Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

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more accurate than our senses, the telescope and microscope, for example.
Because it seemed then that our senses were inadequate to see what’s really
going on, we thought that we had to remove ourselves as far as possible from
what we were investigating. We seem to live on a flat earth, to see the sun
rising and the stars moving, but science with its tools tells us otherwise. In
this way, the mathematical model became more reliable than human perception.
Thus, the idea of an objective spectator emerged. Sciences such as
geology with its carbon testing omit human consciousness, and even history
attempts to be objective. While this has probably been necessary to our
development as humans, Barfield convinces us that we cannot forget the
consciousness of the investigator in relation to what it is being investigated.
Is there a rainbow without a human being to participate in seeing it? The
particles are there, but there is no rainbow without the participation of the
human being, the sense organs, and the concept. We can’t perceive things
for which we have no concept; development of concept is a human activity.
It’s a myth to think we’re doing real research on the world if we’re
leaving out the human being. The rainbow needs the sun, the light, a relationship
between the two, and an eye to perceive it. It is the same with the
proverbial tree in the forest: without the human ear there is no sound. What
about touch? While solid furniture like this table feels real enough, we know
that if we take into account the molecules and the space between them, this
seemingly solid matter is almost entirely space. The table is mostly “vastness”:
we experience its solidity because of our configuration as human beings.
Modern culture with its belief in objective reality has disenfranchised
the human being.
A parallel assumption that needs to be challenged is that consciousness,
the psychological nexus between man and nature, is unchanging. Because
of that assumption, myths are looked at as nonsense by modern consciousness.
How can we account for the ancient gods then except by dismissing
them as childish imagination? Modern thinking doesn’t believe in
any real movement in consciousness.
In the classroom, I make every effort to dispel both the omission
and the assumption. For me, a large part of my teaching is investigating
with my students the myth of the omission of consciousness and leading
them to question the assumption that human consciousness has always been
the same. The curriculum becomes an environment of investigation.
To me, education is never about content, never about what we teach.
It’s about the movement. It’s about helping the students to reach the realization
that consciousness is moving. In Waldorf education, we choose movement
and process in education rather than focusing on content. As English
teachers, we choose what we love and take the students through the movement
that rises in us through the literature. We are helping the students
learn to move.
We need to find ways to challenge students to think about the assumption
that consciousness is unchanging. I often have them investigate
history through their memories and the memories of their parents. They