Q. I like how Waldorf schools take the pressure off children — they emphasize play, not dull academic drills. What can you say about that?
A. Children certainly need lots of time to play. Developing the imagination and exploring the world at a child's own pace are essential for a healthy childhood. [1]
The Waldorf emphasis on play, however, has its roots in mysticism. Waldorf teachers think children enact and thus manifest mystical truths, and these are reflected in childhood games. For instance, "hide-and-seek" is believed to reenact the child's daily return to Earth from spirit realms visited at night.
“Already at a very early age, the child enjoys the game of hide-and-seek ... These games reflect the transition from there to here, from the spiritual to the physical world, which takes place every morning on waking up.” [2]
Waldorf teachers also think simple childish play reflects the memories children bring to this life from their lives before earthly incarnation.
"Primal memory is experienced and then slowly lost. It enlivens many an early game or even transfigures it." [3]
So play can help preserve a child's ties to the spirit realm and his/her previous lives.
The Waldorf conception of "slow learning" means encouraging children to stay young as long as possible; the children aren't really asked to learn very much, they are encouraged to play and fantasize instead. Again, the reason lies in the mystical beliefs that underlie Waldorf education.
“Childhood is commonly regarded as a time of steadily expanding consciousness.... Yet in Steiner’s view, the very opposite is the case: childhood is a time of contracting consciousness.... [The child] loses his dream-like perception of the creative world of spiritual powers ... [I]n a Waldorf school, therefore, one of the tasks of the teachers is to keep the children young." [4]
If you share such beliefs, you may endorse the Waldorf approach to play. If you don't share these beliefs, however, you may think "slow learning" (postponing academic instruction, allowing kids to play instead) simply deprives children of the early childhood education that can benefit them as they strive to progress in their educations.
[1] Imagination is an important mental process. Einstein, for instance, attributed much of his success to his powerful imagination. Waldorf schools are often praised for stressing imagination, but you need to realize that Waldorf faculties mean something very different from what Einstein and others have meant. In the Waldorf belief system, imagination is actually a precursor to, or even a stage of, clairvoyance. [See "Imagination - It Has to Be Good, Right?"]
[2] Steiner follower Heidi Britz-Crecelius, CHILDREN AT PLAY: Using Waldorf Principles to Foster Childhood Development (Park Street Press, 1996), p. 18.
According to Waldorf belief, the soul leaves the body during sleep and travels to the spirit realm — literally, not just in dreams. Specifically, the astral body and the ego body leave the Earth while the physical body and the etheric body remain behind.
“[W]e go to sleep at night, setting forth with our Ego and astral body, leaving behind the body of our waking life...until we re-awaken.” — Rudolf Steiner, “Man as a Picture of the Living Spirit” (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972), a lecture, GA 228.
Young children do not yet have fully incarnated astral bodies and egos, but they go the spirit worlds nonetheless, and their play reflects this. Or so Waldorf faculties believe.
[3] Heidi Britz-Crecelius, CHILDREN AT PLAY, p. 105. "Primal memory" can be memory of previous earthly lives and/or memory of lives in the spirit realm between earthly incarnations.
[4] Waldorf educator A. C. Harwood, PORTRAIT OF A WALDORF SCHOOL (The Myrin Institute Inc., 1956), pp. 15-16. "Perception of the creative world of spiritual powers" means awareness of the spirit realm. Waldorf belief holds that children are born with innate ties to the spirit realm, and they retain memories of life in the spirit realm. "Keeping the children young" means restraining any development of intellect, which would break the ties to the spirit realm. So Steiner indicated, anyway.
"it is...necessary to let children live in their gentle dreamy experiences as long as possible, so that they move slowly into life. They need to remain as long as possible in their imaginations and pictorial capacities without intellectuality." — Rudolf Steiner, A MODERN ART OF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 2004), pp. 103-104.
So it is better to let kids plays innocent games as long as possible: The children will be reenacting their experiences in the spirit realm and in their descents to earth.
If you have doubts about these Anthroposophical beliefs, Waldorf may not be right for you and your children.
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