When Healing Becomes Educating, Vol. 6 - Waldorf Research Institute

Medical Examination of School Entrants
at Waldorf Schools*
KARL-REINHARD KUMMER
The examination of entrants is one of the most important functions of
the school doctor. The way it is done differs from school to school, and there
is also a difference between the functions of the teacher and the doctor. The
examination above all has to determine if a child is ready to start school in
body, mind and spirit, and to diagnose any existing physical defects. The
central issue is usually if the right level of development has been achieved,
for a child’s progress at school and the whole of his or her development
in the second and third seven-year period will be affected by determining
the right time for starting school. Excessive demands are made on children
who start too early, whilst children who are too old for their class are not
sufficiently challenged and tend to get bored.
Some people joke about “kindergarten leaving exams,” but it is true
to say that children must have certain abilities if they are to go to school.
The issue cannot, however, be decided on test results. Nickel 1 has gone into
considerable detail in his critical assessment of school entrants’ examinations.
For school doctors at Waldorf schools, the key criterion is the overall
impression of the child’s etheric development. Individual parameters merely
help the doctor to arrive at an assessment. This means of course that the
examination may take a completely different form from the example given
in this paper.
One particular method
The moment when one first meets the child is particularly important.
Bockemuhl summed this up in two questions: “Where do you come from?”
and “Where are you going?” 2 Other questions are: “How does the child cope
with a new situation?”
“What degree of independence has developed?” It is sometimes possible
to know at first sight what the constitutional type is, and the same
*Original German title: Die ärztlicte Einschulungsuntersuchung in der Waldorfschule, from Der
Merkurstab 6/91, pages 442-448. English by Anna K. Meuss, FIL, MTA.
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