Teaching Language arTs in The WaLdorf schooL

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Language Arts Compendium
what we wake into life is the very stuff that will blossom and give life
vitality. To nurture this process, surely, is the task of a real educator.
[“Education and Practical Life” in Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy I, pp. 46-48.]
2. The Effects of Reading and Listening to Stories
We must now be quite clear about the processes taking place during
reading. The activity of reading is initially spiritual and then continues
into the physical body. It is especially the activities that are of a
cognitive, mental/spiritual nature that considerably tax the delicate
parts of the physical organization. You can picture, physiologically,
the deeper parts of the brain, the white matter. The white matter is
the actual, the more perfectly organized part of the brain. It is organized
toward the more functional tasks, whereas the gray matter at
the surface—which is especially well developed in humans—provides
the brain’s nourishment. The gray matter has remained behind, in a
very early stage of evolution. In regard to evolution, it is the deeper
part of the brain that is more perfect.
If we teach a child to observe well, as in reading, we greatly tax the
gray matter, engendering a very delicate metabolic process. And this
delicate metabolic process then spreads throughout the organism. It
is especially when we believe ourselves to be occupying the children
mentally and spiritually that we affect their physical organism most
strongly. The observation and comprehension during the reading
of and listening to stories engender metabolic processes that tax the
children to an inordinately strong degree. We could call what is happening
the impression of the spiritual into the physical. A kind of
incorporation of what we observe and comprehend during a story is
necessary. Something akin to a physical phantom must develop and
then impart itself into the whole organism. The organism is filled
with delicate salt deposits. Not coarsely, of course. A salt phantom is
imparted into the whole organism, and the necessity arises to dissolve
it again through the metabolism.
This process takes place when the children read or listen to stories.
When we believe ourselves to be occupying the mind and spirit in
our lessons, we really evoke metabolic processes. And this must be