The Alternative Community's Education Blind Spot
Part 1: What a Child Needs (audio version in The Truthiversity)
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It’s been a minute but we’re in our new home now and ALMOST settled.
Time is more scarce than I’d like but we’re figuring it (the day-to-day) out. If you know me well you already are aware I have a 3-year-old (almost 4) - and as all parents know, work time is precious when you have kids (even if you have help!).
Work time is temporarily slashed so I’m going to smash this out with alacrity—coherence be damned! 😆
And because I have a little ‘un, there is something that’s been much more front of mind these past 3 years than it was previously: childhood education.
It occurs to both Aimee (my wifey) and I that there’s a HUUUUUGE deficit in the alternative community in the understanding of something of monumental importance:
WHAT a child IS, and HOW they need to be “educated” based on which stage of development they’re in.
Living in our last town - a small town with limited resources and shitloads of retired gringos - it rankled with me that so few parents at the local Waldorf/Steiner school even knew WHAT it was about and WHO founded it.
The facepalm moments came thick and fast.
Boy did the administrators of the school have their work cut out for them trying to take a group of mostly mainstream and relatively unaware parents and get them up to speed on the incredible opportunity they had in being able to send their kid/s to this little Waldorf school.
Seriously, it is an amazing opportunity - assuming the school actually applies the Waldorf philosophy and methods.
It was a miracle to us that such a small town with so few young expat families even HAD a Waldorf school at all. It was game-changing for us. But most other parents just saw it as a convenient local babysitting service.
It’s so much more - oh so much.
So in my limited time to shoot you some thoughts today before you send out a search party to find the author of the Substack formerly known as Truthiverse, let’s get into a few basics. This will just be a quick and dirty sketch of a couple key ideas—to be elaborated on in future.
My main interest right now in the context of education, predictably, is how best to facilitate the unfoldment and growth of children under the age of 7 (since that’s currently the stage my family’s in).
And if you don’t already know, the visionary genius Rudolf Steiner who brought us other innovations such as biodynamics, also brought us the Waldorf school concept.
Thank god he did.
To understand Waldorf schools you need to know a couple of things about Steiner.
First, he was something of a polymath, a renaissance man, and a genius. He was insanely well read across various fields, including having a detailed understanding of the philosophers of different eras and the strengths and weaknesses in the philosophies they espoused.
Every now and then giants walks among us: characters who seem to have a preternatural level of insight and knowledge, as if they are not of this world. People like Jung, Campbell, Blavatsky (highly misunderstood), Swedenborg, Tesla…
Steiner was one of these giants. Few people have EVER impacted so many people and left such an enduring legacy as Steiner has.
He also was a developed clairvoyant which meant he could see the human energy fields and observe their dynamics.
This latter fact meant he could literally see things about the growth and development of children that few others could - and therefore he was uniquely sensitive to precisely what children ACTUALLY needed for OPTIMAL development; how they were affected by certain stimuli; how they could be nurtured best; how to NOT interfere with their sensitive energy systems and psyches.
Before I proceed, please note I’m not judging anyone here for choices they’ve made re: educating their child.
I was personally sent to a fancy private school in Sydney from grade 7 to 12 and can tell you that they also do not have a clue what children and young adults actually need from role models, authority figures, and the environment around them - never mind the specific school curriculum.
My parents thought they were doing the best for me and in terms of the info they had, they were.
So no judgements here.
Just some facts about what children are and need - through a Steinerian lens.
I think I can safely assume that if you’re already a subscriber here, then you are not a huge fan of mainstream education. With good reason.
Unfortunately, many parents who get that far hit a brick wall of confusion and uncertainty and don’t know what to do with their children from there.
Homeschool? Radical unschool? Sudbury Valley approach/child-led?
This article isn’t intended to be comprehensive at all - and I’ll be saying much more about this in future publications, because the cliche is true: children ARE our future; secondly, there’s an obvious need for alternative or crunchy parents to be better informed around schooling and the nature of the child.
The unstructured and leadership-bereft mode of “radical un-schooling” (which for some parents apparently translates as “Let your kids do whatever the hell they want and hope they turn out okay in the end”) is a disaster seen through the Steinerian lens—but more on that in a future rant.
Let’s address a Common Parental Misconception: “My kid’s not learning enough at school. They used to be able to count to 15 and now they can’t.”
The above complaint is a real one from a parent at the previous Waldorf school we were at.
Their child was 2.5 at the time. 😬
This type of thinking stems from a misunderstanding of what “learning” actually looks like for small children. It’s an example of adults imposing their adult mentality onto vulnerable little humans that are clearly not yet adults.
We’ve been trained to see education like this through the Rockefeller model of education designed to churn out obedient factory workers.
Steiner understood that cramming numbers and letters into a small child’s mind was not only unnecessary but unhelpful. If a 2- or 3-year-old forgets how to count to 15 or 20, perhaps that’s an indication this is not an overly useful skill for such a small child.
Are they going to be taking your car out for a midnight run to Mickey D’s and need to count the change accurately?
What actual use are all those numbers in a mind that sees fairies and dragons attending their tea party (featuring backyard dirt as the “tea”)?
Children under the age of 7 are basically dreaming with their eyes open - they literally live in a dreamlike state of consciousness where everything is all about the imagination. Anything they imagine instantly comes to life for them - “Look out for the lizard, daddy! He wants to eat you!”
*Dad plays along feigning fear of the lizard in the living room despite being exhausted AF*
Trying to force such young children into overly left-brained activities for the rational or analytical mind is premature and unhelpful. (And teaching critical thinking is best left until 14 and onwards, when their system is actually ready for it—when the astral body is “birthed”, but more on that later.)
These little kids live through their imagination and their environment needs to allow maximum expression of their imaginative faculties. (While providing safe boundaries and love.)
That’s why Steiner also recommended that if you give a child under 7 a doll to play with, make it very basic with as little detail as possible, including (especially) on the face—their fertile imaginations will fill in the blanks instantly. If you fill out the details for them, say, the way Barbie or similar dolls are fleshed out, it kills the outflow of the imagination.
There’s nothing left for it to do.
Steiner/Waldorf schools are set up with this in mind.
If the nature of the environment they’re in on the daily is of the stultifying variety then it progressively stifles their imagination. You don’t need me to tell you this isn’t good in the long run.
Children need to play almost constantly because they inhabit a world of imagination and deeply need an outlet for it.
Contrary to what some parents believe, kids do not need to learn reading prior to age 7—and many parents have found their child naturally picked up reading of their own accord after this time, without needing to be cajoled.
My daughter knows probably half the alphabet but not because we’ve drilled her in it, it’s been mostly incidental learning. She knows daddy’s name starts with a “B”, mummy’s with an “A”, hers with an “E”, and so forth.
We don’t waste her time and energy (or ours!) on trying to tick academic boxes that are not relevant or appropriate for her age.
She does like to “write” here and there though, which leads me to another thing: she wants to write because she has seen US do it. Children from 1 - 7 learn primarily through MIMICRY.
They have a compulsive—and totally natural—need to COPY everything they see adults around them doing. They actually can’t help it, it’s hardwired in, and that’s also why it’s so important to MODEL consistency in front of their eyes.
“Do as I say and not as I do” simply does NOT work with young children.
They are programmed to replicate what you DO, not what you TELL them to do.
Classic example: I recently had a moment of weakness. My girl brought a plum into the living room and I advised her to keep it away from the couch—”We don’t eat on/near the couch.”
She understands all these words perfectly well (she’s fluent in English and Spanish and extremely clever).
But then I made the fatal mistake of quickly throwing a bit of plum into my mouth while still lying on my side on the couch. She SAW this and the next thing I knew she had “forgotten” my admonition about not eating on/near the couch and was about to replicate what she had SEEN me do.
It’s the seeing of the doing that matters.
This is something I’m normally highly mindful of. It’s important that we SHOW kids the actions we’d like them to repeat—and do NOT show them actions we don’t want them to (don’t eat on the couch if you don’t want THEM to eat on the couch).
Your admonitions mean literally NOTHING to such young children when your actions don’t match. They learn by imitation and replicating what you model for them.
Model wisely.
To avoid confusing them, do not say one thing and then SHOW them something else entirely. Behavioural consistency is KEY from parents.
They do not yet have the critical/analytical faculties to make sense of your inconsistencies.
Imagine the impact of repeatedly telling the child one thing and then doing another—what will this do for their sense of trust and security in the world—ultimately themselves? They will have to constantly second guess the intent and meaning of every message received—their inner foundation will be insecure. This all will imprint them subconsciously and remain with them as subliminal programming going forward.
Despite the head’s proportionally oversized nature in small children, the lack of awakening of the “head-brain system” is apparent to anyone paying attention.
The first power to come online is the WILL, as signified by the limb system being the first to truly awaken. Once little ones can walk, they compulsively consume as much space as they feasibly can, digesting as many stairs and obstacles as possible, as if unconsciously attempting to learn physical mastery—well before they have any other form of mastery.
Many tired parents can attest to this. “Why the hell does she have to climb EVERY single stair she sees on the way home?” (Because the WILL is the first power of the soul to activate, and it is in charge.)
As A. C. Harwood—the first male Steiner teacher in England—observed, the will
“connects a child in the most direct and immediate way with the objects in his world. It leads him to imitate everything which goes on around him…the foundation for the whole life of will is laid during the first six or seven years of life. Happy is the child who is left free to imitate during this time and who is surrounded by activities worthy of imagination."1
I added the emphasis in bold above, because this too is a key understanding.
Kids need to be immersed in an environment WORTHY of imagination and imitation. They consume the environment with the powers of the imagination (not the rational mind) and imitate it using the powers of the will.
While our own home environment is one that is safe, stimulating, and loving, Aimee and I are both keenly aware that providing a Waldorf setting and methodology at home is asking far too much of most parents (especially if they have work they need to be doing).
This is one reason we have no intention of homeschooling—we know that a Waldorf environment and methodology (including playmates) is beyond what we can provide in our own home (plus I have work to do!). And since we haven’t found anything that comes close, this is the path we choose.
Our little one ADORES it and we would hate to rob her of the friendships and atmosphere carefully and intentionally curated at her school. We also noticed how readily she adopted her new school after arriving here. The continuity between the Waldorf schools creates a sense of familiarity and safety that almost moves one to tears.
Our little one immediately took to the new school without hesitation because it was so familiar. That’s the kind of experience we want her to have—and the type of experience we as parents want to have. Being able to actually trust the school is huge, and something more parents should be able to experience in this world.
I want to wrap this impromptu ramble up by saying that Aimee and I have noticed over the years that kids who’ve been through a relatively complete Steiner/Waldorf education come out DIFFERENT—in a very good way. It’s really impressed us a lot actually.
Maybe you’ve noticed this too? Compared to some of the disturbing results of, say, radical un-schooling, well… there really IS no comparison.
Steiner knew what he was talking about.
To be continued… 🙃
Stay cool,
Brendan
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A. C. Harwood, The Way of the Child.
