The Concept of Learning in Jost Schieren

Introductory case study: not too far from the paddock. As the students, A ninth grade farm trip all bunched together, approach it, it takes to Thirty-five students are spending two its heels, stops about twenty to thirty yards weeks at an organic farm in northern further on, and resumes grazing. The pursuers Germany. This is a ninth grade, with almost never succeed in getting any closer than the equal numbers of boys and girls. The farm is horseÕs preferred distance of about twenty responsible for providing these young people yards. Every time they try to close in, the horse with accommodation, meals, and educational keeps its distance. They spend the next three instruction. Every day there are tasks to be quarters of an hour in heated discussions over done in the following areas: work with animals how to solve the problem. By then the horse (pigs and cows), the cheese dairy, vegetable has reached a copse, in which there is a little garden and orchard, field work, and forestry. glade rounded off at one end. In groups of five the students work in each of The group agrees upon a plan of action: these areas in turn. In addition there are daily they surround the horse on both sides, without mini-lessons on various aspects of farming and infringing upon its space, and then close in forestry. from behind. While doing this they manage to For the first three to five days the students refrain from speaking or making any sudden struggle to embrace the challenges. Removed movements, and in this way, within half an from their familiar surroundings, tied to a hour, they have succeeded in returning the demanding, though not overly strenuous, work horse to its paddock. process, they feel it is all too much. Getting up The adult observers soon realize that this early (at 6:30am), which is actually not much episode has broken the spell of the first few different from a normal school day, proves days: the work has become less arduous, the very laborious. Since many parents have students draw lots to see who will get up at supplied their children with large amounts of 5:00 oÕclock in the morning instead of 6:30 to sweets and snacks, the healthy and nourishing be in the byre early enough to help with milking meals provided by the farm at first go largely and, last but not least, the ample helpings of uneaten. Tasks that are simple but require food now go into hungry young bellies instead some staying powerÑlike digging a vegetable of back to the kitchen uneaten. When the bedÑlead many students, after a very short fourteen days are up and it is time to leave, time, to imagine they are exhausted. The there are tearful farewells with the family who working atmosphere at this early stage is thus runs the farm and with animals that have rather strained. become favorites. It also comes about that a Then something happens on the fourth day: small group of students voluntarily returns to while everyone is eating lunch, one of the girls help on the farm during the following summer comes running excitedly into the dining hall holidays. with the news that one of the farm horses has broken out of its paddock. With one accord the The concept of learning pupils are on their feet and rush off to catch Since the dawn of Western culture, a prime the horse. They find it grazing in a meadow concern of all thinkersÑfrom philosophers to

Research Bulletin • Autumn/Winter 2012 • Volume 17 • #2 38 • The Concept of Learning in Waldorf Education psychologists, education theorists and, most facts (in the form of mental representations) recently, neuroscientistsÑhas been the nature as possible into the pupilsÕ heads. He criticized of the process of learning and its significance the one-sided emphasis upon accumulating in human life. The variety of ideas about the such representations and storing them in the nature of learning reflects the range of ideas of memory for the purposes of examinations. human nature and/or worldviews from which The problem lies not in the representations they arise, and this in turn bears witness to as suchÑthey, of course, have their place in the diverse aspects of learning upon which Waldorf education and need to be learned the scientific gaze is focused. Although there and retained. It lies rather in the fact that are often sharply opposing representations give no hint arguments in play, it is less a Viewing the human to consciousness of their question of right and wrong being as equipped with cognitive origins, namely, and more of deciding which the mindÕs own activity in concept of learning and, in a potential for freedom productively combining consequence, which worldview entails an attempt to percept and concept. one will embrace. organize learning in an Epistemologically speaking, Viewing the human they suppress our participation being as equipped with a open way and make in the construction of potential for freedom and it more responsive to reality, thus casting our capable of acting out of personal requirements. conscious experience in self-motivation and insight the mould of subject-object (a view championed by dualism. Consciousness in ) entails an attempt to organize representation-mode construes the world as learning in an open way and make it more something opposite to its own beingÑan responsive to personal requirements. This gives entity set apart in principle. If school lessons us a point of departure for the consideration of are conducted in such a way that emphasis Waldorf education, which now follows. is placed solely upon the reception and reproduction from memory of contents that Representation and will have the character of representations, this will In lecture after lecture, given to the college have the effect of reinforcing in experience the of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart in separation of mind and world. Only insofar as 1919 and in subsequent years, teaching style is not restricted to conveying emphatically pointed out that Waldorf contents of this kind alone, but takes account education, contrary to the school systems of the individual mindÕs active contribution to of his time, is not about Òhead-learningÓ but the formation of representations and makes about Òlimb-learningÓ (1980). The importance practical, didactic use of it, will the mindÕs of these expressions is clear: the aim is not the participation in the construction of reality enter one-sided inculcation of facts and ideas, but into experience. the education of the will. Steiner thus strongly This leads to an essentially monistic form rejected what he saw as the ÒcerebralizedÓ of awareness, which experiences itself as not education of his day. separated from the phenomena, but involved, In this he was saying something essentially both epistemologically and functionally, in the similar to other contemporary educational genesis of reality and which provides the basis reformers. School, according to Steiner, does for the development of an individualÕs abilities. not exist solely to instruct the Òhead.Ó Its Steiner repeatedly stressed that educating purpose is not to cram as large a volume of the ÒwillÓ was paramount. In the present

Research Bulletin • Autumn/Winter 2012 • Volume 17 • #2 Jost Schieren • 39 context ÒwillÓ refers to the active contribution (agricultural knowledge), ethical-moral (respect made by the human organism to the coming for nature), and social (class community). into being of representations. It is A key factor in all this was the dispositional and conditional Steiner repeatedly the episode of the runaway abilities that are formed in this horse. It was a learning active constituting of reality. stressed that opportunity built into the In this sense, then, the aim of educating the ÒwillÓ structure of the visit as a whole, learning in Waldorf education was paramount. but even so it cannot be said to is the formation of dispositions have been the sole reason for the (increase in abilities through success of the learning process. encountering the world) and conditions (the What it did was to create a major turning generation of concepts by human thinking).2 point. It was a real-life situation. The learning did not take place in a classroom under The ninth grade trip: what was learned? ÒartificialÓ conditions set up by a teacher, but Having thus described this case study of a in the context of an actual working farm. All learning process, the question is: what did the the work processes the students went through students learn? They became actively engaged were at the same time those of the farm itself. in the farm as a whole. As an organism the This is, of course, an exception to the normal farm set certain tasks that needed to be done, school day, but it illustrates a key element and the students made them their own. In of what learning, in Waldorf terms, is really doing so, they learned something about the about, namely, an experience of the world that origin of foodstuffs, about the processes is directly relevant to practical life. This aspect they have to be put through, about working of learning will now be considered in relation to with animals and plants, and about human meaning and truth. nutrition in general. In other words they learned something about a particular aspect Truth of the world and how it works. Moreover, they Every learning process is accompanied by discovered their ability to mobilize their own a certain question, which may or may not be capacity for effort and developed a strong verbalized: Òwhy do I have to learn this?Ó No motivation for work. Through student will be satisfied with having been placed in a position Learning, in Waldorf the answer: Òbecause youÕll of caring for the natural world, terms, is really about need it later in life.Ó Learning and especially for the animals, must be meaningful in itself. they went some way towards an experience of the For instance, the acquisition in developing an ethic of respect world that is directly early childhood of practical and for nature, reflected in a newly- relevant to practical motor skills (grasping, walking, won ability for appropriate speech, and so forth) represents action. Not least, the class life. an immediate experience of community greatly benefited success in learning. The newly- from an improved level of mutual respect and learned abilities are geared to the purposes of considerateness. satisfying various needs. This is meaningful. All in all, then, the learning that took place As the child then passes through school, here encompassed skills in a wide range of the immediate experience of meaning will tend areas: emotional (sympathetic engagement to recede into the background as the level of with the farm), motivational and volitional abstraction in lesson content increases. This (readiness to work, perseverance), cognitive calls for a teaching methodology centered

Research Bulletin • Autumn/Winter 2012 • Volume 17 • #2 40 • The Concept of Learning in Waldorf Education upon the creation of meaning. By drawing The learning subject experiences the objective upon content in tune with developmental attachment of certain faculties to the inherent phases, real life, and human nature, such requirements of an object, in this case of a teaching integrates meaningÑin the form of thought. In this position, however, the subject is relevanceÑinto the educational landscape as not overpowered or placed under compulsion; a whole. The point is to establish a relevant rather insights, whether implicit or explicit, connection to the world, against which the act as a catalyst for the development of the correctness of the things one has learned and subjectÕs abilities. An insight does not entail any acquired can be gauged. The world is the kind of compulsion, since it is also the product yardstick upon which educational success is of the activity of a subject. (cf. Witzenmann to be measured. 1992) It would be absurd to maintain that we KŠte Meyer-Drawe grants the establishing are forced to open the door before leaving a of a concrete connection to the world a very room because we know it is a good idea. The important place in the process subject determines his or her of learning, designating it as To learn is to participate own actions on the basis of the promotion of Òphenomenal acquired insights, which exist rights.Ó (2008a) And here in the workings of the in the form of individually Alfred Schirlbauer quite world as mirrored by validated truths. rightly calls for truth- and/or acquired dispositional Upon such a background accuracy-based learning: the currently oft-quoted Òwith no relation to ÔtruthÕ and conditional abilities. formula of learning to learn is and Ôaccuracy,Õ it would simply redundant. Learning, make little or no sense to speak of insight, after all, is not an end in itself; it is always understanding or knowledge.Ó (2008, p. 205) directed towards something. That is the main Here, of course, truth is not intended in any test of its occurrence. Schirlbauer makes a ultimate philosophical sense. Rather, it is strong distinction between such an object- or being used in its more pragmatic meaning content-oriented concept of learning and a of everyday logic, which appears as the mere training in various methods: Òlearning working knowledge that proves itself in and teaching theory must be about the every successfully performed action and as contents being learned and taught, because the general understanding that lives in the without them there can be no learning, because particularity of whatever content learning is É the ÔcontentsÕ are the thoughts we learn focused on. In connection with the previously to think in the process of learning.Ó (2008, mentioned faculties of disposition and p. 205) For their part, the thoughts stand condition, truth implies the object-relational in relation to a something, Òwhich provides attachment of acquired concepts to percepts the sole basis for any talk of the correctness, (individualization, which leads to dispositions), appropriateness, or, ultimately, the truth of and to other concepts (generalization, which a judgement.Ó (Ibid.) Describing things thus leads to conditions). in terms of concrete object-relations (where Schirlbauer writes, in reference to Theodor ÒobjectÓ can be understood as ÒworldÓ) expands Ballauff (Ballauff 1970), that Òthinking cannot the concept of learning as Òcontent-oriented.Ó be willed, rather it must assimilate us; we are It is not geared towards the past, as in the taken hold of by a train of thought when Ôwe model that sees learning as the acquiring of a thinkÕ.Ó (2008, p. 207) In effect, he is pointing canon of knowledge set down in a curriculum. out that our experience of how insight arises Rather, very much in the style of the previously provides evidence of the autonomy of thinking. described case-study, it points to a more

Research Bulletin • Autumn/Winter 2012 • Volume 17 • #2 Jost Schieren • 41 holistic form of learning, which encompasses own inner processes, a fresh image of implicit areas of Òknowledge.Ó that which he received in the first place In this sense, to learn is to participate in the as an image from outside himself. (1922) workings of the world as mirrored by acquired dispositional and conditional abilities. Waldorf This is a rather complex formulation, education puts this understanding of learning especially in that he says something also into practice, in that it has a decided preference takes place between the outer world and for experiential and practical learning the soul through which representations processes. Projects involving arts, crafts, and are formed in the present. What does this industrial skills are systematically integrated mean? Steiner points to the process by which into the school day. Even the more abstract, representations are formed. As previously cognitive subjects, such as mathematics, are described, he regards them as produced by taught in as imaginative and practical a way the union of sensory perceptions and concepts as possible. generated by thinking. He decisively rejects Remembering phenomena are perceived and then laid down There is a further aspect to be considered: in consciousness as representations. the process of learning cannot succeed unless The human being is not simply a receptive that which has been learned persists in time vessel for the world but is highly active and and does not simply dissipate. It must be productive in relation to it. It is not that images preserved. Here Rudolf Steiner speaks of of a ready-made reality are simply taken Òtreasures of the past.Ó (1922, p. 52) Whatever in; rather, human consciousness is actively else it might be, learning is always a process of involved in the construction of reality. However, perpetuation. That which has been acquired by as previously mentioned, in our experience learning becomes a lasting component of the of representations, we are not conscious of human personality. For this to happen, memory the participatory process that went into their must be activated. Rudolf Steiner describes the formation. For waking consciousness the faculty of memory as a fundamental attribute (already formed) representation is the starting of the human soul. Within this context the word point. Since this is an end-product of the soul is functionally defined as the preserver of process whereby reality is constructed, and the past. is thus already distinct from it, Witzenmann How, then, according to Steiner, does emphatically states: ÒOur normal consciousness memory work? On this question there is an is thus a representational consciousness, illuminating passage in his book Theosophy. containing little in the way of actual reality.Ó Having begun by pointing out the transitory (1985, p. 61) nature of sensations, he then goes more closely Witzenmann distinguishes between a into the process of memory: fundamental structure3 of human cognition actively involved in the construction of reality The body would allow all impressions to and a secondary structure, which expresses sink back again into nothing were it not this constructive process in the form of that whilst the present image is being representational memory images. In SteinerÕs formed through the act of perception, terms this fundamental structure is the unifying something is also taking place in the of percept and concept. This is the process that relationship between the outer world and takes place between the outer world and the the soul, as a result of which the man is soul, and makes it possible for the human being able, subsequently, to form, through his to Òform, through his own inner processes, a

Research Bulletin • Autumn/Winter 2012 • Volume 17 • #2 42 • The Concept of Learning in Waldorf Education fresh image of that which he received in the is not only concerned with established first place as an image from outside himself.Ó representations, but, in recalling something (Steiner 1922) These processes, which are to memory, the participatory element in the experienced inwardly, Steiner designates as previous formation of the concept enters into memory. He defines his position as follows: consciousness. This creates what could be called the magic of recollectionÑthe fact that Anyone who has acquired practice in to recollect is to overcome passive, dualistic observing the life of the soul will be able spectator consciousness, for in doing so we to realize how erroneous it is to say that become aware of the participatory activity a man has a perception that went into the previous today, and tomorrow, Spirit is not simply making of the recollected through memory, the same representation, and at the perception appears again, a world of beings same time of the self as an having meanwhile remained existing in the entity capable of developing somewhere or other within beyond, but the inner dispositional abilities in relation him. No; the perception to reality. In various contexts which I now have is a being of man actively Rudolf Steiner has referred to phenomenon which passes expressed within this as recollection of spirit: in away with the Ònow.Ó When reality. recollecting, the human being recollection takes place, a implicitly recollects the fact process occurs in me which that he is a spiritual being, is a result of something that happened, productively involvedÑin that to be so is part in addition to the calling forth of the of his own self-realizationÑin the formation actual present image, in the relation of reality. At the same time this gives us the between the external world and me. The essence of SteinerÕs concept of spirit: spirit is image called forth through remembrance not simply a world of beings existing in the is a new one, and not the old one beyond, but the inner being of man actively preserved. Recollection consists in the expressed within reality. fact that one can make a fresh mental An inkling of this magic of recollection can image to oneself, and not that a former be felt, for instance, from visiting, after long image can revive. What appears again in absence, some childhood haunt and being recollection is something different from moved by the smallest impressionsÑa specific the original image itself. (1922, p. 50) scent or a particular quality of light. It becomes apparent that one is not only registering the According to this view, it is not the impression of the moment, but at the same previously formed representation that appears time recollecting oneÕs past involvement in its again, but a newly formed one. This occurs making, in other words, oneÕs own being. in relation to Òsomething that happened, in addition to the calling forth of the actual Forgetting present image, in the relation between the Cognition and memory, as portrayed by external world and me.Ó (Ibid.) But this Rudolf Steiner, are highly active processes. ÒsomethingÓ is none other than the original This has direct consequences for the learning participatory joining of percept and concept process. In Waldorf education learning is just now termed fundamental structure. This understood as the active exploration of reality. amounts to the formulation, on SteinerÕs part, It cannot be efficacious unless the human of a new concept of recollection: recollection subject is as involved in the process as possible.

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Learning, therefore, is no mere pouring of kind (often in the form of a story), or better material into a passive, receptive vessel, but still with an open question. In conventional an active, personal, and emotional process. In Waldorf parlance, this is referred to as Òtaking learning, the human personality attains its own something into the night.Ó On subsequent days particular configuration, since in the process the theme will be taken up and gone into in it moulds itself according to its own sense more depth. Organizing lessons in so-called of reality. From the point of view of Waldorf Òmain lesson blocks,Ó in which a particular methodology, therefore, it is inadvisable to subject will be taught for the first two hours make pre-determined facts, images, and ideas every morning for three or four weeks, is a the object of learning. While form highly suited to deepening these may be useful in providing This approach to the material from day to day direction and structure, the and integrating sleep into the crucial thing for the process learning, developed process. of learning is to implement by Rudolf Steiner This approach to learning, awareness of the learnerÕs more than ninety developed by Rudolf Steiner participation in the construction more than ninety years ago, of reality. This is done through years ago, is now is now being empirically ensuring that what happens being empirically investigated by brain scientists. in the classroom involves investigated by brain Chiefly American research has direct experience and practical shown that lesson contents are action. Steiner emphasized, scientists. anchored better in the memory moreover, that it is essential just before the sleep phase. for the Waldorf teacher to use ÒpicturesÓ and (Karni et al. 1994, Wilson and McNaughton Òflexible conceptsÓ in his or her teaching. This 1994, Plihal 1997) In this a distinction is amounts to another way of pointing out the made between the so-called declarative inadvisability of using fixed content. memory, mostly responsible for storing items There is, however, something else to of knowledge, and the non-declarative or be consideredÑthe aspect of forgetting. procedural memory, responsible for skills In his approach to learning, one of Rudolf and actions. The findings of Wilson and SteinerÕs most noteworthy achievements is his McNaughton and Karni indicate that so-called elucidation of the significance of forgetting REM sleep is associated with non-declarative in the learning process. Of course, strictly knowledge processing, and deep sleep with speaking, what is meant here is deliberate declarative. forgetting; for incidental forgetting is directly In addition to the importance of the night associated with forgetting oneÕs participation for learning, which is thereby consolidated in the construction of reality. Deliberate and secured, the principle of the main-lesson forgetting, on the other hand, functions form also entails that a given subject, after such that the normal tendency for the being intensely focused upon for three or four conscious mind to be dominated by acquired weeks, is then left to rest for a while. This does representations is more or less systematically not mean that the contents of the lesson are superseded. This is practiced in Waldorf forgotten, but it does imply that the mindÕs education by keeping representations more grip upon them is loosened. When the same Òopen,Ó by pictorial teaching and the use of subject then appears on the timetable three to flexible concepts. Lessons are structured in six months later, the representations will have such a way that typically they will end with a lost their formerly sharp contours, and the directly relevant experiential moment of some students are now required, in the sense of the

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Steiner passage quoted earlier, to make new transformation of subject and object and ones. In so doing they have the opportunity to visualized it as the image of clasped hands. re-experience their connection to the subject as If this occurs, learning becomes a highly a part of their own biography. satisfying experience because the human personality has become identified with its own Transformation abilities in a certain area of knowledge. A further, previously mentioned, dimension of learning implicit in all this is transformation. Mother Holle The case of the agricultural field trip described The well-known GrimmsÕ fairy tale, ÒMother earlier demonstrated that the first days on the Holle,Ó contains many images directly relating farm had very much the character of a crisis. to the learning process as described here and Learning always involves effort; it must of will now be interpreted in this connection necessity lead to a crisis. Even good teachers (on this, see Witzenmann 1993). The story is cannot spare their students the effort of about a woman who has two daughters, one learning. Good teaching does Òugly and lazyÓ who never not mean that everything comes Good teaching lifts a fingerÑshe does not easily to the students and no engage with reality in any crises arise. It means, rather, means good crisis wayÑand one Òbeautiful and good crisis management, management, which hard-workingÓ who goes to the which involves teaching them involves teaching well every day and sits there how to cope with the struggles spinning. She does engage with and crises of learning. Errors students how to cope reality, in that by dispositional and mistakes thus become with the struggles and means she spins her concepts important and necessary crises of learning. into her percepts, and her wake-up calls, which sharpen thinking by conditional means alertness to what is Òcorrect.Ó into the cognitive context. She (cf. Benner 2005) If a learner cannot become does this with such energy that she makes her aware of what he is doing wrong, then he hands bleed. In other words, she pours her own can never develop a sense for what is correct. self into the process of reality, and this takes A pedagogical approach that seeks to deal effort. Mere spectator consciousness does not with this by penalizing errors (for instance, by get its hands bloody. Then this girl loses her giving bad grades) will be counter-productive. spindle in the well. This is something of a crisis. The crises intrinsic to learning lead to the It is crucial for the learning process, for it goes learnerÕs changing his accustomed view of the beyond the subjectÕs limits (the known, the content. The fixed structure of representations cognitively secure). Active thinking loses itself is breached. A transformation takes place. The in the phenomena, and a will element, which subject transforms him- or herself in relation to does not have the same degree of wakefulness the conditions of the object. as representational consciousness, comes to That is one aspect of the process. The other the fore. The latter is being transcended. The is that transformation also happens in the human being loses himself in the phenomena. opposite directionÑfrom object to subject. In In the case-study this was the moment when every successful learning process, the objects the students jumped up from the lunch table to transform themselves in the dispositional go and catch the horse. In the story, jumping and conditional capacities of the subject. into the well brings the girl to a new world: the subject is not forming representations of phrase sur le motif to describe this reciprocal phenomena, but rather the phenomena begin

Research Bulletin • Autumn/Winter 2012 • Volume 17 • #2 Jost Schieren • 45 to express themselves in the subject. In the ¥ Comprehensiveness: Learning occurs language of fairy tale imagery, the loaves say through interaction with reality; this interaction that they want to be taken out of the oven, should be as comprehensive (holistic), active, and the apple tree that it wants to be shaken. andÑabove allÑexperiential as possible. It is The girl does all this and willingly becomes the not just an accumulation of factual knowledge. servant of Mother Holle, who with her long ¥ Truth: In learning, the human being teeth represents the wisdom and order of the engages with the world and its order, the laws world,4 with which the girl, on account of her of which then express themselves in the abilities own active will, is able to engage. When she thus acquired. leaves the world of Mother Holle, she returns ¥ Meaning: This ability-based engagement showered with gold. These are the Òtreasures of with the world is what creates the experience the pastÓÑeverything she has learned through of meaning through learning and gives it its actively engaging in reality. She has been intrinsic relevance. equipped with the gold of her acquired abilities. The other girl, who is lazy and ugly, would Endnotes also like to have some gold. But she cannot let 1. This article was first published in the online journal go of her fixed ideas. She pricks her finger on RoSE (Journal for Research on Steiner Education; www. a thorny hedge to make it bleed. This can be rosejourn.com). It has been edited for publication in taken as an image of a more mechanical kind the Research Bulletin by Elan Leibner with the approval of learning. Instead of drawing blood on the of the author. spindle of oneÕs own thinking and feeling the 2. Editor’s note: The terms ÒdispositionÓ and ÒconditionÓ are used by the author in the sense first coined by pain of it, one does so on a thorny hedge of (1905Ð1985), especially in his unwieldy, ready-made contents. The girl then book Der Urgedanke. The original article includes a jumps into the well, but cannot let go her fixed detailed elaboration of Witzenmann’s presentation. ideas and has no way of engaging actively 3. Translator’s note: The word in German is with reality. She leaves Mother HolleÕs kingdom Grundstruktur, and it is evident from the context covered in pitch. This brings into relief the that this fundamental structure is to be construed as a mental activity. Although in English the word problem of a form of education that piles on ÒstructureÓ is normally understood as the result information, but does little for the development rather than the cause of activity, I have left the of genuine abilities. phrase as it is. It is perhaps worth pointing out that there are English terms for this fundamental Summary structure. Susanne Langer calls it Òformulation,Ó The main points of this article are as follows: Henri Bortoft calls it Òcognitive perception,Ó and calls it Òfiguration.Ó ¥ Transformation: Learning involves a crisis- 4. In his interpretation of this tale, Eugen Drewermann laden relinquishing of fixed ideas and an active calls her ÒMother EarthÓ (2002). engagement with reality. This amounts to a mutual integration of self and world. Piaget called this équilibration (1976). References: ¥ Forgetting: To learn, one needs to forget; Ballauff, Theodor. Systematische Pädagogik. Eine this means that the strong attachment to Grundlegung. : Quelle and Meyer, 1970. Benner, Dietrich. Ò†ber pŠdagogisch relevante und certain representations must be loosened. Sleep erziehungswissenschaftlich fruchtbare Aspekte der is a component of the learning process. NegativitŠt menschlicher Erfahrung,Ó in Zeitschrift für ¥ Abilities: The rich reward of learning is the Pädagogik. 49. Beiheft. S.7Ð21, Weinheim, Basel, 1995. benefit to the self in the growth of oneÕs own Breinbauer, Ines Maria. ÒNachhaltiges Lernen,Ó in Dem abilities. Dispositional and conditional abilities Lernen auf der Spur. Hrsg. von Konstantin Mitgutsch, are developed. Elisabeth Sattler, Kristin Westphal and Ines Maria Breinbauer. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2008.

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Drewermann, Eugen. ÒLieb Schwesterlein, lass mich ______. Die Philosophie der Freiheit. Berlin: herein.Ó Grimms Märchen tiefenpsychologisch gedeutet. Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, 1918. MŸnchen: dtv, 2002. ______. Theosophie. Dornach: Philosophisch- Geissler, Erich E. ÒJ.F. Herbarts ideengeschichtlicher Anthroposophischer Verlag am , 1922. Beitrag zu einer wissenschaftlichen Unterrichts- Wilson, M.A. and B.L. McNaughton. ÒReactivation und Erziehungslehre,Ó in Horizonte. Neue Wege in of hippocampal ensemble memories during sleep Lehrerbildung und Schule. Hrsg. Doris Flagmeyer and Iris episodes.Ó S.676-679, Science, 265, 1994. Mortag. Leipzig: Leipziger UniversitŠtsverlag, 2007. Winkel, Sandra, Franz Petermann and Ulrike Petermann. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. ÒDer Versuch als Vermittler Lernpsychologie. Paderborn: UTB, 2006. zwischen Objekt und Subjekt,Ó in Goethes Werke. Bd. 13, Witzenmann, Herbert. ÒFrau Holle. Ein Weg zum Hrsg. Erich Trunz. MŸnchen: C.H. Beck, 1975. VerstŠndnis der Werke Rudolf Steiners,Ó in Das Karni, A., D. Tanne, B.S. Rubenstein, J.J.M. Askenasy Rebenschiff. Sinnfindung im Kulturniedergang. S.145Ð165, and D. Sagi. ÒDependence on REM sleep of overnight Dornach: Gideon Spicker, 1993. improvement of a perceptual skill.Ó S.679Ð681, Science, ______. Goethes universalästhetischer Impuls. 265, 1994. Dornach: Gideon Spicker, 1987. Meyer-Drawe, KŠte. Diskurse des Lernens. MŸnchen: ______. Intuition und Beobachtung. Bd. I und II. Wilhelm Fink, 2008. Stuttgart: Freies Geistesleben, 1992. ______. ÒLernen als pŠdagogischer Grundbegriff,Ó in ______. Strukturphänomenologie. Vorbewusstes Handbuch der Erziehungswissenschaft. Bd. 1, S.391Ð402. Gestaltbilden im erkennenden Wirklichkeitenthüllen. Hrsg. v. Gerhard Mertens, Ursula Frost, Winfried Bšhm Dornach: Gideon Spicker, 1985. and Volker Ladenthin. Paderborn, MŸnchen, Wien, ______. Der Urgedanke. Rudolf Steiners ZŸrich: Ferdinand Schšningh, 2008. Zivilisationsprinzip und die Aufgabe der Piaget, Jean. Die Äquilibration der kognitiven Strukturen. Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. Dornach: Gideon Stuttgart: Klett, 1976. Spicker, 1988. Plihal, W. and J. Born. ÒEffects of early and late nocturnal sleep on declarative and procedural memory.Ó S.534Ð547, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 1997. Schieren, Jost. Anschauende Urteilskraft. Methodische und philosophische Grundlagen von Goethes Jost Schieren studied philosophy, German naturwissenschaftlichem Erkennen. DŸsseldorf, Bonn: literature, and art history in Bochum, Essen, and Ann Parerga, 1998. Arbor, MI. He wrote a dissertation about Goethe’s Schirlbauer, Alfred. Ò37 Elefanten. Oder: Kann man ohne Lerntheorie unterrichten?Ó in Dem Lernen auf der Spur. Way of Knowing and received a PhD in 1997 from Hrsg. Konstantin Mitgutsch, Elisabeth Sattler, Kristin Essen University. From 1996–2006 he taught German Westphal and Ines Maria Breinbauer. Stuttgart: Klett- literature, and philosophy at the Rudolf Steiner School Cotta, 2008. in Dortmund. Since 2008 he has been a professor of Steiner, Rudolf. Allgemeine Menschenkunde als Grundlage pedagogy, with a focus on Waldorf pedagogy, and head der Pädagogik. Dornach: Rudolf Steiner, 1980. of the Educational Faculty of Alanus University, Alfter, ______. Die Erziehung des Kindes vom Gesichtspunkte der Geisteswissenschaft. Dornach: Rudolf Steiner, 1990. Germany. ______. Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung. Dresden: Verlag Emil Weises Buchhandlung, 1923.

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