| Introduction - Lower School |
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Rudolf Steiner gave indications of the best approach to the main subjects taught in schools, and these were developed further by various teachers from their own personal experience. None of them would regard this curriculum as in any way final. It is important that we stay conscious of the aim of the work in a Waldorf school as a whole. There is no intention of presenting a sum total of world knowledge; of far greater importance are the powers of perception and judgement that are awakened within the pupils. We must take into account the balance between those subjects that primarily call forth the activity of thinking, those which give expression and form to the life of feeling, and those which demand practical ability and strengthen and develop the will. Above all we have to guide every student in the development of these soul forces so that, as they reach adult life, they become true masters of themselves, truly free human beings. Rudolf Steiner was above all insistent that the Waldorf school pupils should be able to play a full part in the civilisation of their time, and all subjects that are necessary in other schools have their place in a Waldorf school. It is the manner of presenting these subjects that is different. The pupils should be led to feel the living spirit which pervades the world and which humankind seek to find in all their striving after knowledge. The different subjects should not appear as separated fragments, but as different aspects of a unified world being. In the first years of a child's life, it is the task of the teacher to link together all the different subjects. So that the 'world picture' which the teacher forms for the children may be consistently developed, it is the ideal that the teacher and pupils stay together for the first seven years of school. In this way a real confidence and understanding develops between teacher and pupils, and from these spring up the authority and true discipline which children of this age require. In the Waldorf Curriculum, the main subjects are taught consecutively for several weeks. The first two hours every morning for a period of three to four weeks are given over to a lesson which, depending on the child's age, is appropriate to teach. In this way the pupils are able to live deeply into a subject; all their interest can become absorbed. Then the subject is left and another taken up. This living into deeply, then leaving, creates a balance between remembering and forgetting; after a period of rest the memory of what they learned can be re‑awakened strongly. However, it is important to note that skills gained in the Main Lesson are exercised in practise lessons throughout the school year. It is impossible to follow the Waldorf Curriculum in a theoretic or dogmatic way. The first essential for all educators is self‑education, and no one is capable of working with children, who does not love them and learns to read their being.
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Education is an art, and out of the interplay of personality between the teacher and class, knowledge is forever rediscovered. While fundamentally the development of the child follows certain definite trends, in every region and in every school, teachers must find the way of approach fitted to the requirements and dispositions of their particular groups of children.