GA 302a

Education and Teaching out of Knowledge of the Human Being

Erziehung und Unterricht aus Menschenerkenntnis

Nine lectures for the teachers of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart 1920, 1922 and 1923.

In these lectures, too, further important points of view for teaching practice and tasks for the inner training of the teacher's personality are conveyed, supplementing the basic teacher courses of 1919.

Speaking to the teachers at the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Steiner asserts that the unfortunate presence of dishonesty and alienation in society today cannot be addressed without a completely renewed and holistic education. He states fact that successful teaching requires a living synthesis of the “spiritual gymnast,” the “ensouled rhetorician,” and the “intellectual professor.” Of these, the formative effect of the rhetorician’s cultivation of artistic speech is the most important. “It’s impossible for true teaching to be boring,” declares Steiner, and he offers several examples of how teachers can observe a natural phenomenon so intimately that its creative life can flow into the children through a teacher’s own words in the classroom. He also describes, in spiritual scientific depth, how the actions of teachers directly affect the physiological chemistry of their students. From this perspective, education is really therapy, transformed to a higher level, and should be seen as closely related to the healing arts. Steiner also shows how the perception of hidden relationships between education and the processes of human development can kindle a heartfelt enthusiasm and a sense of responsibility in teachers for the far-reaching health effects that educational activities can produce.

Contents

Meditatively Developed Study of Man (Four lectures 1920)
On the pedagogical profession in Central Europe / On the three basic forces of education / Spiritual knowledge of mankind ignites the art of education / The art of education is a balancing of the physical nature and spiritual nature of the growing human being.

Educational issues in the mature age. On the Artistic Formation of Teaching (Two Lectures 1922)

Suggestions for the Inner Penetration of the Teaching and Educating Profession (Three lectures 1923)
Gymnast, rhetor, doctor and their lively synthesis / On the healthy and pathogenic forces in education / A synoptic understanding of the human being as the source of the educator's imagination

Literatur

• Rudolf Steiner, René M. Querido (Translator): Balance in Teaching. CW 302a. Anthroposophic Press 2007. ISBN 978-0880105514; eBook ASIN B007D0HYRM

German

• Rudolf Steiner: Erziehung und Unterricht aus Menschenerkenntnis, GA 302a (1993), ISBN 3-7274-3025-7 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.