 HUMOURESQUE &
NOT SO HUMOURESQUE Categorizing Students Hurtfully Let’s look again at a lecture by Anthroposophist Hermann von Baravalle, who was a follower and acquaintance of Rudolf Steiner. He gave the lecture to Waldorf teachers in the USA. Von Baravalle did not direct his words to the rest of us as parents, students, or critics, but by reading them we can get a glimpse into the actual workings of Waldorf schools. Included in von Baravalle’s book WALDORF EDUCATION FOR AMERICA [1] is a lecture titled “The Four Temperaments”. It has profound importance because its tenets may be applied by Waldorf teachers in every class and every subject area. And, I might add, the lecture is as interesting for what it does not say as for what it does. The lecture begins with the sensible argument that parents should not impose preconceived goals on their children: A minister, for instance, should not insist that his son become a minister. Parents and teachers must, instead, be sensitive to each child’s inner nature and treat her/him accordingly. Well and good. But then von Baravalle begins to give “practical” guidance to the Waldorf teachers in his audience. He says that students can respond to their teachers in two ways: They can have immediate reactions, and they can form lasting impressions. He then divides students into four categories: 1. those who are susceptible to both kinds of reaction, 2. those who are more susceptible to immediate reactions, 3. those who are more likely to form lasting impressions, and 4. those who are resistant to either type of reaction. [2] It’s a neat little schema, and at first blush it seems logical. Two ways to react; four possible combinations; the math is undeniable (“There are mathematically only four combinations that could occur with these two criteria” [3]); so it must be true. But look where von Baravalle goes next. Having established an apparently reasonable system for categorizing students, von Baravalle labels the students: 1. students who have a choleric temperament (the first group described above) 2. those with a sanguine temperament (second group) 3. kids with a melancholic temperament (third) 4. kids possessing a phlegmatic temperament (fourth). [4] Von Baravalle does not inform his audience that these four “temperaments” are adaptations of the discredited ancient Greek concept of “humours.” [5] Nor does he mention that, according to Steiner’s doctrines on karma and reincarnation, our situations in this life result from our actions in past lives. A melancholic child, for instance, may be atoning for past errors, in which case s/he should be allowed to remain sad to work out her/his karmic needs. Von Baravalle avoids mentioning Anthroposophy in the lecture (although he does refer to Anthroposophy’s main man, Rudolf Steiner). He does not discuss karma or past lives. Instead, he simply says that there is no point, for instance, in trying to cheer up a deeply melancholic student. If a teacher tries to gladden a melancholic, the child’s reaction would be “How could the teacher be so superficial with this talk of joy or fun? I can’t stand it anymore.” [6] Children are in their various categories for a reason. The Waldorf teacher should not try to alter these classifications.  Consider the melancholic child, again, for a moment. Von Baravalle’s (i.e., Steiner’s) approach is to accept the melancholic’s destiny. So, there will be no joy or fun for that kid. Here we begin to see the dangers in Steiner’s/von Baravalle’s simplistic categorization of students. While von Baravalle speaks of treating each child as an individual, categorization undercuts that fine ideal. “You have four distinct challenges from your class” — the four types of students [7]. In other words, if there are, let’s say, twenty kids in a Waldorf class, von Baravalle does not urge the teacher to treat them as twenty different individuals: He urges the teacher to treat them as members of just four groupings. Granted, there are shadings within each grouping, and both Steiner and von Baravalle gave lip service to individualism, but the underlying tenet is that a child is characterized by her/his humour; s/he belongs in a particular group because of his/her ingrained characteristics; and therefore s/he is quite different from members of any of the other three groupings. Under this system, students are treated as members of various batches, not as individuals. As a minor aside, consider the difficulties this system creates for teachers. They must subdivide their students into categories. How? What methods can they use? Can they be sure they have made the right discriminations? What if they are wrong in any case, and this has severe repercussions for a child? But our main concern must be for the students, not the struggling teachers. The primary "tool" Waldorf teachers attempt to use for making decisions about students is clairvoyance. Believe it or not. Clairvoyance, a faculty that does not really exist. Relying on such a phantom tool guarantees that the teachers would very often make the wrong decisions. (For more on the question of clairvoyance as theoretically used in Waldorf schools, see my essays "Waldorf Now" and "Thinking Cap".) Thus, even if the idea of humours made sense, the Waldorf system would be a mess. But in fact, the idea of humours is nonsense — as I said previously, it is derived from ancient Greek concepts that science abandoned long ago. Von Baravalle inadvertently reveals how impersonal and prejudicial his schema is when he lists not only the psychological characteristics of each category of students, but also their physical traits, the dangers to which each category is prone, and the best educational approach to take with each category. (Note how von Baravalle tells the teachers how to “handle” members of various categories.) I’ll summarize briefly: 1. Cholerics are very attentive and critical. Most cholerics are boys. They may have high shoulders; they often seem bony. They may turn into bullies or become prey to tantrums. “To handle cholerics, give them challenges ... Choleric people show themselves best in emergencies.” 2. Sanguines are appreciative and “want to be with you.” They are “harmoniously built;” they do not find their bodies to be encumbrances. They are in danger of drifting through life unconstructively. “They can be handled well with the books that they make in the Waldorf schools, reflecting what is learned in diagrams."  3. Melancholics are not quick; they yearn for depth; from this depth, they may derive “an ethical impulse.” “They do not like being called to the [chalk]board.” One typical group of melancholics consists of “junior high school girls who suddenly grow thin and tall with slumping shoulders.” Melancholics may be moody, given to headaches, unfriendly, and worried about their health. “For these melancholic children biographies are a wonderful thing ... They see that they are not the only people in the world who have suffered.” 4. Phlegmatics are extremely sensitive to the atmosphere in the classroom. Confusion makes them tense. They often have rosy cheeks and may be overweight because they do not expend much energy. They may be in danger of “becoming dull and uninterested in the world.” “For the phlegmatic children there is one thing that suits them well: the arts, painting, music, eurythmy.” [8] Pause a moment to let some of the foregoing sink in. Choleric kids should be given challenges; but not the other students? Sanguines can be “handled” by having them focus on their class books (which, in a typical Waldorf school, largely consist of careful copies of whatever the teachers write or draw on the board). Melancholics should be offered the cold comfort of knowing that their suffering is not unique. Phlegmatic children should be herded in a single direction, toward the fine arts (not the humanities or physical sciences or social sciences or sports or math or...). One of Anthroposophy’s worst characteristics is its insistence on categorizing people. This evil is most evident in the racial hierarchies Steiner repeatedly described. [9] The same pernicious tendency can be found in the distinctions Steiner drew between true humans and “people who are not human beings.” [10] We see the same evil again here, in the separation of innocent children into preconceived, unreal categories. This is just another form of discrimination, as harmful as any other. Consider one final quotation, this one taken from a different von Baravalle lecture (bearing the unintentionally ironic title, “How to Treat Children as Individuals”): “If ... the teacher has cholerics in front of him, in the first row, something like a short circuit could easily occur ... the course of instruction would be flowing exclusively between the teacher and them. In making the seating order, therefore, it is better to have the cholerics sit on one side ... the melancholics may be seated on the opposite side ... the sanguines ... feel at ease in the front rows ... The phlegmatics like to have some distance [so they sit in the back]....” [11] Here we see the literal, physical segregation of students based on a spurious ancient system of categorization infused with occult claptrap. It is deplorable. Deciding that Aryans should sit in front and non-Aryans in back would be worse, but it would arise from a similar enthusiasm for senseless discrimination. (Yes, Steiner used the term "Aryan" to describe a human race — see "Atlantis and the Aryans" here at Waldorf Watch). Most importantly, consider the effects of the "humours" system on the children. Imagine being slotted as a melancholic — thereafter, your teachers never seem to care whether you (unlike other kids in the room) are enjoying yourself. Or imagine being adjudged a phlegmatic and pressured into eurythmy, when your actual talents are for math and physics. Von Baravalle’s advice is tantamount to child abuse, pressing students into abstract groupings and forcing them in predetermined directions without any valid reason for doing so.  Here is a colored rendering of a sketch Steiner made, showing the body types of the four humours. “The melancholic children are as a rule tall and slender; the sanguine are the most normal; those with more protruding shoulders are the phlegmatic children; and those with a short stout build so that the head almost sinks down into the body are choleric.” [Rudolf Steiner, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 34.]
NOT SO HUMOURESQUE Perhaps we should hear more from The Man. Did von Baravalle understand Steiner on the subject of “temperaments”? Here are comments Rudolf Steiner made to the teachers at the first Waldorf School [12]: ◊ Addressing a teacher about her students: “[Y]ou have few choleric or strongly melancholic temperaments. Those children are mostly phlegmatic or sanguine ... You can get the phlegmatic children moving only if you try to work with the more difficult consonants. For sanguine children, work with the easier consonants.” [13] The grade level here is not specified, but these were apparently young children, learning consonants. However, since the students were learning the eurythmic moves for these consonants, the picture is a bit blurred. Eurythmy is a form of semi-dance, created by Steiner, that is supposed to represent visible speech. More importantly, it is intended to link students directly to the spirit realm. (See my essay "Magical Arts".) ◊ A teacher asks Steiner: “I believe I have perceived a relationship between the phlegmatic children and a deep voice, the sanguine children and a middle tone, and a higher voice with the cholerics. Is that correct?” Dr. Steiner: “In general, it is true that phlegmatics have lower voices...”, etc. [14] Bunk. ◊ A teacher: “How can we have such differing opinions about the temperament of a child?” This is the problem I alluded to, above: How can teachers make sensible assignments to "humours" when the system itself is senseless? Each teacher has to guess (using "clairvoyance") and her/his guesses may be very different from the guesses made by other teacher. Steiner replied: “We cannot solve that problem mathematically ... In judging cases that lie near a boundary, it is possible that one person has one view and another, another view ... The situation is such that when we see and understand a child in one way or another, we already intend to treat it in a particular way. In the end, the manner of treating something arises from an interaction. Don’t think you should discuss it.” [15] This is a particularly unhelpful answer. Steiner leaves the puzzle for each teacher to solve, without discussion. Evidently without realizing it, Steiner comes close to invalidating the entire concept of four temperaments by saying that each teacher can make up his/her own mind, at least in cases that lie near a boundary (and perhaps in other cases as well: “when we see and understand a child in one way or another....”). In practice, this would mean that some kids would be put in one category by some teachers, and in other categories by other teachers. This is chaotic and senseless, as I believe Steiner himself came to realize. Read on. ◊ “The choleric temperament becomes immediately annoyed by and angry about anything that interrupts its activity. When it is in a rhythmic experience, it becomes vexed and angry, but it will also become angry if it is involved in another experience and is interrupted ... In cholerics, you will generally find an abnormally developed sense of balance (Libra) ... In sanguines (Virgo), in connection with the sense of balance and sense of movement, the sense of movement predominates. In the same way, in melancholics (Leo) the sense of life predominates and in phlegmatics (Cancer) the sense of touch predominates physiologically because the touch bodies are embedded in small fat pads.” [16] Cholerics take a particular beating in this passage, although I’m happy to see confirmation of my earlier assertion that cholerics have short tempers (i.e., prey to tantrums), etc. What is even more interesting, however, is the association Steiner makes between temperaments and signs of the Zodiac. Steiner believed in astrology. (See "Basement" and "Overhead" among other essays at this Web site.) When Waldorf teachers mix humours with astrology, they are compounding the irrationality of their system. No decision made about any child on the basis of humour and/ or astrology can have any merit whatsoever.  ◊ “We should always correct left-handedness. However, in this connection [i.e., learning to play the piano], we should also take the child’s temperament into account so that melancholics give the right hand preference. You can easily find a tendency with them to play with the left hand. We should emphasize the left hand with the cholerics. With the phlegmatics you should see to it that they use both hands in balance, and the same is true for sanguines. [17] Above, Steiner associated the four temperaments with four signs of the Zodiac. Here he associates different handedness with the various temperaments. This is bunk compounding bunk compounding bunk. ◊ Finally, reflect on this statement by Steiner: “In my lecture today [‘Deeper Insights into Education’], I mentioned that we need to find our way past the temperaments. The goal of my lecture was to show how to come to an inner understanding that lies beyond people’s temperaments.” [18] This statement does not utterly disavow the concept of the temperaments. Steiner was almost incapable of admitting that he had made an error, but he did come to realize that the four-type categorization of students was unwieldy and superficial. The passage I quoted above, in which Steiner alludes to “cases that lie near a boundary,” is dated June 14, 1920. The passage quoted here (“In my lecture today") is dated October 16, 1923. It took Steiner more than three years, but he ultimately decided that pigeonholing students according to temperament was not sufficient. This would be cause for quiet celebration, except that categorization by temperament remains entrenched in Waldorf doctrines [19], and following Steiner into deeper examinations of students’ mental/moral/spiritual natures leads to such considerations as karma, which is intimately linked to Steiner’s weird conception of human evolution, which is intimately linked to dreadful teachings about race. Half a step forward, three steps back. Bunk compounding bunk compounding nastiness. Steiner presumably meant well, and Waldorf teachers presumably mean well — but the question is whether the system employed by Waldorf teachers can possible work well. I cannot. — Roger Rawlings For more on the humours as conceived in Waldorf schools, please use this link: "Discussions" You may also be interested in Steiner's views about "Horoscopes" Melancholy [Albrecht Dürer].  It never occurred to me to ask our headmaster whether he categorized students by temperament, nationality, or other such distinctions. But maybe he did. "Remarkably enough, there is a north-south polarity to be experienced not only on the Earth as a whole, but in each country ... [There are approaches] appropriate to climate and climactic temperament." [John Fentress Gardner, THE EXPERIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996, p. 92.] Gardner was a good man who treated me well, but he was not always easy to approach. This image is from the school's 1963 yearbook. Here he is standing in a lower-school wing, perhaps in the school library. The high school wing is visible behind him. Details, art created by Waldorf students. FROM THE NET Here is a relevant Internet message dated June 21, 2009. I cannot wholly vouch for any messages except those I wrote myself. Still, messages such as the following may be informative. Subject: The Temperaments My three children went to a Waldorf school. Waldorf uses the temperaments as one of its many child-management tools. For instance, children of like temperament are often seated together, so that they can "see themselves" and develop accordingly. It works better to have a choleric kid bumping heads with another choleric kid instead of with a weepy melancholic. The phlegs bore one another into action. The melans get fed up with one another's whining. The sanguines have to learn to tamp down the chatter to get anything done. My children are: Phlegmatic, Melancholic, and Sanguine-Choleric, so I got to experience four temperaments in three kids. Deciding what to do on a family outing was an interesting experience, I can tell you. [20] ••• On July 1, 2009, at an online discussion group, Diana Winters quoted Steiner and then offered a comment: "Temperament is connected, to a remarkable degree, with the whole life and soul of a person's previous incarnations." [Rudolf Steiner, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), pp. 60-61.] Virtually every Waldorf teacher "works with" the temperaments in understanding and instructing his or her students. If temperament derives from past lives, then this makes pretty clear that Anthroposophy guides the teacher's daily interactions with the children. Parents should be just as concerned about this sort of crackpot manner of relating to school children as by the question of whether Anthroposophy is taught, directly or indirectly, in the Waldorf curriculum. Arguably, in the early years when subject matter per se is not the focus of the school day, this sort of thing is even more determinative of the child's experience in the school. [21] ••• I replied to Diana Winters: I agree. Making this even more worrisome is that, since the four temperaments (an ancient and entirely outmoded concept) are bunk, every decision a Waldorf teacher makes concerning temperament is bunk. Also, since there is no reasonable way to assign children to the four temperament categories, Waldorf teachers necessarily make the assignment irrationally. Part of this irrationality will often be reliance on clairvoyance, which itself is bunk. So what we have is bunk cubed (bunk x bunk x bunk). Yet all this superbunk has real consequences for children — harmful consequences. Children are segregated: "If ... the teacher has cholerics in front of him, in the first row, something like a short circuit could easily occur ... the course of instruction would be flowing exclusively between the teacher and them. In making the seating order, therefore, it is better to have the cholerics sit on one side ... the melancholics may be seated on the opposite side ... the sanguines ... feel at ease in the front rows ... The phlegmatics like to have some distance [so they sit in the back]...." [Hermann von Baravalle, WALDORF EDUCATION FOR AMERICA (Parker Courtney Press, 1998), p. 91.] For those who don't know, von Baravalle was an associate of Steiner's — a leading Anthroposophist, he taught at the first Waldorf school and later worked to spread Anthroposophy in America. Kids are treated differently, assigned different seats, and given different tasks. This is nasty and hurtful — it can scar kids for life. And it is all based on utter bunk. (And it is a nice emblem for all of Waldorf education, which is generally and pervasively based on occult bunk.) [22] ••• Diana later added this: The temperaments are thought to apply particularly to school-age children in the 7- to 14-year range. Earlier than that, the orthodox view is that the temperament cannot be definitively ascertained because the child under 7, whose "etheric body" has not yet been born, still "lives in" the temperament of the mother or parents. With the birth of the ether body at around age 7 or change of teeth, the child's temperament comes into its own. Some will argue with this formulation, however, and insist that temperament can be discerned even earlier. After the age of 14, the temperament would still predominate but the child should be integrating the four "members" (physical, etheric, astral, and Ego) and thus should be sort of "outgrowing" their original temperament. Ideally the adult is a nice balance of all four temperaments with none dominating in an observable fashion. There is lots more to the legends and lore of temperaments, of course — that's just a skeletal structure of how it works. Each "age" of a person's life also has a corresponding temperament, for instance, IIRC childhood should be "sanguine" in general. Eras of history have corresponding temperaments, etc. [23] ENDNOTES [1] Hermann von Baravalle, WALDORF EDUCATION FOR AMERICA (Parker Courtney Press, 1998). [2] Ibid., pp. 97-98. [3] Ibid., p. 97. [4] Ibid., p. 102. [5] See Mark Grant, “Steiner and the Humours: The Survival of Ancient Greek Science,” British Journal of Educational Studies, Mar. 1999. [6] WALDORF EDUCATION FOR AMERICA, p.103. [7] Ibid., p. 102. Steiner said that temperaments can become intermingled: "In reality, a melancholic child is never purely melancholic; the temperaments are always mixed." [Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL GROUND OF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 2004), p. 83.] This is what Steiner said happens "in reality." But he also said that such intermingling should be minimized, for example by careful seat assignments in classrooms. “The temperaments that are next to each other merge into one another and mingle; so it will be good to arrange your groups as follows: if you put the phlegmatics together it is good to have the cholerics on the opposite side, and let the two others, the melancholics and sanguines, sit between them.” [Rudolf Steiner, RHYTHMS OF LEARNING: What Waldorf Education Offers Children, Parents & Teachers, translated by Catherine Creeger, contributor Roberto Trostli (SteinerBooks, 1998), p. 72.] Waldorf teachers thus should take steps to minimize the possibility or magnitude or any mergers. In general, Steiner taught that merging one thing (nation, race, temperament, etc.) with another is almost always wrong. [8] WALDORF EDUCATION FOR AMERICA, pp. 102-105. [9] See Selected Quotations, on this Web site. [10] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998, p. 650. [11] WALDORF EDUCATION FOR AMERICA, p. 91. [12] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998). This is a particularly valuable book, telling us in Steiner’s own words how he wanted things to be done at Waldorf. [13] Ibid., pp. 80-81 — June 12, 1920. [14] Ibid., p. 90 — June 14, 1920. [15] Ibid., p. 90 — June 14, 1920. [16] Ibid., pp. 90-91 — June 14, 1920. [17] Ibid., pp. 345-346 — May 10, 1922. [18] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 687 — October 16, 1923. [19] Here is how temperaments are presented in WALDORF EDUCATION: A Family Guide (Michaelmas Press, 1999), edited by Pamela J. Fenner. “The temperament is the meeting of the spiritual aspect of oneself, which one refers to as ‘I’, and the contributions of the father and mother. The temperament is the result of the blending of these two streams, the spirit and heredity.” [p. 60] A chart on p. 62 gives this summary: Sanguine: Spring, Yellow, Superficial, Nerves, Air, Socially Aware, Caring. Choleric: Summer, Red, Destructive, Dictator, Blood, Fire, Selfless Leader. Melancholic: Fall, Mauve, Self-pitying, Bones, Earth, Considerate, Understanding. Phlegmatic: Winter, Blue, Lazy, Glands, Water, Reliable, Faithful. “Practical” advice about temperaments includes the following: “If you put on a play, you should cast the characters according to the temperaments of your students. You might, for example, ask your cholerics to play Julius Caesar, and you might cast your sanguines as the messengers, since they would enjoy running in and out with the news. The melancholics love philosophical roles ... The phlegmatics, on the other hand, like the parts where they can sit and think, removed from the central action of the play.” [pp. 65-66] [20] http://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail364.html [21] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/11185 [22] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/11197 [23] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/11207 xxxxx |
