Struwwelpeter 2.0

18
Media competency and Waldorf education
Class teacher period
Henning Kullak-Ublick
When people communicate themselves
through their language, expressions,
movement and gestures,
through song or other forms of expression,
or let themselves be impressed
by others, this is the most immediate
form of communication from
person to person. Although media extend
our possibilities of entering into
an interchange with others, they insert
an intermediary in between the direct
encounter between human beings
which keeps hold of what was previously
a direct presence.
Speech and text
When children become familiar with
the medium of writing, the written
word is separated from the speaker
and listener and preserved. That is
quite a radical abstraction process because
language until then has been
a direct experience. That is why learning
the letters is preceded in Waldorf
schools by an intense practice phase in
which the elementary forms are drawn
first and only then are the letters derived
from the images—images with
which the children can create an inner
bond.
Such drawing requires the full attention
of the children because on the
one hand there is a great aspiration to
make what is drawn clear and beautiful,
and because on the other hand the
materials offer sufficient resistance in
the hands of the children to direct
their vigilance into their fingertips.
This makes drawing and writing
an equally creative and perceptual
process. Large, not too smooth sheets
of paper and wax crayons are well
suited to bring out such a balance of
content, aesthetics and effort of will.
In writing, children know what they
put on paper—they are “directly present”.
In reading, the distance to the
previous experience of language becomes
even greater because now they
have to reawaken the spoken word to
life again from out of the letters: they
have to hear inwardly what they see
before them as finished symbols and
on top of that still have to understand
what they “hear”.
Language is externalised in symbols
in writing and has to be returned to an
inner experience in reading.
It makes immediate sense that the
ability to express ourselves well in
writing and, conversely, actively learning
to read have as an important prerequisite
that the speaker or listener
has a nuanced relationship with the
spoken word: alongside an active and
passive vocabulary they also have to
experience the beauty, vividness and
elasticity of language—including
through their own voice.
Because language can only be learnt
from human beings, the writing of for-