Table of Contents

From the Editor Elan Leibner...... 3

Report from the Co-Directors David Mitchell and Douglas Gerwin...... 5

Tending the Flame: The Link Between Education and Medicine in Childhood Philip Incao...... 7

Why Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain Sue Gerhardt...... 15

Research into Resilience Christof Wiechert...... 21

Reading Research Supports the Waldorf Approach Sebastian Suggate...... 25

Thinking and the Sense of Thinking: How We Perceive Thoughts Detlef Hardorp...... 27

Outline of a Study Methodology Elan Leibner...... 39

The Founding Intentions: Spiritual Leadership, Current Work, and the Goals of the Medical Section Michaela Glšckler...... 43

Attending to Interconnection: Living the Lesson ...... 53

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 2 • Table of Contents

Work of the Research Fellows Review of The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes Dorit Winter...... 67

Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute Teaching Sensible Science Lylli Anthon ...... 72

Report on the Online Waldorf Library Marianne Alsop...... 75

Indices Waldorf Journal Projects ...... 76 Waldorf Science Newsletter ...... 82

About the Research Institute for ...... 85

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 From the Editor

Elan Leibner

he sense of thinking has long been one of the Christof Wiechert describes what research most puzzling aspects of Rudolf SteinerÕs teaching has identified as five key areas in the development Tabout the senses. Sensory input (or percept) is of resilience in children. It is clear that Waldorf defined as that which we join with concepts, education has been doing much to support gained through thinking intuition, in order for full resilience, and the research supports essential cognition to arise. How is it possible to perceive a aspects of SteinerÕs approach. Though many thought before thinking? Detlef Hardorp explores teachers may be doing the right thing as a matter this mystery, including a fascinating description of of course, the more fully conscious we are of the the one instance in which we gain concepts directly consequences of our work, the more likely we are to from other human beings without needing intuitions do it with conviction and joy. to facilitate the acquisition of these concepts. His There is a short article by Sebastian Suggate, extended essay offers a significant contribution to who has done empirical research in New Zealand the study of the senses and will be of special interest concerning the difference (or none thereof) to high school teachers working with the higher, in reading competence among children who cognitive senses. began reading instruction before age 7 or after. A trio of articles explores issues related to He describes conclusive evidence that there is health and wellbeing. Philip Incao contemplates absolutely no measurable difference in ability by the role of warmth in allowing the human beingÕs age 12. This is the kind of scientific research that spiritual essence to take hold of healing processes. can help allay the fears of parents in Waldorf He describes a historical progression that has led schools that their children are Òfalling behind.Ó to a significant decrease in ÒwarmÓ (fever-inducing, Michaela Glšckler, a frequent and much- acute, usually infectious) diseases and childhood appreciated contributor to the Research Bulletin, mortality, but that, having swung the pendulum offers a meditation on the structure and purpose too far in the other direction, has led to the rise of of the Medical Section. As few can, she illuminates ÒcoldÓ (and chronic) conditions such as ADD and the profound spiritual archetypes underlying the asthma. One is left with renewed appreciation for structure of the organization she has been leading the crucial importance of warmth not only as a for the past two decades. Anyone involved in the physical process but as a pedagogical and social governance of an anthroposophical institution principle as well. is warmly encouraged to read this piece. A short Sue Gerhardt writes about brain development description of work with the circle-and-point during infancy. The studies she describes show from meditation, written by Rudiger Grimm, a long-time a scientific perspective what good parents and care remedial teacher, concludes Dr. GlšcklerÕs article. givers have long sensed: Calm and loving care is Arthur Zajonc is another of the Research not just a ÒniceÓ but a critically important factor for Bulletin’s stalwarts. In an article reprinted from his the development of the neurological networks that most recent book, The Heart of Higher Education: shape behavior later in life. She adds scientific rigor A Call to Renewal, he offers a comprehensive, to the importance of the Òonly real healing force.Ó integrated, and holistic approach to adult education. Describing in lucid terms how scientific

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 4 • From the Editor thinking has overcome a reductionist paradigm by written . This methodology can be learning to ask new kinds of question, he charts used both for individual study and for faculty or a path towards a truly human academia. He and college study. It has been refined in courses I have his colleagues, including his co-authors Parker taught over the past three years and leads from Palmer and Megan Scribner, stand at the forefront a detailed summary of the content of the text, of efforts to bring true humanity back into higher through two intermediate steps, towards meditative education. contemplation of selected questions or themes. Dorit Winter writes a review of The Age of A personal note: This issue is my first as the Wonder by Richard Holmes. With her customary new editor of the Research Bulletin. I am honored precision and insight, she describes an author who, to join the ranks of this publication and invite through impeccable research, arrives at profound our readers to send comments and suggestions. experiences of his own consciousness, as well as Above all, we want the articles published here the consciousness of his subjects. As would befit to be helpful to the practitioners and students of an educator of teachers, Dorit also offers practical Waldorf pedagogy. My colleagues and I hope that application of the material from the book for the selections included in this issue will enhance the different grade levels. understanding and practice of Waldorf education. Finally, I include in this issue a short article suggesting a study methodology for working with

Elan Leibner

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Report from the Co-Directors

David Mitchell and Douglas Gerwin

ith the support of an enthusiastic donor, information on this popular course, which over the the Research Institute has posted online a broad years has been offered in Waldorf schools across Wrange of invaluable yet sometimes inaccessible the U.S., please contact Michael DÕAleo at spalight@ books on Waldorf education. This collection will verizon.net. We are grateful to the Leadership be of special interest to researchers and other Team at AWSNA and to the Waldorf Educational individuals seeking to gain access and download Foundation for sponsoring this program, which books for research and study. Through the allows class teachers to deepen their understanding generosity of the Waldorf Curriculum Fund we and practice of phenomenological observation in have, since November 2010, produced 23 additional the context of the Waldorf science curriculum in electronic books. Together with the 30 e-Books grades 6Ð8. already produced, this represents a significant treasure Work is progressing on the sexual education trove of research material available at our Online curriculum and book for grades 4Ð12 under the Waldorf Library (OWL), www.waldorflibrary.org. This guidance of Douglas Gerwin, Director of the Center web-based resource is accessible free of charge, for Anthroposophy and Co-Director of the Research and we encourage you to visit it frequently. Our Institute. Translation of a recently published online librarianÕs regular report of activities appears collection of essays on this subject from German to separately towards the end of this issue. English has been completed, and several Waldorf As Co-Directors we have continued to meet, high school teachers, as well as professional correspond, and collaborate with the leadership of counselors in this field, are collaborating with the PŠdagogische Forschungsstelle in Stuttgart and Douglas to formulate guidelines for an English- the Alanus University in Alfter, outside of Bonn, language curriculum to address not only physical Germany, as well as research colleagues in Australia and psychological but also the spiritual dimensions and New Zealand. Due to financial constraints we of this subject. are unable to expand these efforts into a larger On behalf of the Research Institute and the scale. readers of the Research Bulletin, we would like to In collaboration with our colleagues at the express our gratitude to Stephen Sagarin, editor PŠdagogische Forschungsstelle in Kassel, Germany, of our twice-yearly journal who relinquished his the Research Institute has produced a book Topics position at the Bulletin last summer after five in Mathematics for the Waldorf High School: 11th years of dedicated service in order to give his full Grade. The English-language edition of this book attentionÑapart from his duties as chair of the is available via AWSNA Publications at www. Great Barrington Waldorf High SchoolÑto the whywaldorfworks.org. deadline of his forthcoming book for SteinerBooks This yearÕs course on ÒTeaching Sensible on Waldorf education. We had a good deal of joy ScienceÓ got off to a roaring start at the Chicago working together with Stephen. His wry humor Waldorf School with 27 participantsÑthe largest and provocative thinkingÑalong with fluent style group thus far. See Lylli AnthonÕs report in and chiseled editorial penÑbrought added clarity this Research Bulletin for more details. For more and freshness to the Bulletin. We wish him well

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 6 • From the Co-Directors and treasure his lasting colleagueship. Stephen has active member of the Pedagogical Section Council agreed to remain as Research Fellow and occasional and serves as teacher educator and consultant to contributor of articles to the Bulletin. Waldorf schools across North America. Elan, who With this edition we are delighted to introduce hails from Israel, is a world traveler who prepared Elan Leibner as our new editor. For many years a portions of this issue of the Bulletin in cafes as class teacher at the Waldorf School of Princeton, distant from each other as Seattle in the Pacific New Jersey, Elan recently spent a year leading Northwest and Tuscany in Northern Italy. Welcome the Òeducation courseÓ at Emerson College in aboard, ElanÑand welcome home! Forest Row, Great Britain. At present he is an

Douglas Gerwin David Mitchell

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Tending the Flame: The Link Between Education and Medicine in Childhood

Philip Incao

People are social creatures; just try to remember we need human contact and warmth more than any thing. Ð Colorado eighth-grader Kelly Ash, reflecting on the Columbine tragedy.

Education is to light a fire, not to fill a bucket. Ð Heraclitus

A social issue is essentially an educational issue and this in turn is essentially a medical issue, but only if medicine is fertilized with spiritual knowledge. Ð

Fever is the purifying flame which renews the body. Ð Hippocrates

The Tragedy of Hospitalism loss of reflexes, and greatly increased risk of I once had a medical consultation with an eight- gastrointestinal and lung infections. For older year-old Waldorf student who had been adopted by children, it might take days or weeks for hospitalism her American mother from a Romanian orphanage. to set in, but if they left the hospital they improved The mother recounted to me the intensely moving drastically within days.Ó1 story of their first encounter. She entered a room The experts of the day could not understand full of children and her eyes rested on a tiny waif why these children were dying in great numbers, in a crib who looked to be about eight months but exposure to hospital germs was the prime old, with no teeth and as yet unable to stand or suspect. So children were further isolated from talk. Their eyes met, the child laughed, and in that human contact and kept alone in disinfected moment the mother knew that Òthis was my child.Ó hospital cubicles designed to be a barrier to germs Then to her shock she learned that the child was ÐÐand their death rate grew still higher. over two years old! ÒI just took her home and loved her,Ó she told me, Òand all her teeth started coming Hospitalism lay at the intersection of two in and she began standing, walking, and talking!Ó ideas popular at the time: a worship of What an amazing demonstration of the power sterile, aseptic conditions at all costs and of human caring, of human warmth, and of the a belief among the pediatric establishment human spirit itself, I thought at the time. IÕve since that touching, holding, and nurturing learned more fully that this was by no means an infants was sentimental maternal isolated example. foolishness.2 In the early 1900s, children in American orphanages and hospitals died at a staggering The lethal agent in hospitalism was no germ, rate of a mysterious condition that came to but simply the fact that, in addition to being be called hospitalism: Òa listless wasting away isolated and treated coolly by the hospital staff, despite adequate food, a weakening of muscles, children were allowed parental visits for only

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 8 • Tending the Flame two or three hours per week. It wasnÕt until 1942 Mainstream medicine and education are still based that emotional deprivation and loneliness were on the unproven and unjustifiable assumption, acknowledged to be the true causes of hospitalism. really a bias, that human feelings have little or IsnÕt it interesting (and tragic) how an idea nothing to do with the health of the physical body. that seems self-evident todayÑthat infants and children need warm and loving human contact in The Canary in the Coal Mine order to survive, grow, and develop properlyÑtook Like the canary in the coal mine, todayÕs child is in so long to be understood and accepted? But that distress. A look at the statistics confirms this. The is the usual way human knowledge advances. As crudest measure of childrenÕs health is their death Schopenhauer observed, ÒAll truth goes through rate from all causes. In the 1950s American children three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently had one of the lowest death rates in the world. opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident.Ó According to UNICEF statistics for 2006, there are now thirty-eight nations where children under five A Search for Solid Ground years old have a lower death rate than the rate The forgotten shameful story of hospitalism still recorded in the U.S. has important lessons to teach. In the early 1900s This under-five death rate, which UNICEF it was an article of faith among physicians that names on their website Òa critical indicator of the human consciousness and human emotions could well-being of children,Ó shows that, compared with have no influence whatsoever on the inner workings children in other developed nations, the well-being of the human physical body. How could they? They of U.S. children has been declining since the 1960s. are only subjective and non- Now children under five material. They exist only in The question at the core years old in all of Western the mind, quite apart from Europe, as well as in Estonia, our physical body. Or so we of this article is, ÒWhat Hungary, Poland, Croatia, imagined. is health, and why has it and Cuba, have lower death It is reassuring to find rates than do U.S. children. solid ground in our scientific changed so dramatically What are American seeking to understand the in our children in the last children dying from? In human being, and for the 1900 most of the deaths past 300 to 500 years that hundred years?Ó in our children were due to solid ground has been the inflammatory conditions human physical body. Medicine still operates on such as pneumonia, diarrhea, TB, measles, the assumption that the inner workings of the body diphtheria, whooping cough, and scarlet fever. are pretty much the same in everyone. When these Deaths from acute inflammatory contagious workings run smoothly we have health, and when conditions declined in the 20th century with they malfunction we have illness. Medicine is based improvements in the standard of living, sanitation, on this assumption and so is popular thinking about and literacy in the U.S. and other developed health. Illness is a problem of bodily malfunction nations.3,4,5 on the physical level, end of story. In this respect, By the early 1950s most of the acute things havenÕt changed much since the days of inflammatory conditions listed above were less hospitalism. common and far less serious in American children. Perhaps we no longer consider childrenÕs need Sulfa drugs, as well as vaccines for diphtheria, for human warmth and loving human contact to be tetanus, and whooping cough, had been developed sentimental foolishness, but we are still a long way before World War II and were now starting to be from understanding the inner needs of children. put into more widespread use along with the new

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Philip Incao • 9 wonder drug, penicillin. Polio, the dreaded scourge in young children; and exposure to fluoride in of the 1940s and 1950s, fairly soon fell into decline water and to mercury and aluminum in vaccines as with the advent of the Salk and then later the Sabin possible causes of neurological dysfunction. polio vaccines. The 1950s, the Eisenhower years, My purpose in this article is not to debate were a time of post-war optimism and prosperity, specific causes, as valid as that debate may be, but and also for American children a time of relative to point to the overall trend and to characterize it in good health. We had reached a balance point: such a way as to shed light on the problems children The old acute scourges of pneumonia, typhoid, are experiencing today. IÕve already sketched diphtheria, etc., had largely retreated and the new the overall trend in the U.S. and other developed chronic scourges of allergies, asthma, diabetes, and nations since 1900, but a summary is needed: cancer were still relatively rare in children. Practically unknown in those early post-war 1. Children are dying at a lower rate than years were the now common conditions of autism, ever before. learning disabilities, hyperactivity, and attention- 2. Illness and death from acute contagious deficit disorder. Also largely unknown was the inflammatory diseases occur at a lower modern tragedy of homicide, suicide, and drug use rate in children than ever before. This fact among children. alone is responsible for #1 above. 3. Children have more chronic conditions and A Great Shift in Health more disabling conditions than ever before. There has been a dramatic shift in all modern The Medical Tribune of August 13, 1998, industrialized nations: Children no longer die reported a study that estimated 18% of from acute inflammations as much as they suffer U.S. children suffered a chronic health or from a variety of chronic conditions affecting behavioral problem which qualified them their immune system (allergies, asthma, diabetes), for special services supported by public their neurological system (autism, learning and programs.6 ThatÕs almost one in five developmental disabilities), and their behavioral children. The July 5, 2002, edition of the and emotional stability (depression, suicide, Washington Post reported: ÒOne of every violence, and drug use). dozen U.S. children and teenagers [ages It is reasonable to assume there is a spectrum 5-20]Ñ5.2 millionÑhas a physical or of causes that contributes to these conditions, in mental disability, according to new figures specific and non-specific ways, some acknowledged from the 2000 census that reflect sharp and many as yet unknown or unacknowledged. growth in the nationÕs young handicapped One of the acknowledged non-specific causes population over the past decadeÑ[in which contributes to stress and distress in todayÕs which] special-education enrollment rose children is the decline of stability in the American twice as fast as overall school enrollment.Ó family. According to a 1994 Carnegie report on 4. While certain social conditions like U.S. children, the percent of children under the poverty, hygiene, and sanitation have age of three living with one parent increased improved, others like family stability, almost fourfold from 1960 to 1990, from 7% to child abuse, violence, and drug use have 27%. There are also a number of possible specific worsened.7 causes just now being debated across the country, including vaccine reactions as a cause of diabetes, A survey by the Public Health Policy Advisory autism, and asthma; excessive antibiotic use as a Board found that of all children between the ages of cause of allergies and asthma; excessive T.V. and one and nineteen who died in 1995, 41% died from computer use as a cause of behavioral dysfunction accidents or unintentional injuries, many of them

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 10 • Tending the Flame

alcohol or drug related, a shocking 14% died from (though complex in the details)Ñrepresented a homicide, 7% from suicide, 7% from cancer, 5% renewal of ancient Western and Eastern wisdom, from birth defects, and 1% viz. the human being is from infections.8 composed of four concrete Although the overall IsnÕt it interesting (and realities: spirit, consciousness death rate of children has tragic) how an idea (soul), life, and body. Only declined very dramatically in the last, the physical body, all developed nations since that seems self-evident is concrete in the material 1900, it bears repeating that todayÑthat infants and sense, that is, perceptible U.S. children under five years to our senses and to our old are still dying at a higher children need warm and scientific instruments. The rate today than children in loving human contact in other three elements of the thirty-eight other countries, human beingÐÐspirit, soul, probably largely due to the order to survive, grow, and and lifeÐÐare wholly invisible worsening social conditions develop properlyÑtook so and non-material, but mentioned under #4 above. without them the wonderful In 1995, homicides in the long to be understood and human physical body would U.S. were the fourth leading be nothing but a cold, lifeless cause of death in children accepted? corpse prone to deterioration one to nine years old, the and decay. Thus, spirit, soul, third leading cause in children ten to fourteen years and life are not abstract or vague, but are concrete old, and the second leading cause in adolescents realities graspable by the human mind and having fifteen to nineteen years old.9 In a report entitled definite functions and observable effects in the ÒA Call to Action,Ó the blue ribbon Public Health human physical body. Policy Advisory Board concluded: ÒThe most As soon as one begins to study the human important threats to American children today lurk being in light of this fourfold model of spirit, soul, in the changing psychosocial fabric of American life, and body, some helpful answers to very basic society and in behavioral and cultural changes not questions start to emerge. The question at the core readily amenable to definition by the biomedical of this article is, ÒWhat is health, and why has it models that empowered public health earlier in this changed so dramatically in our children in the last century.Ó10 hundred years?Ó Based on SteinerÕs fourfold model, we could A New Paradigm Needed answer this question as follows: Health is the The message is clear: A new way of thinking and harmonious balance in the rhythmical workings new models are needed, not just for social problems of spirit, soul, life, and body in us, a household but for education, health, and medicine as well. In in which our spirit should rule, and not another a prophetic lecture entitled ÒHealth Care as a Social member of our being. Again, this is a simple answer IssueÓ given in 1920 and cited at the beginning in outline, but very complex in the concrete details. of this article, Rudolf Steiner speaks to this need. As to the important question, what is healthy SteinerÕs mission was to bring much-needed healing development through childhood, we would answer: into human culture and social life. Essential to his It is the free and full unfolding of a childÕs individual mission was the renewal of contemporary medical spirit in the course of time so that this active spirit science and education through the application is unhindered in growing to its full expression and of a new model of human biology and human full potential within the childÕs soul, life, and body. psychology. SteinerÕs modelÑsimple in outline When a childÕs spirit waxes strong and becomes

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Philip Incao • 11 the master in its own house, Based on SteinerÕs It is the mastery and then balance, harmony, and discernment of our spirit, health are the results, both fourfold model, we could working in every system and in soul and in body. But our answer this question function of our physical body, spirit is accompanied by a co- which keeps harmony in its workerÑthe human soulÑas as follows: health is the household between these unpredictable as the wind! mighty opposing powers, Spirit and soul are linked in harmonious balance in the our inner Fire and our inner their activity like fire and air. rhythmical workings of Ice, and our spirit transforms When spirit rules, our inner and heals their tendency to flame burns steadily and spirit, soul, life, and body destructive excess. The unique quietly, suffusing our mind and in us, a household in which composition of Yin/Yang (or Ice/ our actions with its warmth Fire) imbalances that a child has and light. When soul rules, we our spirit should rule, and in body and soul by inheritance are prone to mood swings: not another member of or destiny will determine the from a mighty wind which fans particular illnesses to which that an inferno to a stifling calm which causes the inner child will be susceptible. Illness too has a bipolar flame of our spirit to choke and sputter. nature: On the hot side are the acute contagious inflammatory illnesses and on the cold side the Fire and Ice, Blood and Nerve chronic degenerative or sclerotic illnesses. These These polar opposite forces in the human being are the twin dangers we must navigate on our lifeÕs were called Yin and Yang in Ancient Chinese journey, as between Scylla and Charybdis, between wisdom, and Love and Hate in the Ancient Greek Fire and Ice. philosophy of Empedocles. Steiner called them Sympathy and Antipathy, perceiving them, as the A Great Reversal ancients did, as the bipolar primal energy working Throughout recorded history the fiery acute in the universe and expressing itself in forces of inflammatory illnesses have always predominated nature like heat and cold, or positive and negative as the chief causes of death because the human electricity, but also expressing itself in the human constitution always tended to the warm side, thus being as the primal warm, effusive, expansive making us susceptible to inflammations. But in the energy of our blood and the primal cool, focusing brief course of the past 100 years, the illness pattern and condensing energy of our nerves, brain, and of all previous recorded history has suddenly sense organs. Robert FrostÕs little gem of a poem reversed itself, as weÕve seen. Now, in all developed ÒFire and IceÓ offers a succinct poetic picture of nations, the cold illnesses prevail: cancer, heart these twin primal forces. disease, and stroke in adults; asthma, allergies, cancer, neurological and emotional dysfunction in Some say the world will end in fire, our children. Some say in ice. What is the deeper meaning of this sudden From what IÕve tasted of desire and profound reversal? From 1900 to the 1950s I hold with those who favor fire. the health and survival of children improved But if it had to perish twice, because the cooling and focusing effect of modern I think I know enough of hate industrial and intellectual civilization made them To say that for destruction ice less susceptible to the acute contagious hot Is also great inflammations which up until that time had claimed And would suffice. childrenÕs lives. After a brief period of healthy

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 12 • Tending the Flame balance during the 1950s, take a lot of imagination to childrenÕs health has A growing child must find see that all three are human worsened since 1960, due its inner ground, its center warmth. Warmth is the to the further intensification bridge between mind and of the same cooling and of warmth, and from body, the unique element condensing forces which this solid ground seek to interconnecting body, soul, improved their health and spirit in us. from 1900 to 1950. We connect to other sources Like water for fishes, were on the right track, of warmth, in an ever- warmth for humans is the but we overreached the indispensable all-pervading healthy balance point, and widening circle around medium both within us and the pendulum has rapidly among us that supports and swung to the opposite side. itself, from immediate nourishes our humanity at Through the effects on our family all the way to God. every level of its existence. children of our modern Through warmth we connect. materialistic and technological culture, especially We connect to our family, our friends, our teachers, modern education and medicine, we have brought our co-workers, to all humanity, to animals, to about a constitutional change in children that has plantsÑin short to the entire universe and all that made them more resistant to the life-threatening inhabits it. acute inflammations of the past, but also more A growing child must find its inner ground, vulnerable to the modern life-burdening chronic its center of warmth, and from this solid ground conditions at the opposite end of the illness seek to connect to other sources of warmth, spectrum. in an ever-widening circle around itself, from Children are indeed the canaries in the coal immediate family all the way to God. But todayÕs mine. In their distress they are crying out to us child understandably has great difficulty finding to wake up to the health-weakening and spirit- its connection to the world when that world is dampening aspects of modern life so that we will portrayed by modern science and education as understand how to protect and nurture the delicate ultimately an arrangement of atoms and molecules growth and unfolding of their individual spirits. devoid of any higher meaning or purpose, and This spiritual unfolding is nothing less than a childÕs hence devoid of any human or spiritual warmth. entire developmental process. What we call brain development, neurological maturation, and the like Standing on Solid Ground are the all-important physical effects resulting from This failure to connect, which causes so much a healthy and balanced spiritual development. dysfunction and quiet despair in our children and all too often horrible violence, stems ultimately from Human Warmth the fact that our culture and our society are missing In the forgotten story of hospitalism, we have seen the boat. The solid ground referred to earlier, which the devastating effects on childrenÕs development we all need and seek, is not the cells and molecules that emotional deprivation, a lack of human of our physical body; it is our human warmth. warmth, can have. But what is human warmth? Technology has enhanced many aspects of our lives, Is it the 104û Fahrenheit body temperature in our but no technology, whether in the form of video child which frightens us, or is it the caring interest screen or loudspeaker, drug or vaccination, can be a shown to us by a friend which consoles us, or is it source of human warmth. That is why our children the steady burn of enthusiasm which energizes us are growing inwardly colder. to carry through an important project? It doesnÕt

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 RunningPhilip Incao Head • • 13

Physicians can learn marvelous truths from to permeate our inner density, opacity, and patients, if we have the ears to hear them. Just coldness with the spiritÕs healing warmth and light. recently a mother reported to me that her weary, When this attempt is overzealous and threatens uncomfortable eight-year-old child said to her our life or functional capacity, we can be very around 2 a.m. during his third night of fever, ÒMom, grateful that modern medicine has empowered you know what I need? I need some new ground to us with the tools and techniques to suppress and stand on.Ó control inflammation. If modern education and But we must use that medicine are to strengthen Healing ourselves, our power with discretion. To our essential humanity, children, and the Earth is suppress all inflammation they must learn that this indiscriminately, out of fear solid ground derives from one and the same task. and misunderstanding, with the human spirit, not from To accomplish this will antibiotics, vaccinations, the human body. As the and anti-inflammatory drugs ancients knew, the human require a revolution in all contributes enormously to spirit manifests in warmth, aspects of modern science, just this condition of spirit- in fire: the fire of love, the rejecting density of body and fire of enthusiasm, and, in especially so in agriculture, soul described in this article. the physical body, that most medicine, psychology, Health, after all, is a state of misunderstood and most balance, and we must learn feared of all firesÑthe fire of education, and parenting. to avoid overreaching that fever. balance with our fear-based It will require great and overzealous efforts to The Renewing Flame discernment, courage, and conquer illness. Fever remodels and renews the physical body, making it good will. It will require To Heal, Not Suppress a truer and more responsive of us nothing less than a The surging consumer instrument of the spirit. How interest in Waldorf education often have mothers told me practical, down-to-earth and in complementary- of the developmental leap in embodying of the spiritÕs alternative medicine in our emotional and neurological country is a sign that our maturity their child has paradigm in education and taken after working through a fever that was not in medicine is shifting. Still, what is urgently needed suppressed with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory is a widespread awareness of the critical difference drugs. And conversely, how often have I seen between healing an illness and suppressing it. children, whose inflammations were repeatedly Healing empowers our spirit; suppression cools the suppressed with these drugs, lose their spark and spiritÕs activity in the body. Repeated suppression stagnate in their development. may hinder the capacity of our human spirit to One of the most effective ways to reverse express itself in us and may transform our acute the increasing cooling and densification of our illnesses into chronic ones. The spirit renews as well childrenÕs souls and bodies, and of our own, is as destroys, and now that we have the power in our to recognize the healing, enlightening, spirit- technology to block even the spiritÕs power, we must permeating power of feverish inflammatory acquire the discernment to use that power wisely, illness. Seen truly, inflammation is never the real or else cause our children and ourselves great illness; it is the attempt of our immune system suffering.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 1414 •• TendingRunning the Head Flame

Healing ourselves, our children, and the Earth Philip Incao, MD, has had a practice of is one and the same task. To accomplish this since 1973. He was featured in will require a revolution in all aspects of modern the July/August 2003 Mothering magazine article, “The science, especially so in agriculture, medicine, Healing Crisis: Don’t Worry Mom—I’m Just Growing!” psychology, education, and parenting. It will require His essays on health, medicine, and children’s health are great discernment, courage, and good will. It will in The Vaccination Dilemma, Lantern Books, and on require of us nothing less than a practical, down- his website, www.philipincao.com. He lives in Crestone, to-earth embodying of the spiritÕs fiery, renewing Colorado, with his wife, artist Jennifer Thomson. power.

Resources 1. Sapolsky, R., ÒHow the Other Half Heals.Ó Discover, April 1998, pp. 46Ð52. 2. Ibid. 3. Sagan, L.A. The Health of Nations. New York: Basic Books, 1987. 4. McKinlay, J. and S. McKinlay. ÒThe Questionable Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century.Ó Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 55 (1977): pp. 405Ð428. 5. McKeown, T. The Role of Medicine. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979. 6. Mann, D. ÒStudy: 18% of U.S. Children Suffer Chronic Conditions.Ó Medical Tribune, August 13, 1998. 7. ÒStudy Confirms Worst Fears on U.S. Children.Ó New York Times, April 12, 1994. 8. ÒHealth and the American Child Part 1: A Focus on Mortality among Children.Ó Public Health Policy Advisory Board, Washington D.C., May 1999. 9. See endnote 8. 10.Ibid.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a BabyÕs Brain

Sue Gerhardt

he case that I want to make is that babyhood is early development of the bodyÕs organs and other much more important to our lives than many people systems are affected by the nutrition available Trealize. A lot of the behavior that worries us in at that time. There is a lot of evidence to suggest later childhood, such as , hyperactivity, that birth weight and early nutrition have a big obesity, depression, and poor school performance, influence on later health such as susceptibility to has already been shaped by childrenÕs experiences heart disease, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes. Much of in babyhood. For those of you who have not studied the early research was done by David Barker from the scientific literature, this might seem a bit far- Southampton University. He explains the process fetched. I was rather amazed at just how significant in terms of the fetus or baby adapting to the babyhood is when I first undertook the research for conditions in which it finds itself. If those conditions my book Why Love Matters. are of under-nourishment, the growing body has But over and over again, as people look into it, to adapt the way it handles sugar and fat, or the they discover that this really is the case. Just to take way the heart manages blood pressure. These one recent example, the World Health Organisation adaptations, as he put it, Òtend to have permanent recently published a report from their Commission effects on the bodyÕs structure and functioningÑa on the social determinants of health which stated: phenomenon referred to as ÔprogrammingÕ.Ó The ÒResearch now shows that many challenges in poorly nourished babies have also been found by adult societyÑmental health problems, obesity/ other researchers to have higher cortisol levels stunting, heart disease, criminality, competence in throughout adult life, suggesting that their stress literacy and numeracyÑhave their roots in early response had been programmed in the womb or in childhood.Ó They went on to say: ÒEconomists now infancy (Seckl & Meaney 2004). As Barker explains, assert on the basis of the available evidence that these early adaptations allow the fetus and the investment in early childhood is the most powerful baby to survive the immediate dangers of their investment a country can make, with returns situation, but have long term consequencesÑoften over the life course many times the amount of the at the price of a shortened lifespan. original investment.Ó The links between infancy and later health and longevity are already being taken seriously The Over-Riding Importance of by the European Union (EU). For some years Early Conditions the European Union has been funding an Early The strange fact is that very often the early Nutrition Programming Project based in conditions of our lives have a profound impact (coordinated by Professor Koletzko of the ChildrenÕs on the whole of our development. Let me start Hospital, University of Munich, Germany), which by describing how this works with regard to the has been looking at these links. Other major body and physical health, which might seem more organizations recognize the links too. The World obvious because we can see that nutrition affects Health Organisation recommends at least six the body. The body grows or it does not. It develops months of breastfeeding to protect the development healthy organs or it does not. And, actually, the of a childÕs immune system.

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But my focus is on emotional health, and in brain, which is a shorthand way of referring to a particular how the brain systems that manage range of areas in and around the pre-frontal cortex. our emotional responses are just as much shaped We know from scientific research that this social by early events. They too are ÒprogrammedÓ in brain area is activated when we are involved in a very similar way. Not by food inputÑalthough controlling our emotions, paying close attention that plays its part in nurturing our biochemical to other people and their social signals, thinking systemsÑbut by the way that a baby adapts to the about feelings, and having for others. It is relationship environment and structures his brain the area of the brain that extends out of the more accordingly, in order to survive in the situation in basic instinctive ways of behavingÑsuch as fight or which he finds himself. Just flight reactionsÑwhich are as the babyÕs body adapts based in the amygdala and to a shortage of nutrition, Basically, babies learn how hypothalamus. so the brain adapts to to do things through their The social brainÕs job inadequate emotional input. is basically to organize experiences with other and supervise those more The Human Brain people, not through words basic responses. But this The human brain is unique. human emotional control It shares many of the same or instructions. center does not develop features as animalsÕ brains, automatically. The social but it is a kind of extended version. It starts off brain develops in response with a basic reptilian brain based around the brain to the social experiences that a baby actually stemÑthis is what supports the basic life functions, has. Neural pathways get laid down as a result of and this is the first part of our brain to develop, actual experiences, so, for example, the baby needs too. Then, as with other mammals, it adds various someone to give her an experience of emotions new capacities (based in the center of the brain) being managed helpfully before she can learn to including nurturing abilities. But what really makes do these things for herself and manage her own humans human is basically the massive post-natal feelings well. Basically, babies learn how to do development of the outer layers of the brain, the things through their experiences with other people, cerebral cortex. One of the first parts of this layer not through words or instructions. to develop is the pre-frontal section, which grows They learn how to cope with stress by having extremely rapidly in the first year or two of life. It is an experience of someone being with them and an area which is not fully formed at birth but which helping them to cope. But they need to have these connects up in response to social stimulation in experiences consistently, over and over again, to infancy. lay down the pathways, during the first and second Brain development, or learning, is actually the years of life. process of creating, strengthening, and discarding As I mentioned earlier, the first year of life is connections among the neurons. These connections about making connections in the brain. But during are called synapses. There are not many at birth the second and third years of childhood that huge but they sprout rapidly in the first year of life and tangled mass of connections starts to get Òpruned,Ó eventually form neural pathways that connect on a Òuse it or lose itÓ basis. Basically, we keep the the different parts of the brain and organize its pathways that are most used and most useful in functions. our particular social environmentÑand lose those The pre-frontal cortex is the area of the brain I pathways that have not been used that much. In am most concerned with. It is what I call the social other words, if as babies and young children we

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Sue Gerhardt • 17 live with angry, aggressive people, we will keep perhaps emotionally frightening themselves, the pathways that help us to be alert to anger and stress system will adapt to that particular human aggression, and if we live with people who are environment, and the baby may develop an unusual attentive to other people, we will keep the pathways cortisol responseÑhigh or low baseline levels that help us to be attentive. of cortisolÑwhich can have some very negative effects on him/her. Biochemical Systems—the Stress Response Let me give you a glimpse of how this might and the Soothing System be passed on from parent to child in practice. I had Some of the first pathways to be established a client who was a violent offender. He had just in babyhood are the biochemical ones. These come out of prison and was building a relationship biochemical pathways, which I think of as a sort of with his son, wanting desperately to be a good liquid Ògrease,Ó assisting the flow of information father. However, the way he interacted with his around the brain, help the baby to react to baby sonÑunpredictably shouting at the baby or his environment quickly and appropriately. In laughing at the babyÕs distressÑwas frightening particular, I want to mention two biochemical systems to the baby. If this had continued, the father would that are really important for emotional well-beingÑI have passed on to his son a feeling of not being refer to them as the stress response and the soothing safe, having to be vigilant and alert to othersÕ system. aggression. The stress response is a very important When experiences like this go on day after biochemical system which develops in infancy. It day, they can have lasting effects on the childÕs releases the hormone cortisol to generate extra biochemical systems. A child who experiences rough short-term energy to cope with stresses and dangers treatment, humiliation, aggression, shouting, and of all kinds. Once the objective has been achieved, so on, has to adapt psychologically. But this is and safety and social equilibrium are restored, the also happening at a biological level. It is thought cortisol is dispersed. But in early babyhood, the that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol are stress response is not yet fully functional; babies are eventually down-regulated and children like this very vulnerable and easily stressedÑparticularly by end up with a low baseline cortisol level which has situations that feel unsafe, such as being separated been found to be associated with later aggressive from their mother or a familiar person, or being behavior.1 physically hurt. Babies cannot protect themselves Most people probably develop a healthy stress from stress or danger nor can they calm themselves response if they have a normal childhood. This down. They are dependent on an adult to protect gives them a good chance of being able to bounce and calm them, to quickly disperse their cortisol for back after difficulties. It means that they have built them and to help them get back to a stable state. resilience to stress. Even though they might be If the adults taking care of them do not manage temporarily overwhelmed and start to forget things their states for them, they can become flooded with or lose the ability to pay attention, if they have cortisol without having any way of getting rid of it. established a healthy stress response in infancy, Even in toddlerhood, they are still vulnerable, and they are likely to be able to get back to normal need to feel that their world is safe and predictable, quickly. and that they can rely on others for help when It takes quite a lot of stress over a very long they need it. If babies or toddlers end up being period to create any permanent damage in a flooded with cortisol on a chronic basis, because the basically resilient adult (although it can happen). adults looking after them do not respond quickly, However, when babies are chronically stressed, do not resolve problems for them, or are, in fact, this can create permanent damage to their systems so that they grow into adults who are not able to

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 18 • Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain recover quickly from stressful events. They become Neglect or stress can seriously affect the social more vulnerable and sensitive to stress as adults brain, as well as other areas such as the amygdala, and may seek help in regulating themselves through the cingulate, and the hippocampus, which are all drugs and alcohol. When adults like my client important for emotional life. The crucial age for ignore their childrenÕs feelings, laugh at them or prefrontal emotional development is the period punish them, the children basically are not going to from the second part of the first year through be learning how to manage feelings or to regulate toddlerhood, when the medial prefrontal cortex is their feelings. Another aspect of too much cortisol developing most rapidly and is most susceptible early on is that it can have a knock-on effect on to influence. It becomes functional at around 18 other biochemical systemsÑsuch as the soothing months to two years, by which time the child has system which is based on the neurotransmitter become a selfÑthat is, she can recognize herself in serotonin. When this system is not in good shape, the mirror and has acquired the basic capacities for the baby can grow up finding it difficult to stay self-awareness and self-control. calm under stress and may become prone to impulsive outbursts and aggression. Low serotonin The Importance of Positive Experiences levels are part of the picture of mood and It is just as important to make sure that babies disorders, sleep disturbance, and aggression on into receive positive experiences as it is that they avoid adulthood. negative ones. The whole process of developing a I think of these biochemical imbalances as a social brain and developing a strong sense of self bit like a physical handicap, a vulnerability which is based on the quality of social attention the baby is not necessarily immediately visible, but which receives. The more pleasurable social experiences can play itself out in later life, even after decades. the baby has, the more this part of the brain High levels of cortisol are connected to physical connects. The less attention a baby receives, the less health problems too; in particular research is now this part of the brain connects. In the worst cases, demonstrating links with later obesity and heart for instance some of the most abused Romanian disease.2 orphans, this area of the brain was virtually a black hole, according to one researcher, Harry Chugani. Prefrontal Development Basically, humans have to pass on a social Too much cortisol early onÑespecially during the brain. It does not develop automatically, but only first three years when the daily pattern of cortisol as the result of an adultÕs investing attention in the is establishedÑcan even affect brain structure. baby. Babies learn to notice their own feelings when In particular, it can damage those areas of the they receive a lot of responses to their feelings from brain that are developing rapidly in the early years the adults looking after them. Then, in turn, once because it can be toxic to the development of neural they have that self-awareness, they can use it to connections just at the time when the connections become aware of other peopleÕs feelings and to have are being made and the pathways established. empathy for others. Children who are traumatized early on often have It is the same with self-control. The social reduced brain volumes in a number of areas, brain has the potential to influence and control especially the prefrontal cortex: Literally, they have our impulsive reactions arising via the amygdala, smaller brains. In other words, the volume of a reactions such as wanting to hit someone when we childÕs brain can be shaped by experience; scientific are angry with him. However, these inhibitory brain research has shown that a child who is severely pathways are only laid down if the toddler has the neglected physically as well as emotionally can have experience of adults making firm but kind demands a dramatically reduced brain size.3 on him to restrain his inappropriate behaviors, and

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Sue Gerhardt • 19 doing so consistently, over and over again. These For example, I recently read a piece suggesting capacities are also established very early on indeed. that bullying at school led to later mental health A researcher in the U.S.A., Grazyna Kochanska, has problemsÑlow self-esteem, depression, and anti- shown that self-control measured at 22 months social behavior. Yet the writer assumed that these predicts its presence at ages three and four, and problems had all started in school with the bullying. another researcher showed that early self-control is He did not seem to be asking why particular linked to later empathy at age eight (Guthrie 1997). children are bullied or how this might be the effect It is a central aspect of social behavior. of patterns of behavior established much earlier in In fact, it is not only important for managing life. Actually, bullies rarely target children who have behavior, but interesting recent research by high self-esteem and confidence. They are more Clancy Blair (at Pennsylvania State University) is likely to target those who already show anxiety and suggesting that it is this same self-control and self- vulnerability. regulation which underpins academic ability, over I would like to briefly outline a few of the and above the childÕs intelligence. These learned ways in which poor early development can play social and emotional abilities make it possible out in later life: For example, babies who live with later on in school for children to pay attention to a depressed mother are at risk of growing up to teachers and to learn in other ways. be depressed themselves; they may develop a Basically, the brain is built up through actual hypersensitive stress response and a less active left experiences. What you put in is more or less what brain. This is not true of those whose mothers are you get out. If we want to produce children who are depressed when their children are older. calm, resilient, capable of Mental health problems empathy and foresight, we (W)hen babies are such as personality disorders need to help parents pass on are, in many ways, a these qualities by providing chronically stressed, this manifestation of inadequate a lot of support for early can create permanent early emotional care: people parenting, by which I mean who have not been taught helping parents who are not damage how to manage feelings well confident in their parenting, to their systems and they or to think about them, who for instance my client. We have extreme emotional also need to make it possible grow into adults who are reactions and who often for parents to spend a lot of not able to recover quickly display a lack of empathy for time with their babies and others. small children, paying lots A similar story lies of attention to their feelings and helping them to behind anti-social behavior. Children whose parents manage their behavior. express hostility, who fail to model how to resolve conflicts or how to maintain self-control often Poor Early Care Leads to Problems become the offenders of tomorrow. A lack of a I cannot include here everything that I talk about warm bond at the age of two tends to predict later more fully in Why Love Matters. But I am not just anti-social problems (Belsky 1998), whilst, as I talking about providing the optimum conditions have said, a lack of self-control at age two tends to for childrenÕs brain development. I also see early predict it at subsequent ages (Kochanska). Without development as the key to preventing future a warm attentive early relationship, the prefrontal social problems. Often, I feel that there is a lack brain is less likely to develop well. of awareness about the early roots of problems.

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Endnotes Sue Gerhardt lives in Oxford, , and is a 1. For a summary of this research, see Megan Gunnar et Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. Educated at Newnham al., Development and Psychopathology 18, pp. 651Ð677, College, Cambridge, in the 1970s, she played an active 2006. part in the women’s movement. She is the author of 2. Shonkoff et al. JAMA, 2009. Why Love Matters and How Love Affects a ChildÕs 3. EditorÕs note: Images of brains subjected to emotional Brain as well as The Selfish Society. This article is stress or neglect can be found at: based on a verbal presentation given to the Quality http://www.ecswe.com/publications.php of Childhood Group in the European Parliament in December 2009. Notes taken during the presentation were formulated into this article, which has been checked, up-dated, and approved by Ms. Gerhardt.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Research into Resilience

Christof Wiechert

isturbing reports are circulating around they have, or have not, come to terms with them. the world, always in the murky twilight of Research into resilience has arrived at several Dso-called Òfacts.Ó According to the rumors, conclusions that have considerable significance for or indeed facts, that we are dealing with, a educators in particular. The first issue is whether disproportionate number of war veterans are the soulÕs power of resistance may be explained committing suicide on their return to the USA by heredity. If the parents have inner strength, from their tour in Iraq. After the Vietnam War, is it passed on to their offspring? According to accounts came in from various sides of soldiers numerous studies this is not the case. Resilience is who were able to reenter everyday civilian life not inherited. only with great effort. People in Europe are also However, resilience is definitely connected with worried about the NATO soldiersÕ ability to deal experiences during the early years of childhood. with trauma after they have been deployed on One researcher thinks it is a matter of the first four peace-keeping missions abroad. or five years while another thinks the whole time The question is, how does an individual cope of childhood is significant, that is, until the tenth with traumatic or otherwise shattering events year. Leaving aside these different viewpoints of in his or her life? This question is just as valid for timing, there is agreement that the soulÕs power of children as for adults. resistance, or resilience, is nurtured and developed Research into these questions is essentially if children have had the following five experiences: the study of resilience: overcoming, processing ÒinsurmountableÓ experiences, drawing upon the 1. A Reliable, Stable Relationship soulÕs (mental) power of resistance (resilire = to with One Person spring back, to rebound). This research arose after This person does not necessarily need to be World War II when people were faced with the the mother, but it is necessary for it to be a single fact that there were those who inwardly overcame person in the beginning. Later on this person may their experiences of war or prison and were able be joined by others. Neurologists also point out that to resume a ÒnormalÓ life once their soul wounds at the start of life there must be only one person to had healed. However, at the same time, there were relate to. Later on a second, followed by a third or those who never really overcame these experiences fourth person may be added to the childÕs circle of and kept suffering from the trauma of war. relationshipsÑjust not in the beginning. The question arose: On what does this ability to inwardly overcome experiences depend? What 2. An Authoritative Upbringing makes one child strong in taking lifeÕs knocks, This means that the child requires the what makes another child react so much more fundamental experience that others (involved in its sensitively? From regions where people have been upbringing) decide for him/her and that he/she is hit by great natural disastersÐÐby contrast with completely relieved of the need to make decisions. war zonesÐÐwe hear relatively little about the Simply from the experience that others make the lasting trauma they endured and how inwardly

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 22 • Research into Resilience right decisions the child gains a sense of security by Rudolf Steiner that from around the twelfth year in lifeÑin other words, trust. This experience intellectual or cognitive learning takes on more and cannot be overestimated. Inwardly the child more significance. Only with Steiner this change in knows, ÒTo begin with, others decide what is good approach to learning is called Òbecoming capable or bad for me, what is right and wrong, healthy of forming judgments.Ó In other words, the learning and unhealthy.Ó A deep sense of security arises process is increasingly guided and determined by from the feeling: ÒI can leave it up to the world to the childÕs own powers of discrimination, no longer take over; I can rely upon my surroundings in all by habit. circumstances.Ó 4. A Qualitative Approach to Time 3. Learning through Example What is the difference between the morning This has two aspects. On one hand, a moral and the evening for our feeling about life? What is quality makes a deep impression: What children the difference between autumn and spring, summer experience through the behavior of those around and winter for our feeling about life? Within a them should be completely compatible with what Christian context, how does the Easter festival differ is demanded of them. If children are forbidden to from Christmas? Or within an Islamic context, how, watch television and the people they relate to watch for example, does the sugar festival differ from unlimited amounts of television, the childrenÕs the beginning of Ramadan? How does the child understanding of their surroundings as a totality experience the ordering of time, how do we help cracks open. One can add many other examples. it to experience the ordering of time? Here is one On the other hand, there is something else quite simple example: When I was still quite young, at stake too. When the Canadian psychologist people in Holland celebrated the QueenÕs birthday Albert Bandura discovered the so-called mirror at the end of spring. This was the season when we neurons and their activity in the human brain, used to visit the annual fair and to celebrate the the interesting question arose whether, generally day we would be given cotton candy on a wooden speaking, children learn primarily with their stick. In our minds as children, this cotton candy intellect or from imitation, from Òdoing it like developed into the quintessence of the celebration this.Ó Bandura argued vehemently that the young of the QueenÕs birthday. Many biographies describe child learns from imitating, not through cognition, rituals linked to the seasons. There is also the simple something he documents impressively through the fact of going to bed. Is it a random activity because process of learning to speak. we are tired, or is there a small ritual belonging to To date, in the practice of teaching, the this moment (when we take our leave of the day) idea that children up to the age of ten learn in that is entirely different from waking up in the a more carefree way through imitation than morning? through ceaselessly drumming things into their We can see from the way time is treated in heads is scarcely to be found. Through the Waldorf kindergartens and schools that these process of learning arithmetic, for example, by festivals are not celebrated merely for their own developing habits rather than exercising the sake, but rather out of some developmental insight. intellect, the child develops self-confidence as Whoever wants to give shape to his or her life, he/she learns Òexternally.Ó He/she feels affirmed whoever refuses simply to be ÒlivedÓ by events, has through the certainty of habit. The research to shape time. described hereÑwhich is derived not from an anthroposophical-anthropological milieu, but from 5. A Surplus of Positive School Experiences conventional experimentÑendorses the statement This basis for resilience scarcely requires an

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Christof Wiechert • 23 explanation. Nonetheless, it ought to be pointed have survived natural disasters or war disasters? out that still today insufficient attention is paid Nowadays, we know that what enables children to to the lingering effects of negative experiences work through trauma more than anything else is suffered during the early years of schooling. art or artistic activity. The hygienic effect of artistic Many educational traumas can accompany an practice has been documented in many places and individual life-long, wounds of which the school (or confirms the healing power that can come from art. the teachers) are often not aware. In other words, Art needs to become a fully integrated element of every whatever basis is laid down for the mood of soul form of education. at school plays a key role in the lives of children well into their adult years; it is an important reason for schools and teachers to ask themselves how References the pupils are faring. This is by no means to deny Rutter, M. ÒResilience Reconsidered,Ó Handbook of Early that school is a place where pupils need to go Childhood Intervention, Cambridge University Press, through crises. What is at stake is the overcoming 2000. of difficulties and whether pupils feel sufficiently Steiner, R. Die Paedagogische Praxis vom Gesichtspunkte der accepted by their teachers. geisteswissenschaftlichen Menschen erkenntnis (GA 306), We will have no difficulty, after reading 5th Lecture, Dornach, 19th April 1923. the above account, in recognizing the basic Werner, E. ÒProtective Factors and Individual Resilience,Ó requirements of education; they need to be based Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention, Cambridge University Press, 2000. on helping the child develop resilience. We are dealing here with only one aspect, however, of resilience. Another aspect concerns the so- Christof Wiechert was a Waldorf teacher in called education arising from the experience the Netherlands and has served as Leader of the of emergencies. How do we help children who Pedagogical Section at the in Dornach, Switzerland.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 24

Albert Einstein once spoke directly to what he perceived as the contemporary crisis in US schools.

This scientistÑwho described himself as more of a philosopher to his close associatesÑsaw four major tasks Ôwhich all schools should fulfill.Õ

Their failure to fulfill them, he said, could lead to a nationÕs ultimate loss of freedom.

A. ÒThe school must firmly establish certain moral and social principles and standards and conduct the character education of youth along their lines.Ó

B. ÒIt must develop important intellectual capacities like logical thinking, judgment, art appreciation, creative ability, as well as physical fitness.Ó

C. ÒIt must transmit general knowledge and information as skill in routine functions such as reading, writing, arithmetic, and languages.Ó

D. ÒIt must impart special knowledge and skill in preparation for a life.Ó

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Reading Research Supports the Waldorf Approach

Sebastian Suggate

bout four years ago, I approached my A second study was conceived to firm up the to-be Ph.D. supervisors with an idea: Would they be available evidence. This second study focused on Awilling to supervise a quantitative research project a new sample of 11- and 12-year-old Year 7 state investigating whether the earlier-reading state school students and grade VI pupils school pupils maintained an advantage in reading from around New Zealand. The results over their Rudolf Steiner/Waldorf school peers? To from this project corroborated those of the earlier my delight, both Dr. Elizabeth Schaughency and study still underwayÑthe state and Steiner school Associate Professor Elaine Reese agreed. pupils were again reading at a similar level. The research initially began with three ages By the end of our research project, we had of children (in their first, third, and fifth years of extensive data from around 400 pupils and, after school), in three state, and in three Rudolf Steiner taking account of differences in childrenÕs school schools in the South Island, New Zealand. After and home environments, as well as developmental months of working with children in both types differences such as language ability, the data of schools, I was frequently struck by the way in robustly suggested that by around age ten, there which the young five- and six-year-old state school was no difference in reading achievement between children could work their way through texts, usually children who had been given early instruction in quite fluently, whereas the Rudolf Steiner school reading and those who had not. pupils showed very little interest in doing so. I In order to augment the findings with often wondered how such an initial gap in reading supporting evidence from other sources, I began could ever be closed. After the beginning phases to search for published data from well-known of visiting schools and working with the children international studies (e.g., PISA). To my and teachers, we had collected enough data for surprise, such rich data sets had only been reliable preliminary analyses (this particular study quantitatively analyzed and published once before was conducted over two full school years, thus (and in a methodologically problematic manner at the complete findings were some time away). At that) with respect to looking for an effect of early that early stage in the project, it was still possible reading instruction. After I had taken account of to observe that the reading achievement of the differences in countriesÕ economic, educational, Rudolf Steiner school pupils, on average, seemed and social development, the analyses found no to Òtake offÓ somewhere between grades III and advantage, by age 15, attributable to beginning V. I began to second-guess the patterns emerging formal schooling before age seven. from the results. Was the sample of Rudolf Steiner It was particularly pleasing for me that people school pupils going to be large enough to trust the involved in early childhood educationÑaccording findings? Or was perhaps one of the classes in the to responses I have receivedÑhave taken these study a ÒfreakÓ class (e.g., particularly intelligent), findings, by and large, as a relief. Many have felt skewing the data? frustrated by societal pressure to teach young

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 26 • Reading Research Supports the Waldorf Approach children to read. It is perhaps also fair to mention References that national literacy-based standards in education Suggate, S. P. (2009).ÒResearch into Early Reading for young children would appear to be empirically Instruction and Like Effects in the Development of questionable as well in the light of this research. Reading.Ó Journal for Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner Education, Finally, a clear benefit exists for Waldorf education; 11.2, 17Ð20. now empirical data exist supporting the Waldorf Suggate, S. P. (2009). ÒResponse to reading instruction and age related development: Do later starters approach to reading. catchup?Ó Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The entire experience has bolstered my Department of Psychology: University of Otago, New conviction thatÑas Rudolf Steiner repeatedly Zealand. assertedÑwith care and rigor, many of the Suggate, S. P. (2009). ÒSchool entry age and reading assertions of Spiritual Science can be tested with achievement in the 2006 Programme for International conventional scientific methodology. Student Assessment (PISA).Ó International Journal of Educational Research, 48, pp. 151Ð161.

Sebastian Suggate is currently an Alexander von Humbolt Foundation post-doctoral researcher at the University of Würzburg, where he is empirically researching the relative merits and disadvantages of a language versus literacy focus for young children.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Thinking and the Sense of Thinking: How We Perceive Thoughts

Detlef Hardorp

Concepts, thoughts can be perceived only where they actually occur, where they are brought forth; otherwise they are not present. And that is through current thinking by a human being. Ð Dietrich Rapp1

How Does Reality Arise? remark of 1924 to an early epistemological work Reality is supposed to exist somewhere beyond from the year 1886 as follows: the realm of human cognition. We are said to take cognizance of this reality through sense perception Within the inner life of the soul, a only. Our cognition is said merely to mirror this content arises which craves external sense world. In modern times, the tendency has perception as the hungry organism developed to view cognition in this way. How do craves food; and in the external world human cognition and reality relate for Rudolf there is a perceptual content which Steiner? Of what significance is this for us today? does not bear its essential being in In his foundational works, Rudolf Steiner itself but manifests this only when it is intensively pursued the question of how reality united with the soul content through arises in the process of cognition. Rather than devising the process of cognition. Thus the erudite academic theories, he breached a willed process of cognition becomes part of the pathway into thinking, from which he sensitively formation of the reality of the world. observed the activity of cognition, exploring The human being participates in the the role of thinking in the process of cognition formation of this world-reality through through introspective (soul) observation. He the act of cognition. If a plant-root is describes the process of acquiring concepts through unthinkable without the fulfillment of intuitive thinking in his Philosophy of Freedom from its predisposition in the fruit, so likewise increasingly comprehensive vantage points, only to not only the human being but the world concede one exception on the next to last page of itself remains unfinished without the act the last chapter in which we Òbring concepts over of cognition. In the act of cognition, the into our own spirit in a pure form,Ó unmixed with human being does not create something conceptual content won through intuition. just for himself, but he creatively Before taking a closer look at this exception, we participates together with the world in should turn our attention to the regular process of making reality manifest. What shows cognition. How does the human being apprehend in the human being is ideal appearance; the world? What role does perception play therein? what shows in the perceptible world is What role mental representation and what role sense appearance; only the cognizant conceptual thinking? How does reality arise? Based inter-working of both brings reality into on introspective (soul) observation, Steiner describes being.2 the relationship between cognition and reality in a

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There is no reality to be found through cognition Òbecause it must first be created as reality through cognition.Ó This realization remained pivotal for Steiner throughout his life.

What Is Sense Perception? What Is Mental Representation? Now the human being is met by the world of Òsense manifestationÓ fractured into different fields of sense perceptions. The human soul constantly permeates these sense perceptions with concepts, arising from the soul as Òmanifestation of the idea.Ó In accord with these concepts, the human being, exercising judgment, brings the different percepts together. Only thus does one-ness come about in our experience of the world. Shortly before the first This can be seen as a three-dimensional cube. Waldorf school opened in 1919, Steiner remarked to Suddenly, however, it can turn into a different cube! the future teachers: If we are attentive to the moment when the switch takes place, we notice that it is we who, by the And now you can understand power of our will, engrave the three-dimensionality exercising judgment as a living process into the two-dimensional picture. Clearly outlined in your own body, which comes about objects as well as black lines against a white through the fact that the senses confront background prompt us to follow the contours you with the world analyzed into with our eyes. Each movement we do, including fragments. The world confronts you the movement of our eyes, is perceived through with twelve different fragments in what our sense of movement. Due to their spherical you experience, and through exercising shape, the eyes are very special limbs: they move judgment, you bring the elements independently of the force of gravity. Now all together, because what is apart does not movements performed by our limbs are acts of want to remain apart.3 will; however, only the movements of the eyes are acts of will performed in a weightless realm. The human being thus constantly merges sense And it is exactly the perception of these acts of perceptions into mental representations, which are will that is most likely to animate us to develop then experienced as coherent objects in the world. the activity of the will in the weightless realm Forming these mental representations requires of mental representations. The sense perception an activity of the will. This becomes particularly of the two-dimensional picture can prompt us evident when we picture space forms, as the to will the three-dimensional representation of following figure can exemplify: the cube. If peopleÕs experiences were restricted to the sense world, a cube drawn on a sheet of paper would never be seen. That we can see it nonetheless is due to the fact that people divide the world into space-filling objects by forming mental representations and experiencing these self-formed

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Detlef Hardorp • 29 mental representations in the world. These mental that we grasp the concepts of outer world objects representations are mistaken through a sense of concept as Steiner understood for sense perception only this sense? to the extent that our own People would become What first weighs thinking and representing increasingly isolated from against this idea is that activities are not sufficiently then the anthroposophical observed. one another in the sense approach to sense When merging the world if the sense of concept perception would different elements of sense diametrically oppose perception into mental or thought wouldnÕt make the epistemological representations, the human it possible to reconnect foundations of being is active beyond this anthroposophy itself: realm of sense perception. thoughts directly, from Concepts arise from within And here, in this realm of one person to the other. A the soul, whereas all sense actively formed mental manifestation streams representations that reach person who is not himself in from the outside, beyond sense perception, in the process of evolving engaging the soul. In his concepts can emanate; Philosophy of Freedom of they are ÒabstractedÓ out 1894, Rudolf Steiner calls of the mental representations.4 Such concepts may the arising of concepts within the soul Òintuition.Ó well be tied to the sense world. That does not mean, There, the sense of concept is not mentioned. however, that the concepts themselves are content Did Steiner discover the sense of concept later of a sense perception. They simply are formed in on, with the consequence that his earlier, radical accord with sense perception. epistemological approach grew more moderate by allowing some concepts of outer world objects Where Do Thoughts Come From? to be perceived nonetheless by the senses? Under In 1909, Rudolf Steiner for the first time sketched which circumstances is a thought a perception the foundations of a comprehensive overview of of the concept or thought sense? Under which the fields of sense perception to members of what circumstances does it originate in oneÕs own was then the Theosophical Society. The title of the thinking or memory? IÕd like to focus on the lectures5 was simply ÒAnthroposophy,Ó that is to questions IÕve just raised and, in particular, attempt say, anthroposophy as the link between anthropology to contribute toward the understanding of concept-, and theosophy, as described at the beginning of the thinking-, and thought-sense. first lecture. Steiner then proceeded to describe the ten basic senses of the human being, the last of When Are Concepts not Acquired through which he called the sense of concept or the sense Intuition? of mental representation (later he also called it the In the fourth of the five ÒAnthroposophyÓ lectures sense of thinking or sense of thought). This sense about the senses, a few days after mentioning the does not empower us to perceive our own thoughts sense of concept or thought for the first time, Rudolf but the thoughts expressed by our fellow human beings. Steiner spoke extensively about the relationship Could it be possible nonetheless that this between the outer world and the thoughts by sense allows us to perceive other thoughts beyond which people grasp the objects of the outer world the thoughts expressed by other people? Could it be conceptually. He started as follows:

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The human being must indeed think Toward the end of the last chapter of his within himself. Objects donÕt think for us; Philosophy of Freedom of 1894, Rudolf Steiner they donÕt show us the thoughts from already described the necessity of the sense of without, but rather we must bring the concept for the emergence of freedom within thoughts toward the objects. That is the humanity: great secret, one is inclined to say, of the relation of human thought to the outer Cognition consists in linking a concept world. No thoughts approach the human with a percept through thinking. For all being through sense organs. If the sense other objects, the observer must penetrate organs themselves have irregularities, to the concept by means of his or her own sensory illusions can easily occur. intuition. Understanding a free individuality Whereas in normal life, the senses do not is exclusively a question of bringing over into err, the mind, which cannot put itself in our own spirit in a pure form (unmixed with relationship to objects, can err. It is the first our own conceptual content) those concepts member of the human being that can err, by which the individuality determines because its activity is dammed up within itself. People who immediately mix their the brain and this activity cannot reach own concepts into any judgment of others out. What follows from this? It follows that can never attain understanding of an it is quite impossible for people to have individuality.7 thoughts about the outer world that are right if we do not have an inner disposition In the sense world, it becomes possible to which allows right thoughts to arise think freely begotten thoughts. This would split within us. NeverÐÐas can be seen from humanity; people would become increasingly thisÐÐcould the outer world provide people isolated from one another in the sense world if with right thoughts if the right thoughts the sense of concept or thought wouldnÕt make it would not well up inside us. It can provide possible to reconnect thoughts directly, from one them with right sense perception. Yet person to the other. sense perceptions cannot think. A thought, however, is prone to error, and the human What Is Perceived Via the Sense of being must have the inner strength for the Thought? veracity of the thought.6 We can best become aware of the necessity of the sense of thought when perceiving the freely How far, then, is it justified to speak of a sense begotten thoughts of the other human being, but of thought or concept at all? Cognition occurs when of course this sense doesnÕt perceive only those the right concept arises within us and unites with thoughts. Through the sense of thought (or sense the percept. There is only one exception to this, of concept or mental representation or thinking), I when concepts cannot arise within us: that is when can perceive, while listening without interference we perceive our fellow human being, whose I, in its of my own concepts and my own judgment, how uniqueness, gives birth to freely begotten thoughts the other person forms thoughts into personal, in the sense realm. I cannot grasp, in my own individualized mental representations. EverybodyÕs thinking, the germinating moment of these freely thoughts are initially imbued with his or her own begotten thoughts of other people, because I am mental representations. Each thought has its own not you. I must silence my own thinking in order to shading, its own nuance of feeling, its own degree sufficiently become you. of sparkling intensity, according to how its author

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Detlef Running Hardorp Head •• 31 mentally represents the thought. Now the more thinking awakens oneÕs self to self-awareness; strength for the accuracy of thought is brought this self-awareness is at first egocentric. The forth, the deeper thinking breaks through to the thinking of the egocentric self, however, does not universality of concept. As we tolerate the selfless devotion universalize the personal content that is prerequisite for the of our thoughts, the universal Devotion towards sense of thinking. Therefore strength of thought becomes the other being is in this sense only functions when individualized. The way in the egocentric self falls into which thought content becomes particular nurtured deep sleep, thus not impairing universal increasingly bears the by deliberately perceptual ability. The only signature of the ÒI.Ó reason we donÕt take notice In order to be able to silencing oneÕs own of our thinkingÕs deep sleep is perceive, in its immediacy, the thinking, no matter simply that our consciousness way in which a thought is coined is completely filled with the by a human being incarnated how wise it may be. other person’s thoughts. While in the sense worldÐÐbe it the listening, my own thinking coining of everyday thoughts intermittently wakes up slightly or the coining of nascent individualized free from its immersion in the thoughts of the other in thoughtÐÐhis fellow human being needs the sense order to mentally incorporate the other beingÕs of thinking, thought, or concept. This sense in fact thoughts into my thought organism. To the extent allows people developing between birth and death that the mind awakens, the perception of the sense to grow into the body of the social organism. It is of thinking recedes. These moments of ÒblackoutÓ not the concepts of the objects of the outer world regarding the thinking gestures of the other person, that penetrate the human being through his sense which are due to our own thinking activity, are of concept, but the concepts which live in the inner sometimes experienced as gaps in consciousness world of the other person that manifest themselves during a conversation: You just manage to notice through this sense. that the other has just said something, without, Concepts are sense-perceptible only to however, perceiving any of his thoughts (because the extent that other people bring them to you yourself were engaged in thinking). At best manifestation. This is why children put their you bridge the gap by trying to bring the last never-ending questions to everyone around them. spoken words to consciousness out of the lingering The child himself must also meld sense perception resonance of word-recollection, in order to quickly with the corresponding concepts out of his own make sense of them out of your own thinking. discerning thinking activity. The child doesnÕt begin by bringing forth concepts out of his own thinking; What Occurs When Listening? he first develops his own thinking through the Rudolf SteinerÕs most precise description of how it is concepts taken in from the people around him.8 possible to Òbring overÓ concepts (unmixed with our It is an innate gift of the child to be able to take own conceptual content) via the sense of concept in concepts in their immediacy through the sense is found in the first appendix to the second edition of concept. The young child cannot but immerse (1918) of his Philosophy of Freedom. During the act of himself in his human surroundings with love and perception through the sense of thinking, the other devotion. The stronger the personal discerning personÕs thinking is momentarily taken over into my power of thinking develops, the more problematic spirit as if it were my own. While perceiving another it becomes for the sense of thinking. Personal personality, I am compelled, as a thinking being, Òto

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extinguish my own thinking as long as I am under ourselves because the thinking of the other is of the its influence, and to put its thinking in the place of same nature as our own thinking and because it is mine. I then grasp its thinking in my thinking as Òbrought over into our own spirit in a pure formÓ in an experience like my own. I have really perceived the moment of thought perception, Òunmixed with another personÕs thinking.Ó9 our own conceptual content.Ó15 It is then primarily the individualized way of The quality of social discourse now depends coining or forming of concepts by the other person decisively on how a person ÒawakensÓ from this that I experience.10 Steiner continues: Òbringing over,Ó this Òdeep-sleepÓ listening activity.16 Because the child acquires his self-consciousness ...It is a process lying wholly within my through the development of his self-centered consciousness and consisting in this, that personality, the waking-up moment is connected the other personÕs thinking takes the place with an aggressive self-assertion. When he slackens, of mine. Through the self-extinction of the the child again Òfalls asleep,Ó as it were, into the [outer, bodily] sense appearance [of the thoughts of the other being. Insofar as a person other person], the separation between the does not take his social development consciously in two spheres of consciousness is actually hand, this will remain so into adulthood. eliminated.11,12 This expresses itself in Through self-observation in adulthood, my consciousness through the fact that however, we can become conscious of the while experiencing the content of another inherent anti-social nature of this waking-up of personÕs consciousness I experience my own our personality to its own thinking. If, out of this consciousness as little as I experience it in awareness, you dampen your own personality, a dreamless sleep. Just as in dreamless sleep foggy state of mind ensues, excluding yourself from my waking consciousness is eliminated, so playing an active role in any social setting. At the in my perceiving of the content of another threshold of awakening, one stands unavoidably personÕs consciousness the content of my between a deep sleep of devoted listening and the own is eliminated. The illusion that it is not anti-social nature of thinking. so comes about only because in perceiving the other person, firstly, the extinction of How Does Listening Interact with Thinking? the content of oneÕs own consciousness It can happen that when listening intently gives place not to unconsciousness, as it to another person, one experiences and fully does in sleep, but to the content of the understands the lively depiction of this other other personÕs consciousness, and secondly, personÕs thoughts in all their richness and depth. the alternations between extinguishing However, shortly thereafter one may remember and lighting up again of my own self- the richness, the depth, the vitality of the lively consciousness follow too rapidly to be depiction of the thoughts, but may find oneself hard generally noticed.13 put to reproduce their content. An autonomous understanding is something quite different from the Eight years earlier, Steiner had phrased it as immediacy of understanding while perceiving with follows in the fragment of his book Anthroposophy: the sense of thinking. During the latter, thoughts ÒWhat we can experience within our own soul as blossom between speaker and listener, momentarily a concept, we can also receive as revealed from an living into the listenerÕs organism of concept,17 external being. ... With the concept that lives within still carried by the speakerÕs power of thought: another human being, we perceive what lives, The otherÕs thinking is active instead of oneÕs own. soul-like, within ourselves.Ó14 It lives soul-like within Whether or not we are then able to reproduce the

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 DetlefRunning Hardorp Head • 33 otherÕs thoughts out of our own power of thinking of shutting himself up in his own thoughts to the depends on our ability to think the thoughts degree that his disposition as a truly social being independently. wanes. He then constantly expresses his own After abandoning oneself to the other personÕs thoughts; when he doesnÕt express them, he thinks thinking for a while, the effect of the thought them. He is no longer capable of truly listening. perception on your own life organism, this rooting When strengthening your own thinking, it is of foreign thoughts in your organism of concept, likewise necessary to strengthen the other pole: can be felt increasingly as an intrusion, arousing devotion toward what is not ÒI.Ó Only then can oneÕs own thinking in defense. When consequently the anti-social nature of exercising judgment be one expresses oneÕs own thinking activity through integrated into the social organism. Devotion words or gestures, the whole process begins towards the other being is in particular nurtured anew, now with reversed roles. This is how a rapid by deliberately silencing oneÕs own thinking, no alternation between extinguishing and relighting of matter how wise it may be; otherwise it is like light your own self-consciousness comes about. reflecting on the surface of water, impeding sight This alternation can come to life in a variety of from penetrating into the waterÕs depths. ways, in particular by training my thinking, while We develop full individuality by lucidly and awakening, to be less influenced by my personality. willfully strengthening our thinking. Consciously The more universal my thinking, the longer it can caring for developing devotion towards other remain devoted to the foreign thought, out of which people builds community. These two poles are it then unfolds its own strength while awakening. interdependent: the deeper we penetrate one, the Immediately, though, we are liable to revel in the deeper we can enter into the other. Neglecting one strength of our own thinking, therefore unable to weakens both: If we spin ourselves into the cocoon properly Òfall asleepÓ into the other thinking again. of self-referential thinking, the sense of thought A proper rhythm must develop between oneÕs own becomes obscured and can no longer take in foreign thinking activity and devout, dedicated listening. thoughts. When that happens, the conversation can rise into a shared realm of spiritual and soul intimacy. This How Do We Perceive Concepts kind of conversation nourishes souls. It constitutes While Reading? the building material out of which social art arises. Under which circumstances is a thought a It is, however, possible that the development of perception of the concept (or thought) sense; our self-centered thinking (our intellectuality) weans under which circumstances does it originate in us so radically from the surrounding world that we oneÕs own thinking or memory? This question was are no longer able to assimilate foreign thoughts asked and dealt with in the first part of this essay through the sense of thought. It is not surprising regarding the nature of listening. Is reading different that, in an age of ÒcoolÓ self-centeredness, the from listening in this regard? How do we perceive willingness to Òfall asleepÓ into the thoughts of concepts while reading? another person, to think them as if they were our We can speak of sense perception Òwhenever own, declines considerably. Here a certain unity cognition comes about without involvement of with the surroundings still protects the child, as it reason, memory, and so forth.Ó18 Rudolf Steiner canÕt do otherwise than experience the thoughts proposes precisely this necessary condition to around it most intently, long before it is able to delineate sense perception when introducing the think them independently. The adult, in particular sense realm beyond the sense of hearing in the after having undergone an intellectual training fragment of his book Anthroposophy. (and who has not in this day and age?), is in danger

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Now while reading, I am constantly dependent mentally representing being, this requires on my reasoning mind; without it, I would a sense that goes deeper than the usual experience mere words and not understand the word sense, this requires the sense of weaving of thoughts behind them. It is only through thinking, as I would like to call it. And an the power of my own thinking even more intimate relation and mental representations that Reading thus to the outer world than I can perceive thoughts when through the sense of thinking reading. To be sure, I form these becomes the starting is given to us through that thoughts based on the sense point of a conscious sense which enables us to perception of what is written; feel with another being in however this does not mean that advance into the such a way as to feel at one the thoughts are contained, sense supersensible worlds with this being, to sense it perceptibly, in what is written. as one senses oneself. That When reading a book, I can is the sense of I: through the work myself through to thoughts only by means of thinking, the living thinking which the other a lucid mind that is capable of thinking. Here the being turns towards me, I perceive the ÒIÓ of perception of thoughts is supersensible. this other being.19 Exactly the opposite is the case when perceiving via the sense of concept (or sense of thought or ÒWordÓ and ÒthoughtÓ should not be taken thinking): I can perceive nothing through this sense too literally. In the sense of Steiner, the realm while my reasoning mind stays awake. In order to of perception of the sense of tone20 or word perceive the thoughts of my fellow human beings encompasses all of human body language, including in their immediacy, my own reasoning mind must all expressed gestures of the soul insofar as they are be willing to fall asleep, so that during the act of perceived in their immediacy.21 Facial expressions perception via this sense I can live devotedly within of a human being also show the stirrings of the the thinking power of the other. Rudolf Steiner once soul, including the personÕs thinking, which can characterized the field of perception of the sense of be perceived by the sense of thought accordingly; thinking as follows: insofar as the ÒIÓ comes to expression in the soul, it can be perceived by the sense of ÒI.Ó Being together ...When I perceive a word, I do not as in silence with another human being can thus also intimately connect with the object or with provide a field of perception for these three upper the external being as when I perceive the senses.22 thought through the word. At this stage, The sense of concept enables one to Òdelve most people cease to make any distinctions. into another being ... through sensing what lives in But there is a distinction between perceiving that being as concept.Ó23 When (sensorially) delving the word, the meaningful sound, and the into another ÒI,Ó first its stirrings of thoughts are veritable perception of the thought behind perceived (as sense perception), before awakening, the word. You can also perceive a word, enriched, to oneÕs own thinking. While reading, after all, when it has been separated from the order is reversed: We must first awaken to our the thinker through a phonograph or even autonomous thinking before the thoughts of the through writing. However, while in a living other can be perceived (now super-sensibly!). connection with the being who is forming When I read what has been written in a book, the word, to transpose myself directly I face someone elseÕs thoughts in a similar way through the word into the thinking and to the manner with which I face nature. I realize:

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Here beings acted creatively, but I myself face words that they then try to connect and to enliven only the accomplished work. These condensed into thoughts out of their own thinking activity. If gestures allow me to surmise that this work arose I listen in this way while the other speaks, I will be out of life-imbued creativity. However, within the able to understand him in a way, although he will realm of sense perception, I can never reach the never feel understood. The unifying meeting of creative beings because they themselves are no beings (through the sense for the ÒIÓ of the other), longer present in the condensed gestures of the for which the percept of the sense of thinking accomplished work that I behold. becomes permeable and which resonates with each In the written text, the complete content is perception of the sense of thinking, is circumvented there; I must simply learn to read it. I can learn to when ÒreadingÓ the words of a speaker, because the read it only by exercising my thinking activity, so sense of thinking is bypassed altogether (which also that it itself forms the language. While reading, I disables the sense for the ÒIÓ of the other). When retrace the gestures inwardly and experience their listening in this way, people do not truly meet. A movement. The willing activity of my thinking must conversation of this sort is not Òmore invigorating make them flow so that my thinking can grasp the than light.Ó25 unifying impulse of the movementÑthe un-manifest When listening to audio recorded or radio thought. While reading, I am not on a par with a broadcast language, much more content of thinker. I am confronted with mere lettersÐÐdead, perception is given sensorially than while reading: petrified signs of former thinking activity; I break The remote speaker who is transmitted via a through to the thinking activity, which condensed loudspeaker conveys his intonation, his cadence itself into these letters and words, only when, out of of speech, etc., as carrier of a whole world of my own willful thinking, I cause the words to flow soul.26 Through accentuation in the flow of again and thereby the thoughts to resound. ÒThe speech, a particular understanding can be induced reader comprehends because he himself fills the given in the listener. A content so communicated is text with meaning. ...And not only does thinking thus sensorially richer and easier to understand make connections, but a power than when read. Precise soul which arguably gives thinking its observation will not, however, impulse to do so: the imagination,Ó The only source fail to notice that when listening writes Michael BockemŸhl in his bringing forth to someone on the phone or to excellent essay ÒReading and canned speech, the thoughts of Comprehension.Ó24 I understand thoughts that is also the speaker are not perceived what I read only to the extent of able to manifest its with the same immediacy as what I am able to grasp through when people meet face to face, my autonomous thinking. Apart essence in the world in spite of an empathy for from that, I can merely parrot of wrought work is the other ÒIÓ that can still be words. conveyed purely on the level of the human being. phonetic tone. In fact you need to Do I Read When Listening? continuously follow the thoughts Now I can also listen to someone present in an of the other inwardly in full waking consciousness. It uncommitted fashion by ÒreadingÓ the words he is hardly possible to sensorially Òfall asleepÓ into the utters as if they were written in a book, instead thoughts of the other while being spoken to on the of paying attention to his thinking. Persons with phone or when listening to canned speech. a dysfunctional sense of thinking in fact cannot A certain relationship of beings can nonetheless listen in any other way. They hear sequences of occur while telephoning. Sensorially, insofar as the

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ÒIÓ of the listener perceives Òa tone coming from the as Òthe translator that interprets the gestures of other IÓ and empathetically Òlives in that tone, and experience,Ó28 inorganic nature manifests none of therefore in the other IÓ (cf. the quote at the end of the concepts by which it can be grasped; these the last endnote). Furthermore, a relationship can conceptsÐÐalong with all meaningÐÐmust arise also connect to an inner image if one carries an from within the human being. Organic nature inner image of the other human being with whom manifests its concepts to the degree that the human the indirect communication is taking place. This being ascends to supersensible perception of these relationship of beings is not sensorial, however. It concepts in an act of cognition wherein thinking arises by turning our attention inward. In case of not only acts as Òtranslator [of] the gestures of sense perception through the sense of thinking and experienceÓ but itself becomes experience.29 The the sense of ÒI,Ó our attention is outward bound. germinating moments of thinking experienced It is even easier to realize that, within the process in this way are to be found only in the world of reading, an encounter of beings is not mediated of becoming, not in the world of finished form, by the human sensory organism, but by our own towards which the human sense organization is supersensible thinking and feeling. When reading, directed. I can notice how the thought, which is petrified The source of perception from which our in the written text, quivers slightly when touched own thinking wells is intuition. This source is of a by the will-power of my thinking and so begins supersensible nature. The source of perception for to delicately resound within my own thinking. It the one and only life of concepts which can express resounds to the degree that I form the thought its being in the world of otherwise finished form is anew. the sense organ of the sense of concept or thinking The wider my comprehension of the which, directed towards the wrought world, is the interconnections of inner threads that manifest source of perception for the germinating moments through the text, the more my own thinkingÐÐin of thinking of another human being. the will-quality of the ÒIÓÐÐbecomes the bearer of the being who created the written work I behold. Reading thus becomes the starting point of a conscious advance into the supersensible worlds of Resources the spirit. 1. Rapp, Dietrich. Sense of Concept Ð Sense of Mental Thoughts in a book can, however, be set into Representation Ð Sense of Thinking. Concerning the such solid clusters of mental representations that sheaths of its uncovering. In Die Drei 11/1986. they are no longer able to resound. The petrified 2. Steiner, Rudolf. A Theory of Knowledge Based on thoughts have passed under the threshold of Goethe’s World Conception. (From the first note to the possible reanimation. They may never have been new edition of 1924. Retranslated by the author, alive in the writer himself. In that case only dead with some segments taken from the translation of mental representations, schematically combined, Olin D. Wannamaker.) Anthroposophic Press, 1968. 3. Steiner, Rudolf. Allgemeine Menschenkunde. August 29, are rigidly strung together through associations of 1919. Passage translated by the author. words. In both cases, my thinking cannot perceive 4. Scientific concepts are generally formed in this way. any thoughts. Concepts can also be ÒcondensedÓ or ÒindividualizedÓ to mental representations through sense perception. Conclusion In particular, ethical and moral representations The only source bringing forth thoughts that is also are formed in this way. Cf. Steiner, Rudolf. Intuitive able to manifest its essence in the world of wrought Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom. work27 is the human being. Without human thinking Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press 1995.

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5. The first four were published in Anthroposophie, 12. In the eighth lecture of The Study of Man on August Psychosophie, Pneumatosophie (translated as Wisdom 29, 1919, Rudolf Steiner describes the Òvibration of of Man, of the Soul, and of the Spirit), the fifth lecture the soulÓ between Òabandon to the otherÓ and Òinner in Kunst und Kunsterkenntnis (translated as The Nature defenseÓ as basic gestures of the sense of ÒIÓ and and Origin of the Arts). The content of these lectures refers to his characterization of this sense in the new was meant to appear as a written book; Steiner edition of his Philosophy of Freedom. In fact, there he managed to write only a fragment (which was first mainly describes the Òvibration of the soulÓ as basic published in 1951 under the title Anthroposophie. Ein gesture of the sense of thinking. The sense of thinking Fragment aus dem Jahre 1910, published in English in and the sense of ÒIÓ are obviously different aspects 1996). of one sense continuum with the same alternating 6. Translated by the author. A translation of basic gesture. It can be viewed as one sense realm, Anthroposophie, Psychosophie, Pneumatosophie (Vol. but also as two. The statement that Òthe separation 115 in the Bibliographic Survey, 1961) was made by between the two spheres of consciousness is actually Samuel and Loni Lockwood from the original German eliminatedÓ clearly refers to the sense of ÒI,Ó which edition published in 1931, which was later drastically borders on the sense of thinking and resonates revised when better stenographs of the first set of within it. Insofar as thoughts are presently being lectures turned up. The translation was supposedly begotten by a thinker, it is always possible to direct Òcarefully checked against the later edition of 1965, the attention more toward the begotten thoughts published by the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, or toward the begetting thinker. There is thus a in which complementary material derived from gradual transition from the sense of thinking to the additional transcripts located since 1931 was sense of ÒI.Ó The basic gesture of oscillation between incorporated,Ó and Òminor alterations in keeping sympathy and antipathy can have very different with the new materialÓ were made to the Lockwood qualities, even up to the point that the realm of translation Òwhere necessary,Ó as noted in the 1971 ÒIÓ and the realm of the other amalgamate into a Anthroposophic Press edition of this translation. common realm, reaching beyond sympathy and The passage cited in this essay was, however, not an antipathy. accurate translation of the text in the later edition. 13. Steiner, Rudolf. Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: 7. Steiner, Rudolf. Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic A Philosophy of Freedom. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1995, first appendix to the 1918 edition. Press, 1995, p. 229, translation by Michael Lipson. 14. Steiner, Rudolf. Anthroposophy (A Fragment), 1996, p. 8. More precisely: Thinking develops in conjunction 94ff. with progress in the development of kinesthesia (self- 15. From the previously cited last chapter of SteinerÕs movement). Kinesthetic ability gets Ònourishment Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy that pours forth from withinÓ through the sense of of Freedom, written 24 years before the just cited concept (cf. the lecture by Rudolf Steiner ÒHuman in-depth remarks from the first appendix to the new Spirit and Animal SpiritÓ of Nov.17, 1910). edition of 1918. SteinerÕs discovery of the sense of 9. Translation of this and the following quote by Michael concept became a life-long theme of research. Wilson. 16. Regarding social discourse, compare SteinerÕs lectures 10. A concept is individualized by the way it gets of December 6 and 12, 1918, in Social and Anti-Social mentally represented. As already mentioned, when Forces in the Human Being and the first lecture to Rudolf Steiner spoke about the sense of thinking the delegates conference on February 27,1923 in or concept the first time, he also called it sense of Awakening to Community. mental representation (Vorstellungssinn). Cf. lecture of 17. Cf. chapter 7 of the book in endnote 14. October 26, 1909 in the ÒAnthroposophyÓ lectures. 18. Ibid, p. 92. 11. Michael Wilson here uses the word ÒovercomeÓ 19. Cited from the lecture of August 12, 1916, contained (Michael Lipson the word ÒsuspendÓ in his in The Riddle of Humanity, translated by John F. translation). We have translated the German Logan. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1990. Logan aufgehoben as Òeliminated.Ó has a mistake at the end of his translation of this paragraph, where he incorrectly attributes the

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Òliving thinking,Ó through which the ÒIÓ of the other The quotation above is taken from the authorÕs is perceived, to the perceiver, whereas Steiner is unpublished English manuscript.) In a hand-written speaking of the living thinking of the perceived. fragment of a text that was printed under the The paragraph has been largely retranslated by the heading ÒRegarding Listening and SpeakingÓ by the author. publisher as an appendix to the book Anthroposophy. 20. The German Laut is here translated by ÒtoneÓ (which A Fragment (p. 205 of the 1996 edition), Steiner should always be thought of as ensouled), and the delineates the perception of a sound of a lifeless German Ton by Òsound,Ó consistent with the English object from an empathetic listening to a phonetic translation of Anthroposophy (A Fragment). tone from a human being. After a longer exposition, 21. For this distinct sense realm, see in particular he concludes Òthat in the case of human tone, the the well-documented work of Peter Lutzker, Der listener imparts his or her ÔIÕ to the ÔIÕ of another, Sprachsinn. Sprachwahrnehmungen als Sinnesvorgang. while in the case of a sound of a lifeless object, The book was translated into English, but the English the ÔIÕ is imparted only to the sound itself.Ó Prior to manuscript was never published. this passage, he had written about the mystery of 22. Together with the sense of hearing, the senses of empathy with the ÒIÓ of another and described it as phonetic tone or word, concept, and ÒIÓ are often follows: ÒWe sense our own ÔIÕ in the ÔIÕ of the other. If called Òupper senses.Ó we then perceive a tone coming from the other ÔI,Õ our 23. Cf. endnote 14, p. 95. own ÔIÕ lives in that tone, and therefore in the other 24. ÒLesen und Verstehen,Ó published in Lesen im ÔI.Õ Ó anthroposophischen Buch. Ein Almanach, Verlag Freies 27. Steiner, Rudolf. Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, Geistesleben, 1987. leading thought no. 112. The German Werkwelt is 25. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Green Snake and there translated as Òaccomplished WorkÓ instead of the Beautiful Lily, a fairy tale. Òworld of wrought work.Ó 26. A listener reacts to the articulated structure of 28. Steiner, Rudolf. The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in words with precisely synchronized movements that Goethe’s World Conception, also translated as The correspond to those of the speaker (this is called Science of Knowing. Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, ÒentrainmentÓ). This was studied by William S. 1988. Chapter II: Thinking and Perception. Condon. ÒOne of the most significant and unexpected 29. Steiner, Rudolf. . Spring Valley, NY: results [for Condon as well] of this unique study of Mercury Press, 1988. the relation between speech and movement was the realization that not only is there a continual and exact coordination of a speakerÕs movements with his or her own speech, but that the listener moves in precise synchrony to the articulatory structure of Translated by Elisabeth Hardorp and the author. the speakerÕs speech almost as well as the speaker does.Ó Furthermore, Òno synchronization was found with non-speech sounds. It has also been shown that a two-day-old American infant was capable of Detlef Hardorp was born in 1955 in Germany. He entraining to Chinese speech while at the same time received his Ph.D. from Princeton in mathematics, not showing a synchrony of movement with tapping which he taught at Rudolf Steiner Schools in Hessen and sounds and disconnected vowel sounds. These results were also duplicated when tape recordings Bavaria. He currently teaches politics and education at were used.Ó This is how Peter Lutzker summarizes Rudolf Steiner Schools in Berlin and Brandenburg. the experiments of William S. Condon and L.W. Sander, which were published in the magazine Science in 1974. Cf. Peter Lutzker: Der Sprachsinn. Sprachwahrnehmungen als Sinnesvorgang, 1996, S. 44. (LutzkerÕs book was originally written in English, but only published in a translated German version.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Outline of a Study Methodology

Elan Leibner

been presented more or less fully to the reader. Introduction This usually requires reading between one Study is expected of faculty and college work paragraph and two pages. The student (as in Waldorf schools. Most schools incorporate the participating teacher will from now be studies into various meetings, and it is generally designated) then writes a paraphrase of the understood that the study is meant to be a tool for content of the theme in his/her own words, ongoing professional development to deepen the condensing the text to about 10-20% of its facultyÕs understanding of anthroposophy, of the original length. The best summaries are written curriculum, and of children taken individually or as if the writer is the original speaker, and not as a class. When successful, the study portion of in the third person (not ÒSteiner saysÓ but the meetings is enlivening and satisfying. content itself). When done well, this phase by All too often, however, the study can fall short itself is immensely helpful. Rather than Òsleeping of its promised potential. The reading of texts, in intoÓ the content, as so often happens when one particular, feels like a slog through molasses. The reads a demanding text, one is forced to move hours following the end of school are not ideal for back and forth between reading and thinking, a first encounter with demanding texts, and the and thinking and writing. This ÒbreathingÓ discussions, if they happen at all, may not reach rhythm, in as much as it works through the far beyond a surface understanding of the material. rhythmic system, encourages comprehension An unintended consequence of a poor study to emerge. Further, the summary remains a may be an aversion to the material among the reference resource for the student who prepared faculty, particularly those who have not previously it. Since it is time-consuming, this phase may experienced a fulfilling study during the course of take a faculty or college several meetings to their teacher preparation. complete. However, once a section has been Over the past few years, I have had the good summarized, it will not take a student long fortune to lead studies of basic pedagogical texts to pick up the thread of thought when s/he (such as Rudolf SteinerÕs Study of Man) and some returns to the text. Alternatively, the person other anthroposophical literature in various leading the study may divide the text into settings. From the successes and failures of these sections (according to themes) ahead of time studies, a basic approach has emerged, which I offer and assign each participant one section to here in the spirit of research into effective practices. summarize. In this approach, the group can have the whole lecture or text summarized quickly, Study Sequence but, of course, each person will have read and In the studies I have led with practicing or summarized only a section of the whole. prospective teachers, we have taken up the text in a A summary of the first five pages in Balance sequence of four phases: in Teaching, Lecture 1, is added at the end of this article as a sample. It is not practical to add the 1. Summary. Every participant reads (silently) original text here, but it can be downloaded for through the text until a theme seems to have free from the archive section of Steinerbooks.org.

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2. Movement of the Themes. Each student well for meetings, since they do not require identifies (in writing, in the same notebook props or changes in the physical space, but used for the summary) the main themes of the any artistic ÒlanguageÓ is fine. (It is entirely text s/he previously summarized. Each theme is conceivable that movement, music, or sculpture identified in a few words, following the authorÕs work equally well, but I have not experienced sequence. The participants then share their those and therefore do not include examples of sequences, making changes or additions to their them here.) This phase calls upon the student to own work if they so desire. It is not necessary for give the ideas within the text a new vestment, everyone to agree on what should be considered incorporating his/her relationship with those the movement of the themes, but othersÕ ideas more clearly into the foreground. It is perspectives can be helpful. A variation on this usually a lively and energizing step. If each phase, suggested to me by Douglas Gerwin, student transforms all of the themes into artistic has each participant articulate one summary representations, s/he will have an artistic segment while linking his/her summary to the rendering of an entire lecture. If the group one offered previously by another participant. divides the lecture or text so that each student Now each student tries to ÒseeÓ the whole text works with one theme, then the group as a (lecture or section of a book) as a movement whole will have that complete artistic rendering of themes. By repeating the series of themes in by the end of this process. Groups can be playful oneÕs mind a few times, a sequence emerges that with this phase, experimenting with different was previously only dimly sensed. By knowing approaches to keep the surprising and engaging where the text is Òheading,Ó the student can see explorations lively. connections and thereby learn not only from the details but also from the artistic construction of 4. Question Leading to Contemplation. the text as an entirety. This phase brings the text Each participant picks a theme that speaks into movement, giving the student a birdÕs-eye particularly strongly to him/her, and tries to view of the whole. It allows a new mobility to articulate a genuine question in relation to that grow in the thinking of each participant. Parts of theme. It is not easy to find true questions. the text acquire a new significance through their Seemingly simple ones often work the best. connection with the totality, much as a second One should avoid asking questions that are reading of a novel gives a context for individual meant to set the stage for oneÕs knowledge to events and personalities that one could have shine forth and seek instead for those questions easily missed at the first reading. A conversation that leave the group in an open, not-knowing at this point is often brimming with new ideas state. If successful, this phase opens the door and insights. This phase can also be repeated to new insights, gained through a period of at the completion of the entire text, so that a quiet contemplation. Questions can be held similar large viewpoint can grow of how the inwardly, captured in a representative word or whole text is, in a sense, one statement. sound, and then eliminated altogether for short periods, leaving behind a receptive attentiveness 3. Artistic Transformation. Each student as a vessel for new Òdrops of light.Ó They can transforms one or all of the themes (depending be shared, preferably in a quiet, contemplative on how the group wishes to proceed) into an mood. The actual contemplation can be artistic representation. This can be an image, undertaken in the group or left for each one to a stanza of poetry, or a visual form (drawing/ practice at home. If the group has a working painting). Poetry and images work particularly relationship with contemplative periods during

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meetings, then it can take up one theme and Spencer wants the instruction of children to have everybody approach it contemplatively at be a preparation for future specialization (as a the same time, or have a contemplative period scientist, e.g.), but that is exactly the worst possible during which each member engages with his/her approach to education. Future specialization is in individual question. essence a question of talent, that is, of karma. The education of children should be geared towards As mentioned earlier, this methodology is the essential humanity of all children, not towards offered in the spirit of research into effective the karmic gifts of a few. In fact, a teacher would practices. I welcome reflections or suggestions as to be educating better if s/he tried to make sure that its efficacy. a child WOULD NOT be able to specialize in a given field of instruction. Summary Sample When a specialized training is considered an Balance in Teaching, Lecture 1 (pp. 1Ð5) appropriate preparation for teaching, then the teacher cuts a comic figure in front of the class. Teachers must have a deep feeling for the In fact, education should be its own specialty, nature of the esoteric. Much of what will make an and training in science is not a preparation for educator effective has to be guarded as a sacred pedagogical work. possession within the circle of the faculty. [It is not The confusion between pedagogy and research to be discussed in public.] originated in the universities and has made its way Education is concerned with cultivating the down through the high schools into the elementary three soul forces of the next generation; those have schools. to be prepared for accomplishing the tasks of the future. Humanity brought itself to its present (1920) state of misery because it has made itself dependent Reference on the mode of thinking that originated in the West. Steiner, Rudolf. Balance in Teaching. Great Barrington, Herbert Spencer is a representative of this mode, MA: SteinerBooks, 2007. whose influence on education has led to the precise opposite of what education should entail.

Elan Leibner is the current editor of the Research Bulletin, was a class teacher at the Waldorf School of Princeton, directed the Teacher Training Course at Emerson College in Sussex, England, and is presently a consultant and guest teacher across North America.

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When we are teaching the children about plants and animals in our grade-school lessons, we could hardly imagine a greater mistake in our method of education than to treat the subject as an introduction to the studies which would be required to enable the child later to become a botanist or zoologist. If, on the contrary, we could have arranged our lessons so that our way of teaching about plants and animals would hinder the child in question from becoming a botanist or zoologist, then we would have acted more wisely than by following [the scientific] principle, for no one should become a botanist or zoologist through what he learns in grade-school; that he can become only through his special gifts, which are revealed by his choice of vocation and which would be sure to appear during his life if there is a true art of education. Through his gifts! That is, if he has the gifts necessary for a botanist, he can become a botanist; and if he has the gifts necessary for a zoologist, he can become a zoologist. That can only be the result of the gifts of the child in question, which is to say: predetermined karma. This must come about through recognizing that this child has the makings of a botanist and that another child has the makings of a zoologist. It must never be the result of making our grade-school lessons in any way a preparation for special scientific activity. Ð Rudolf Steiner Balance in Teaching SteinerBooks, 2007

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 The Founding Intentions Spiritual Leadership, Current Work, and the Goals of the Medical Section

Michaela GlÖckler

he tasks of the School of Spiritual Science conceived of the Goetheanum as a place to facilitate are rooted in what Rudolf Steiner perceived as a such seeking and finding in contemporary times, TÒspiritual influxÓ into the rising tides of materialism so that each interested person could find an inner during the last third of the nineteenth century: ÒA path of development fitting for his profession, revelation of the spirit was opened up for mankind. fruits of work and study within the specialist Not from any arbitrary earthly consideration, Sections of the School would address contemporary but in obedience to a call resounding from the issues and foster further cultural development of spiritual world; not from any arbitrary earthly individuals, and support could be given to collegiate consideration, but through a vision of the sublime collaboration and community building. pictures given out of the Steiner therefore outlines spiritual world as a modern Rudolf Steiner intended the following tasks of the School revelation for the spiritual to facilitate practical at the Goetheanum: ÒSince life of mankindÑfrom this the School of Spiritual Science flowed the impulse for the divine service in daily life. cannot be a college or university anthroposophical movement. in the normal sense, it will not This anthroposophical movement is not an act attempt to compete with these in any way or be a of service to the earth. This anthroposophical substitute for them. What one will be able to find movement in its totality and in all its details is at the Goetheanum, however, which is not to be a service to divine beings, a service to God. We found at ordinary universities, is esoteric deepening create the right mood for it when we see it in all its of knowledge. People will be able to receive wholeness as a service to God.Ó1 there something that the soul seeks in its quest These words state clearly that the founding for knowledge. This quest for knowledge can be of the Goetheanum as an independent school for something universally human. The General Section anthroposophy was an initiative that Rudolf Steiner will exist for those who have only the universally intended to facilitate practical divine service in daily human need to find the paths of the soul towards life. Not only those who practice the vocation of the world of spirit. The other Sections will endeavor priest, but every member of a profession can learn to indicate paths whereby those who wish to orient to feel responsible in his or her actions towards a their lives in accord with a specific scientific, artistic real, divine-spiritual world. Spirituality is not just a or other vocation can do so. Thus every seeking matter for religion, but also for science, art, and for human being will find at the ÔGoetheanum SchoolÕ how people lead their daily lives. what he wishes to strive for, depending on the With such an endeavor, Steiner harkens back particular circumstances of his life. In other words, to the most ancient mystery traditions. The word the School does not aim to be a purely academic mysterium, which can be translated as Òsecret,Ó institution, but a purely human one; but at the denotes the search for a spiritual path and a temple same time it should be able to fully engage with the that remained secret until one had found what one esoteric needs of the scientist and the artist.Ó2 sought or strove for. Steiner and his colleagues

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The Threshold to the Spiritual World ¥ In the fire of honest self- and world- Already in a public lecture given in Stuttgart on knowledge, the self-deception with which May 1, 1919,3 Rudolf Steiner states how necessary one unconsciously wants to protect it is to come to recognize that the thresholds of oneself and others from uncomfortable birth and death are transitions leading into spiritual truths is burned away (the fire trial). forms of human existence, to which earthly life is directly related. He describes how a personÕs ¥ In the crisis of trust that very often follows a happiness in life and his capacity to withstand severe disappointment in oneself or another crises are dependent on the extent to which he person, one can experience the quality of the can become aware of this fact. Those who live trial by water, in which Ònothing upholds you.Ó in an awareness that the spiritual worldÐÐin the In the face of the deep uncertainty associated form of life after death and before birthÐÐactually with thisÐÐthe falling away of recognition, exists develop different values and perspectives on support, and encouragement from within and earthly life. One learns to live daily life with more withoutÐÐone can develop further in a healthy mindfulness in all of its details and to acknowledge way only by deriving oneÕs motives for action responsibility for oneÕs own actions towards oneself entirely out of the matter at hand. Personal and oneÕs guiding spirit. If we do not become aware sympathies can and must fall silent. The love of this fact, we lose insight into the meaning and for an action rooted solely in the matter at hand purpose of life, as well as into the precious nature sustains us, even if we are otherwise floundering, of every moment granted us to develop ourselves without firm ground under our feet. and our work for others. Cultivating Òthreshold consciousnessÓ on the other hand, in professional ¥ The quality of the trial by air, in contrast, life and in social interaction, awakens each personÕs concerns a capacity that the modern human experience of meaning and sense of responsibility being especially needs if he or she wishes to act for the developmental context in which he stands in a culturally creative and healing way. Here we and gives life value and orientation. At the same must not only educate ourselves to be truthful to time, much is also ÒunveiledÓ in the sense of an ourselves and others (the fire-trial process) and Òapocalypse,Ó that is, as revelation. Consciously develop a capacity for human understanding approaching the spiritual world gives life meaning or love (the water-trial process), but also, but it is also a serious matter. It is simultaneously in particular, we need a capacity for moral uncomfortable and beautiful, in the same way as intuition;6 we need an ability to make the right are truth and self-knowledge.4 decision in the specific situation at hand. For this, In the esoteric tradition, the three decisive steps courage, tolerance, and unconditional love of for preparing the conscious individual crossings of freedom are needed. the threshold are called the trials by fire, water, and air.5 Formerly, at the time of the ancient mysteries, These three new ways of handling thinking, these trials or tests could be undergone only in the feeling, and willÐÐeven if we initially practice them form of initiation rituals in a temple. Today, inner only in a tentative wayÐÐmake the dynamics of and outer circumstances of life require most of us to social interaction into a developmental space for all. experience them. Life itself has become a mystery, They are also the capacities or attitudes towards the meaning and developmental opportunities life that connect the spiritual and sensory worlds, of which have to be uncovered. The initiation facilitating a conscious crossing of the threshold to experiences arising from these circumstances the spiritual world. pertain to our life of cognition, feeling, and will.

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Moral Techniques for Social Commitment forms of this Society are entirely founded on each and the Tasks of the Goetheanum individualÕs initiative. Every member is accorded In the face of the social deficiencies that so the autonomous right to join a working group commonly arise today, it is important to detail the or to form a group with others that has a local social skills that are required of us: or thematic focus (GA 260, p. 43). In the School of Spiritual Science, on the other hand, there 1. In the spiritual/cultural sphere, we need are no statutes describing the rights and duties to develop individualism and personal of members. Steiner calls this the Òsoul of the commitmentÑwhat one might call spiritual Anthroposophical SocietyÓ (GA 260, p. 161). To entrepreneurship. become a member of the School, no admission test 2. In the sphere of rights, we need clear structures is required nor is any testimony of oneÕs capacity, for reaching agreements and opportunities to such as is otherwise normally expected in order to reflect on the forms of work in which we are enter a university. Nor is any memberÕs contribution embedded, so that we can optimize them for the stipulated, as is the case in the Anthroposophical benefit of all. Society. Three conditions of entry are given which 3. In the economic-social sphere, the prime need one affirmsÐÐboth to oneself and to the School is for a culture of acknowledgement of what is collegium (the group of Section leaders)ÐÐthat one done, of what each individual can contribute will strive to fulfill as a binding commitment: with his or her specific gifts and capacities. ¥ To pursue the anthroposophic path of When these three primary needs of modern development independently and with human beings are taken into account, we can meet commitment. what is ÒdifficultÓ in social life in a constructive way. The creative development of all can replace ¥ To Òstay connectedÓ with the other School the chaotic drifting apart of individualsÕ intentions. members. To initiate a schooling oriented towards this, on December 27, 1923, during the Christmas ¥ To be a representative of the anthroposophic Conference, Steiner outlined three possible forms cultural impulse Òin all details of life.Ó9 of community buildingÑtwo with a horizontal structure and one that vertically crosses and These three conditions give each individual a clear connects them.7 The working forms characterized orientation and create the coherence necessary for by horizontal lines are those of the General forming working contexts, or Òcommunities of free and the School of spirits.Ó Spiritual Science with its three classes (see sketch: I, II, III) of which Steiner himself was only able to How Can a Christian Style of establish the First Class in its first division. Leadership Succeed? The ÒverticalÓ community building in the On January 1, 1924, at the end of the Christmas Section context is rooted in an inner attitude to Conference for the new spiritual foundation of the accomplish daily work out of spiritual responsibility. Anthroposophical Society and the School, Louis This requires the autonomy and fraternal stance Werbeck expressed the thanks of the participants, that can be learned in the forms of work of the calling Rudolf Steiner Òyou great, pure human Anthroposophical Society and the School. In brotherÓ and asking him for his Òfatherly blessingÓ the statutes of the General Anthroposophical for further work in the Anthroposophical Society. Society as conceived by Steiner,8 the working

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 46 • The Founding Intentions

Rudolf SteinerÕs sketch explained at the Christmas Conference of 1923/24 to clarify the working forms of the Anthroposophical Society, School of Spiritual Science and the Sections

Steiner replied as follows: Ò. . . My dear friends, human being achieves independent spiritual what has taken place here is something, I know, knowledge and insight. In the field of science this is that I was allowed to say, for it was spoken with possible by spiritualizing thinking and developing full responsibility and in upward gaze to the spirit it further meditatively. In the artistic sphere, we who is there and should be and will be, the spirit can do so by drawing on the artistic elements of of the Goetheanum. In the name of this spirit I composition, such as building materials, forms, have allowed myself to speak things that could not colors, tones, words, and movements so that have been uttered so forcefully if not uttered with spiritual qualities can become manifest.11 In upward gaze to the spirit of the Goetheanum. And practical life, on the other hand, as much of this so let me accept these thanks from you on behalf of spiritually grasped and longed-for spirit can be the spirit of the Goetheanum, for whom we wish to realized as individuals are each able to integrate exert ourselves, and strive and work in the world.Ó10 it into their work and the way they live their lives. This is at the same time clear acknowledgement of Of these three forms of manifestation of spiritual the Òvertical successionÓ in which Steiner included realities, art has advanced the furthest. It can himself as the inaugurator of anthroposophy. fashion images and revelations of what is Òperfect.Ó As little as he himself wished to receive thanks It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Rudolf Steiner from others for his work, but rather to pass this spoke often and in such a moving way about the on to his source of inspiration, just as little did he nature of the Dornach building and its central value it when people cited his authority in terms sculpture, the ÒRepresentative of Humanity.Ó Over of Òhorizontal succession.Ó A ÒChristian style of nine meters high, the statue shows Christ striding leadershipÓ takes its lead from the Pauline attitude, between the powers that seek to divert human ÒNot I but Christ in meÓ (Letters of St. Paul). beings from their path: Lucifer as the radiant spirit But this is an attitude of Òvertical succession.Ó of hubris, and Ahriman as the power-conscious Anthroposophy aims to be a path whereby the spirit of conformity and de-individualization.

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When construction of the first Goetheanum remote from the spirit, making it inadequate was starting, at the inauguration of the artist for developing freedom and responsibility. He studio on June 17, 1914, Steiner regarded the social question said: Ò. . . but then, when all is as a pedagogical one. When ensouled by this spirit whom I Life itself [is] a the first Waldorf school was wish to invoke with these words mystery, the meaning founded in Stuttgart, he insisted in this room this evening, when that education must have a everything that rises above this and developmental therapeutic orientation that hill through our work is filled with opportunities of which would always serve individual this spirit of love, which at the [are] to be uncovered. development and focus on same time is also always the spirit the childÕs developing health. of authentic art, then from this Thus the pedagogical question hill and what stands here there will radiate out into becomes a medical-therapeutic question. Ultimately, the world the spirit of peace, the spirit of harmony, though, as Paracelsus saw it, the medical question the spirit of love.Ó12 To let this spirit inspire us in is the question of the Òonly true medicine,Ó love. the realm of medicine and in the organs of the The human heart perceives in a differentiated anthroposophic medical movement is the great wayÐÐphysiologically, emotionally, and ideal of anthroposophic medicine. spirituallyÐÐwhat is happening in the organs and systems of the whole organism. It is from the heart Heart Function as a Guiding Image that the whole receives its impulses, and every The guiding picture for the leadership culture of the single organ and function receive the heartÕs blood Goetheanum, in particular for the Medical Section as needed to meet their individual requirements. with its therapeutic task, is the heart function of the It is only in the heart that the particular potential, human being. Steiner confirms this task everywhere capacities, needs, and stresses of individual organs in his work, for instance when he says, ÒThe inmost are reflected, along with the needs of the whole. principle of anthroposophic endeavor is love for the In the way the heart functionsÐÐits archetypal human being.Ó13 ÒWe can only make what we say mediation between periphery and center and and hear into the proper point of departure for the between the nerve-sense system and the metabolic- development of the anthroposophic cause if our limb systemÐÐthe heart is a profound and heartÕs blood is capable of beating for it.Ó14 And, archetypal image of a Christian social culture and at the end of the Christmas Conference, his words quality of leadership. sound like a Whitsun blessing: ÒAnd so, my dear friends, bear your warm hearts, in which you have Counter-Images of a Humane Approach laid the foundation stone for the Anthroposophical to Leadership Society, bear these warm hearts into the world The French revolutionary politician Robespierre for strong, potent and healing work.Ó15 ÒAnd so stands as a historic example of thinking that, in the heartfelt ties which you can form with the pursuance of the ideals of liberty, equality, and Goetheanum will be something which, especially as fraternity, lost touch with the heart. Where this physicians, can profoundly help you in the task you occurs, guiding pictures and ideals turn into an have really set yourselves.Ó16 ideology in which many become emotionally Steiner had a very clear perception of the subordinate and dependent on one charismatic connection between phenomena of social misery in personalityÑin spiritual terms on inspirations his timeÐÐpoverty, the upsurge of racism, abuses emanating from Lucifer. Ahrimanic inspirations of power, violenceÐÐand an education that was are at work where this ideological orientation

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 48 • The Founding Intentions is compounded by the enforcing of will and an above others to whom we wish to present or give external imposition of power and authority. As something. We must rid ourselves of the habit of a result, various types of totalitarian systems assuming a didactic or campaigning stance, so that and authoritarian styles of leadership arise that we can really make insight and understanding the are characterized by the use of both ideological founding element of life in the Anthroposophical and material/practical compulsions as a means of Society.Ó19 power, including the use of financial shortages to Heart culture lives from insight into needs and achieve certain goals. Common to both luciferically necessities. It creates structures and institutions and ahrimanically inspired social cultures is the so as to serve these needs and necessities as greater or lesser restriction of individual freedom best as possible. Thus Steiner allows the forms to think, hold opinions and act, along with of collaboration he proposes to interpenetrate heartless and inhumane elements in relations and each other in his sketch of the social structure for agreements. We can protect ourselves against the the anthroposophical work. The vertical element fascination of Lucifer through love for the realities stands at the center, however, as a fundamental of life: ÒThose who take spiritual science seriously orientation for each individual who feels an are not concerned with battling about different obligation towards one or several Section impulses professions of belief but instead they wish to pursue in his work. This vertical element stands for the serious work in all areas of practical life.Ó17 We can anthropos, the upright human being, whose insight protect ourselves against the dangers of Ahriman gives him the strength to turn his heart forces by respecting each personÕs individual freedom: right and left towards various work contexts of ÒThe individual first had to separate from his anthroposophic life, but also upward to inspiration associations and connections so that the social from the spiritual world, and downward, by element could be realized out of the individual.Ó18 standing within the demands of life with all Organizing oneÕs own modes and structures of work his personal, professional, and social human in as conscious and healing a way as possible for development. social interaction is therefore the core task of the Medical Section and the professional associations The principle of individuality: and institutions affiliated with it. In the statutes and statute discussions of the Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas The Working Principles Conceived by Conference of 1923/24, Rudolf Steiner presented the Rudolf Steiner and Their Guiding Image social structure of the School of Spiritual Science, Anthroposophical Society, and the anthroposophic The principle of interlinked collaboration: medical movement in a differentiated way. The How can the Anthroposophical Society, the School, Anthroposophical Society is underpinned by a the anthroposophic movement, and the public work democratic-republican gesture: All members have together constructively? Steiner gave a guiding the right to set themselves goals in a local area image for this in the blackboard sketch described or sphere of activity, to found contexts of work above. He described as follows the working attitude and lay down the particular statutes for such an necessary for realizing this guiding image: ÒIt is very organization. These individual goals and statutes important that we acquire the outlook according to should not contradict those of the Anthroposophical which we do not believe we have the right to give Society. Here the full scope of the principle of people anything other than what they demand, individuality applies. that we do not have a right to place ourselves

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The principle of fraternity in spiritual community: Meditations for Those Working in the Field The School of Spiritual Science is structured of Curative Education and Social Therapy according to the principle of spiritual fraternity: The Ð RŸdiger Grimm spiritual bond is formed by three conditions that regulate the various forms of collaboration. The Curative Education Course contains a series of meditative exercises for deepening oneÕs own inner The principle of representation and service: manner of working with questions and problems The anthroposophic medical movement, like relating to curative education and the nature of the the other Sections, is conceived as a service- human being. The point-circle meditation, which providing community. The School of Spiritual stands at the center of these exercises, was first Science should focus on making the findings of elaborated by Rudolf Steiner close to the end of anthroposophic spiritual research available for the course, in lectures 10 and 11.25 This exercise fraternal collaboration and community, for moral enables us to meditatively experience and discover and religious life, and for artistic and cultural life the fundamental, polar relationships between 20 in general. Central to this is the Rosicrucian maxim: the forces which form the human organization ÒAn action performed from goodness of heart is one and which continually recur as a formative in which the person who performs it does not pursue principle in the Curative Education Course. An his own interest but that of his fellow human beings. instance of this can be seen in the polar images 21 Such an action can be called morally good.Ó ÒAnd at of compulsively reproducing the same repeated all times complete harmony must prevail between ideas, on the one hand, and the incapacity, on the 22 external life and initiation.Ó ÒInstructions [of other, to recall even the simplest daily experiences. good spiritual teachers] lead either to good results Curative educational insight and deeds thus arise 23 or to nothing.Ó ÒThey are concerned with the from a process of convergence between external development and liberation of all beings, both observation, insight into the nature of the human 24 human and companions of human beings.Ó being, the inner recreating and envisaging of constitutional processes, conscious work on the The principle of flexible structures: form of relationships, and the development of The anthroposophic medical movement, for individual caretaking for people in need of special example, with all its different work contexts, has care. The inner activity involved in the point-circle to adapt continually to growing demands. Where meditation encompasses several elements by means a hierarchy of capacities is needed, this will be set of which polar experiences can be stimulated and up. Where all are needed and should be involved, deepened. democratic arrangements will be made. Otherwise, Practicing it in the evening and morning tasks can be mandated for a defined period, new means that it engages with differing states of bodies created, and structures that are no longer consciousness. In the evening a contemplative needed can be dissolved according to need. All the awareness arises as we recall the past day and modes of work developed or suggested by Rudolf release ourselves from its events and experiences, Steiner were flexible answers to questions or needs which can now be formed into inner pictures in of the time. This principle assures developmental retrospective review. In the morning, on the other openness, so as to counter stagnation in the social hand, we enter the individual space of our actions, domain and chaotic phenomena of upheaval and which we are likely to picture in a goal-oriented dissolution. way, and yet these actions may result and be co-determined by what comes to meet us. The polar situation in which we live can be experienced

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meditatively at the transitions between sleeping In the dawning consciousness of morning, on the and waking. other hand, we can experience how, in acting, our A second polar element is practiced through will activity touches and affects not only a world of the form dynamic of point and circle, or through objects but at the same time also a divinely created the inner exercise of centripetal and centrifugal world in which we encounter each other with our movement. In our mindÕs eye the point at the center individual destinies and dispositions: ÒI am in God.Ó of the circle expands towards its circumference, Inner flexibility can arise from ongoing while at the same time the peripheral circle element practice of this meditation, harmonizing the concentrates towards the point center. The linked transitions between states of consciousness in us: evocation of blue and yellow likewise accentuates between waking thinking and sleeping will. As a the greatest possible contrast of color spacesÑof Òprofessional meditationÓ it enables us to acquire space-creating-withdrawing impressions, on the one experiences that are, ultimately, indispensable hand, and emerging-luminous ones, on the other. for work in curative education: a schooling of Two meditative phrases enable us to live into the mindfulness, of devotion to the world of the depth of these processes: to experience the activity senses and its often unexpected pointers to key that gives rise to consciousness in the evening not opportunities for perceiving another being. It also just as a reflection of day consciousness but as creates a space for trusting in our own capacity the presence of a spiritual reality in which divine to be able to act with full presence of mind in the thoughts can fill human awareness: ÒIn me is God.Ó moment and for trusting with courage in the hidden dimensions of our own being.

The point-circle meditation in the Curative Course ÑÒIn me is God, I am in God.Ó

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References 12. Steiner, R. Wege zu einem neuen Baustil (GA 286). 1. Steiner, R. Die Weihnachtstagung zur Begruendung Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1982, p. 74. Lecture der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 2, Dornach, June 17, 1914. 1923/1924 (GA 260). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 13. Steiner, R. Soziale Ideen – Soziale Wirklichkeit – Soziale 1994 p. 35, opening lecture, Dornach, December 24, Praxis (GA 337 b). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1923. 1999, p. 242, second questions and answers session, 2. Steiner, R. Die Konstitution der Allgemeinen Dornach, October 12, 1920. Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft und der Freien 14. Steiner, R. Die Weihnachtstagung zur Begruendung der Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft (GA 260 a). Rudolf Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 1923/1924 Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1987, p. 131 ff. Newsletter, (GA 260). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1994, p. February 3, 1924. 36, opening lecture, December 24, 1923. 3. Steiner, R. Geisteswissenschaftliche Behandlung sozialer 15. Ibid, p. 284. Lecture and words of farewell from und pädagogischer Fragen (GA 192). Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Steiner. Dornach, January 1, 1924. Verlag, Dornach, 1991, p. 61 ff. Lecture 3, Stuttgart, 16. Steiner, R. Meditative Betrachtungen und Anleitungen May 1, 1919. zur Vertiefung der Heilkunst (GA 316). Rudolf Steiner 4. See also: Smit, J. Meditation und Christuserfahrung Verlag, Dornach, 2008, p. 220, lecture 5, April 25, – Wege zur Verwandlung des eigenen Lebens. Freies 1924. Geistesleben, Stuttgart, 2008. 17. Steiner, R. Vom Einheitsstaat zum dreigliedrigen 5. Steiner, R. How to Know Higher Worlds (GA 10). sozialen Organismus (GA 334). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 6. Steiner, R. Die Philosophie der Freiheit (GA 4). Rudolf Dornach, 1983, p. 242, lecture 1, Basel, May 4, 1920. Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1995, p.145 ff. 18. Steiner, R. Soziale Ideen – Soziale Wirklichkeit – Soziale 7. Steiner, R. Die Weihnachtstagung zur Begruendung Praxis (GA 337 b). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 1999, p. 52, third discussion evening, Dornach, 1923/1924 (GA 260). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, August 9, 1920. 1994, p. 113. Continuation of the founding assembly, 19. Steiner, R. Die Konstitution der Allgemeinen Dornach, December 27, 1923. Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft und der Freien 8. Ibid, p. 48 ff. Proposed statutes, Dornach, December Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft (GA 260 a). Rudolf 24, 1923. Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1987, p. 123, Die Freie 9. Steiner, R. Die Konstitution der Allgemeinen Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft innerhalb der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft und der Freien Konstitution der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, Ihre Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft (GA 260 a). Rudolf Gliederung in Sektionen, Dornach, January 30, 1924. Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1987, p. 124. Die Freie 20. Steiner, R. Die Weihnachtstagung zur Begruendung der Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft innerhalb der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 1923/24 Konstitution der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, Ihre (GA 260). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1994, p. 49 Gliederung in Sektionen, Dornach, January 30, 1924. ff. Opening lecture, Dornach, December 24, 1923 / p. 10. Steiner, R. Die Weihnachtstagung zur Begruendung 2 of the AS statutes. der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 1923/1924 (GA 260). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1994, p. 287. Words of thanks from the members and concluding words by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, January 1, 1924. 11. The 2010 exhibitions in Wolfsburg and Stuttgart Michaela Glöckler, MD, lives in Dornach, are a particularly striking illustration of SteinerÕs Switzerland, where she is the leader of the Medical influence on art. See: Markus Bruderlin, Ulrike Gross Section at the Goetheanum. A former pediatrician and (eds.): Rudolf Steiner und die Kunst der Gegenwart, school doctor, she is actively involved with the Waldorf exhibition catalog, Wolfsburg/Stuttgart, 2010; Mateo Kries, Alexander von Vegesack (eds.): Rudolf school movement worldwide as a lecturer and is the Steiner Ð Die Alchemie des Alltags, exhibition catalog, author of many books on child development. Wolfsburg/Stuttgart, 2010.

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Penetration into the phenomena of the world is brought about by a power flowing through the activity of thinking itselfÑthe power of love in its spiritual form. There are no grounds here for the objection that to discern love in the activity of thinking is to project into thinking a feeling, namely love. Ð Rudolf Steiner The Philosophy of Freedom Steiner Press, p.119

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Attending to Interconnection Living the Lesson

Arthur Zajonc

ow does one see a painting whole? Or wrong with this as long as the limitation of the the human mind? Or an ecosystem? Or for that method is not projected onto reality, limiting it. If Hmatter, the educational project itself? We are all you have is a thermometer, then everything is well schooled in Òseeing themÕÕ into partsÑinto a temperature. But we now know that analysis of brushstrokes, neurons, and moleculesÑor seeing climate, the human nervous system, economics, the university apart into departments, disciplines, and ant colonies, to mention only four examples, and specializations. What kind of attentiveness resists such simplification. To understand them will enable us to see a true whole? What is the with any subtlety requires that we embrace pedagogy for beholding interconnectedness as their inherent complexity and work with it. Until a primary reality and not a derived one? What the last few decades, the exclusive method of are the implications of a deep experience of studying complex systems was to break them interconnection for knowing, teaching, learning, down into fundamental parts and then to connect and life? What would be gained if, as the Dalai neighboring parts by means of simple forces. The Lama says, we were to cultivate Òa deep sense forces between these distinct parts bind them into of caring for others, based wholes. The whole is a mere on a profound sense of Context trumps amalgam of conjoined parts that interconnection?ÕÕ1 It is perhaps has no ontological standing of difficult to appreciate how consistency. The context its own. The solar system, in this extensive the changes would in which we examine view, comprises a star (the Sun), be if this integrative viewpoint light fundamentally planets, asteroids, comets, and were fully embraced in higher the like, all held together by the education. The conventional shapes the phenomenal force of gravity acting between view that privileges a single manifestation, as well as them. The atom likewise consists reductive perspective is so our conception of light in of a nucleus and surrounding pervasive that undoing its effects electrons bound together by an will be difficult, but if we were to that context. electromagnetic force. This lens succeed, then the fragmentation is then extended to chemistry, of our education and our lives biology, and the human being. would be healed. Simultaneous with our experience The parts are considered to be Òreal,ÕÕ as are the of self would be the powerful complementary forces that make connections between the parts, experience of human interdependence, of what but the wholeÑbe it a mineral substance, plant, Desmond Tutu calls ubuntu: ÒI exist because of you.ÕÕ animal, or humanÑis a kind of chimera. While such a view is useful in many instances, we now know Emerging Wholes it to be fundamentally mistaken. Two scientific Since Galileo, science has had a bias towards developmentsÑentanglement and emergence (as simplification for the very sensible and practical well as common sense)Ñhave made this conception reason that it was all it could handle. Nothing is of the world obsolete.

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The first breakthrough came when physicists to two things at once. The old practice of attending were able to attend to two things at once. This first to one thing (planet or particle) and then may sound simple, but to simultaneously measure to another fragmented the world into parts. We the subtle properties of two or more quantum were unconsciously practicing a particular kind particles required a significant increase in resources of attention. The universe was and is a whole, and experimental sophistication. The simplest but the method by which we chose to observe the experiment of this type was first suggested in 1935 universe fragmented it, and we mistakenly assumed by Einstein, Rosen, and Podolsky,2 but it had to wait our method gave us a true reflection of reality. until the 1980s for a definitive test. In the process of learning how to attend to the Light not only has the properties of intensity and whole, we learned that the experimental context color, but it can also have an internal orientation. If and our kind of attention are highly significant: thought of as a wave, then the vibration can be up They cannot be excluded as inconsequential. As and down or side to side. These Scientists now recognize we have seen already, our two different orientations of method of inquiry shapes, in vibration are called polarizations. that the qualities that part, only in the phenomena When physicists measured emerge in complex systems themselves, and it is these the correlations between the phenomena to which we have polarizations of photon pairs, are often not able to be access. If we attend to separate the patterns in the data could reduced to the parts that parts, that is what we see. If not be explained by any classical make up the system. we are interested in wholes and conception of light. (The devise an experimental method quantity measured is a complex Hydrogen and oxygen are suited to that interest, then correlation function for the the elemental gases that wholes show themselves. This probability of simultaneously make up water, but the is no mere relativism or pure detecting two photons at a constructivism, but rather an particular polarization angle ÒwetnessÕÕ of water is an example of the worldÕs richness relative to one another.) The Òemergent propertyÕÕ of the that reveals itself in stages in results were astounding, not system not reducible to response to us and our properly because they required a new posed questions. physical theory (quantum theory hydrogen and oxygen. The best known physics was adequate to the task), but example of the relationship because of their ontological implications. Here between question and phenomenon is wave-particle was a potent metaphysical experiment, and it duality. If the question we pose is, ÒWhere is the demonstrated convincingly that the understanding photon?ÕÕ then light shows itself as a particle. we had of wholes as merely parts juxtaposed and If, however, we do not ask, ÒWhere?ÕÕ but allow bound together by forces was wrong. In a crucial for an ambiguous trajectory for light, then the manner, when two particles interact, they form an resulting observed interference pattern can best inseparable whole and the very attributes by which be understood in terms of light as a wave. These we would normally distinguish the one from the contradictory manifestations of lightÑfirst other become, as physicists term it, Òentangled.ÕÕ3 particle and then waveÑarise in response to the The two particles form a whole that is as real as the experimental arrangement, which itself is the parts. Parts are no longer privileged. embodiment of a question. Classically considered, I think it symbolic that wholes showed wave and particle are mutually exclusive concepts, themselves only when physicists learned to attend but in quantum mechanics each aspect arises within

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 RunningArthur Zajonc Head •• 55 a distinct measurement context and so it is entirely then will we truly behold the painting, appreciate appropriate to that specific context. Context trumps the mind, and understand the complex reality that consistency. The context in which we examine is the ecosystem. Only then can we arrive at a light fundamentally shapes the phenomenal pedagogy that sees students as whole and complex manifestation, as well as our conception of light in beings and educates students with an eye to this that context. reality. The second scientific development that In summary, I have used science to expand our supports the overthrow of reductionism is worldview beyond a reductive materialist ontology emergence. If we turn in our imagination to walk in two ways.6 First, EinsteinÕs relativity and along a lively forest stream, or if we listen to a quantum mechanics both undermine objectification Mozart aria we know well, it seems clear that our and support a relational view of reality in which life is not made up of atoms and neurons but of a phenomena are co-created by the observer dense, rich array of meaningful experiences. What and the world. Second, through entanglement is the relation between the parts so often at the and emergence, physics offers evidence for an center of the scientistsÕ attention and the experience ontological holism that grants wholes a standing of wholes that occupy the rest of us? While the fact long denied them. Parts are no longer privileged. of quantum entanglement is a principled block to These two realizations are essential to a proper reductionism, a second scientific realization grants philosophical infrastructure for higher education. added weight to the status of wholes. Briefly put, scientists now recognize that the qualities that Pedagogies of Experience and emerge in complex systems are often not able to Interconnection be reduced to the parts that make up the system. Nearly every subject area in the academy has Hydrogen and oxygen are the elemental gases that attempted to make itself over into a ÒscienceÕÕ by make up water, but the ÒwetnessÕÕ of water is an adopting its own version of the worldview and Òemergent propertyÕÕ of the system not reducible to methods of the old physics of objectification and hydrogen and oxygen. disconnection. Along the way, the education of In a seminal paper aptly titled ÒMore Is the whole human being in community and the Different,ÕÕ the Nobel physicist Philip Anderson cultivation of his or her humanity seem to be stated, ÒAt each level entirely new properties increasingly forgotten for the sake of scientific appear. …Psychology is not applied biology, nor simplification. If we take Laughlin and others is biology applied chemistry. …We can now see seriously, then these fields need to reconceive that the whole becomes not merely more, but themselves according to a postreductionist very different from the sum of its parts.ÕÕ4 Nobel paradigm in which lived experience, connection, physicist Robert Laughlin put it another way: and complexity are given far more attention. ÒWe live not at the end of discovery but at the Every field will also benefit from adopting ways of end of Reductionism, a time in which the false teaching and learning that are in closer alignment ideology of human mastery of all things through with the relational and integrative view of reality microscopics is being swept away by events and we now possess. In this regard, consider economics, reason.ÕÕ5 Reductionism is, indeed, a false ideology. health care, and medical education. While we surely learn a great deal by attending Economics has long objectified the human to microscopic parts, we must be careful not to being, reduced to an idealized homo economicus, fall in love with the myopic view that mode of a hypothetical rational actor who maximizes his analysis offers. We must complement it with an or her utility function (which mathematically equal attention to relationships and wholes. Only represents the preferences of the consumer). In

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 56 • AttendingRunning Head to Interconnection: Living the Lesson addition, our relationships to fellow members of by the pollution associated with production are our community are reduced to the limited concept Òexternalized,ÕÕ which is to say they are not borne of the market. With these two abstractions of the by manufacturers but by the populace and the human being and communal relations, economics environment. Impacts on the environment and performs its analysis. While a useful formal model, community are obvious if one has a worldview that classical economic theory of this kind has come in acknowledges the dense interconnections between for heavy criticism and much modification. As in human activity, environment, and health. Instead, physics, the simplifying assumptions of classical classical economics neglects them. ÒEcological economics were made because economic theory economicsÕÕ or Ònatural capitalismÕÕ is an emerging could not handle the complexities of the real alternative to classical economics that explicitly world. But are humans really rational economic rejects the way in which neoclassical theory treats actors? Economics experiments show we are not. externalities.7 Understanding this opens us to other important The critique goes deeper. In his book The Dismal questions to consider, such as, Is market behavior Science, Harvard professor of economics Stephen the only or best way to gauge preferences, or might Marglin characterizes economics as Òhobbled by we allow for thoughtful, patient introspection an ideology in which these tensions [between concerning the root causes of suffering and individual and whole, between self-interest and happiness? Does the market really offer an accurate obligation to others, between material and spiritual and comprehensive valuation of community, or health] are replaced by a set of pseudo-universals might we allow for forms of fellowship that elude about human nature.ÕÕ8 Doing so simplifies the economic objectification? modeling but at great cost. Marglin goes on to In economics as in other provide a foundational critique fields, the limitations of its In economics as in other that reaches beyond the inclusion methods are projected onto fields, the limitations of of externalities to the very ways reality, truncating our image its methods are projected in which communityÑnecessary of self and community in ways to a good lifeÑis systematically that ultimately are not only onto reality, truncating undermined by markets that wrong but pernicious. Real our image of self and replace personal ties with people and their lives disappear community in ways that impersonal market transactions. behind the equations, and He shows that the effects of the densely interconnected ultimately are not only this process on well-being and world in which we live is wrong but pernicious the quality of life are large and replaced by a more tractable negative. limited system of competing Further problems arise in individuals and corporations that produce and economics because of its impoverished view of consume. Objectification and impersonal economic the human being. Two examples will help make transactions come to not only dominate our models clear what I mean. The first is the Ultimatum but also infect our views of each other and the Game, which economic researchers are now using natural world. to explore the limits of the basic assumptions of The failure of traditional economics to account neoclassical economics, those assumptions being for what are called ÒexternalitiesÕÕ is a symptom that homo economicus always acts rationally and of its tragic neglect of the interconnectedness in his or her own self-interest.9 In this model, we have been considering. For example, the emotions, altruism, fairness, community, and so on additional health and environmental costs caused have no real place in the economic calculations. In

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 RunningArthur Zajonc Head •• 57 the Ultimatum Game I receive a dayÕs wages from the actual economic behavior of human beings is someone with the condition that I give you some studied instead of presumed or idealized behavior. portion of what I received. If you keep the portion These are complemented by psychological and I give you, then the division of money between neuroscientific studies, which are also opening new us is settled. If you do not keep the portion given, ways of thinking about economics. then both of us forfeit the money. According to Enlarging our view of the human being and standard economic calculations, since something is enriching our relations to the world we inhabit will always better than nothing, you will keep whatever change not only the content of our courses but amount I give you, otherwise you (and I) lose the our pedagogy as well. Three examples can stand money. Taking whatever is given is the rational, for many. At the University of Southern Maine, self-interested thing to do. Experiments show, professor of economics Vaishali Mamgain offers a however, that in all cultures if the amount given is course on neoclassical economics and happiness in below about 25 percent, you will refuse the offer. which she not only reviews research on this topic Irrational factors or violations of self-interest are but asks her students to work reflectively with at play.10 Why are we not surprised by the result? questions such as these: Because we too would reject a demeaning offer, no matter what the economists say. • What are the causes and conditions that The second recognized failure of neo-economic make you happy? theory is the Òtragedy of the commons.ÕÕ Our • Who is it that is experiencing happiness? survival as a species depends fundamentally on • Are happiness and pleasure the same thing? such common resources as air that is suitable to breathe, water that can be drunk, fish in the Political philosopher David Kahane at the sea, soil that will grow crops, and so on. But University of Alberta draws his students into the if fishermen, farmers, and other workers act deep moral issues around allocation of resources rationally and purely in their self-interest, then by asking students to examine their own choices. the neoclassical economic calculation predicts the With great sensitivity, he then invites them to collapse of fish stocks, the disappearance of water, view in a sustained way the image of an African and so on. Without someone acting on behalf of mother burying her child who has died from an everyone, without a selfless sense for the whole, entirely preventable illness. Kahane notes that the the tragedy of the commons will take place. But cost of a lattŽ is equal to rehydration therapy for societies do step back and regulate fishing, water five children. Both Mamgain and Kahane seek to rights, and air quality on behalf of the community join textbook material with the experiences and and future generations. Such acts as these are inner observations of their students. Students not part of the traditional economic calculus. The are explicitly asked to bring themselves into the significance of this failure was recently underscored material and to offer thoughtful comments based by the Nobel Prize committee when they awarded on introspection. the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics to Elinor Ostrom Frank Maddox is an award-winning economics for her work on the tragedy of the commons. professor at Oxford College of Emory University With these and other groundbreaking economic who teaches in a similar way. He uses a variety studies in behavioral economics, wellness studies, of strategies to make vivid the realities of poverty and game theory, we are beginning to see the and wealth, industrial and craft production, and incursion of a more phenomenological and consumption. For instance, after his students nonreductive approach to the understanding of have studied standard economic theory in which peopleÕs economic life. Through these approaches consumers are modeled as maximizing utility, he

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 58 • RunningAttending Head to Interconnection: Living the Lesson gives them an unusual assignment. They are asked threaten to overwhelm the idealistic motives that to go to a store like Wal-Mart¨ or McDonaldÕs¨ draw most medical and nursing students to the and note the expressions, actions, and so on of profession. At every step, caring for those who are the people there. Students are to observe, without ill and suffering is made increasingly difficult by a judgment, anything that will help them gauge the system at odds with itself. I hardly need describe degree of consciousness shoppers give to what the dangers of a truncated biomedical model they are doing. Then Maddox asks the students to that sees the human being purely as a collection observe themselves in the same way, again without of organs, blood levels, and test results. Good judgment. How attentive are they to what they are medical education and health care do not require doing at any moment? What would it mean for us if such a view; in fact, it seems obvious that a fully we were more aware of our consumption? He calls integrative view is called for. it mindful consumption, and he asks what it might For several years I taught an interdisciplinary mean to replace maximizing utility with mindful course that studied, among other topics, the human consumption. At the end of the semester MaddoxÕs body in art and science. We worked equally with economics students all present their Interbeing the anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci and Projects. Interbeing is a term taken from the the scientific study of the heart by Andreas Vesalius Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh that emphasizes and William Harvey. The capstone experience the interconnectedness of all things. Students select was a trip to the anatomy lab of the University of a consumer good or service and then research Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, which some aspect of its production, becoming more was run by the remarkable teacher and anatomist conscious of their connections and responsibilities Sandy Marks. When Marks first began teaching, to it. Maddox teaches economics not only with anatomy classes had historically been taught as a interconnectedness in mind but as an experience for grisly, even macabre, boot-camp experience. Early his students. on he noted that some of his best students were In the same vein, author Daniel Goleman in his dropping out of medical school as a result. His own book Ecological Intelligence makes a compelling case sensibilities, as well as conversations with students for the huge environmental and social benefits that in his class, led him to a total overhaul of the gross would occur if we practiced mindful consumption, anatomy class. especially when the technologies become available Now the first day of class begins with readings to support us in this practice at the point of and conversations about death. For many students purchase.11 For example, in an early version of the cadaver they will dissect is their first direct such a technology, the foundation Nature & More encounter with mortality. It often raises fears rates hundreds of products and profiles producers and memories of those they have lost. Marks and their social and environmental practices, all makes time and space for these recollections and available on its website. feelings. He then introduces the students to their As the second example of the benefits of the Òfirst patient.ÕÕ No longer taken from the stateÕs relational and integrative view of reality, consider unclaimed dead, each body has been donated to the health care and medical education. In the United medical school, some coming with personal letters States, our approach to medicine has increasingly or poems expressing the wishes of the deceased. become a reductive science married to a for-profit He read one to us: ÒMay that life force that ran economic model that is fast approaching collapse. in me shine forth once more and pass to you the The questions of the quality of care for the whole knowledge and the power that help sustain the person and the education of the whole physician miracle of life.Ó12 In this class, each medical student seldom rise to the top of the agenda. Instead, cost takes the body apart layer by layer, learning its analyses and technique pervade the system and

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 RunningArthur Zajonc Head •• 59 miracles, but now it is done with The solitude of we meet can think, feel, and respect and ever mindful of the act so differently than we do. gift. At the conclusion of the specialization often Such experiences awaken us to class, relatives of the deceased reflects a wider our own culture, mores, and are invited to a closing ceremony disconnection from behavior, and this is especially in the medical school courtyard so when our engagement with at which the students express in others. Classroom other communities is in service words, music, and poetry their culture reinforces that to them. In response to a request deep gratitude for the gift of the disconnection, not only from us, Alma Blount describes body they studied. an educational program that Sandy Marks passed away in between teacher and connects communities and the 2002. The last group of students student but also between classroom in important ways. he taught composed and read this students Working with people who hold poem at his memorial service:13 conflicting values in a democratic society brings the realities of I sat in tears and you told me about dying. leadership and politics to life. Service Opportunities I watched in horror as you took the death from in Leadership (SOL), sponsored by the Hart anotherÕs body. Leadership Program in the Terry Sanford Institute I lost myself on my way to your office, but when of Public Policy at Duke University, is an intensive I got there, you had found me. yearlong program for undergraduates that Knowledge, you offered us. Humor, you combines academic study, service to communities, provided for us. Humanity, you required of us. and critical reflection. In writing about the Stability, you granted us. program, Blount asks her students rhetorically, Instant, unwavering stability. We watched, listened, spoke, heard, laughed, What are the highest goals of this class? feared, cried, refused, overcame, denied, and Informed by scholarship and the ideas of responded. your classmates, you will arm yourself And with a wink and a nudge of your elbow, emotionally and intellectually to enter you calmed the eruption of emotional chaos. a new culture prepared to serve and to We learned. And with a wink and a nudge of reflect critically on your experience there. your elbow, you made it clear why. We will ask you to think deeply about how Ð Nicole LeBoeuf, UMMS Class of 2006 to approach the inevitable value conflicts you will face as you cross the borders of Our day at the anatomy lab recapitulated in new organizations and cultures. We will miniature the medical school experience, from ask you to examine your own religious and the meeting with death and dissection to the cultural values and preconceptions. We will conversations about loss and love. It was an challenge you to explore how you can, over amazing and moving experience for our Amherst time, become a fully engaged citizen of your College students, one they never forgot. They own society. experienced a profoundly ethical form of education in which knowing and caring were united. Alma BlountÕs effort is another example of how In pedagogies of experience and we can deepen learning in the classroom through interconnections, we are often challenged by the experiences beyond its walls. worldview and values of those we meet. Those

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Interdisciplinarity and Intentional Teaching saw firsthand the ways in which every issue begs to We can choose the way we teach. The teachers be addressed from multiple directions. Few issues profiled in this chapter have each sought ways are adequately treated from a single disciplinary to give body and soul to the otherwise abstract perspective, and the lively engagement of two concepts and depersonalized practices of their or more colleagues who tackle an issue, text, or discipline. They have sought ways of inviting historical period demonstrates this truism again students to make use of their own experiences and again. by pausing to quietly question, While interdisciplinary reflect, feel, and write. As the At first, love seems to teaching brings much to learning, students go on to become have little to do with it is not by itself necessarily truly engaged citizens, doctors, knowledge and our integrative. Most often it is a economists, and even consumers, case of simple juxtaposition. The that habit of pausing, reflecting, understanding of how scholars each bring their expertise honoring, and acting morally will it works, but if we set and place their contribution serve them and our society. aside romantic love for beside that of their colleagues. Sandy Marks and his The students are left with the students reformed their anatomy the moment, is it not true difficult task of synthesizing lesson, making the laboratory that we come to know the parts into a whole on at once an educational and a their own. For these classes sacred space that welcomed all of best that which we love to be truly integrative, faculty who they were: body, mind, and most? need to exemplify integrative spirit. Might we not do likewise? understanding through the ways When we do, the ripples are likely to go far beyond in which they connect diverse our individual classrooms. Is it any accident that fields into a comprehensive integrated whole. Jon Kabat-Zinn began his revolutionary work in For example, Princeton psychologist Daniel mindfulness-based stress reduction down the hall Kahneman was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in from Sandy Marks? Every bold integrative initiative Economics for his development of prospect theory, in higher education will find its echo because we are which concerns decision making in the face of in the company of others who will respond in their risk. Kahneman made a seminal contribution to own unique way to our honest efforts at cultivating economic theory without ever taking a single course humanity. in the field of economics. He and his colleagues In recent decades another way of striving to worked across disciplinary boundaries, bringing innovate in higher education has been through psychology and economics into a profoundly efforts at interdisciplinary teaching and research. fruitful integration. Harvard Nobel economist Those involved have sought to bring disparate Amartya Sen has reached out the other way to areas of learning together to illuminate each include a very wide range of non-economic factors other, and much has been gained in the process. into his economic analysis, including individual I have relished the many interdisciplinary courses and societal values, human development, and the I have taught over thirty years with colleagues rights of individuals. Originality does not respect from across the campus: Romanticism and the disciplinary divisions. Enlightenment, The Imagined Landscape, Eros and Each semester students take courses across Insight, to name a few. These courses brought me the curriculum, especially if they are in liberal arts together with brilliant scholar-teachers from whom colleges, that support a broadbased education. I learned and was enriched. In such classes students They should be encouraged to bring all of who

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 RunningArthur Zajonc Head •• 61 they are and what they know into each class. between teacher and student but also between When in a literature class studying, for example, students. Patricia Owen-Smith wondered why Òlife KeatsÕs conception of Ònegative capabilityÕÕ in the academy has been consistently alienating (Òwhen man is capable of being in uncertainties, and lonelyÕÕ for her. Gradually she came Òto mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching understand that the academic world of higher after fact & reasonÕÕ14), students might well education has been structured in such a way so draw on understandings and experiences of this as to normalize and promote alienation. Under capacity from areas as diverse as psychology, the guise of academic freedom and professional religious studies, quantum logic, and GoedelÕs autonomy, we close our classroom and office doors incompleteness theorem. Poets are not the only physically and metaphorically.ÕÕ Upon realizing this, ones who deal in uncertainties, mysteries, and Owen-Smith set about changing the culture of her doubts. With this simple realignment, we shift classroom. In her case, she introduced a period of our focus from the technical understanding of a listening to music at the start of each class, with literary reference to studentsÕ whole learning; we the encouragement to be still and to Ògo within.ÕÕ thereby become interested in students in their She felt awkward at first, but slowly the students entirety not merely as budding literary scholars. warmed to the innovation, bringing in their own Cross-disciplinary initiatives are needed if we are music and appreciating the time of stillness and the to prepare our students to meet the real problems journey within. In her description for us, Owen- our society faces. No one field has all the answers Smith writes: because real issues possess multiple dimensions. By welcoming the whole student into our As we neared the end of the semester the classes, unfamiliar aspects of who they are and structure of the class had changed from a what they care about suddenly come into view. group of individuals reluctantly gathered What are the heartfelt questions they struggle together for study to a community of friends with? Are they too scared to acknowledge the and partners who were creating a space hopes and aspirations they harbor for their lives of introspection, quiet, and respect for and for this world? If they fail to voice them in the the process of study and the development safety of a college classroom, will they ever dare to of self. …It has been a decade since this live their aspirations later? And what if we would initial introduction of contemplative music reciprocate by revealing unfamiliar aspects of and I cannot envision a classroom without ourselves? Too often we hide in our specializations music. Semester after semester, I watch with when, in fact, our interests, experiences, hopes, delight as we take a journey together, a and understandings are far broader than we let journey whereby we hear our souls, breathe on. In brief, we should do far more to support in silence, cherish stillness, and learn from both students and faculty who strive to combine one another in the most enduring ways. depth of knowledge in a special area with breadth Our journey is a dance, a conversation, and integration. Working with such contradictory a celebration of the heart, and a sacred intellectual gestures may well be the hallmark moment in the process we call Òeducation.ÕÕ of great innovation, and our pedagogies should strive to foster the capacity to sustain and use With each additional view of a landscape, we contradictions to their fullest. enrich our appreciation of its character and beauty. The solitude of specialization often reflects With each added intimacy, we come to know a a wider disconnection from others. Classroom person better and more fully. No one view contains culture reinforces that disconnection, not only the whole truth, but by moving among and between

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a myriad of them we may gain an intimation of a Let us return to and dwell a little longer truth which lies forever beyond our grasp. Such is on the illusive human capacity of imagination the living work of integrative teaching and learning so central to a vital and genuine university. to which the university in its entirety should be Ralph Waldo Emerson described imagination as dedicated. profoundly participatory: a knowing by becoming. Such synthetic efforts need to be supported ÒImagination,ÕÕ he wrote, Òis a very high sort of within our universities and colleges. Yet if they seeing, which does not come by study, but by are truly integrative, they may well be contrary the intellect being where and what it sees.ÕÕ15 The to the traditional departmental structure of the intellect of the inquiring individual shifts the locus academy, whose power and reluctance to change of its activity from itself into the other. Through we should not underestimate. Much would be imagination, the mind finds a way of living for a gained by fostering a university culture that time beyond itself, becoming Òwhere and what it simultaneously values disciplinary specialization sees.ÕÕ As Palmer has already mentioned, Evelyn Fox and truly integrative research and teaching. That Keller characterized biologist Barbara McClintockÕs is, while we rightly value the specialized knowledge method as Òlearning by identificationÕÕ so that the of each separate discipline, we object she was studying (maize) should give encouragement Expanding our ontology became a subject.16 to scholars who step outside and enriching our The epistemology of their specialization to integrate imagination rejects objectification novel areas into their research epistemologies in the and distancing and instead and teaching. To this end, we ways I have indicated is, practices what we might term need to find ways to promote subjectification and intimacy. This conversations around issues that in my view, a requirement is McClintockÕs Òintimacy that does draw together diverse voices, for any future philosophy not annihilate difference.ÕÕ It is a viewpoints, and competencies. of education that will patient, contemplative method We recognize that starting such that seeks Òto hear what the conversations requires boldness. give us the integrative material has to say to you,ÕÕ and education our students through which one achieves Òa Enriching Epistemology, and our world sorely feeling for the organism.ÕÕ In an Fostering Imagination address to young Harvard biology The wish to comprehend need. students, McClintock urged them leads us to develop methods to Òtake the time and look,ÕÕ but of inquiry directed toward as her biographer Keller rightly reliable knowledge. If the methods we possess are commented, today Òthe pace of research seems fragmentary or partial, then our knowledge will to preclude such a contemplative stance.ÕÕ Yet it is be likewise. In this way we see that an expanded precisely this contemplative stance that is essential ontology requires an enriched epistemology. to an integrative and imaginative education within The richness of the world will not reveal itself our contemporary culture of teaching and learning. by a single means of inquiry. Not only are many For these reasons I view the practice of questions required, but they must be posed and contemplative inquiry as an essential modality of explored in different ways, each one of which study complementary to the dominant analytic illuminates the world from another direction, inner methods now practiced in every field.17 I see as well as outer. contemplative inquiry as the expression of an epistemology of love that is the trueheart of

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 RunningArthur Zajonc Head • 63 higher education. Epistemology means Òtheory of and gentleness. The new science makes clear the knowledge,ÕÕ or how we know what we know. At implications of such intimacy in its account of first, love seems to have little to do with knowledge observation. and our understanding of how it works, but if we set aside romantic love for the moment, is it The fourth stage is vulnerability. In order to not true that we come to know best that which know, we must open ourselves to the other. In we love most? To make this method clearer, I will order to move with and be influenced by the other, distinguish seven stages in the epistemology of love. we must be confident enough to be vulnerable, secure enough to open ourselves to the being and The first stage is respect. We cannot take becoming of the unknown. A dominating arrogance the ethical orientation of research for granted. will not serve. We must learn to be comfortable We should consciously adopt a positive ethical with not knowing, with ambiguity and uncertainty. orientation toward our object of study. What is the Only from what may appear to be weakness and quality and character of our interest in what lies ignorance can the new arise. before us? Do we respect the integrity of the other, be it a poem, a plant, or a patient? In his Letters The fifth stage is participation. Gentle and to a Young Poet, Rilke suggested that the highest vulnerable intimacy leads to participation in we can offer another is to Òstand guard over their the unfolding phenomenon before us. Outer solitude.18 When we truly respect the integrity of characteristics invite us to go deeper. We move and the other, we Òborder and protectÕÕ them, Rilke feel with the natural phenomenon, text, painting, suggested, even while we seek to know them more or person before us, living out of ourselves and into completely. the other. Respectfully and delicately, we join with the other, while maintaining full awareness and The second stage is gentleness. In his own clarity of mind. In other words, an epistemology scientific investigations, the poet Goethe, like of love is experientially centered in the other, McClintock, sought to practice what he called a not in ourselves, in EmersonÕs language Òthe Ògentle empiricism [zarte Empirie].ÕÕ19 If we wish intellect being where and what it sees.ÕÕ Our usual to approach the object of our attention without preoccupations, fears, and cravings work against distorting it, then we must be gentle. By contrast, authentic participation. the empiricism of Francis Bacon spoke of extracting natureÕs secrets under extreme conditions, of The sixth stage is transformation. The last two putting her to the rack. An epistemology of love characteristics, participation and vulnerability, rejects such methods. lead to a patterning of ourselves on the other. What was outside us is now internalized. Inwardly The third stage is intimacy. Conventional science we assume the shape, dynamic, and meaning distances itself from nature and, to use Erwin of the contemplated object. We are, in a word, SchroedingerÕs term, objectifies nature.20 Under this transformed by experience in accord with the object view, science disengages itself from phenomena for of contemplation. The individual is developed, the sake of objectivity. Contemplative inquiry, by or we could say is sculpted, through the above contrast, approaches the phenomenon delicately practices. and respectfully, but it does nonetheless seek to The lineage of education as transformation become intimate with that to which it attends. dates back to at least as far as the Greeks. In We can still retain clarity and balanced judgment his book What Is Ancient Philosophy? the French close-up, if we remember to exercise restraint philosopher Pierre Hadot writes that for the

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ancient philosopher, Òthe goal was to develop a Only under such conditions can the imagination habitus, or new capacity to judge or criticize, and work; recall KeatsÕs negative capability. In East Coker to transformÑthat is, to change peopleÕs way of T. S. Eliot describes the need for open awareness living and seeing the world.ÕÕ21 Simplicius asked, without expectation: ÒOr when under ether, the ÒWhat place shall the philosopher occupy in the mind is conscious but conscious of nothingÑ/ I said city? That of a sculptor of men.ÕÕ Or as Merleau- to my soul, be still, and wait without hope.ÕÕ Poetry, Ponty has put it, we need to relearn how to see the indeed all art as well as all science, flows from such world.22 In an essay on science, Goethe gave voice restraint. to a potent pedagogical principle: ÒEvery object In a paper written during her first year at well-contemplated opens a new organ of perception Amherst College, Annie Handler struggled to hold in us.ÕÕ23 Echoing GoetheÕs view while commenting the tension between knowing and loving that on McClintock, Evelyn Fox Keller remarks that resolves itself in an epistemology of love. Already at Òa motivated observer develops faculties that a eighteen Annie longed to learn, longed to embrace casual spectator may never be aware of.ÕÕ24 The equally both the sciences and the arts. In her final innate capacities for imaginative cognition that paper for the first-year seminar ÒEros and Insight,Ó are everyoneÕs common inheritance are animated she wrote: and developed through the patient practice of an epistemology of love. This true nourishment of the mind and body is often mistaken with a false nourishment The seventh stage is imaginative insight. The of material objects; however, when looking ultimate result of contemplative engagement as at Marguerite PoreteÕs words Òlove Love outlined here is, as Goethe might have called it, and do as you will,ÕÕ it is clear that the true organ formation, which leads in turn to imaginative nourishment of life and living is a love of insight born of an intimate participation in the knowledgeÑknowledge of the arts and course of things. In Buddhist epistemology this sciences. No other nourishment is as capable has been called Òdirect perceptionÕÕ; among the of sustaining life as these two, for the fusion of Greeks it was called episteme and was contrasted knowledge and passion for the arts and sciences to inferential reasoning. Knowing of this type is ultimately lead to a state of immortality, and as experienced as a kind of seeing, beholding, or Diotima reveals [in PlatoÕs Symposium], reaching direct apprehension, rather than as an intellectual a state of immortality is a state for which all reasoning to a logical conclusion.25 It is the moment humans aspire. of creative insight which every scientist, scholar, and artist recognizes as the axis around which Annie has worked as an intern in the National their work turns but which cannot be produced Institutes of Health for the last four summers doing on demand. Simone Weil termed it Ògrace.ÕÕ26 In research on ParkinsonÕs disease and the brain. his journal Emerson conjoins artistic and scientific And yet she refuses to isolate the science she does creativity by the illuminating remark, ÒNever did from the art she . In a recent e-mail to me, she any science originate, but by a poetic perception.ÕÕ27 wrote, Ò ÔEros and InsightÕ has given me the greatest While insight is the guide of wise action, its gift any science researcher could ask forÑthe accomplishment requires restraint. We must pause perspective that allows me to simultaneously to reflect before speaking, quietly engage the issue see the art in nature and the possibilities for inwardly before acting, open ourselves to not incorporating that art into the research of science.ÕÕ knowing before certainty arises, and so we live for a time in the question before the answer emerges.

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So, we come full circle. What began in their students started an educational initiative respectful wonder flows back as insightful and in the Mayan town of Tekit in the Yucat‡n which harmonious action in the world and human society. sought to support the education of Mayan youth Modestly, we recognize that our knowledge through high school. As they describe it, is a reflection of our means of inquiry and the context of our question, and we realize that by The program was designed to meet the attentively circling our subject we enrich our educational needs and development of the understanding. Traditionally distinct disciplines whole person. We believed from the outset begin to interweave. Confronted by the problems that education of the mind, heart, and spirit of the environment, we weave together the insights must unfold concurrently for meaningful of science, economics, politics, communication, change to occur. Yet even we were amazed and even the arts. Each contributes to the fullness at what began to take shape as teachers of our understanding and the pragmatics of and learners opened themselves to deep action. Expanding our ontology and enriching our engagement in the circles of each otherÕs epistemologies in the ways I have indicated is, in my lives. view, a requirement for any future philosophy of education that will give us the integrative education Through their description of the project, one our students and our world sorely need. senses the pedagogical power that helping others brings with it. Words like meaning, values, and Awakening Compassion purpose lose their abstract philosophical ring when As Parker Palmer rightly observed, the final crucial we are aiding others. The capacities we have stone in the infrastructure of integrative education cultivated are finally put to real, ethical use, and derives from the principle, ÒEvery epistemology, or we are motivated to learn more and become more way of knowing, as implemented in a pedagogy, human for the sake of others. Such engagement or way of teaching and learning, tends to become is one of mutual benefit; an ethical action, rightly an ethic, or way of living.ÕÕ We believe that ethical taken, invites a reciprocal generosity that can thinking and action are supported by integrative appear in unexpected ways. Integrative education teaching and learning. Compassionate action is embodies the principle of reciprocity. In the words fostered in students when they learn not only with of Goodell and Avis, the intellect but also with the heart. As I have attempted to show, an epistemology of love bridges Delivering an integrative educational the divide between intellect and feelings, between program in a different culture requires a objectivity and participation. Once knowing willingness to participate in community activates our feelings, we are moved to action. We ritual events and story making; it is with move from being a bystander to being a neighbor curiosity, joy, and gratitude that we have or friend. Our intimate understanding of others and done so. It is part of the rich legacy of our their needs prompts compassionate action. own learning. Integrative participatory We find an instance of exactly this in the education is reciprocal. When one heart, program initiated by Judy Goodell and Joan Avis mind, and spirit connects to another, both from the University of San Francisco. They note become teacher and learner, and both are that like so many other universities with noble changed. mission statements, Òthe motto of USF is Ôeducating hearts and minds to change the world.Õ ÕÕ Putting these fine words into action, Goodell, Avis, and

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This article appears in: 15. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc with Megan Essays (1844; New York: Penguin, 1982), p. 274. Scribner, The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal – 16. Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism (New Transforming the Academy through Collegial Conversations. York: Times Books, 1984), pp. 200Ð204. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Reprinted with 17. Arthur Zajonc, Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Press, 2009). 18. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, trans. R. Resources Snell (1903; New York: Dover, 2002), p. 45. 1. Dalai Lama, Washington Post (October 21, 2007), 19. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Scientific Studies, p. 81. ed. and trans. D. Miller (1821; New York: Suhrkamp, 2. Albert Einstein, Nathan Rosen, and Boris Podolsky, 1988), p. 307. ÒCan Quantum-Mechanical Description of Reality 20. Erwin Schršdinger, Mind and Matter (1958; Be Considered Complete?ÕÕ Physical Review 47, no. 10 Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 1967). (1935), pp. 777Ð780. 21. Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy? trans. M. 3. George Greenstein and Arthur Zajonc, The Quantum Chase (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Challenge, 2nd ed. (Salisbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett, 2002), pp. 274, xiii. 2005). 22. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 4. Philip W. Anderson, ÒMore Is Different,ÕÕ Science 177 trans. C. Smith (London: Routledge, 1962), preface. (August 4, 1972), pp. 393Ð396. 23. Goethe, Scientific Studies, p. 39. 5. Robert Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing 24. Keller, A Feeling, p. 200. Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 25. Douglas Sloan, Insight-Imagination (Westport, CT: 2005), p. 221. Greenwood Press,1993). Robert J. Sternberg and 6. Arthur Zajonc, Catching the Light: The Entwined Janet E. Davidson, The Nature of Insight (Cambridge, History of Light and Mind (New York: Oxford MA: MIT Press, 1995). University Press, 1993). 26. Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, trans. E. Crawford 7. Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, (New York: Routledge, 2002). Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial 27. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Works of Ralph Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1999). Waldo Emerson, Centenary Edition, vol. 8, Letters 8. Stephen Marglin, The Dismal Science: How Thinking and Social Aims, ed. Edward Waldo Emerson (1875; Like an Economist Undermines Community (Cambridge, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903Ð1904), p. 365. MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 263. 9. Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, and Richard McElreath, ÒIn Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies,ÕÕ Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at American Economic Review 91 (2001), pp. 73Ð78. Amherst College, where he teaches physics and the 10. Henrich et al., ÒIn Search.ÕÕ history of science. His research interests include laser 11. Daniel Goleman, Ecological Intelligence (New York: spectroscopy and atomic physics. He is the author of Random House, 2009). several books such as Catching the Light. For many 12. Sandy C. Marks, Jr. DDS, PhD: Collected Memories from Friends, Students and Colleagues (University of years he chaired the Anthroposopical Society in North Massachusetts, n.d.), p. 7, http://www.umassmed. America. He has worked extensively with the Dalai edu/uploadedfiles/marksbook.pdf. Lama and was instrumental, together with his wife 13. Sandy C. Marks, Jr., p. 15. Heide, in starting the Hartsbrook School, a Waldorf 14. John Keats, Letter to George and Thomas Keats of school near Amherst, MA. December 22, 1817, in The Complete Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. E. Scudder (Boston: Riverside Press, 1899), p. 277.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Work of the Research Fellows

Review of The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes by Dorit Winter

Richard Holmes has written a book that can which they worked. Their biographies and their serve Waldorf teachers as a model for scintillating achievements are indistinguishable. Thus HolmesÕs biography. From it we can learn how to integrate story provides a brilliantly detailed exposition of the life of the character into the context of his time, the final, dramatic, and inexorable moment before how to find the telling detail, how to stitch the the modern mindset, epitomized by Darwin, took research into a seamless whole, and, perhaps most hold. Lastly, the story of the Age of Wonder allows enviably, how to weave the lives of the characters the author, a prize-winning scholar of Romantic into a fabric that gives rise to the signature poetry, to explore the qualities, the nuanced pattern of an age. But then, Richard Holmes is a implications of the imaginative leaps, the search much-lauded biographer. He has taken for Imaginative Truth, which the early biography and biographical research scientists attempted. HolmesÕs own to a whole new level. For although his poetic sensibility,2 so firmly rooted in research is academically impeccable, scholarship, has led his inquiries into the what interests him as biographer is sources of imagination, whether among the possibility of making the life of the poets or among the scientists, to the the subject experiential for the reader. edge of spiritual science. Holmes relies on word-picture and Holmes, who was born in 1945, story, and he relishes the function of wrote his first prize-winning biography, imagination in bringing his subjects to Shelley: The Pursuit,3 in 1974. But then, life. He would have made a terrific class tellingly, he wrote Footsteps, Adventures of teacher. a Romantic Biographer, in which he literally tracks a So, for the Waldorf teacher, there is, first of all, number of writers and poets across the landscapes the sheer exhilaration of marvelous story telling. of Europe and Great Britain. The name Holmes has There is also the story itself, which is the dawn of attached to these physical methodsÑhis attempts the era in which science and scientist were finally to go where his subjects have been and to do what prized apart, surely a topic of compelling interest they have doneÑis Òfootstepping!Ó Holmes had for any Waldorf teacher. It is the story of how the tentatively begun footstepping in the late 1960s Òscientific method,Ó i.e. reproducible results under with inquiries into Stevenson, Mary Wollstonecraft laboratory conditions, became the radically new and Chatterton. But it was in the writing of the yardstick. For the early ÒscientistsÓÑthe word first Shelley biography that he adopted its principles emerges on page 450 of the story1Ñinvolvement, in earnest and completely gave himself up to the passion, conviction, enthusiasm, and their own book to the point of sleeping on an army camp bed personal discernment were still the measure by Òas if I were on a military campaign.Ó 4

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In Footsteps, Holmes writes a Òbiography of in which science, as such, originated in the context biography.Ó He is already watching himself as of Romantic idealism. Again, it serves our purpose he treks through the physical and emotional to quote Holmes: landscapes of his subject. This consciousness soul awareness reaches a high point in his masterful But the generation IÕve written about two-volume biography of Coleridge,5 in which genuinely wanted to explain their ideas to Holmes does justice to one of the most underrated a larger audience. They donÕt just publish thinkers of modern times. papers, they give interviews and they give It is a brilliant, evocative and extremely lectures. They also mixed with artists and perceptive and discerning book, much more than a thinkers and they talked together and biography. It is a treatise on a power of observation argued and got excited about things. In so comparable to LeonardoÕs. What Coleridge actually doing they junked the notion of the two noticed was life itself, life as in life force. cultures, and the work of these scientists And Holmes, like ,6 recognizes this fitted in remarkably well with my previous singular contribution. Holmes is, clearly, conscious work on Romanticism.9 of consciousness. After reading these two volumes about Coleridge, I wrote a piece about ColeridgeÕs Because Holmes is so expertly rooted in the Imagination. Yes, with a capital ÒIÓ.7 In that article Romantic Òartists and thinkers,Ó he effortlessly I pointed out that Holmes is actually tracking the embeds the rise of science in contemporary culture. growth of ColeridgeÕs imagination into Imagination. Holmes is keen to show us the biographical (we And, while doing so, Holmes is watching his might say ÒkarmicÓ) connections between the great own consciousness as it accompanies the shift in poets, whom he knows so well, and the early men ColeridgeÕs consciousness of consciousness. As the and women of the new science. Thus, allusions to previously quoted review of Age of Wonder notes: the Romantic poets abound. Here are a couple:

Holmes has written about how Òempathy Quoting Byron: The Night is also a religious is the most powerful, the most necessary, concern; and even more so, when I viewed the and the most deceptive of all biographical Moon and Stars through HerschelÕs telescope, emotions.Ó But for him, biography has and saw that they were worlds.10 always been a Òpersonal adventure of exploration and pursuit,Ó and it is in this Or on KeatsÕ celebrated sonnet ÒOn First spirit that he has entered the world of 18th- Looking into ChapmanÕs Homer,Ó in which the poet century science.8 compares himself to the explorer, Cortez: Keats likens his own discovery of HomerÕs poetry Indeed, it is the controversial ÒempathyÓ which to the experience of the great astronomer and the makes HolmesÕs biographies such masterpieces of great explorer finding new worlds. Physical vision Waldorf presentation. Needless to say, Holmes has Ñone might say scientific visionÑbrings about a as many pages as he wants, and a main lesson, or metaphysical shift in the observerÕs view of reality even a sequence of them, is time-bound, so Holmes as a whole. The geography of the earth, or the can afford as many details and as much narrative structure of the solar system, are in an instant as he wishes, whereas the teacher needs to be more utterly changed, and forever. The explorer, the concise. Nevertheless, the choice of HolmesÕs details scientific observer, the literary reader, experience is exemplary, his choice always in the service of the the Sublime: a moment of revelation into the idea of bigger picture, in this case, nothing less than the era the unbounded, the infinite.11

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The subtitle of the book is How the Romantic of Wonder is a must have for any background Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. reading to the history of science. There is so much A list of chapter titles will provide the main cast of excitement in these descriptions, any teacher would characters. Possible main lesson topics for which have to get enthused. these chapters could provide lively details are Although their names donÕt appear in the list of suggested in parentheses. chapter titles, several women, in particular William HerschelÕs younger sister Caroline, are finely 1. Joseph Banks in Paradise (7th grade explorers; portrayed. Holmes has a knack for bringing all the 8th grade geography) characters to life, but his ÒempathyÓ for CarolineÕs 2. Herschel on the Moon (6th grade astronomy, position provides us with a previously unsung 7th grade exploration/astronomy, 7th grade heroine and a very dramatic story. Mary Shelley is physics, 8th grade industrial revolution/ also given her due as a writer of great prescience. invention) Her Frankenstein is raised from clichŽ to literary and 3. Balloonists in Heaven (6th, 7th, or 8th grade contemporary cultural achievement. geography/cartography, 7th or 8th grade The book is written by a born writer, with a chemistry) writerÕs gift for framing the thought or the picture 4. Herschel Among the Stars (see 2) (also: in captivating prose. Not for nothing has Holmes high school 12th grade: philosophy or been recognized by many prestigious prizes.12 But Transcendentalism) it is grounded in thorough scholarship, and the Cast 5. Mungo Park in Africa (8th grade geography/ List, Bibliography, and References at the end of the cartography) book are useful. 6. Davy on the Gas (7th or 8th grade chemistry, It would be a grave act of omission on my 8th grade biography) part were I not to point out the obvious, namely, 7. Dr. Frankenstein and the Soul (8th grade short that The Age of Wonder is a cornucopia of stories story but more likely high school literature) tailor-made for the 7th grade main lesson on Wish, 8. Davy and the Lamp (6th grade geology, 7th or Wonder and Surprise. Or, as I point out in my Òlittle 8th grade chemistry) green book,Ó13 Wonder, Wish and Surprise, better 9. Sorcerer and Apprentice (high school history of called simply Language Arts or Creative Writing. science) Wonder, as the threshold between the subjective 10. Young Scientists (high school history of science) and the objective, is exactly what ÒThe Art and Science of Teaching CompositionÓ is about. It The book in its entirety could profitably be brings many anthroposophical concepts to bear on taken up in high school, in the context of the that threshold between subjective and objective, study of biography as a literary form or as part where the 7th grader is so casually teetering. In of the Romantic Poetry block. It would make his introduction, which begins with the magnetic fine background reading for a study of the words, ÒIn my first chemistry class, at the age of Transcendentalists. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 could fourteen, I successfully precipitated a single crystal inspire high school physics; chapters 6 and 8 would of mineral salts,Ó14 Holmes sums it all up: make fine background reading for high school ÒRomanticism as a cultural force is generally chemistry, as would 9, which is principally about regarded as intensely hostile to science, its ideal of Faraday. Because the book goes into considerable subjectivity eternally opposed to that of scientific detail about the construction and invention of objectivity. But I do not believe this was always the apparati (William HerschelÕs forty-foot reflector case, or that the terms are so mutually exclusive. telescope and the ÒDavy LampÓ stand out) as The notion of wonder seems to be something that part of the achievement of the inventors, The Age once united them, and can still do so. In effect there

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 70 • RunningResearch HeadFellows is Romantic science in the same sense that there is and eventually disparaged, position in the great Romantic poetry, and often for the same enduring Vitalism debate which ushered in the starkly reasons.Ó15 materialistic view of life in which we find ourselves A couple of HolmesÕ examples can illustrate that today. ÒWas the eel natureÕs voltaic battery, and did unity. it hold a clue to Vitalism?Ña question which would come to haunt Davy.Ó (p.356) ÒColeridgeÕs position The early astronauts [balloonists] suddenly remained that the Ôlife principleÕ certainly did exist, saw the earth as a giant organism, but had nothing to do with physiology.Ó (p.322) It mysteriously patterned and unfolding, like a was not Òmechanistic.Ó Says Holmes of Coleridge: living creature. (p.161) ÒHe felt that the new poetry and the new science were so closely entwined that they must somehow It [HerschelÕs paper, ÔAstronomical merge!Ó p.274) While of Davy Holmes reports: Observations relating to the Construction of the HeavensÕ] presented the universe Davy also referred frequently in his later as a living, growing, organic entity, with lectures to comparisons between the poetic all nebulae belonging to one enormous and the scientific imagination. In 1807 he extended family! Above all, HerschelÕs wrote in terms that would be echoed both studies of nebulae and the general by Coleridge and by Keats: ÒThe perception Ôconstruction of the HeavensÕ demonstrated of truth is almost as simple a feeling as how CopernicusÕ rejection of an earth- the perception of beauty; and the genius centred universe had long been superseded of Newton, of Shakespeare, of Michael by contemporary science. Not only a sun- Angelo, and of Handel are not very remote in centred galaxy, but even a cosmos centred character from each other. Imagination, as on the Milky Way itself, had to be rejected. well as the reason, is necessary to perfection This implies an enormous psychological, in the philosophic mind. A rapidity of even spiritual shift in outlook. (p. 205) combination, a power of perceiving analogies and of comparing them by facts, is the The final chapters of the book meticulously creative source of discovery.Ó (p.276) trace the evolution of consciousness of the premier scientist of his day, Humphrey Davy, who, after a IsnÕt this a fine rendering of two of the tenets brilliant career, ended his days in solitude and ill of Waldorf pedagogy, namely, to perceive through health. He kept journals. He wrote. And Holmes analogy and to clothe science in beauty? follows DavyÕs mind as it begins to float out Holmes, with his exquisite two-volume past the conventional barriers of sense-bound biography of Coleridge, his poetic sensibility, and phenomena. This was the very threshold which his thrill at the rise of science through such men as Coleridge, as Holmes well knows, confronted, and Davy, a genius of early chemistry, appreciates the so what Coleridge thought and what Humphrey resonances, we might say, the karma between the thought are tracked in consort. Davy and Coleridge two: were friends (a story in itself, as Holmes makes clear). Davy was a poet as well as man of science; DavyÕs notebooks for this period also Coleridge, the great poet, felt himself to be, more suggest a new pattern of philosophical and more, a man of science. Men of enormous speculation, almost approaching German intellect and highly individualistic modes of Naturphilosophie. Some of his observations thought, they each found their way to a similar, would have been recognized by Coleridge:

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ÒThe aspirations for immortality are 5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Early Visions, Penguin movements of the mind similar to those Books, 1989; Coleridge, Darker Reflections, Harper which a bird makes with its wings before Collins, 1998. they are furnished with feathers.Ó (p.357) 6. Owen Barfield, What Coleridge Thought (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971). 7. Dorit Winter, ÒGlimmers of Truth,Ó The Golden Blade, As I was reading the book, it seemed to me 2000 (Forest Row, England, 1999). that there were many instances in which this 8. See endnote #4. understanding of the oneness of art and science 9. Ibid. was HolmesÕs subtext, his message. What makes 10. Age of Wonder, p. 205. his message so remarkable is the scholarship by 11. Age of Wonder, p. 207. which he arrives at it. Like two of his subjects, Davy 12. HolmesÕs major works of Romantic biography and Coleridge, Holmes himself is applying a quality include: Shelley: The Pursuit, which won him the of living thinking to his material. His scholarship Somerset Maugham Award in 1974; Coleridge: Early is enlivened by Imagination, or something close Visions, which won him the 1989 Whitbread Book to it, and that is what makes this book (like all of the Year Prize (now the Costa Book Awards); Coleridge: Darker Reflections, the second and final of HolmesÕs biographical studies) so potent. The volume of his Coleridge biography which won the early scientists, whose efforts pre-dated the term Duff Cooper Prize and the Heinemann Award; and Òscientist,Ó still saw the universe as One. They still Dr. Johnson and Mr. Savage, concerning the friendship could relate to ÒThe Cosmos as Artist.Ó16 For them, between eighteenth-century British literary figures Òcosmos as artistÓ meant Òcosmos as scientist.Ó This Samuel Johnson and Richard Savage, which won the awareness still fueled the Ògreat Vitalism debateÓ James Tait Black Prize. In 1992 he was awarded the with which the Age of Wonder ends. Order of the British Empire (Wikipedia). 13. Dorit Winter, The Art and Science of Teaching Composition (Fair Oaks, CA: AWSNA, 1998). 14. Age of Wonder, xv. Resources 15. Age of Wonder, xvi. 1. ÒFor the Romantic scientists, with a robust belief in 16. Rudolf Steiner, Man as Symphony of the Creative Word, the Ôargument by Design,Õ there was no immediate CW 230 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970). See contradiction between religion and science: rather especially Lecture 1. the opposite.Ó Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder (New York: Random House, 2008; New York: Vintage Books, 2010), p. 450. 2. His first publication was a book of poetry, One for Sorrow, 1970. The Age of Wonder 3. Somerset Maugham Prize. Hardcover: 576 pages 4. This article appeared on p.12 of the review section Published by Pantheon of the Guardian on Saturday, September 27, 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0375422225 It was published on guardian.co.uk on Saturday, Size 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches September 17, 2008.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Reports from Current Projects of the Research Institute

Report on Teaching Sensible Science by Lylli Anthon This past February marked the beginning of the fourth connection between the outer world and ourselves. round of the ÒTeaching Sensible ScienceÓ course. For Becoming more conscious of our own process of a week starting on February 18, the Chicago Waldorf perception reconnects us to our environment. School hosted the first of three one-week intensives If in our mindÕs eye we track the child back to a to explore the richness of the Grades 6Ð8 Waldorf time before its birth, we experience the child coming science curriculum. This course also strives to give from wholeness and gradually awakening to its teachers a living relationship to the sciences, as its separateness from the surrounding world. The child task in this present age of consciousness is to help slowly becomes aware ÒI am I.Ó Being born into individuals connect to the world. the world and becoming self-aware are necessary The February sessionÐÐthe largest ever cycle of for the unfolding of what Rudolf Steiner called this courseÐÐwas filled to the brim with 27 earnest the consciousness soul. We become aware of the participants, mostly from the Midwestern states, outer and the inner, object and subjectÑindeed, all but also from schools as far away as San Francisco, aspects of the world that have become separated. New York, and three in Canada. The members of the Our task in this age is to make them whole again. group were class teachers ranging from Grade 3 to This new way of thinking asks us to take Grade 8, several with many years of experience. the wakefulness we have in the outer world and Michael DÕAleo, an engineer and high school bring it into ourselves, making our awakened science teacher at the Waldorf School of Saratoga being resonate with what is around us. At that Springs, along with the Research Institute, moment we become one with the outer worldÑwe organized this course with the help of the Chicago resonate with it in the rhythmic part of our being. Waldorf School and a grant secured by AWSNA What happens within and without thus become from the Waldorf Educational Foundation. resonating harmonics and we are now fully awake Michael took the group through a process and conscious. We become objects to ourselves in which, in the way it presents the sciences and the way Steiner described this process to workers awakens our senses, allows us to know the world at the Goetheanum in a lecture reprinted in Otto directly through our own experience. Habitual PalmerÕs helpful guide, Rudolf Steiner on His Book The thinking can hamper this wakefulness, partly Philosophy of Freedom. because the Latinization of our language prompts The opportunity exists to be fully present in its structure to do our thinking for us. Noun-like this world, and so doing we can overcome feelings qualities have consequently adhered to activities of alienation and separateness. Instead we can such as visual, acoustic, thermal and other reconnect with that same world of wholeness, a phenomena, removing the possibility of our building world of ideas from which we emerged at birth. a relationship between ourselves and the world we In the words of the poet David Whyte, ÒPut down live in. We need to recover a sense-based science the weight of your aloneness and ease into the that places us within our experiences and builds a conversation.Ó

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The lessons in the science classes are hands remained in the ice. After much discussion we approached in this way: The whole is separated tried to describe the relationship of our hands to the and then through the process described above icy medium which was common to all, relationships made whole again. It is not the thoughts that are transcending our own personal ones. We were all enlivened by these methods, but the activity of able to experience that coldness invaded us as our thinking itself. warm hand became cooler. The changing sensation The development of demonstrations and was the basis of the experience. We spoke at experiments is like the development of new length about living in the sensation and avoiding thinkingÑwe take in an impression of the world, words like ÒheatÓ and Òcold,Ó nouns that speak of we still ourselves inwardly so that it can resonate as these sensations as things. We tried to live into a feeling, and then we take the final step of finding the activity and sense it as a change and not as a a relationship to it or an affirmation of the whole ÒthingÓ that had noun-like attributes. that is truthful beyond our own selves. Michael led the course with the help of Gary The beginning, middle, and end must all be BanksÐÐan engineer, class teacher and high school related as elements of an entire movement. science teacherÐÐand Lylli Anthon, a long-time If the perception is preceded by the feeling or class teacher. Barbara Richardson, a seasoned thinking, then the whole movement dissolves eurythmist and coordinator of Foundation Studies into disharmony. If the perception is not at the Center for Anthroposophy, took us through broad enough, then the feeling and thinking exercises in as a way of supporting has no possibility of experiencing the fullness our work and exploring the nature of experience of this movement. (Michael DÕAleo) and collaboration. Our mornings were filled with epistemological discussions facilitated by Michael, Thus we all strengthened our understanding of followed by eurythmy exercises with Barbara. In why in the science lessons we must strive not to be the afternoons with Gary and Lylli we explored merely teaching a concept of the physical world the experiments that form the heart of the physics to the students, but to aid them in discovering curriculum. Contributions to the chemistry essential aspects of being human. We are helping curriculum were offered in several evening sessions the students connect to the world. with Gary. We also spoke at length about how to present The first step in this approach to science is to the lessons so the class is able to live into the facilitate the studentÕs connection to phenomena experience of the phenomena. To achieve this it is in the natural world, while holding back the important for teachers to perform the experiment idea or concept we intend the students to grasp. for themselves before doing it with their students. This experience leaves them with questions. We When it then comes to the lesson, the less said then provide the students with the opportunity the better. No introduction of the phenomena to describe what they saw and then to find should be given beyond creating the conditions relationships among the phenomena that could be for observationÐÐwatching, listening, and inner truthful for others, or relationships that are truthful stillnessÐÐso that the students are able to figure beyond their own individual experiences. out as much as possible for themselves. A teacherÕs On our first morning together we were each warm interest in the phenomena creates a further asked to plunge our hand, up past our wrist, into condition for mindful observation by the students. a bag of ice cubes and then leave it there for two During the afternoons we had lots of practice minutes. We later began to share the sensations we in how to best review the experiments from the felt and any personal experiences we had as our previous day. The nightly sleep is an important

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 74 •Reports Running from Head Current Projects of the Research Institute element in the cycle of discovery, as is the verbal concept, or conclusion. It is our responsibility not re-creation of what was done the day before. The to fix concepts, but to plant the seeds for the new review needs to be kept alive as a will activity, so thinking. that it becomes a dynamic social element for the After one very full week we adjournedÑsome class. Michael asked us to craft our lessons in such to stay on for the AWSNA regional teachers a way that the students develop inner relationships conference in Chicago, with Michael as the keynote to the phenomena extending beyond the conditions speaker, others to return home. All were left with a we have described in each experiment. There feeling of anticipation for our next session coming was much discussion about the wording used to up in JuneÐÐa feeling, as David Whyte puts it, that sum up the experiments, such as relationship, Òeverything is waiting for you.Ó

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Report on the Online Waldorf Library by Marianne Alsop

The Online Waldorf Library continues to help To find our eBooks, go to the Focus Search page facilitate research and answer questions on a wide and click on Online Book under Resource Type. variety of topics. During the past few months Recent additions to our Journals page include teachers, teacher education students, and parents Waldorf Journal Project #17 edited by David Mitchell of children in Waldorf schools in , the entitled ÒFrom Images to Thinking,Ó and also UK, Sweden, China, Pakistan, Italy, Argentina, Waldorf Science Newsletter Volume 17, number 27. Mexico, and North America have frequented the The OWL features all the back issues of Gateways, OWL site for research and reading materials. the journal of the Waldorf Early Childhood Recent topics of interest include: nutrition, Association. Issue #59, Fall/Winter 2010 is now plays for the lower grades, the twelve senses, available online as well as all issues dating back to the handwork curriculum, teaching geometry, 1995. All back issues of the Research Bulletin may transition time verses and poems for use in nursery also be accessed. Direct links to Lilipoh, In Context, and preschool, the science curriculum, adapting Net Future, and other journals are all on the Journals fairy tales to public school programs, and home page. schooling resources and questions. Interest in our The Online Waldorf Library invites your website has grown steadily since its creation in questions and comments and appreciates your 2001 and we now welcome over 1,000 visitors interest and support! weekly. The area of our website that draws the most Visit visitors is the Online eBooks, which are available to anyone who has Adobe Reader X (a new and important free upgrade) installed on their computer. www.waldorflibrary.org There are now over 70 eBooks available including these new additions:

• Rudolf Steiner’s Observations on Adolescence edited by David Mitchell and Christopher Clouder • Adventures in Parenting by Rachel Ross • Developing the Observing Eye by Cynthia Murphy-Lang • Genesis of Waldorf High School edited by Douglas Gerwin • Modelar (Modeling) by Arthur Auer, translated into Spanish • Plays for Puppets and Marionettes collected by Bronja Zahlingen as well as several others.

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Indices: Waldorf Journal Projects #1Ð17

Waldorf Journal Projects

Purpose: The Waldorf Journal Projects is a joint initiative of the Waldorf Curriculum Fund and AWSNA Publications. The goal is to find untranslated articles from abroad and make them available to a worldwide, English-speaking audience. Two editions are prepared each year. The articles are selected, translated, edited, and posted electronically with hard copy available from AWSNA Publications. They are drawn from but not limited to journals in Norway (Steinerskolen, Libre), Sweden (På Skole, ROSE, Karlstad University Press), Germany (Erziehungskunst, Flensburger Heft, Freunde Newsletter), Switzerland (Journal of the Pedagogical Section at the Goethanum), Great Britain (assorted publications including New View and The Golden Blade), South Africa (The Beating Drum), New Zealand/Australia (Journal for Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner Education), and Brazil. David Mitchell from AWSNA is in charge of selecting, editing, and printing each edition.

Waldorf Journal Project #1 Waldorf Journal Project #2 as published in the book Children and Pedagogical Issues The Dynamic Heart and Circulation by Craig Holdrege The Making of a Teacher by Henry Barnes Child Development Ð Conception to Birth: The Heart: A Pulsing and Perceptive Center Embryology from an Anthroposophical by Craig Holdrege Perspective by Bruno Callegaro, M.D. The Polarity of Center and Periphery in the Early Childhood Today: Wish and Reality Circulatory System by Heinrich Brettschneider by Walter RiethmŸller The Physiology of Circulation: A Reappraisal The Kindergarten Child by Peter Lang by Hermann Laubšck Creating a Meadow for Childhood: Education A Dynamic Morphology of the Cardiovascular for a New Millennium System by Wolfgang Schad What Do Young Children Need Today? Patterns in the Evolution of the Heart and by Sally Schweizer Circulatory System by Christianne Liesche Psychology and Early Years Learning: Affirming The Embryonic Development of the the Wisdom of Waldorf by Richard House Cardiovascular System by Matthias Wšrnle ChildrenÕs Questions by A. C. Harwood Non-Verbal Education: A Necessity in the Developmental Stages by Michaela Glšckler Child Observation and Study by Michaela Glšckler, M.D.

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Some Aspects of Child Study Work in Faculty Overstimulation Ð ÒI Have No TimeÓ by Walther BŸhler, Meetings: Points for Observation in Child Study Alfred SchŸtze, and Rudolf Treichler by Magda Lissau The Restless Child Ð Advice for Parents and Teachers Overview of Childhood Characteristics by Johannes BockemŸhl by David Mitchell Sugar Ð the Sweet Addiction by Otto Wolff Encountering the Individuality of a Child Sunlight and Our Exposure to It by Lueder Jachens by Walter RiethmŸller The Healing Power of Lively Thought by Walther BŸhler Tell Me a Story: The Narrative of Active The Healing Power of Prayer by Hans-Werner Schroeder Learning by Martyn Rawson The Emergence of Development in GoetheÕs Sense of Time . Sleep as a Task of Waldorf Education by Frank Teichmann by Peter Loebell Osiris and Isis by J¯rgen Smit The Effect of Lunar Nodes on Human Biography: Our Osiris and Isis, a Play by J¯rgen Smit Hidden Plan by Susanne Donato The Adolescent Years by L. Waldorf Journal Project #5 Evaluation, Homework, and Teacher Support Waldorf Journal Project #3 The Quest for Wholeness in the Waldorf Curriculum Challenges on the Path to Child Development by Erhard Fucke LifeÕs Ð LifeÕs Opportunities: Anxiety and Its What Wants to Emerge? by Claus-Peter Ršh Importance to Inner Development Evaluating, Judging, Testing, and Learning Two Essays by Pietro Archiati and Felicitas Vogt by Robert Thomas Sleep Disturbances and Healthy Sleep The Role of Evaluation and Examinations within Waldorf by Christa-Johanna Bub-Jachens Education within Different Age Groups Nutrition: Modern Food: Is It Really Future-Oriented? by Martyn Rawson by Petra KŠhne Endings or Openings? Graduating or Launching? Food and Nutrition: What Nourishes Our Children? by RŸdiger Iwan by Petra KŠhne Learning Autonomously, Disinterest Instead of a Thirst for . The Feet Reveal the Human Will by Norbert Glas Knowledge by Thomas Jachmann Hearing: Door to the Soul and Spirit around Us, with a How Meaningful Is Homework? by Telse Kardel Look at Technological Media by Heinz Buddemeier When Is Homework Necessary? by Walter Kraul The Unfolding of Sexuality by Mathias Wais Homework Ð Obligation or Free Task by Dietrich Wessel Puberty and Its Crisis: Educational Help in Overcoming The Art of Conversation: Speaking, and Silence Difficulties by Dr. Johannes BockemŸhl by Heinz Zimmermann Drug Addiction: The Wake-up Call of Our Times Saint Michael in the Midst of Everyday Life: by Felicitas Vogt an interview with Gudrun Koller by Thomas Stockli Education Seen as a Problem Involving the Training of Angels and Star Children: An Excursion to Their Workshop Teachers by Rudolf Steiner by Thomas Stockli Examples of ChildrenÕs Tapestries by Gudrun Koller Waldorf Journal Project #4 Foundations for a Healthy Life Waldorf Journal Project #6 Play and the Life of Toddlers by Elk Blattman Shaping One’s Life and Forming the World Play and Its Significance for Healthy Development Social Conflict and the Sub-Natural Forces by Rudolf Kischnick by Friedrich Glasl Does Life Have a Meaning? Destiny and Reincarnation Craft and Morality by Dr. by Walther BŸhler Empathy by Dr. Thomas Weihs Youth Guidance and Empathy by Anke Weihs

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Organology and Physiology of Learning Aspects of an Jeanne dÕArc, an Enigmatic Figure in the Middles Ages by . Educational Theory of the Body by Wolfgang Schad J¯rgen Borgen Thoughts on the Idea of Evolution compiled I and the Others, Strengthening a Seventh GraderÕs by Arthur Auer Relationship to the World through History and ...... Three Kinds of Milk: A Tale from the Swiss Alps Geography by David Brierley by Conrad Englert-Faye Modern History in Light of the Renaissance and the Waldorf Education in South Africa by James Pewtherer Industrial Revolution by Svein Bohn A South African Elegy by Magarethe Mehren The Ninth Grade and the French Revolution Encouragement for Sculpture by Peter A. Wolf by Hans-J¯rgen Hoinaes Memories of a Former Waldorf Student The Minute Man, An Aphorism of the True American Spirit by Magarethe Mehren by Wolfgang Schuster, M.D. Section from Memories of a Former Waldorf Student in Germany by Magarethe Mehren Waldorf Journal Project #9 Teaching Science Through the Grades Waldorf Journal Project #7 A Study of the Element ÒWaterÓ by Christian Faye Smit Musings from Norway Water as the Medium for Life by J¯rgen Smit The Path through Life by Karl Brodersen GoetheÕs Theory of Color by T¯rger Holtsmark Time: Rudolf SteinerÕs Contribution to a Modern Zoology and Mythology by Jens Bj¯rneboe Mythology by Jacob Qualburg Chemistry in Grades Seven to Nine by Jan Haakonson The Michaelic Human Being: an Interview Astronomy: The Forgotten School Subject by Sven Bohn with Sven ¯le Lorentson The Starry Heavens and Our Self by J¯rgen Smit The Playful Human Being by David L. Brierly Teaching Biology in a Human Context by Graham Kennish Six Ð An Important Year by Astrid Sunt Aesthetic Knowledge at a Source for the Main Lesson Reality and Joy in the School Garden by Linda Jolly by Peter Guttenhšfer WhatÕs Inside Here? Some Thoughts about Children and Adolescents Ð Their Relationship to the Night and the the Inner Nature of Wood by Lars Wegge Senses in Connection with Their Own Development About Seeing with the Heart by Arne ågaard by Peter Glasby The Role of Old Age in the Course of OneÕs Life Thoughts on Information and Communication Technology by Karl Brodersen by Florian Oswald The Development of the Human Being through the Great Cultural Epochs by Conrad Englert-Faye Waldorf Journal Project #10 Morality and Ethics in Education #1 Waldorf Journal Project #8 Education and the Moral Life by Rudolf Steiner Teaching History Through the Grades Education of the Will as the Wellspring of Morality A Phenomenological Approach to the Subject of by Michaela Glšckler History by Oddvar Granly Human Development and the Forces of Morality: Fairy Tales and Legends by Jens Bj¯rneboe Aspects of an Anthropology of Moral Education Through the Golden Forest by Leif WŒrenskjold by Ernst-Michael Kranich Francis of Assisi by Dan Lindholm Conscience and Morality by Karl Brodersen What about the Old Testament? The West and East in Us by J¯rgen Smit by Dan Lindholm Reincarnation and Pedagogy by Valentin Wember Moses by Karl Brodersen Moral Imagination by Oscar Borgman Hansen Sparta and Athens by J¯rgen Smit The Christmas Mystery and the Knowledge of Evil The Romans by Christian Faye Smit by Dr. Evil and the Well-Intended by Oscar Borgman Hansen Crafts and Morality by Dr. Thomas Weihs

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Waldorf Journal Project #11 Artistic Activity Ð Individual Resonance Ð New Paths Morality and Ethics in Education #2 by Claus-Peter Ršh Forces Leading to Health and Illness in Education Bringing the Will into Thinking in Adolescence by Rudolf Steiner translated by RenŽ Querido by Betty Staley Transformative Education and the Right to an Inviolate Learning Is a Royal Path to Freedom by Hartwig Schiller Childhood by Christopher Clouder Rhythm as a Source of Regeneration by Dirk Cysarz The Human Self by Karl Brodersen Art: Awakener of Consciousness, Humanizer for Society The Free and the Unfree Spirit by Edward Warren by Van James Recapitulation (Recall) in the High School Main Lessons The Push for Early Childhood Literacy: A View from by Ken Power Europe by Christopher Clouder The Odyssey of Conscience a book by Henning Andersen Childhood Falls Silent by Dr. Rainer Patzlaff reviewed by Oddvar Granly Painting and the Child by Caroline von Heydebrand War and Peace and Moral Imagination by Oskar Borgman . Hansen Waldorf Journal Project #14 The Power of Moral Education Ð Geography Darwin by Christof Goepfer What Makes Human Beings Human? by J¯rgen Smit Ethics and the Perspective on Nature DarwinÕs Incomplete Understanding of Death by Oskar Borgman Hansen by Wolfgang Schad The Being of the Internet by Sergei Prokofieff Darwin Suffered from Darwinism by Wolfgang Schad What Is Goetheanism? by Trond Skaftnesmo Waldorf Journal Project #12 Body Movements are Invisible Thinking Research into Childhood by Erik Marstrander Rhythm and the Learning Process by Dirk Cysarz The Hippopotamus and the Eagle by Trond Skaftnesmo Novel Methods of Researching Learning Close Contact with the Earth: an Interview with Linda Jolly by GŠnter Haffelder by Eli Tronsmo The Advantage and Disadvantage of Brain Research for Physics Lessons that Start with the Human Being Pedagogy by Christian Rittelmeyer by Geir ¯yen The Symphony of Life: Importance, Interaction, and The Power of Observation in Literature Lessons Visualizing of Biological Rhythms by Maximilian Moser by Tom Horn Observations on Neurological Development Insight into Human Nature/ Anthroposophy and Modern compiled by David Mitchell Brain Research by Helge Godager Seven ÒMythsÓ about the Social Participation of Waldorf Think Globally and Act Locally by Holger Bauman Graduates by Wanda Ribeiro and Juan Pablo Music Ð An Endangered ÒSpeciesÓ by Magne Skrede de Jesus Pereira Performing Arts Versus Degrading Speech Study of Waldorf Graduates in Denmark by Troels Hansen by Magne Skrede From Crisis to Cooperation by Sylvia Fuehrer Waldorf Journal Project #13 Productivity and Receptiveness Ð How Do We Work Educating the Will Together on the School Organism? Awakening the Spiritual Powers of the Head: by Karl-Martin Dietz Educating the Will by Christof Wiechert Wake up Your Headspirit: At Eye Level by Tobias Richter Awaken the Spirit of the Head: Pyramids and Stars by James Pewtherer ManÕs Will Is His Kingdom of Heaven by Hartwig Schiller

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Waldorf Journal Project #15 Mont-Saint-Michael (French Legend) The Deeds of Michael: A Collection of Tales and Legends Mont-Saint-Michel (Chronicle of the City of Speyer) INTRODUCTION MICHAEL AS HEALER (Christian Legends from Egypt) Michael Legends (From a Speech by Pico Della Mirandola) The Leper Jew Gothic Hymn unto the Archangel Michael (From the Greek) The Unfulfilled Vow Michael (Greek Hymn from the Middle Ages) The Blind Man The Possessed MICHAEL IN THE ANCIENT ORIENT Michael as Indra (From the Rigveda) WORSHIP OF MICHAEL FROM THE TIME OF The Bhagadvad Gita as Reflection of MichaelÕs Battle CHARLEMAGNE TO THE 10TH CENTURY in Heaven Sequence on St. Michael Dedicated to Emperor Michael as Mithras (From the Avesta) Charlemagne (Latin Hymn from the Middle Ages) Mithras, Revealing the Sacred Names (From a Mithras The Dragon of Ireland (French Legend) Liturgy) Michael as Marduk (after the Babylonian Song of World MICHAELÕS TRANSITION FROM LEGEND TO THE HISTORY Creation as given by Friedrich Delitzsch) OF THE FADING MIDDLE AGES Michael as Friend of Mankind (Icelandic Legend) MICHAEL ACCORDING TO THE CONCEPTIONS OF Michael Leads the Army of Barbarossa (German Legend) THE HEBREW PEOPLE OR IN CONNECTION WITH THESE To St. Michael (Latin Hymn of the Middle Ages, CONCEPTIONS (Hebrew Legends) 11th Century) The Creation of Adam (Russian Legend) How Henry II Beheld Michael on Mont Gargano and How .. Michael as Guardian of the Word He Was Touched and Lamed by Him German Legend) Michael Tests MosesÕ Willingness to Sacrifice Prayer (From Old Norway, circa 1300) Michael as Savior of Isaac The Death of St. Elizabeth of Thuringan (German Legend) MosesÕ Death LuciferÕs Crown (From the ÒSingersÕ Contest on the The Four Winds Wartburg,Ó 13th Century) The Rainbow The Vision of Jeanne dÕArc (Account of Jeanne dÕArcÕs The Bowl of the World Deposition) The Book of the Seventy-Two Signs Michael, the Angel, Speaketh (From Hans Sachs: Tragedy . Michael as Guardian of Paradise (Medieval Tale) of the Creation, Fall and Eviction from Paradise) MICHAEL AND THE MYSTERY OF GOLGOTHA MICHAEL IN THE EUROPEAN EAST Golgotha (Russian Legend) St. Michael on the Crescent Moon (After a Polish Legend) Michael and the Risen One (From the Rejentime Of Michael, the Archangel (From the Russian) Easter Play, 15th Century)

MICHAEL ACCORDING TO THE CONCEPTIONS OF SIMPLE MICHAEL ACCORDING TO MANICHEAN CONCEPTIONS FOLK Michael and Evil (Ancient Bulgarian Legend) Why the Sole of ManÕs Foot Is not Even Michael and the Doubter (German Legend) MinerÕs Song (From Bohemia) The DevilÕs Scythe (French Legend) LEGENDS CONCERNING MICHAELÕS WORKINGS IN What the Peasants of Normandy Tell about Michael PLACES CONSECRATED TO HIM (Legend from Normandy) MichaelÕs Sanctuary in Chonae (From the Greek) The Sanctuary of Michael on Mount Gargano (Latin Legend)

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MICHAELÕS COSMIC ACTIVITY Waldorf Journal Project #17 The Twelfth Chapter of the Revelation of St. John From Images to Thinking Concerning the Iron in the Kalewala and the Spiritual Children Learn in Images Forge in the North () by Rosemary Wermbter The Fairy Tale of the Crystal Ball Waldorf Journal Project #16 by Christiane Brown Classroom Considerations from Norway Interpreting Fairy Tales by Rudolf Steiner The Role of Mythology in Education How to Create, Tell, and Recall a Story by J¯rgen Smit by Rudolf Steiner Thinking and Willing in Mythological Form The Secret of ChildrenÕs Pictures by Armin Krenz by J¯rgen Smit Research into Resilience by Christof Wiechert A Little Introduction to Grammar Resilient Children: First Food or Fast Food by J¯rgen Smit by Katherine Train Subject, Predicate and Object in Grammar Why Waldorf Works: From a Neuroscientific Perspective J¯rgen Smit by Dr. Regalena Melrose The Past, Present and Future by J¯rgen Smit The Senses by Eileen M. Hutchins The ChildÕs Word Sense and Thinking Sense The Training of Observation by J¯rgen Smit by Eileen M. Hutchins Picture and Concept by J¯rgen Smit Observation and Thinking by Eileen M. Hutchins Remembering and Imagining by J¯rgen Smit The Activity of Thinking by Eileen M. Hutchins The Youth of Our Day by J¯rgen Smit An Education for Our Time by Christof Wiechert A Bold Step Forward by Andreas Neider Internet Crutch by Mathias Maurer

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Indices: Waldorf Science Newsletters 1Ð27

AWSNA

Waldorf Science Newsletter

Index of Past Issues

Waldorf Science Newsletter edited by David Mitchell © AWSNA Publications

Purpose: This newsletter is published once each year and is dedicated to developing science teaching in the Waldorf schools. Teachers are invited to pose questions, seek resource material, discuss experiments, write about their classes (successful and not very successful), and investigate phenomena. The editor also translates relevant science articles from Waldorf periodicals from around the world. The following past editions are available from:

AWSNA Publications E-mail: [email protected] 458 Harold Meyers Rd fax: 518/ 634-2597 Earlton, NY 12058 phone: 518/ 634-2222

Volume 1, #1 Volume 2, #3 Partial contents Ð Acoustics in Grade 6; Teaching Partial contents Ð Grade 12 Physics Ð Von about Alcohol in Grade 8 Chemistry; The Chemistry Mackensen; Biology Teaching in the 11th Grade; EuclidÕs Curriculum: The Debate over Teacher Demonstration vs. Algorithm; The Logos and Goethean Observation; Nature Student Experimentation; Spiritual Aspects of 20th Century Education; AristotleÕs Taste Spectrum; Book Reviews; Humor; Science; Overview of the Waldorf Science Curriculum; Water; Poetry; Conferences; and Sample Experiments Characteristics of the Major Sugars; GoetheÕs Meditation on Granite; Book Reviews; Humor; Poetry; Conferences; and Volume 2, #4 Sample Experiments Partial contents Ð Current Research; Strange Theories; Science Education and Wonder; The Human Earth; Volume 1, #2 SteinerÕs Counterspace Examined; The Cow; Language and the Partial contents Ð The Characteristics of Drugs; Book of Nature; Book Reviews; Humor; Poetry; Conferences; Eratosthenes Revived; The Golden Number; Educational and Sample Experiment Guidelines for a Chemical Formula Language; The Properties of Acids and Bases; Walter Lebendšrfer on Chemistry; Biology in the 11th Grade; What Is Home?; The Waldorf Environmental Curriculum; Environmental Education; Women in Science; Book Reviews; Humor; Poetry; Conferences; and Sample Experiments

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Indices • Waldorf Science Running Newsletters Head •• 83

Volume 3, #5 Volume 6, #11 Partial contents Ð Book Reviews; First Lessons in Partial contents Ð A Chemistry of Process; Sponges Astronomy; Steps in the Development of Thinking (Power and Sinks and Rags; How to Read Science; Experiences and of Judgment); Computer Science and Computers in the Suggestions for Chemistry Teaching; Experimentation as an Waldorf School; Technology; Computers in Education; Some Art; Biographies Ð Dmitri Mendeleev, Joseph Priestley, Marie Characteristics of the Computer; Computers and Consciousness; Curie; Destructive Distillation; Experiments Experiments Volume 6, #12 Volume 3, #6 Partial contents Ð Light and Darkness in 6th Grade Partial contents Ð Space and Counter Space; New Physics; The Relation of ÒOptical ElevationÓ to Binocular Vision; Eyes for Plants; Experiments of Academia dell Cement; Physics Description of Curves in Connection with Elevation Phenomena; and Chemistry in the Grades; Goethean Science Credits; Water Treatment at the Toronto Waldorf School; A Lime Kiln Chemistry Workshop; Table of Important Salts; GoetheÕs that Can Be Assembled and Disassembled; Experiments Scientific Imagination; To Infinity and Back in Class 11; π and Trigonometry; Science in the Waldorf Kindergarten; A Note on PascalÕs Triangle; Experiments Volume 7, #13 Partial contents Ð Thoughts on Returning to an ÒEducation Towards FreedomÓ; Pedagogical Motives for the Volume 4, #7 Third Seven-Year Period; Social Education through Mathematics Partial contents Ð The Message of the Sphinx; Lessons; A Vision for Waldorf Education; Our Approach to Honey; Cell Cosmology; EinsteinÕs Question; What Is Goethean Math DoesnÕt Add Up; International Mathematics Curriculum Science?; Prototype Computer Program; River Watch as a Classroom Activity; Thoughts on Curriculum Standards; Comments on Building a Waldorf School; Experiments Volume 7, #14 Partial contents Ð Conferences; Physiology, Update on Taste; Pictorial Earthquake; Boiling with Snow; Towards a Volume 4, #8 Waldorf High School Science Curriculum for the 21st Century; Partial contents Ð Towards Holistic Biology; How The Thermal Decomposition of Calcium Carbonate; Crystal DNA Computers Work; Solar System Facts; What Is Goethean Reveals Unexpected Beginnings; Cosmic Ray Studies on Skis; Science?; Human Movement and the Nervous System; What Experiments Is Science?; What Is Meant by ÒTeaching the Children to Breathe?Ó; Experiments Volume 8, #15 Partial contents Ð Book Reviews; Arabic Science; Volume 5, #9 Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance; Making Natural Partial contents Ð The Globe Inside Our Planet; Dyes; Exploring the Qualities of Iron; Von Mackensen Chemistry Music, Blood and Hemoglobin; Standards in Science; Cognitive Conference; Oxalic and Formic Acids; Hydraulic Rams; What Channels Ð the Learning Cycles and Middle School Students; the Water Spider Taught Me 8th Grade Physics, From Dividing to Extracting Roots; What Is Lambda?; Waldorf Science Kits Volume 8, #16 Partial contents Ð Waldorf High School Research Volume 5, #10 Papers; Inside the Gulf of Maine; How Do Atomistic Models Partial contents Ð Reading the Rocks; Why the Act on the Understanding of Nature in the Young Person?; Arts Are Important to Science; The Three Groups of Rocks; The House of Arithmetic; Origami Mathematics; Sixth Grade Introduction to Geology; The Rock Cycle; Mineralogy for Grade Acoustics; Sixth Grade Kaleidoscopes; Tricks with Mirrors; 6; Metals and Minerals, Precious Stones Ð Their Meaning for The Flour Mill and the Industrial Revolution; Web Gems; Earth, the Human Being, and the Cosmos; Experiments Understanding Parabolic Reflectors; The Capacitor; Oscillation and Waves; Crystal Radio; Qualifications for High School Mathematics Teaching

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 84 • RunningIndices • WaldorfHead Science Newsletters

Volume 9, #17 Universe; Teaching Sensible Science; Mug on a Glass: An Optics Partial contents Ð Book Reviews; Acknowledgement Demonstration for Grade Seven; Chemistry Challenge for Grade from a Waldorf Parent; Raising Money for Science; The Eight; On Being an Insect; Surveying and Mapping: An Attempt Twelve Year-Old Child and Orpheus; Towards a Sensible Kind to Integrate New and Emerging Technologies into the Class 10 of Chemistry, Part One; The Lightning Bug; The Ladybug; Curriculum Exploratory Experimentation: Goethe, Land, and Faraday; FaradayÕs Synthetic Investigation of Solenoids; FaradayÕs Volume 13, #23 Analytic Investigation of Induction; Geometric Addition Table: A Curious Configuration Partial contents Ð Books of Interest; Advice on Teaching 8th Grade Meteorology; An Explanation of the Phenomenological Approach for Parents of Middle School Volume 9, #18 Children; Astronomy (Hubble Space Telescope Photographs); Partial contents Ð Book Reviews; Towards a Sensible Environment, Morphology, and Physical Principles for Waldorf Kind of Chemistry, Part Two; The Evolution of the Fast Brain; High School Teachers and Students, Part 2; Sensible Science Professors Vie with Web for Class Attention; The Teenage Edge; Workshop; How Parachute Spiders Invade a New Territory; Oscillator Coil Demonstration Using an Ultra-Low Frequency Pluto Is No Longer a Planet; Computer Curricula in U.S. Waldorf LC-ÒTankÓ Circuit; Thermodynamic Experiments for the Middle Schools; Experiments School Volume 14, #24 Volume 10, #19 Partial contents Ð Books of Interest; Robotics; A Partial contents Ð Book Reviews; The Beaver; Nature Seventh Grade Fresco Project; A Pinhole Camera Project for the in the Human Being; Astronomy Verses for the Middle School; Seventh Grade; Other Projects for Elementary Physics Classes; Child Development and the Teaching of Science; Bibliography The Aurora Borealis; Phenomenological Science Equipment; for Middle School Teachers; What Is Phenomenology?; The The Karma of CalculusÐInvolving Isaac Newton and Gottfried Design of Human and Animal Bodies; The Brain and Finger Leibniz; Award Winning Photos of Nature and Animals; Humor Dexterity; Observations of a Neurophysiologist Volume 15, #25 Volume 10, #20 Partial contents Ð Books of Interest; Doing Partial contents Ð Book Reviews; A Number Story for Phenomenology in Science; The Western Screech Owl; Sea the Sixth Grade; Novel Entries for a Trig Table; An Introduction Turtles Use EarthÕs Magnetic Field to Navigate; The WorldÕs to the Sine and Tangent; Toss Out the Toss-Up: Bias in Heads Biggest Bug; Tree Talk; The Phenomenology of Colored or Tails; Phlogistron Theory; Song of the Rain; Refrigeration in Shadows; Analemma; Photos from Hubble; Mechanics in 7th Physics; The Poetry of Astronomy; Build Your Own Sextant; Grade Physics Highlights from Recent Science-teaching Periodicals; Websites of Interest Volume 16, #26 Partial contents Ð Books of Interest; Going through, Volume 11, #21 Taking in, Considering: A Three-Phase Process of Learning as Partial contents Ð Books of Interest; A Sampling a Method of ÒTeaching in Main Lesson Blocks,Ó The Geometry of Poems for Botany; How Does Sense-Nerve System Activity of Life: Toward a Science of Form; Phenomenology: HusserlÕs Relate to Conscious Experience?; Acoustics in Sixth Grade; Fun Philosophy and GoetheÕs Approach to Science; First Approach Facts of Physiology; About Formative Forces in Vertebrates and to Mineralogy; Growing Salt Crystals; The Beauty of Slime Human Beings; Global Perspective; Points to Consider in Science Molds; An Interview with Daniel Pink; Mutualism between Elk Teaching; Deconstructing Black Box Aspects of a Computerized and Magpies; Symbiotic Relationships Physics Lab Volume 17, #27 Volume 12, #22 Partial contents Ð Books of Interest; Points to Partial contents Ð Books of Interest; Preserving a Consider When Teaching Science; A Brief Overview of the Snowflake; Environment, Morphology, and Physical Principles Waldorf High School Mathematics Curriculum; Some Fun for Waldorf High School Teachers and Students. Part 1; Facts of Physiology; The Imaginary in Geometry; Volcanism; Homemade Audio Speaker for Grade Eight; Mathematics and Hydromonochord: Visualizing String Vibrations by Water Natural Science: A Reflection from the Viewpoint of Pedagogy Swirls; Return of the Sun after the Darkest Days; Experiments and the History of Ideas; Animal Sight; KeplerÕs Model of the

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 About the Research Institute for Waldorf Education

Summary of Activities Supported by the Research Institute he Research Institute for Waldorf Education is an initiative working on behalf of the Waldorf school movement. It receives Projects support and guidance from the Pedagogical Section of the The following projects are in process or have been undertaken T by the Research Institute: School of Spiritual Science and financial support through the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), the Midwest Shared Gifting Group, the Waldorf Schools Fund, Teaching Sensible Science Seminars the Waldorf Curriculum Fund, and private donors through the Sexual Education Grades 4Ð12 Rudolf Steiner Foundation. Survey of Waldorf Seniors The Research Institute was founded in 1996 in order Waldorf High School Research Projects to deepen and enhance the quality of Waldorf education, Books and Papers to engage in serious and sustained dialogue with the wider The following books and papers were printed by the Research educational-cultural community, and to support research that Institute and are available from AWSNA Publications would serve educators in all types of schools in their work with children and adolescents. • Topics in Mathematics for the 11th Grade The Research Institute has responded to the call for • Tapping the Wellsprings of Health in Adolescence research as a top priority of the Waldorf school movement by • New Approaches to Teaching Grammar becoming a supporting organization of AWSNA and by co- • Developmental Signatures: Core Values and Practices in sponsoring research projects with the Association and with the Waldorf Education for Children Ages 3–9 Pedagogical Section. • Education, Teaching, and Practical Life by Rudolf Steiner We support research projects that deal with essential • Survey of Waldorf Graduates, Phase I contemporary educational issues such as the role of play • Survey of Waldorf Graduates, Phase II • Survey of Waldorf Graduates, Phase III in early childhood, attention-related disorders, trends in • Effects of High-Stakes Testing on Children adolescent development and innovations in the high school curriculum, survey of Waldorf graduates, learning expectations Subject-Specific Colloquia, 2000Ð2010 and assessment, computers in education, the role of art in Chemistry education, and new ways to identify and address different Mathematics learning styles. The Research Institute has sponsored colloquia Computer and Information Technology and conferences that have brought together educators, English psychologists, doctors, and social scientists. We have published United States History a Research Bulletin twice a year for the last decade, and we Life Science and Environmental Studies are developing and distributing educational resources to help World History Ð Symptomatology Physics teachers in all aspects of their work. Proceedings for all of the above are available We sponsor the Online Waldorf Library: from AWSNA Publications at: www.waldorflibrary.org, whose mission is to make available www.whywaldorfworks.org. contemporary writings on Waldorf education, and we host our own site: www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org, where up-to-date Resource Development research is posted. Online Waldorf Library, a website of resources for Waldorf The Research Institute is a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt education organization and gratefully accepts donations. Themes in Waldorf Education, compilation of Rudolf SteinerÕs indications on teaching language arts and mathematics Education, Teaching, and Practical Life by Rudolf Steiner Developmental Signatures Ð new source book Earth Science by Hans-Ulrich Schmutz Over 200 articles placed on OWL from Steiner Library 75+ eBooks created and placed Online for teacher reference

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 86 • About the Research Institute

Board of Directors San Francisco Waldorf School Douglas Sloan, President Santa Cruz Waldorf School Susan Howard, Secretary Santa Fe Waldorf School Virginia Flynn, Treasurer Seattle Waldorf School David Mitchell, Co-Director Shining Mountain Waldorf School Douglas Gerwin, Co-Director Sound Circle Center for Arts and Anthroposophy Alice Bennett Groh Spring Garden Waldorf School Arthur Zajonc Summerfield Waldorf School & Farm Natalie Adams Susquehanna Waldorf School The Waldorf School of Lexington Administrator The Winkler Center for Adult Learning Milan Daler Toronto Waldorf School Tucson Waldorf Education Association Supporting Members Vancouver Waldorf School Academe of the Oaks Waldorf Academy Ashwood Waldorf School Waldorf High School of Massachusetts Bay Aurora Waldorf School of Alaska Waldorf School of Garden City Austin Waldorf School Waldorf School of Orange County AWSNA Waldorf School of Pittsburgh Camellia Waldorf School Waldorf School of Princeton Camphill Special School - Beaver Run Waldorf School of San Diego Cape Ann Waldorf School Waldorf School of the Peninsula Center for Anthroposophy Washington Waldorf School Chicago Waldorf School Waldorf Teacher Education Eugene City of Lakes Waldorf School Denver Waldorf School Please visit our website at: East Bay Waldorf School Emerson Waldorf School www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org Escuela Waldorf de Cuernavaca Eugene Waldorf School Research Bulletin Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School Editor: Elan Leibner Green Meadow Waldorf School Art/cover: David Mitchell Haleakala Waldorf School Copy editing: Douglas Gerwin Halton Waldorf School Proofreading: Ann Erwin Hartsbrook School Production/layout: David Mitchell Hawthorne Valley School High Mowing School The Research Institute for Waldorf Education Highland Hall Waldorf School Douglas Gerwin and David Mitchell Honolulu Waldorf School Co-Directors Kimberton Waldorf School P.O. Box 307 Lake Champlain Waldorf School Wilton, NH 03086 Les Enfants de la Terre Phone: (603) 654-2566 Marin Waldorf School Fax: (603) 654-5258 Merriconeag Waldorf School e-mail: [email protected] Monadnock Waldorf School Pasadena Waldorf School Pine Hill Waldorf School Portland Waldorf School Donations Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto Rudolf Steiner College for the continuation of the work of the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor Research Institute are tax deductible. Rudolf Steiner School, NY Sacramento Waldorf School

Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1 Research Institute for Waldorf Education Subscription Form for the Research Bulletin

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Research Bulletin • Spring 2011 • Volume 16 • #1