Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

living way of teaching grammar with the way it is so often taught today. The Latin or French teacher comes
into the classroom. The children get out their Latin or French books. They have finished their homework,
and now they are to translate; afterward they will read. Soon all their bones ache because the seats are so
hard. If proper teaching methods were practiced, there would be no need to take such care in designing
chairs and desks. The fact that so much care has had to be lavished on the making of seats and desks is proof
that education has not been conducted sensibly. If children are really taken up in their lessons, the class is so
lively that even if they are sitting down, they do not sit firmly. We should be delighted if our children do not
sit down firmly, for only those who are themselves sluggish want a class of children to remain firmly seated,
after which they drag themselves home aching in every limb.
Particular account must be taken of these matters in grammar and syntax lessons. Imagine that the
children now have to translate; grammar and syntax are worked out from the very things of life they ought
to be enjoying. Afterward they are most unlikely to go home and say to their fathers: “We’re reading such a
lovely book; let’s do some translating together.” It really is important not to lose sight of the principle of
economy— it will serve you particularly well in your teaching of foreign languages.
We must see to it, of course, that our teaching of grammar and syntax is fairly complete. We shall
have to discover the gaps in the previous experience of the students who are coming to us from all sorts of
other classes. Our first task will be to close the gaps, particularly in grammar and syntax, so that after a few
weeks we shall have brought a class to a stage where we can proceed. If we teach in the way I have described
(and we are quite capable of doing so if we are totally involved in the lessons and if we ourselves are
interested in them), we shall be giving the children what they will need to enable them to pass the usual
college entrance examinations later on. And we impart to the children a great deal else that they would not
receive in ordinary elementary or secondary schools, lessons that make them strong for life and that will
serve them throughout life. Practical Advice to Teachers (121-128)
Working Hygienically with Grammar
I once again need to take this opportunity of mentioning that in teaching it is of primary importance
to take care to bring the nerve-sense system and the metabolic-limb system into a proper balance.
When that is not done, it shows up as irregularities of the rhythmic system. If you notice the slightest
inclination toward irregularity in breathing or in the circulation, then you should immediately pay attention
to it. The rhythmic system is the organic barometer of improper interaction between the head and the
limb-metabolic system. If you notice something, you should immediately ask what is not in order in the
interaction of these two systems, and second, you should be clear that in teaching you need to alternate
between an element that brings the child to his or her periphery, to the periphery of the child’s body, with
another element that causes the child to withdraw within. Today, I cannot go into all the details of a
hygienic schoolroom; that is something we can speak of next time.
A teacher who teaches for two hours without in some way causing the children to laugh is a poor
teacher, because the children never have cause to go to the surface of their bodies. A teacher who can never
move the children in such a way as to cause them to withdraw into themselves is also a poor teacher. There
must be an alternation, grossly expressed, between a humorous mood when the children laugh, although
they need not actually laugh, but they must have some inner humorous feeling, and the tragic, moving
feeling when they cry, although they do not need burst into tears, but they must move into themselves. You
must bring some life into teaching. That is a hygienic rule. You must be able to bring humor into the
instruction.
If you bring your own heaviness into class, justified as it may be in your private life, you should
actually not be a teacher. You really must be able to bring the children to experience the periphery of their
body. If you can do it in no other way, you should try to at least tell some funny story at the end of the
113