Waldorf News

Why Do We Do What We Do? An Interview with Christof Wiechert

Why Do We Do What We Do?

An Interview with Christof Weichert by Will Stapp

Christof Wiechert is former leader of the Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. He was also a Waldorf class teacher for some thirty years in the Netherlands. Christof’s latest gem of a book is Teaching: The Joy of Profession. It was recently translated by Dorit Winter and is available from the bookstore at Rudolf Steiner College.

WS: Do you have any advice for teachers who are looking at the conventions of Waldorf education, questioning some of their relevance for today’s children, and perhaps yearning to grow beyond some of the habits that have formed over the years?

CW: My advice is that as teachers we spend time at every faculty meeting with the question: Why do we do that? You have to ask whether things became habitual in accordance with the archetypal advice or not. Then, you will make some outstanding discoveries that the intent of the original advice was quite different from what we made of it.

Look precisely at what was intended. If we have that precise look, then we ask our self, is that what we need in our time? Mostly, it is. I am deeply convinced that Steiner made this curriculum not so much for his time, but for the times that are coming now. So check out why we do what we do.

I’ll give you a simple example. We are always talking in grade three about the house-building block. Now if you look at the original advice, Steiner said we should bring the children in grade three to an understanding of—or in contact with—the archetypal professions around the place where they live.

Now, house building is an archetypal profession, but if you live on the coast, fishing is as well. A baker is an archetypal profession.  A farmer is an archetypal profession. It is not only about house building!

I see in many schools that the foreign-language track is a kind of side dish. Steiner advocated his school model on two pillars—main lessons and foreign languages. That was the distinguishing quality for him. So, in foreign language teaching we are far behind what was intended. Now you see, out of research, refreshment comes.

Another unhappy habit that teachers can barely hear is that Steiner said in the lower grades, one through three, we can teach quite soberly reading, writing and math skills, in an almost programming way, but in the later years, from grade five on, is when we have to infuse our whole teaching with imagination.

WS: You are suggesting using a much more direct approach to the building blocks of grammar, mathematics and such in the very early grades? That would be news to many.

CW: Precisely. If you see a teacher who has this soberness, then you see the children blooming. But the habit of schools in grades one through three is that the teaching is overburdened with imagination as if it were a kindergarten. Then, from grade four on it should be precisely the opposite.

WS: How do you understand Steiner’s indication of more direct instruction, or soberness, in grades one through three? What do you think he was getting at?

CW: That early learning is basically a habit, and the more soberly you approach that early on, the better the results are later.

WS: What would that sober instruction look like to you in one through three?

CW: Sober looks like you really teach, that you are in a process of a higher speed of learning than is done now. I have seen main lessons where the real teaching takes three minutes out of 120, or classes in America where they did the alphabet the whole first year. That is because of this misunderstood gesture that everything has to be wrapped with imagination. But, if you bring too much imagination, the children get fuzzy. The archetype is that the alphabet is done around Christmas of the first year and then the reading and writing starts. Steiner said that you should teach out of the reality of life, and so you would use endless comparisons, but you are not building artificial worlds of dwarfs and whatever in the first three grades.

WS: So the imaginative piece has more to do with building the actual capacity to form mental images as opposed to imaging a fantasy world?

CW: Precisely, and in that respect we have to do a certain amount of clean-up. If you do it in a positive way it will benefit you because the academic results will be a lot better. Then, in the higher grades your teaching really becomes a real dynamic piece of art.

WS: Say more about that. What would a dynamic lesson look like?

CW: I’ll tell you, that is the essence of Waldorf education.  Steiner said that we teach within an artistic process. And what is an artistic process? Look at a piece of music, for example: you have the exposition, which foreshadows what is going to happen. Then you step down from that procession. You calm it, perhaps look what we have done until now… this and this and this. Then, you make another leap, and then you calm down again and process it. It’s a dynamic use of time, just like a piece of music. If you do that, then the experience is that of expansion and contraction. It is shaped by very precise use of oral qualities, visual qualities and interactive qualities, and they have to be in balance. You should always have an eye for what refreshes the children and what tires them. If the children get tired, you change into another mood or another activity so you and the children are in kind of a flow.

WS: In your recent book you describe it as a living lesson.

CW: That’s only possible if there is real engagement. If I am not really engaged in what I do, then I get  tired, and at the end of the day, I am worn out. Lots of teachers are worn out at the end of the day and complain that it is such a heavy task. If you are engaged—and you’ll find that in the third chapter of The Study of Man—if you engage yourself in what you do, you stay alive. You stay fresh.

WS: You have touched on teaching as a path of inner development. What are your recommendations for teachers working their own inner development as they are moving forward?

CW: I would recommend that they learn to exist on two levels at the same time—that is a consciousness issue, and because it is a consciousness issue it is also a little bit of a will issue. When you are teaching, you teach and at the same time you observe what happens with your teaching.

WS: You observe the effects of your teaching on the children?

CW: I observe the effects, and if the effects are not what I wanted, I don’t shout at the children, I change my teaching. That is a major inner capacity. If you observe the children and they get bored you say I probably did the wrong thing and you change it to something else. Then you have engaged yourself in the process of living education. I highly recommend it.

Something I do is refresh myself with ongoing study of Steiner. Every day I read two or three pages and it gives me the energy for the day. That’s not a holy duty; it’s a desire to be in contact with big ideas that I am trying to realize. If you only live out of the physical, stop teaching, go fishing.

There are, of course, more possibilities. Find ways for social health in your teaching community. Make sure that people work together. Make sure that people look at each other. This means that people go on the path of being interested in each other. When that happens, we make the school together. Not what I do, not what you do. I tell you, students immediately feel whether teachers are working together, if they have what I call professional friendships. The professional friendships start with the interest in one another. How he is doing it like this? In my travels here in the U.S. I have seen several moments of education that were totally new to me, and I’ve been in education more than forty years. It made me so happy to see that in others!

Christof Wiechert is former leader of the Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. He was also a Waldorf class teacher for some thirty years in the Netherlands. Christof’s latest gem of a book is Teaching: The Joy of Profession. It was recently translated by Dorit Winter and is available from the bookstore at Rudolf Steiner College.

Reprinted with permission from the Spring 2014 edition of Confluence, the newsletter of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education.  The entire newsletter can be viewed at www.allianceforpublicwaldorfeducation.org