Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

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That should be an unconscious process. It must occur as a matter of course. As I mentioned, we should
have the music teachers hold off on such things until the children are older, when they will be less influenced
by them. Children should be taught about the melodic element in an unconscious way through a
discussion of the themes. The artificial methods I mentioned have just as bad an effect as it would have to
teach children drawing by showing them how to hold their arms instead of giving them a feeling for line. It
would be like saying to a child, “You will be able to draw an acanthus leaf if you only learn to hold your arm
in such and such a way and to move it in such and such a way.” Through this and similar methods, we do
nothing more than to simply consider the human organism from a materialistic standpoint, as a machine
that needs to be adjusted so it does one thing properly. If we begin from a spiritual standpoint, we will
always make the detour through the soul and allow the organism to adjust itself to what is properly felt in
the soul.
We can therefore say that if we support the child in the drawing element, we give the child a
relationship to its environment, and if we support the child in the musical element, then we give the child
a relationship to something that is not in our normal environment, but in the environment we exist in from
the time of falling asleep until awakening. These two polarities are then combined when we teach grammar,
for instance. Here we need to interweave a feeling for the structure of a sentence with an understanding of
how to form sentences.
We need to know such things if we are to properly understand how beginning at approximately the
age of twelve, we slowly prepare the intellectual aspect of understanding, namely, free will. Before the age of
twelve, we need to protect the child from independent judgments. We attempt to base judgment upon
authority so that authority has a certain unconscious effect upon the child. Through such methods we can
have an effect unbeknownst to the child. Through this kind of relationship to the child, we already have an
element that is very similar to the musical dreamlike element. The Renewal of Education (194-195)
Teaching Grammar and Syntax
You cannot teach a foreign language in school without really working at grammar, both ordinary
grammar and syntax. It is particularly necessary for children older than twelve to be made conscious of
what lies in grammar, but here, too, you can proceed very circumspectly. This morning in our study of the
human being I said that in ordinary life we form conclusions and then proceed to judgment and concept.
[See lecture 9, The Foundations of Human Experience.] Although you cannot present the children directly
with this logical method, it will underlie your teaching of grammar. Particularly with the help of the lessons
in foreign languages, you will do well to discuss matters of the world with the children in a way that will
allow grammar lessons to arise organically. It is purely a matter of structuring such a thing properly. Start by
shaping a complete sentence and not more than a sentence. Point to what is going on outside—at this very
moment you would have an excellent example.
You could very well combine grammar with a foreign language by letting the children express in
Latin and French and German, for example, “It is raining.” Start by eliciting from the children the statement
“It is raining.” Then point out to them (they are, after all, older children) that they are expressing a
pure activity when they say: “It rains.” Now you can proceed to another sentence; you can include, if you
like, foreign languages, for you will save a great deal of time and energy if you also work this method into
the foreign language lesson. You say to the children: “Instead of the scene outside in the rain, imagine to
yourselves a meadow in springtime.” Lead the children until they say of that meadow, “It is greening, it
greens.” And then take them further until they transform the sentence “It is greening,” into the sentence
“The meadow is greening.” And, finally, lead them still further until they can transform the sentence “The
meadow is greening,” into the concept of a “green meadow.”