Handwork and Handicrafts - Waldorf Research Institute

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A question was asked about Handicrafts in Class 11. Dr. Steiner: “Bookbinding has
an important part to play in handicrafts. The main thing is that the children should learn the
knacks involved in binding a book. Bookbinding and box-making.”
Frl. X: “Work began in Handicrafts in Class 10 and is continuing into Class 11.” 9
Dr. Steiner: “A few weeks’ difference does not matter ... Ironing and mangling should
also be done (perhaps in the 8th Class). And can the children chop wood?”
Economy in Handwork Lessons
Dr. Steiner: “The upper classes should have handwork and gymnastics in the
afternoon. Even so it should be possible to make a practicable timetable ... The handwork
lesson is most easily managed if it is left until the afternoon 10 ... In future the first four classes
will be having two successive hours of handwork a week, and all the other classes one hour a
week.” (Each class had been having a double lesson every week).
“We must limit it somehow ... Optional lessons must be added for those children
who want more. What happens in these handwork lessons is a kind of amusement, and the
teacher needs to do very little.
“At some schools they give four hours of handwork a week. This we cannot do. We
are not a Girls’ Preparatory School ...
“Of course no one will pretend that more cannot be learned in two hours than in
one. But you will have more time in the handwork lesson if you plan it economically and get
the children used to the idea that it does not take an hour before they really settle down to
work ... There must be economy in teaching. This has been said from the beginning.” 11
Block Periods in Relation to Handwork and Handicrafts
As shortage of time had limited handwork lessons to fortnightly periods, Dr. Steiner
introduced the block period (as with the main lesson) so that the splitting up of lessons
would be avoided. Dr. Steiner: “Rather than split up the lessons, it would be preferable to
work with a group of children every day for a week. It is extremely important for later life,
especially if the children find it disagreeable to have to persevere with their work over a long
period of time. The breaking up of work into periods has its significance here too ... The only
subject which does not suffer so much through lack of concentration is speech practice. Main
lessons and artistic lessons do not only suffer from a psychological point of view; something
in the human being is actually damaged.
“Knitting and crochet need not be done every day for a week, nor done systematically.
I can imagine that it would be quite stimulating to spend a quarter of an hour at a
definite time every Wednesday knitting a sock that is to be finished in six months. But it is
quite a different thing to have to work at a plastic object every Wednesday. You can learn to
knit socks in this way ...”
A Handwork teacher: “I feel that it is a good thing if the children have their lessons
once a week.”