Teaching Language arTs in The WaLdorf schooL

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Language Arts Compendium
if we learn to perceive a word inwardly, not just saying, for example,
that a rolling ball is “rolling,” but understand what moves inwardly
like a rolling ball when one says r o l l i n g. We learn through inner
perception—a perception really informed by the spirit of speech—to
recognize what is active in speech.
These days, information about the human organism must come
from physiologists and anatomists, and information about what lives
in language comes from philologists. There is no relationship, however,
between what they can say to each other. It is necessary to look
for an inner spiritual connection; we must recognize that a genius
of speech lives and works in language, a genius of speech that can be
investigated. When we study the genius of speech, we recognize the
human I-being. We have now made eurythmy part of our Waldorf
education. What are we doing with eurythmy? We divide it into tone
eurythmy and speech eurythmy. In tone eurythmy, we evoke in the
child movements that correspond to the form of the astral body; in
speech eurythmy we evoke movements that correspond to the child’s
I-being. We thus work consciously to develop the soul by bringing
physical elements into play in tone eurythmy; and we work consciously
to develop the spirit aspect by activating the corresponding
physical elements in speech eurythmy.
Such activity, however, only arises from a complete understanding
of the human organization. Those who think they can get close to
the human being through external physiology and experimental psychology
(which is really only another kind of physiology) would not
recognize the difference between beating on a wooden tray and making
music in trying to evoke a certain mood in someone. Similarly,
knowledge must not remain stuck in abstract, logical rules, but rise
to view human life as more than grasping lifeless nature—the living
that has died—or thinking of the living in a lifeless way. When we rise
from abstract principles to formative qualities and understand how
every natural law molds itself sculpturally, we come to understand the
human etheric body. When we begin to “hear” (in an inner, spiritual
sense) the cosmic rhythm expressing itself in that most wonderful
musical instrument that the astral body makes of the human being,
we come to understand the astral nature of the human being.