseless Change – Jennifer Schieffer and R.T. Busse – Langdon Winner How Poems Teach Us to Think Volume VI, Number 2 – Gertrude Reif Hughes Trained to Kill Educating the Will—Part III: Common Will and – Dave Grossman Comprehensive Will – Michael Howard Education of the Will as the Wellspring of Morality – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. Whom Are We Teaching? – Susan Kotansky Hand Movements Sculpt Intelligence – Arthur Auer The On-Line Waldorf Library Project Volume VIII, Number 2 – Dave Alsop The Vital Role of Play in Childhood – Joan Almon Volume VII, Number 1 In What Respect Are Star Children Different? – Georg Kühlewind Creating a Sense of Wonder in Chemistry – David Mitchell The Hague Circle Report – James Pewtherer and Monique Grund Science as Process or Dogma? The Case of the Peppered Moth Special Section: The Push for Early Childhood Literacy: – Craig Holdrege Taking a Careful Look Spirit Will and Ethical Individuality Editor’s Introduction – Michael Howard Moving in Slow Motion – Barry Sanders

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A Risk Factor in Child Psychopathology Volume X, Number 2 – Sharna Olfman The Current Debate about Temperament Critical Issues and Concerns – Walter Riethmüller – Nancy Carlsson-Paige Waldorf Education: Transformation Toward Wholeness The Loss of Nature – Vladislav Rozentuller and Stephen Talbott – William Crain The Art and Science of Classroom Management The Push for Early Childhood Literacy: A View from Europe – Trevor Mepham – Christopher Clouder Spiritual Research: Casting Knowledge into Love – David Mitchell and Douglas Gerwin Volume IX, Number 1 Research on Graduates in North America, Phase I Rudolf Steiner and the New Educational Paradigm – Faith Baldwin, Douglas Gerwin, and David Mitchell – Christof Wiechert Teaching as Learning in a Steiner/Waldorf Setting Volume XI, Number 1 – Christopher Clouder Puberty as the Gateway to Freedom Education towards Health Is Education towards Freedom – Richard Landl – Johannes Denger Soul Hygiene and Longevity for Teachers The Stranger in the Mirror: Reflections on Adolescence in the – David Mitchell Light of Movement Education – Jaimen McMillan The Emergence of the Idea of Evolution in the Time of Goethe – Frank Teichmann Pulling the Grass Doesn’t Make It Grow Any Faster – Gerald Huether The Seer and the Scientist: Jean Piaget and Rudolf Steiner on Children’s Development The New Generation of Children – Stephen Keith Sagarin – Renate Long-Breipohl The Four Phases of Research – adapted from Dennis Klocek Volume IX, Number 2 Reports from the Research Fellows Wellsprings of the Art of Education: Three Reversals in the Beyond Cognition: Children and Television Viewing Work of the Waldorf Teacher – Eugene Schwartz – Christof Wiechert PISA Study Discovering the True Nature of Educational Assessment – Jon McAlice – Paul Zachos State Funds for Waldorf Schools in England The Kindergarten Child – Douglas Gerwin – Peter Lang On Looping The Teaching of Science – David Mitchell – David Mitchell The Children’s Food Bill Evolution of Consciousness, Rites of Passage, and the – Christopher Clouder Waldorf Curriculum All Together Now! Oscillations of Heart Rate and – Alduino Mazzone Respiration Synchronized During Poetry Recital – Stephen Keith Sagarin Volume X, Number 1 Waldorf Senior Survey – Waldorf High School Research Project (Gerwin, Science and the Child et al.) – Stephen Talbott Can Meditation Take the Place of Exercise? – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. Volume XI, Number 2 Non-Verbal Education: A Necessity in the Developmental Reading in Waldorf Schools Begins in Kindergarten and Stages Avoids Clouding the Mind’s Eye – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. – Arthur Auer Organic Functionalism: An Important Principle of the Visual Universal Human Nature: The Challenge of the Transition Arts in Waldorf School Crafts and Architecture from Kindergarten to Elementary School – David Adams – Martyn Rawson The Lowering of School Age and the Changes in Childhood: Art: Awakener of Consciousness, Humanizer of Society An Interim Report – Van James The Seven Cosmic Artists: An Artistic View of Child Development – Magda Lissau

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Education and Healing Research Institute Proceedings – Rudolf Steiner Pathways of Healthy Child Development Nurturing Human Growth: A Research Strategy for Waldorf Schools An Unjustified Bandwagon Effect: Education, Technological – Aksel Hugo Optimism and the Implications of Brain Research – Jane Healy Work of the Research Fellows Nature Deficit Disorder Integrating Body with Being: Health Education and Child – David Mitchell Development – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. On Creativity – Stephen Keith Sagarin Screen, Text, and Word: How Literacy Matters – Barry Sanders Allergic Disease and Sensitization in Waldorf/Steiner School Children Learning to Trust One’s Senses and Gut-Level Impressions – Philip Incao, M.D. – William Crain Left-handedness: A Call for Research The Instrument Itself: Children’s Development and Television – Douglas Gerwin – Joseph Chilton Pearce Assuming Nothing: Judith Rich Harris on Nature vs. Education as Healing: Aiding the Healthy Incarnation of Nurture Children – Eugene Schwartz – Bruno Callegaro, M.D. Against Anticulturalism: A Review of Books by Kay Culturally Engaged Education and the Transformative Power Hymowitz of Life Stories – Jon McAlice – Cynthia Dillard

Volume XII, Number 1 Toward Wholeness in Knowing Reading in Waldorf Schools , Part II: Beginning in Flow and Toward Wholeness in Knowing: The Renewal of Thinking, Warmth Feeling, and Willing – Arthur Auer – Douglas Sloan Rudolf Steiner on Teaching Left-Handed Children Education in a New Key: The Quiet Revolution in Our Schools – Daniel Hindes – Douglas Sloan The Tricky Triangle: Children, Parents, Teachers Overcoming Mid-Body Dualism in Human Development: – Dorit Winter Identity of Vital Functions and Thinking Activity – Michaela Glöckler, M.D. Healing Children Who Have Attentional, Emotional, and Learning Challenges Organology and Physiology of Learning: Aspects of an – Susan Johnson, M.D. Educational Theory of the Body What Will Today’s Children Need For Financial Success in – Wolfgang Schad Tomorrow’s Economy? The Child’s Tie to Nature – Judy Lubin – William Crane The Development of the Hand in the Young Child Interpersonal Intelligence in Play and Kindergarten – Jane Swain – Thomas Hatch (summarized from his presentation On Spiritual Research by Douglas Sloan) – Rudolf Steiner Child Development and Differential School Performance: A Work of the Research Fellows Challenge for Teachers in School Development Program Schools Do Festivals Have a Future? – Kimberly Kinsler and Edward Joyner – Eugene Schwartz The Eye of the Needle: Drug Abuse and the Alienation of Spirituality in Higher Education Childhood – Arthur Zajonc – Felicitas Vogt Quicksand and Quagmires of the Soul: The Sub- The above back issues can be obtained from: Conscious Stimulation of Youth through Media – David Mitchell AWSNA Publications 3911 Bannister Road Fair Oaks, CA 95628 phone (916) 961-0927 fax (916) 961-0715

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 About the Research Institute for Waldorf Education

he Research Institute for Waldorf Education is Summary of Activities Supported by the an initiative working on behalf of the Waldorf Research Institute Tschool movement. It receives support and guidance from the Pedagogical Section of the School of Research Projects Spiritual Science and financial support through the Art in Human Development Association of Waldorf Schools of North America Attention-Related Disorders Research Project (AWSNA), the Midwest Shared Gifting Group, the Effects of Testing on Children Waldorf Schools Fund, the Waldorf Curriculum Evaluation of the Urban Waldorf School in Fund, and private donors through the Rudolf Steiner Milwaukee Foundation. The Research Institute was founded in 1996 in Learning Expectations and Assessment Project order to deepen and enhance the quality of Waldorf Mathematics – Phobias and Remediation education, to engage in serious and sustained dia- Reading, Writing, and Reading Comprehension logue with the wider educational-cultural communi- Survey of Waldorf Seniors ty, and to support research that would serve educa- Teaching Sensible Science Workshops tors in all types of schools in their work with chil- Waldorf High School Research Projects dren and adolescents. The Research Institute has responded to the call Waldorf Graduates Survey Phase I for research as a top priority of the Waldorf school Waldorf Graduates Survey Phase II movement by becoming a supporting organization of AWSNA and by co-sponsoring research projects Colloquia and Conferences with the Association and with the Pedagogical Towards Wholeness in Learning, 1996 Section. Pathways of Healthy Child Development, 1998 We support research projects that deal with essential contemporary educational issues such as Andover Proceedings: Tapping the Wellsprings of the role of play in early childhood, attention-related Health in Adolescence, 2001 disorders, trends in adolescent development and Waldorf High School Research Project innovations in the high school curriculum, learning Subject-Specific Colloquia, 2000-2004 expectations and assessment, computers in educa- Chemistry tion, the role of art in education, and new ways to United States History identify and address different learning styles. The Mathematics Research Institute has sponsored colloquia and conferences that have brought together educators, psy- English chologists, doctors, and social scientists. We have Computer and Information Technology published a Research Bulletin twice a year for the last Life Science and Environmental Studies decade, and we are developing and distributing edu- World History – Symptomatology cational resources to help teachers in all aspects of their work. Resource Development We sponsor the Online Waldorf Library: Computers in Education, handbook for teachers www.waldorflibrary.org, whose mission is to make available contemporary writings on Waldorf educa- Being on Earth, a book for scientists and teachers tion, and we host our own site: www.waldorfre- On-Line Waldorf Library, a website of resources for searchinstitute.org, where up-to-date research is Waldorf education posted. Themes in Waldorf Education, compilation of Rudolf The Research Institute is a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt Steiner's indications on teaching language arts organization and gratefully accepts donations. and mathematics

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1 68 · About the Research Institute

Board of Directors Vancouver Waldorf School Douglas Sloan, President Waldorf School of Garden City Susan Howard, Secretary Waldorf School of Orange County Roberto Trostli, Treasurer Waldorf School of San Diego David Mitchell, Co-Director Waldorf School of the Peninsula Waldorf Teacher Training, Eugene Douglas Gerwin, Co-Director West Coast Institute for Studies in Ann Stahl Anthroposophy Virginia Flynn Research Bulletin Administrator Editor: Stephen Keith Sagarin Milan Daler Art/cover: Hallie Wootan Copy editing: Douglas Gerwin and Supporting Members David Mitchell AWSNA Proofreading: Charley Blatchford Ashwood Waldorf School Production/layout: David Mitchell Camellia Waldorf School Camphill Special School-Beaver Run Subscriptions Cape Ann Waldorf School $20.00 for one year, including postage Chicago Waldorf School for the United States East Bay Waldorf School $22.00 for one year, including postage Eugene Waldorf School for Canada Green Meadow Waldorf School $25.00 for one year, including postage Haleakala Waldorf School for Europe and South America Halton Waldorf School $27.00 for one year, including postage Hartsbrook School for Africa, Asia, and Australia/New Zealand Hawthorne Valley School Highland Hall Waldorf School Groups, schools, or institutes that wish to High Mowing School become Supporting Members of the Research Honolulu Waldorf School Institute are entitled to 20 copies of each issue of Kimberton Waldorf School the Research Bulletin. Supporting memberships are Les Enfants de la Terre $250 per year. Marin Waldorf School Merriconeag Waldorf School Individual copies of back issues of the Research Monadnock Waldorf School Bulletin are available for $5.00 each (plus Pine Hill Waldorf School postage) from AWSNA Publications. Portland Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner Centre, Toronto The Research Institute for Waldorf Education Rudolf Steiner College Douglas Gerwin and David Mitchell, Rudolf Steiner School, NY Co-Directors Sacramento Waldorf School P.O. Box 307 San Francisco Waldorf School Wilton, NH 03086 Santa Cruz Waldorf School Phone: (603) 654-2566 Santa Fe Waldorf School Fax: (603) 654-5258 Seattle Waldorf School e-mail: [email protected] Shining Mountain Waldorf School Sound Circle Center Please visit our website at: Spring Garden Waldorf School Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org Sunbridge College Toronto Waldorf School

Research Bulletin · Autumn 2006 · Volume 12 · #1