Dear Waldorf teachers from Portuguese schools:
Following the teachers’ meeting promoted by the APEPW on May 20, part of which was recorded on video, I decided to share a short reflection with you after hearing the extraordinary testimony about your work at this equally extraordinary time.
At this point in my life, after nearly 40 years dedicated to the existence of Waldorf pedagogy in our country, which has gradually revealed to me the mission of anthroposophy in today’s world, I can do little more than look, listen and try to understand what is happening around me in the fulfillment of that mission.
That’s why I want to talk to you today about what I saw and heard at your meeting in the light of anthroposophy.
Based on the conviction that nothing happens in the visibility of our lives that doesn’t have a profound cause and design, dictated by the spiritual world, we are required to be able to cultivate clarity of thought, warmth of heart and rightness of action, not to serve ourselves, but to serve others who, close to us, represent humanity.
The challenge that humanity is currently facing requires everyone to distance themselves from the visibility of the other(s), while at the same time, more than ever, especially in the case of teachers, these other(s) need to be accompanied. How to do this was undoubtedly the agonizing question of every teacher around the world.
In my opinion, this question can only become truly disturbing if human beings, faced with the emptiness that physical distance apparently brings, are held hostage by this emptiness, because beyond the externality of the course of life, they no longer have a glimpse of the spiritual dimension of existence.
Being a Waldorf teacher implies the awareness that the essential role of being a true companion to your students is fulfilled when, freed from the constraints of close physicality, you can make your deepest identity available to approach, understand and love the Being of each student, in the nocturnal space of the Great Meditative Encounter. His day job, day after day, in front of his students, is just the consequence of the closeness he gained the night before.
Serving your students means, night after night, strengthening the links between your own Self and the Self that each child’s development is predestined to receive from the spiritual world. Only in this way can you provide them with the physical and human conditions “that allow their soul-spiritual nature to harmonize with their physical nature in order to carry out their process of development”, the great goal of every educator’s work, according to Steiner.
Within this awareness, bonds are not broken, absence is not real, feeling is nurtured in the warmth of the true relationship that remains. The fundamental question that the teacher must try to answer is no longer what to do in the current situation, but what it is that only I can do each day, as a result of my night job.
If part of humanity, living alienated from this dimension of existence, depends on the fragility of each moment, on sensory impressions that soon fade, on the unintelligible meaning of the physical presence of others, the demand of the challenge that the current pandemic has posed – to live apart from the visibility of the other(s) – becomes an offer for this same humanity to wake up from this slumber and see what its eyes have covered: “I am not me, I am the one who walks beside me without me seeing him…”
You may ask, what about the hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye observation that used to happen every day? It’s true that it no longer happens in the course of today’s daily routine. But it’s also true that it only focused on the fleeting impression of the moment, because the real observation that, transcending the immediate, allows us to dive into the dimension of the other – Who are you? – is what the College of Teachers decides to do, not in the presence of the child’s physicality, but by evoking the invisible presence of their Being, so that they can be told what they need everyone to do.
When I heard you mention the effort to “adjust to each class” what you were doing “to respect the children’s development”, because “I’m the one who has to accompany my students… be with them, make the journey with them”, “be even more connected to the children”, I understood how, even in conditions that seem to overturn the foundations of pedagogy, your connection to what is its true essence, prevailing in your will, is revealed in your being and doing.
The awareness of “going to sleep”, intensifying the night work, so that the real contact is not lost, awakens in some of you (as has been said) and has awakened in me the “gratitude” of being able to do so, thanks to the fact that, somewhere in our lives, we chose to serve the human being through our students, no matter what!
In these circumstances, filling your feelings with looks, laughter, “the beautiful way” in which you connect, jokes and little episodes from your family life, wanting to “bring courage and joy” to the children in their daily lives, because in effect “school has been taken away from them”, testifies to how you are moved – moved by – your students’ feelings and are committed to giving them back what has been taken from them. For me, this is a sign of your genuine willingness to serve others with courage and selflessness.
And those who are willing to do so are able to find sources for sharing the world and life, in the manifestations that inspire the eye to contemplate the richness of their forms, helping to nullify fear and arouse courage, but above all to recognize around them “the forces that nourish and lead to the spiritual world”. And this is what nullifies the “opposing forces” that seem to want to dominate us, as Pamela told us, who hasn’t given up in the current circumstances on bringing eurythmy to her students!
Proving that it is the great challenges, those that seem to surpass our strength, that open up horizons for us to serve better, because they had to penetrate the students’ family space, we heard how they ended up involving parents in their children’s tasks, sometimes with commitment and enthusiasm. And once again, the importance of the arts in Waldorf pedagogy was evident: teachers who were not afraid to reinvent their artistic practices, even from a distance, enthusiastically involved parents in their children’s work, transforming this experience into a healing activity available to everyone, to alleviate the difficulties that everyone experiences, whether it be plastic arts, handicrafts or even listening to the story of the day as a family. But another healing aspect, as you shared, came from your commitment to being attentive: you helped the families to organize themselves, to manage the distance learning situation, to give your support whenever necessary, in essence you tried to answer the question of the service that Waldorf pedagogy aims to provide to society: “how can I put myself at the service of those in need?” In my opinion, this is the fundamental question that will lead to the change we want to bring to the world through our students.
However, I ask you to consider: the answer is not change, but paving the way towards it! The answer can be a simple gesture, a short word, an insignificant act, whose effect on the other person can trigger that change, about which we still know nothing. We have to be sufficiently humble in our way of serving: we have to ask the question and know how to listen to the answer, but above all be able to act by making the simple gesture, saying the short word, carrying out the most insignificant act, to mitigate what the other(s) needs and not what I myself think or dream the world needs.
The legacy that Steiner left us is based on Spiritual Science, whose “task is to provide a practical worldview that contributes to the solution of the most important tasks of humanity today and to its development”. It demands of us “an authentic knowledge of life, whose fundamental laws will not differ in the future from those of the present… It will therefore not fail to respect what exists. Whatever the need for reform, it will seek in what currently exists the germs for future development, for future transformation, deducing it from what exists, because what exists contains the principle of evolution…. All human life contains the dispositions for its future.”
That’s why “the spiritual study of the human entity is likely to provide fruitful and practical means of solving the pressing problems of today.”
If the international community of the Waldorf School Movement had meditated deeply on this testimony by Steiner, who was one of the first to focus on the area of education, dating back to 1907 (later published as “The Education of the Child According to Spiritual Science”), perhaps they would have avoided the tendency, which occupies other politico-educational circles, of conspiracy theories to analyze the current situation!
In the task that today’s world has brought us, as teachers, the respect you felt for the conditions surrounding your students and families, the effort to find possible solutions to accomplish this task, the desire to meet the needs of each student to help them envision their own future and therefore “give purpose and direction to their lives” helped.
If, as Steiner said, we could simply deduce the principles for educating children from the contemplation of the human being in the making, we would need nothing more. However, we recognize that we are not yet capable of such a deduction. Steiner also recognized this, which is why in the course he gave to first-school teachers in Stuttgart, he gave precise instructions on what to teach, in parallel with knowledge of the human being, from which the Waldorf Curriculum was built. This contains, age by age, what human nature needs in order to realize “the dispositions of its future” and consequently contribute to the future evolution of humanity. So, dear teachers, don’t dismiss the so-called “content” as unimportant, especially now that it is absent from your school. Of course content is important! The contents of the Waldorf curriculum are not mere school information, they are the nourishment that each age needs to fully realize the demands of their growth.
A lot of work needs to be done on why and for what each aspect of the curriculum is being worked on at that precise moment in the students’ lives. And do it with gratitude, because without this curriculum we wouldn’t know how to respond appropriately to the developmental needs of each age group!
I ask you to look into these fundamental questions of your mission if you continue to meet to share experiences, knowledge and feelings.
With admiration, respect and affection
Leonor Malik
