Teaching Language arTs in The WaLdorf schooL

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Language Arts Compendium
which may not be so obvious. We should learn to observe in children
between the change of teeth and puberty, their efforts at learning to
speak and sing, their gaze, physiognomy, finger movements, stance,
and gait; with reverence, we should observe, growing from the very
center of very small children, unformed facial features that assume
a beautiful form; we should observe how our actions around small
children are translated into their developing expressions and body
gestures. When we can see all this with inner reverence, as teachers
we attain something that continually springs from uncharted depths,
an answer in feeling to a feeling question.
The question that arises—which need not come into the conscious
intellect—is this: What happens to all that I do while teaching
a child to speak or sing? The child’s answer is: “I receive it,” or, “I
reject it.” In body gestures, physiognomy, and facial expressions we
see whether what we do enters and affects the child, or if it disappears
into thin air, passing through the child as though nothing
were assimilated. Much more important than knowing all the rules
of teaching—that this or that must be done in a certain way—is
acquiring this sensitivity toward the child’s reflexes, and an ability
to observe the child’s reactions to what we do. It is, therefore, an essential
intuitive quality that must develop in the teacher’s relationship
with the children. Teachers must also learn to read the effects of their
own activity. Once this is fully appreciated, people will recognize the
tremendous importance of introducing music in the right way into
education during the elementary years and truly understand what
music is for the human being.
[The Essentials of Education, pp. 43-45.]
20. Speech in Relation to Right Breathing
In the same way, speaking serves to regulate the human breathing
rhythm. In school we need to work so that the children learn how to
bring their speech into a peaceful regularity. We need to require that
the children speak syllable for syllable, that they speak slowly and that
they properly form the syllables so that nothing of the word is left out.
The children need to grow accustomed to proper speech and verse,