Developmental Signatures - Waldorf Research Institute

Fostering Movement
In this time of cars and armchair media, the task of ensuring a post-maturation
phase for the motor and sensory faculties falls more and more to education in the
lower grades; a frighteningly high percentage of school starters show insufficient
or one-sided development. Many children no longer are able to stand on one leg,
walk backwards or catch a ball. They can no longer develop even basic age-specific
abilities like the kinesthetic, equilibrium and movement senses, let alone full
mastery of their movement organism. Physicians and school admission officials
can attest to that situation, bearing witness to a radical change in the conditions
for healthy development. How are these children supposed to feel at home in the
world if they cannot even truly inhabit their own bodies?
Modern brain research shows—last, not least—that the complete formation of
the sensori-motor faculties is very important not only for the overall development
of the child, but specifically for learning cultural skills such as reading, writing
and arithmetic and for all cognitive processes. Since the plasticity of the brain has
been shown to last a lifetime, much can be done in the school years to make up
for what was missed earlier. Starting class with a practical exercise, engaging the
whole class in rhythmical activities like stomping, jumping, running or clapping,
can accomplish such compensation, in order to then strengthen the awareness