Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

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stand its truth and beauty, to be aware of stripping words of their power.
Today, writers and commentators commonly use these “parasites” Lewis warns
us to avoid. As a society, we have diminished our feeling of responsibility for
what we say, and we seem to be losing the battle Lewis wants us to win.
Responsibility for language begins with a regard for the word itself.
In the oral tradition people felt a deep meaning in each word and the silence
that lived between them. Once a word was spoken it could not be retrieved.
It lived. Caution and care showed in the delivery of stories and invocations
in the knowledge that the Word is Creation. Once the oral tradition vanished,
the responsibility for language shifted to the literate tradition. The
idea of the living spoken word as a powerful force began to diminish, and
the ensoulment of language took on a new form. The spirit lived on in the
great poetry captured on the page directly from the inspiration given to the
poet or the writer. While this inspiration still happens today, the ensoulment
of the word is mostly forgotten consciously now, yet students long for language
endowed with meaning. They need to hear it from their teachers,
through the great writing of the past and the present, and they need to hear
it in the language of the teachers themselves.
The development of the literate tradition and the lessening of the
oral tradition brought less responsibility for the spoken word and a diminished
ability to listen. Generating a consciousness for language in the students,
helping them to listen to language spoken by others and the language
they use themselves, challenging them to think about what they hear and
discern what is fine and meaningful, will make them better writers. Using
their own penchant for lower levels of language, a discussion of the differences
between profanity and a swear word or curse can be enlivening and
entertaining. When we ask if they actually picture what they say, we see a
new awareness appear in their eyes, as they imagine the words they just used
acted out in real life! This exercise becomes a touchstone for the better
meaning of “are you listening to what you are saying?”
Already suspicious of the words spoken by politicians and others in
the media spotlight, students enjoy finding the weaknesses and the strengths
manifested in the society around them. Although they often resort to weak
and unattractive language themselves, they appreciate muscular and wellformed
language that is full of intelligent clarity, direct honesty, good humor
and concern for the audience. The most respected teachers have the
capacity to speak with these qualities – qualities the students value more
than the knowledge of the teacher. The students develop these qualities in
their writing portfolios as well.
In this time of language abasement, we have the mission to keep
language alive, helping our students to grasp the essential and to consciously
decide how they will write. In the oral tradition there was no question about
the responsibility to the audience, the receivers of the spoken word. We
must bring this responsibility for written language to our students as well.
We need to train our students to write for an audience and not just for
themselves. For writing to become public we must consider the needs of the