Читать книгу The Art of Foreign Language Teaching - Peter Lutzker - Страница 19

In stark contrast to the Kunsterziehungsbewegung, the founding of the first Waldorf School by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) in Stuttgart in 1919, which had little visible effect on the pedagogical thinking of that time, has since grown to become a leading international educational reform movement with over 1200 schools and 2000 kindergartens all over the world.69 Steiner’s view of education as an Erziehungskunst and the teacher as an Erziehungskünstler is one of the central motives going through all his educational writings. His view of teaching as an art is deeply rooted in the aesthetic concepts of German Idealism, most notably and directly in Schiller’s Ästhetische Briefe. This becomes particularly evident in the connections which Steiner draws to Schiller’s understanding of the profound significance of ‘play’ in human development and its intrinsic relation to artistic experience:

Whoever can perceive, through true knowledge of the human being, the inner Self of a child on his path from play to life’s works, can perceive the nature of teaching and learning. For the seriousness of the child’s play reveals that inner drive towards activity in which the Self of the human being can be found. It is simply foolish to say the children “should learn through playing”. An educator who organised his activity accordingly would educate people for whom life was more or less only a game. It is however the ideal of education and teaching to awaken in the child a sense for learning so that he learns with the same degree of seriousness as in play, as long as play is the only content of his life. An educational approach and practice which understands this will be able to give art its rightful place and its cultivation the appropriate priority.70 (italics in original)

[Wer in echter Menschen-Erkenntnis die kindliche Wesenheit auf dem Wege von dem Spiel zur Lebensarbeit belauschen kann, der erlauscht die Natur des Lehrens und Lernens. Denn beim Kinde ist das Spiel die ernste Offenbarung des inneren Dranges zur Tätigkeit, in welcher der Mensch sein wahres Dasein hat. Es ist eine leichtsinnige Redensart, zu sagen: die Kinder sollen „spielend lernen“. Ein Pädagoge, der seine Tätigkeit darnach einrichtete, würde doch nur Menschen erziehen, denen das Leben mehr oder weniger ein Spiel ist. Es ist aber das Ideal der Erziehungs- und Unterrichtspraxis, in dem Kinde den Sinn dafür zu wecken, daß es mit demselben Ernste lernt, mit dem es spielt, so lange das Spielen der einzige seelische Inhalt des Lebens ist. Eine Erziehungs- und Unterrichtspraxis, welche dies durchschaut, wird der Kunst die rechte Stelle anweisen und ihrer Pflege die rechte Ausdehnung geben.] (italics in original)

Steiner’s vision of an Erziehungskunst goes clearly beyond the central role which the arts play in the Waldorf curriculum: the development of a generally artistic attitude (Gesinnung) incorporating artistic sensitivity, flexibility and discipline is viewed as a vital educational process, for pupils, as well as for their teachers:

And one shall see what this developing human being – the child – can experience through art. The intellect first truly awakens in the encounter with art. A sense of responsibility develops when, out of an inner motivation, material is artistically mastered in freedom. It is the artistic sense of the teachers and educators which brings those qualities of the soul into a school that allow for happiness in seriousness and for character in joy. Through intellectual understanding, nature is merely comprehended; through artistic sensibility it can be experienced.71

[Und man wird dann sehen, was dieser werdende Mensch – das Kind – an dem Erleben der Kunst wird. Der Verstand wird an der Kunst erst zum wahren Leben erweckt. Das Pflichtgefühl reift, wenn der Tätigkeitsdrang künstlerisch in Freiheit die Materie bezwingt. Künstlerischer Sinn des Erziehenden und Lehrenden trägt Seele in die Schule hinein. Es lässt im Ernste froh sein, und in der Freude charaktervoll. Durch den Verstand wird die Natur nur begriffen; durch die künstlerische Empfindung wird sie erst erlebt.]

In deeply felt artistic experience, he sees profound transformative possibilities:

The child who has been led into music and poetry comes to feel the human experience of being deeply moved by an emotional Ideal. His humanity receives a further dimension of humanity.72

[Das Kind, das in das Musikalische und Dichterische eingeführt wird, erfühlt das Ergriffensein der Menschennatur durch ein idealisch Seelisches. Es empfängt zu seiner Menschlichkeit eine zweite.]

He also sees the potentials of artistic processes in freeing and educating the human spirit:

Art is an ongoing process of the emancipation of the human spirit and at the same time educates humanity to act out of love.73

The full significance of such developmental possibilities can only be realized when the artistic element and attitude become integrated into every area of teaching and learning:

None of this will be achieved if art is only placed alongside the other aspects of education and teaching if it is not organically integrated into the whole approach. All teaching and education should be a whole. Knowledge, preparation for life, practicing technical skills should all flow into a need for art; artistic experience should instil a longing to learn, to observe and the wish to acquire competence.74

Both in the prominent role which the Arts play in the Waldorf curriculum, as well as in the role of artistic processes in all aspects of teaching and learning, there are clear parallels to many of the dominant ideas of the Kunsterziehungsbewegung and, in fact, to many of the educational principles of the other reform movements of that time. A decisive parallel between Weber and Steiner’s writings on this theme is the importance both educators place on the teacher’s personal artistic development as the requisite basis for artistry in teaching.

The most far-ranging differences in their understanding of teaching as an art lie in the significance of Steiner’s anthroposophically oriented anthropology (Menschenkunde) as constituting the underlying basis of Steiner’s understanding of how artistic processes help to form the developing child. A further decisive distinction can be found in his conception of the artistry of the teacher as resulting, in part, from continual meditative studies, which become a basis for her intuitive sense of what is required in a concrete pedagogical situation.75 Johannes Kiersch in his introduction to Steiner’s educational texts writes,

The living knowledge of the human being that the anthroposophically oriented anthropology [Menschenkunde] gives to him and in which he learns to meditatively immerse himself, opens up a pedagogical perspective for him through which he can see what has to be done in a concrete situation. This knowledge disappears while he is acting; it becomes transparently open to the demands of the continuously emerging present moment.76

The spiritual dimensions which can be found in Steiner’s pedagogy reflected both in his concrete understanding of the nature of the developing child, as well as in specific requirements for teaching and a teacher’s education, can be seen as clearly separating Waldorf Education from other reform movements of both his time and our own.