The Rudolf Steiner Archive

30. Spiritual-Scientific Perspectives on Education

[ 1 ] When the Theosophical Movement was founded three decades ago, its leading figures were not concerned with introducing a new doctrine that would satisfy intellectual curiosity, but rather with making spiritual insight accessible to wider circles, insight that would enable people to solve the important questions of practical life with the help of spiritual knowledge. One of these questions, which shows how spiritual science intervenes in practical life, is also the subject of this lecture: the question of education.

[ 2 ] The question of education can only be properly addressed in connection with a more intimate knowledge of the human being. Through knowledge of the human being that penetrates into the supersensible nature of the human being, fundamental principles of education arise for everyone who takes this question seriously. To this end, we must start from a consideration of the nature of the human being. The question of the nature of the human being provides the basic ideas for answering questions of education.

[ 3 ] What the outer senses can perceive of the human being is only one link in the human being for spiritual research. Human beings share this physical body, this physical being, with the rest of nature.

[ 4 ] As the second part of the human being, occult research finds the etheric body or life body through the spiritual eye. It is an organism finer than the physical body, but formed in the same way as the physical body in all its organs and parts. However, it is perhaps better to understand it as a sum of energy currents, as the architect of the physical body. The latter is, as it were, crystallized out of the etheric body. Just as ice develops from water through cooling, so the physical body has developed from the etheric body. Human beings share this etheric body or life body with all living beings.

[ 5 ] The third member of the human being is the astral body, the bearer of all the lower and higher soul qualities of the human being, the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, and all impulses of the will. This third member, which can be seen through the development of the higher organs of perception, is shared by humans with the entire animal world. It surrounds humans like a kind of cloud that permeates both the physical body and the etheric body. This member of the human being is in constant motion and reflects everything that goes on within humans. The term astral body has been challenged in various ways. But just as the physical body is connected to and dependent on the whole earth through its physical substances, so the astral body is related to the whole starry world surrounding the earth, and all the forces that essentially determine the fate and character of human beings are connected with that world.

[ 6 ] One of the more recent spirits, Goethe, who looked deeply into the connections between nature and the spiritual human being and his connection to the cosmos, says:

As on the day that gave you to the world,
The sun stood in greeting to the planets,
You grew and grew and grew
According to the law by which you came into being.
You must be this way, you cannot escape it,
So said the Sibyls, so said the prophets;
And no time and no power can fragment
The molded form that develops while alive.

[ 7 ] Because of its relationship to the world of the stars, the third member of the human being is called the astral body.

[ 8 ] The fourth member is not shared by humans with other beings; it is what gives humans the power to say “I” to themselves. ‘I’ is the mysterious word that only each person can say to themselves; in the word “I,” the soul expresses its divine spark. With the “I,” God begins to speak within the human being. In the Jewish secret schools, the I was called the unpronounceable name of God, and a shiver of awe ran through the crowd when the initiate uttered the name that was unpronounceable to outsiders: Yahweh - I am the I am.

[ 9 ] These four members form the fourfold nature of human beings. This fourfold nature is present in all human beings. It develops from childhood to adulthood, but this happens in a very differentiated way, and we must therefore consider each part of the human being separately.

[ 10 ] Everything is already predisposed in the embryo, but development proceeds in very different ways. Human beings cannot develop without an environment; they can only flourish when surrounded by other beings and members of the cosmos. Thus, the maternal organism must enclose the human being until it reaches a certain maturity. What happens at physical birth is repeated, for at physical birth the whole human being is not yet born. Just as the developing human germ is enclosed by the physical maternal organism, so after physical birth the human being is surrounded by a spiritual organism that belongs to the entire spiritual world. The child is surrounded by an etheric sheath and an astral sheath and rests in them, like the embryo in the womb.

[ 11 ] In the seventh year of life, around the time of tooth replacement, an etheric sheath detaches itself from the etheric body, just as the maternal organism detaches itself from the physical body of the child at physical birth. The etheric body becomes free, while previously a being from the same ether joined the etheric body and currents from it passed over to the child, as happens before physical birth in the womb. Gradually, the child is born for the second time, now in etheric form. Now the third member, the astral body, is still surrounded by a protective astral shell. This astral shell surrounds the human being until sexual maturity, until the age of fourteen or fifteen, and then withdraws. Thus, the human being is born for the third time; astral birth takes place.

[ 12 ] This threefold birth shows that we must consider each member of the being separately, for in every newborn child only the first member, the physical body, is exposed. And just as it is impossible to bring light to the child from outside through the maternal organism, so too should external influences be avoided on the etheric body before it has been freed from the etheric sheath. Before the change of teeth, no influences should reach the etheric body, and before sexual maturity, none should reach the astral body. Until the age of seven, we can only have a proper educational effect on human beings if we influence them physically. Just as the mother's care is intimately connected with the development of the embryo, so too must the inviolability and sanctity of the etheric sheath be protected if the child is to develop healthily. Until the change of teeth, only the physical body is receptive to external influences, Therefore, only the physical body can be educated until then, and if something external is brought to the etheric body during this time, then one sins against the child's etheric body. The etheric body is the carrier of everything that is permanent in a person, the carrier of habits, character, conscience, memory, and temperamental dispositions. The astral body is associated with the ability to judge, to make rational judgments about one's surroundings. Just as the child's external senses should develop until the age of seven, so too should habits, memory, temperament, and so on be developed until the age of fourteen, and then, until the age of twenty or twenty-one, critical thinking and an independent relationship to the environment.

[ 13 ] Spiritual science therefore gives us very specific rules for the education of the child in these individual stages of life. Up to the age of seven, everything related to the physical body is part of the child's care. This includes the harmonious development of the organs through the influence on the child's senses. The physical body is therefore the decisive factor in education. We take this into account by providing the child with everything that has a formative effect on the senses. Aristotle says: Man is the most imitative of animals. The child is therefore an imitator; everything in its life is marked by the imitation of what it hears and sees. At this age, commands and prohibitions have little meaning. The greatest importance, however, is attached to role models; the environment must awaken the child's senses. How we are is the main thing, and adults must observe their own actions and behavior down to the finest details. They must not do anything that the child should not imitate, because everything the child sees, it considers to be something it can do and imitate itself. For example, a well-behaved child surprised his parents by taking money from a cash box. The parents were horrified and believed that the child had a tendency to steal. When questioned, however, it turned out that the child had simply imitated what he had seen his father and mother do every day. Education up to the age of seven is based on role models and imitation. Therefore, the educator must be a role model in every respect until the child is seven years old. It would also be wrong to try to teach the child the meaning of letters before that age. The child can only imitate their form, because the ability to understand their meaning is attached to the etheric body.

[ 14 ] During these years, when the child's organs are developing and healthy dispositions are being established, everything that happens in the child's environment in terms of moral issues is also extremely important. It is also by no means irrelevant whether the child sees pain and suffering or pleasure and joy around them, because joy and pleasure establish healthy dispositions in the physical body. Everything around the child should radiate joy and pleasure, and the educator should be mindful of evoking both, down to the color of the clothes, wallpaper, and objects. In doing so, the child's individual disposition must be carefully taken into account. A child who tends to be serious and quiet should see darker, bluish, greenish colors in their environment, while a lively, energetic child should see yellowish, reddish colors, because this stimulates the senses to awaken the complementary color. The organs that are now developing must be encouraged to develop their inner powers. That is why children should not be given ready-made toys such as building blocks, dolls, and so on. Every child prefers a homemade doll made from a boot jack or an old napkin to a polished wax doll. Why is that? Because it awakens the imagination, because it stimulates the fantasy, and because the inner organs begin to work for the joy and pleasure of the child. How lively and interested such a child is in its play, how it throws itself heart and soul into what its imagination presents to it! And how casual and unhappy the other child sits there, its inner senses remaining inactive. The child has a very healthy insight into what is good or harmful for it. It has such a relationship with the outside world that it rejects what is not good for the physical body, for example the stomach, and shows a desire for what is good for it. And it would be foolish to work against healthy desires that promote development and, for example, force the child to eat foods that drive out natural instincts. Any hint of asceticism is a destruction of natural health.

[ 15 ] Around the age of seven, as the teeth gradually change, the envelopes of the etheric body dissolve, and now the educator must bring in everything that develops the etheric body, everything that has a developing effect on it. But they must still be careful not to place too much emphasis on developing reason and intellect. During this period, between the ages of seven and twelve, the focus should be on authority, faith, trust, and reverence. It is important for the child's entire later development that they experience as many moments as possible like the following: The child looks up to a revered person with a certain sacred awe; it has a deep inner reverence that forbids it to entertain any thought of criticism or opposition toward that person. One day it stands at the door of this revered person and feels a sacred awe at pressing the handle and entering the room, which is a sanctuary to it. These moments of reverence are forces for later life, and it is of tremendous importance that the educator himself be an authority to the child. The people who surround the child, whom it sees and hears, must be its ideals. Every child should choose a hero from history and literature whom it looks up to with admiration and reverence. It is quite wrong for the materialistic worldview to speak out against authority and disregard feelings of devotion and reverence. It is important that memory is developed during this period. Initially, this is best done in a very mechanical way. Rather than using a calculator, numbers and poems and so on should be learned, thereby developing memory.

[ 16 ] In ancient times, children were educated very sensibly in this regard. The good old children's songs and nursery rhymes, which were not about intellectual meaning but about awakening an immediate feeling, seem meaningless today, when the understanding for them has been lost. But there is nevertheless a deeper meaning hidden in them. When singing, it was the consonance and harmony that mattered to the child's ear, hence the often meaningless rhymes. Anyone who has not acquired a solid foundation of character, memory, and so on in their etheric body between the ages of seven and fourteen has been poorly educated. The path to proper education in this second period of life is authority. What the child senses as the innermost nature of the person who is an authority to them shapes their conscience, their character, and even their temperament, and becomes a lasting disposition in them. Parables and symbols, in fact everything that makes the world recognizable through parables, also have a formative effect on the etheric body during these years. Hence the blessing of fairy tale books during this period and the presentation of great personalities and heroes in legends and history.

[ 17 ] Physical education is also important, as it evokes a feeling of strength, health, and joie de vivre in the child and therefore has the same organ-forming effect as pleasure and joy. But physical education has major shortcomings at this stage. The physical education teacher should not view his pupils with the eye of an anatomist, but should consider which movements of the body will give the soul a feeling of increased strength and the child enjoyment of his physicality. The teacher must intuitively empathize with the feeling soul of the child and calculate each physical exercise so that it produces a feeling of growing strength.

[ 18 ] Every artistic creation has a great influence on our etheric and astral bodies. Therefore, genuine, true art must permeate the etheric body. Good vocal and instrumental music, for example, is of great importance, and children's eyes should see much beauty around them.

[ 19 ] But nothing can replace religious instruction. Images of the supersensible are deeply imprinted on the etheric body. Children should not learn to criticize and judge a creed, but must be given images of the infinite. All religious ideas must become images; parables have a powerful effect on the etheric body. The greatest care must be taken to educate children from the living.

[ 20 ] Nowadays, children's minds have too much to do with the dead. This can be counteracted in the first seven years of life, for example, with animated picture books. Everything should be action, deed, life, which enlivens the mind and moves the inner being. That is why children should not be allowed to build with construction sets and play with ready-made things; they must learn to bring the living out of the non-living.

[ 21 ] Much of the child's developing brain dies when it is occupied with dead activities such as braiding and the like. Entire faculties remain undeveloped as a result. The toys of the inanimate also do not foster a belief in the living. There is therefore a deep connection between the education of children and the lack of faith in our age.

[ 22 ] At puberty, the astral sheaths fall away. With the feeling for the opposite sex, personal judgment emerges. From then on, one can appeal to the yes and no, to the critical mind. Judgment only begins to develop from the age of twelve, but this process takes a considerable amount of time. Critics aged nineteen or twenty cannot possibly have a truly accurate judgment. It is extremely important who teaches young people at this age in order to channel their thirst for knowledge and their desire for freedom in the right direction.

[ 23 ] These principles are derived from spiritual research and are of the utmost importance for the healthy further education of the human race. Through them, theosophy can intervene practically in the most important processes of human life. Thus, this spiritual worldview fills the educator with a wealth of insights, as required by the mystery of the growing human being. Spiritual science should not only convince and teach, it should do, act, and intervene in practical life. It should prove itself, it should flow into all actions and bring about a healthy life in both physical and spiritual terms. Theosophy is not only a correct truth, but also a healthy one. We can best serve humanity and bring social and other forces to bear on it if we draw these forces out of the developing human being. The developing human being is one of the greatest mysteries of life, and the right educator must be a mystery solver in the practical training of the developing human being.