Handwork and Handicrafts - Waldorf Research Institute

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88 Dr. Steiner: “Where it is not a question of handicrafts the intervals make no difference. In the handicrafts, you must aim at bringing about a certain concentration in the children. If the children are to bind books, concentrated work is necessary ...” 12 Handwork and Handicrafts Dr. Steiner: “How are the handwork lessons getting on?” Frl. X.: “Before Christmas the upper classes made costumes for the children’s performances. What kind of artistic work can be done in Classes 1 and 2? Before Christmas we did modeling and made figures for the Nativity.” Dr. Steiner: “You must choose your work as the situation requires. Not everything provides scope for artistic activity. You must not neglect the artistic or allow it to dry up, but there is not much to be done with the artistic sense where knitting a sock is concerned. You can always interrupt a child while he is knitting a sock and get him to work on some other little thing for a while. We want to introduce a piquant touch on the social evening. Get them to make tasteful little ribbons with paper trimmings attached to them. Things that can be used, that have some significance in life—are what can be made tastefully and artistically. No concessions! Allow nothing to be made that is merely a product of ingenuity or coquetry. You won’t be able to use paper for much.” A Teacher: “The children have begun making toys, but they are not finished yet.” Dr. Steiner: “There is no reason why they should not make wooden spoons. They do not have to make out-of-the-way things. As little luxury as possible!” 13 Handwork and Handicrafts Lessons and the Artistic Sense Dr. Steiner: “Training in manual skill must be led over into the really artistic. This has already happened with modeling, which you can alternate with painting—those children who are good at it can paint. “ ... We need in our teaching something like an aesthetic connection between the plastic painting element and the musical. “ ... It seems to me that the children should be taught as early as possible the concept of a beautiful armchair, a beautiful table. You should put an end to the absurd idea that a chair must be beautiful only to the eye. We want to feel the chair, feel the beauty of the chair when we sit on it, just as I said yesterday in the handwork lesson that the children should feel that the embroidery tells them on what side a thing is to be opened. I believe that a closer connection will now develop between handwork, manual training, and artistic feeling. “Hermann Grimm always complained that when young people came to him and he showed them pictures, they could not tell whether a person in the picture was standing in front or behind. They had not the slightest ability to see. The students did not know whether a person was standing in front or behind.” 14 Dr. Steiner: “There are people who embroider a thing, but whose embroidery might equally well be on something else.” 15
89 Brussels Lace and the Use of the Thimble A question was asked about lace making. Dr. Steiner: “It is terribly tedious work. These things were usually done in the most frightful outer circumstances. All the people fell ill, and outcasts were employed to do it. Brussels lace is a terrible thing. I would not introduce it. What you are now doing in handwork is very nice. Be a little strict! Today I saw a girl sewing without a thimble!” 16 “I have not been in the handwork lessons very much recently, but on one occasion I had to ask myself: Why hasn’t the child a thimble? I have always said that we must get the children accustomed to sewing with a thimble. A child cannot sew without a thimble—it is hardly possible. Children sewing without thimbles! That won’t do!” 17 Manual Training Dr. Steiner: “In manual training the teacher should cultivate incidentally, unobtrusively the artistic element, a sense for the artistic, in his students. They should make not only useful objects, but also toys, sensible toys. I should like to see them working on the kind of toy in which two smiths make each other move alternately. This develops skill in the children. “You can also get them to make gifts. This is also something the teacher should aim at. And if you were to get the children to gather moss and make the Christmas nativity, shaping it themselves and painting the little sheep for it, the solemn festive mood brought about in this way would prove to be of great value in the life of the child. “But, of course, do not neglect useful objects. Children are especially fond of making rattles—something like a practical joke: ‘We rattle, we rattle, all twelve together, the bells come from Rome.’ ” l8 Handwork and Everyday Life A question was asked about such things as sewing cards. Dr. Steiner: “I should not wish to make the children work at things in school that have no place in real life. A relation to life cannot arise out of something that has no life in it. ‘Froebel’ things are invented for school. But only things belonging to the everyday world, to real life, should be used in this way in our schools.” A Teacher: “The children in the 10th Class have often asked what is the deeper meaning of learning how to spin.”
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HANDWORK and HANDICRAFTS From Indic
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HANDWORK AND HANDICRAFTS by HEDWIG
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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . .
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10 to reproduce some of the indicat
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12 color, but human beings will not
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14 social life—the human being wo
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16 CHAPTER III Handwork in the Kind
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18 of the children. Each child is a
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20 He then drew on the blackboard a
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22 CHAPTER IV Phases of Development
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24 so forth, should be done in a ve
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26 relationship can often bring us
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28 CHAPTER V The Line in Painting a
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30 CHAPTER VI Handwork for Children
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32 better to make a herd of chargin
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34 CHAPTER VII After the Lower Scho
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36 Steiner also set such tasks as t
Page 38 and 39: 38 Plate 3 Fig. 20 (wrong) Fig. 21
Page 40 and 41: 40 The working together of art and
Page 42 and 43: 42 He made sketches of costumes and
Page 44 and 45: 44 remarked: “The place where we
Page 46 and 47: 46 Figure 12: Publisher’s sign dr
Page 48 and 49: 48 Figure 23: “Anthroposophie, Oe
Page 50 and 51: 50 Figure 34: Folder (cloth) for th
Page 52 and 53: 52 END-VIGNETTES Drawn by Rudolf St
Page 54 and 55: 54 CHAPTER X Indications Concerning
Page 56 and 57: 56 In Torquay he discussed the matt
Page 58 and 59: 58 CHAPTER XI Color in Clothing and
Page 60 and 61: 60 In a similar way he indicated, a
Page 62 and 63: 62 made it necessary, he would occa
Page 64 and 65: 64 CHAPTER XII The History of the A
Page 66 and 67: 66 a materialistic point of view, b
Page 68 and 69: 68 If one looks at the costumes rep
Page 70 and 71: 70 Under the influence of Augustus
Page 72 and 73: 72 is to come, point the way that m
Page 74 and 75: 74 Index to Plate 10 1. Part of an
Page 76 and 77: 76 Through anthroposophy the road t
Page 78 and 79: 78 APPENDIX I The Pedagogical Value
Page 80 and 81: 80 placed before him, through the a
Page 82 and 83: 82 Dr. Steiner: “The way a child
Page 84 and 85: 84 organization to write in this wa
Page 86 and 87: 86 but do not take individuals out
Page 90 and 91: 90 Dr. Steiner: “Spinning is part
Page 92 and 93: 92 school. [The upper classes did n
Page 94 and 95: 94 18. Teachers’ Conference, Sept
Page 96 and 97: 96 children should learn to disting
Page 98 and 99: 98 In a Berlin lecture, Dr. Steiner
Page 100 and 101: 100 One should mention here that Dr
Page 102 and 103: 102 most it could be decorated plas
Page 104 and 105: 104 Displays of Work Done by Studen
Page 106: 106 reproduced by means of photogra
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Handwork and Handicrafts - Waldorf Research Institute

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