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The Inner Work of a Steiner Teacher
By Aimee Waller
Rudolf Steiner began the first Waldorf school which opened in Stuttgart, Germany on September 7, 1919. He gave a series of lectures to the first teachers, which is now complied into a book titled “Discussions with Teachers.” The teacher training at that time lasted only two weeks. We now have a worldwide educational movement that provides teachers with in-depth training on all aspects of Steiner teaching.
As we learn from each other, we grow not only as teachers, but also as individuals.
In “Discussions with Teachers” it states:
• The teacher must be a person of initiative in everything that is done, great or small.
• The teacher should be one who is interested in the being of the whole world and of humanity.
• The teacher must be one who never makes a compromise in heart or mind with what is untrue.
• The teacher must never get stale or grow sour.
After teaching for 15 years in mainstream schools, my motherly instincts and search for ‘something better’ urged me to learn the teachings of Rudolf Steiner and his unique educational philosophy. The journey to become a Steiner teacher has not only been incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, it has also become a part of who I am.
It is now a lifelong journey of self-discovery and the pursuit of profound awakening.
There are several techniques/exercises, which Steiner teachers use when bringing the “living curriculum” to their students and in relating to them on a ‘soul level’. Teachers must have clear thinking, initiative of action, equanimity, a positive attitude, open mindedness, and harmony.
These skills help teachers to bring to their class, not just ‘an education,’ but contribute to their student’s preparation for living life.
CURRICULUM
Through their training and experience, a Steiner teacher becomes very aware of their own attitudes towards things and how these affect the children. Steiner uses the example of how someone can be quite knowledgeable in mathematics but not particularly good at teaching it. So, the effectiveness of teaching the subject has more to do with one’s own attitudes and ideas about the subject.
Steiner teachers work hard to bring a ‘living curriculum’ to their students. It is not just delivered to students by rote; where teachers provide the information and then children memorise and regurgitate; teachers spend many hours drafting stories, bringing creative artistic experiences and provide discovery encounters to the students in their class. A Steiner classroom is a mystery classroom.
The teachers first bring experience followed by concept. This is the converse of most traditional schooling methodologies.
As teachers really get to know their students, following many years teaching them, the teacher learns to bring aspects of the curriculum to their students in a way the students require. Steiner drew attention to teachers not relying on what others have done before them, but rather on each teachers placing their own free, imaginative work into their classroom practice.
As the teacher moves with their class through the year levels, the teacher brings the curriculum to the students in a way that nourishes both student and teacher. The unfolding of the curriculum, which is carefully brought at an appropriate time of the child’s development, builds on the children’s unfolding conscious awareness and growing relationship to self and the world around them. The curriculum is also brought to students in blocks of time, continuously delving into a subject for up to four weeks.
This allows for immense and deep quality learning, where students do not have to jump from subject to subject but are able to spend time really absorbing and experiencing a topic of inquiry and learning.
In a Steiner classroom, teachers also bring to their class the arts, including modelling, painting, music, speech, poetry and drama, and developing powers of imagination.
STORYTELLING
For some subjects, the stories have previously been written and the teacher, researches and brings the story to each subject after selecting the correct elements for the class. Many stories are also teacher created.
Each story is carefully crafted for the students, bringing elements of moral teachings and ‘real life’ experiences the children can relate to.
While stories are created for subject content, they can also be created for emotional support and overcoming personal challenges. For example, if the class or class members are experiencing certain emotions such as fear or anxiety, the teacher can bring a story where a plant or animal experiences the same emotions and show how the character begins to deal with their feelings and grows through them. This of course would look different as the class moves through the various ages. Similarly, an artistic experience could be brought to the class when students are feeling things as a collective, maybe they are unsettled when a peer has been distressed. The class may immerse themselves in a painting, use their hands and create something with clay or set to practice a particular form that the teacher has bought to them specifically for their challenges. The teacher learns to bring these stories, artistic endeavours, and eloquent forms appropriately after much inner work and mediating on the classroom experience.
Steiner discusses the importance of children experiencing a real feeling of form, harmony, symmetry, and correspondence of lines. He explains that doing these exercises will teach them how to think not just with the head but also with the heart and hands
Steiner teachers engage in a journey of lifelong learning as they must learn to be proficient in, not only subject matter, but also art and music.
While seemingly impossible to be good at everything, Steiner teachers must strive to keep learning so that they can continue to bring nourishing and accurate content but also be artists and musicians. They must learn new songs for singing, new music to play on instruments and new artworks in multiple mediums to enrich and challenge their students. There must be effort and striving, perfection is not the goal. As it is for all teachers, students may surpass their teacher in some skills and that is not only ok, it is ideal!
TEACHER SELF-DISCOVERY
Rudolf Steiner stressed the importance of how the teacher must continuously strive to learn and grow not only with their teaching skills but most importantly with their inner work and self-transformation.
Steiner teachers must be willing to continue to grow and expand their teaching knowledge and forever look inwards and strive for personal growth.
In a series of lectures given in Torquay in 1924 (The Kingdom of Childhood) Steiner talked about how teachers should be patient with their own self-education, always striving to do better but also forgiving themselves when they make mistakes and accepting this. A teacher must understand the reasons behind any conflict with their students and not react as if they are under personal attack. When this inevitably happens on occasion, the teacher must go inward and discover the underlying reason for being triggered by a child or circumstance. This is of course a lifelong journey, as we cannot obtain perfection, but the willingness to forever strive is paramount.
The teacher must set a good example to the child, showing them how to ‘be’ in the world.
Steiner pointed out that the educator must be a respected authority for the child and a “child’s faith and confidence must be awakened-not through axioms, but through human beings” (The Education of the Child). Humour and the ability to laugh at oneself and not take things so seriously are important as we grow and learn with each obstacle.
Whereas traditional schooling educates the child’s intellect, the Steiner teacher aims to educate the whole child: their head, heart, and hands.
It is not only a requirement to transmit knowledge but to provide experience and practical life skills. This is a tall order for a teacher and one that cannot be embraced by everyone. Only through the love of one’s work and continually striving to be a better person can a teacher begin to bring to the classroom what is needed.
‘Rudolf Steiner’s concern is that growing children be brought into a healthy relationship with themselves and with the world around them. The teacher’s presentation must therefore breathe between self and world, thus giving the solid moral foundation upon which the children can build their lives’. (Practical Advice for Teachers).
SPIRITUALITY
While Steiner schools are non-denominational, a Steiner teacher’s connection with their own spirituality is important for their inner growth and transformation. Steiner reminded teachers that they are not alone and that spiritual beings are always there to guide and help us. He gave a picture that behind each individual there was an angel, and above that are the working of the archangels, and so on. Teachers are encouraged to draw on their spiritual beliefs, taking time to align with their higher self, asking for wisdom and guidance.
One important method that Steiner brought to educators was meditation.
Teachers are encouraged to meditate on each child every night (Kingdom of Childhood). This is done by gradually developing an “inward perception of each child’s mind and soul” spending a few minutes on each child in the class. The teacher holds a picture of each child in their mind, asking what each child needs and exploring possible solutions to challenges. In the morning they listen and tune in to any answers that may arise to guide their actions. This practice connects the teacher to the student each day spiritually and allows the teacher to give thought to each student and ask for wisdom. Steiner suggests that this practice forges the link between the two souls (from angel to angel).
Teachers learn how to apply creative solutions to both curriculum and child behaviour. They learn to understand and meet the child’s needs.
A teacher must get to know their students and really understand them. By both self-discovery and inner work, such as meditation, the teacher aims to understand their students and works hard to bring them exactly what they need.
"You must try to understand the students themselves if you want to properly educate their thinking capacity. Such understanding contains within it an element of aversion since it belongs at this end of the scale. By comprehending your students and endeavouring to penetrate all their nuances, you become the teacher of their understanding, their faculty of knowledge. The aversions exist in this very activity, but you make the aversion good by educating your students." (Practical Advice to Teachers by Rudolf Steiner).
MORNING PREPARATION
Morning preparation is fundamental to a good teaching practice. Often teachers will gather in the mornings, light a candle, centre themselves and say a verse. They will then go to their classrooms to continue their own preparation practice before they open the classroom and greet their students.
The greeting at the beginning of the day sets the feeling of the day as each student and teacher connect with a shake of the hand, a smile, and a morning greeting.
Students learn this from Kindergarten and quickly develop the rhythm and practice of warm acknowledgement.
Rudolf Steiner gave six exercises, which he says are fundamental to meditative work. These include control of thought, control of will and equanimity. These exercises are an excellent teacher practice for self-transformation and healing.
Connecting yourself with the cosmos or something higher than yourself helps to draw on wisdom and gives dedicated time in the day to rest your mind and focus.
‘If you cannot manage to see every human being as a cosmic mystery, you will not get beyond the sense that people are no more than mechanisms, and if such a feeling were cultivated, it would lead to the downfall of earthly culture’. (Practical Advice to Teachers).
IMPORTANCE OF SPEECH
Steiner said that correct speech is quintessential for the teacher, as speech reveals the life of the soul. Repetition with speech exercises cultivates the speech, making it more flexible. He states:
‘The inner life, the life of the soul, is the most significant aspects of the child. Teaching and education depend on what passes from the soul of the teacher to the soul of the child… Education occurs because of what you are, or rather, let us say, what you make of yourself when you are with the children’. (Discussions with Teachers).
Speech exercises are not only recommended for the students but also the teachers. These refer to not only pronouncing sounds and words but also to how we breathe. It is common practice for teachers and students to speak verses and songs together during Morning Circle. Teachers also practise speech exercises to further their own development in communication.
In ‘Practical Advice to Teachers’, Steiner states that ‘We understand the speech phenomenon only when we truly understand how it is rooted in human feeling’.