Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

This is why it would be totally inappropriate to keep children who have well-developed talents
from progressing through the grades simply because they do not demonstrate any particular talent for
grammar. If you look at what Goethe wrote as a young boy and then see that when he was older, he stood
in a very exclusive group with regard to grammar, you will think about him very differently than the way
people usually think about a boy or girl who cannot spell properly at the age of thirteen or so. Instead of
wringing our hands about how poorly such children spell and continually asking what we should do to
teach them to spell, it would be much better to think about what capacities the children actually have, seek
out those special talents, and then find a way to teach the children what they need to learn from those
talents. The Renewal of Education (35-36)
Two paths diverged in the New Hampshire woods and Meg Gorman took the one less travelled.
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