Steiner the Tutor
From: winters_diana
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:49 am
Subject: Steiner the tutor
Here you have it from Steiner's bio at the
Goethenaum web site: http://www.goetheanum.ch/rsteiner_e/biography.html
1884-1890:
Private teacher in the home of a Viennese businessman, Ladislaus
Specht.
That is the only reference in the bio of Steiner
there to mention Steiner teaching or tutoring anyone.
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 12:36 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Steiner the tutor
[Diana wrote:]
1884-1890:
Private teacher in the home of a Viennese businessman, Ladislaus
Specht.
That is the only reference in the bio of
Steiner there to mention Steiner teaching or tutoring anyone.
Hey Diana,
I remembering reading, and I believe it was
in the bio, that he tutored other college bound young people.
And that is how he earned money to buy books and so forth that
he was interested in. The idea was that he did not have much
time for anything that he might have liked to have done due to
the need to self support himself.
Dottie
...................................................................................................................................
From: Gisele
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 1:16 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Steiner the teacher
winters_diana wrote:
Here you have it from Steiner's bio at
the Goethenaum web site: http://www.goetheanum.ch/rsteiner_e/biography.html
1884-1890:
Private teacher in the home of a Viennese businessman, Ladislaus
Specht.
That is the only reference in the bio of
Steiner there to mention Steiner teaching or tutoring anyone.
~~~~SO WHAT? What's your point Diana? Anyway,
even if you thought you had a logical scientific rational point
based on the above, you got it wrong, sorry!:
1899-1904
Teaches at the school for workers founded
by Wilhelm Liebknecht in Berlin. From 1902 also in Spandau. Subjects:
History, Speaking Practice, Literature, Science.
1902-1904
Teaches at an independent college founded
by the Friedrichshageners Bruno Wille and Wilhelm Bolsche.
Na*na*nana*na!-)
Gisele
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From: winters_diana
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 5:50 pm
Subject: Re: Steiner the teacher
Thanks to Dottie and Gisele but I was asking
about the "10 years tutoring" – children –
not lecturing to adults. Thanks anyway, toodles everyone.
Diana
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 7:08 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: Steiner the teacher
Diana wrote:
Thanks to Dottie and Gisele but I was asking
about the "10 years tutoring" – children –
not lecturing to adults. Thanks anyway, toodles everyone.
Hey Diane,
I didn't realize you were speaking about tutoring
young children. He did indeed tutor young highschool college
bound kids is what I get from his bio. The pages I read are not
about lecturing rather tutoring them in specific classes they
were trying to pass. And not just in one subject but in many
different ones.
The thing that strikes me when reading your
posts is the idea that one can not take in ones personal experiences
over a period of time and have an understanding about certain
things. As if it is not backed up by a science study it does
not count. Science studies were not the first thing that happened,
it was human observations that ocurred and then studies followed
many years after.
I thought Daniels piece was absolutely phenominal
and made total sense to me. It felt like you already have your
mind up and there is no way to find any common ground in what
Daniel was presenting.
How do we come up with the ideas to study
a thing in the first place: observation of said thing. Is it
really beyond you to see the ideas discussed by Daniel as having
any validity? Isn't that where science begins: observations and
then to questions and then to a few various possible solutions?
Don't all scientists have to begin this way: the wonder of a
thing? Didn't you get the 'do no harm and the make sure the parents
are included in the decision' part of the post. Isn't this against
how the critics portray this on their list?
Is it really hard to imagine a person can
be intuitive to a thing and look to see why it is that way and
come up with ideas that can then be observed by others? But then
again it seems if the critics hear the name Dr. Steiner involved
in anything the word 'quack' comes up. As if they are stuck soley
in what is in front of them and not what is beyond or even within
that helpes to create a thing in the first place.
If you sense/intuit into the idea of what
you observe do you not think your rational mind will lead you
to various possibilities that speak to that particular observation?
Dr. Steiner was able to do what most on the critics and many
on this list are unable: observe objectively. To look at a thing
and ponder it to the beginningness. Doesn't mean he was always
right and as you have heard many times he stated one must find
it for oneself and not just hold what he has found as truth.
And this is what one can find in his amazing book Philosophy
of Freedom: Self free thinking and rising to find it.
It is the scientist who lead us to places
our minds would not even think to contemplate. Whether that be
here or in the great expance of the unseen universe it makes
no difference, scientists lead us to the unknown: that which
many of us would not naturally think or pursue in the first place.
And that is the magic, that is the wonder.
It's easy to degrade and make fun of another
mans studies when one hasn't done ones own homework. Maybe it
didn't interest you or others but it did interest Dr. Steiner
and he studied it from his own experiences and came up with theories
and ideas as to why this is.
I find it quite interesting you and the other
critics are willing to hold Steiner accountable for his observations
by certain standards that you are not willing to hold your own
critics and especially not Staudenmaiers warped, mostly German
footnotes, paper. Little ironic isn't it? Oh, but we are talking
about Steiner here and Staudenmaeir doesn't count. Good thing
we aren't on the wc list about right now or Mr. Dugan would say
it is off topic to ask a fellow list mate about how they came
to a thing because the topic is Steiner. A little different here
I think. You get to be held accountable in the same manner as
you would hold Dr. Steiner. Did you observe children who do not
like certain things. Did you observe and think as to how you
might handle this certain thing or how it came to be a certain
way. Well so did Dr. Steiner. It's just that he made observation
his life. And in that he is qualified to be able to offer thoughts
on what is going on and what he has found. One can disagree with
it but it does come out of deep thinking and a willingness to
find a way to bring forth his theories.
I remember on the wc list one could not talk
about how others formed their opinions because the topic was
supposed to be on Steiner only. You can judge Steiner harshly
but do not hold yourselves to the same standard. Something a
little fishy in this I say.
Nice warm night here in Cali, thank goodeness:)
Dottie
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From: Daniel Hindes
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:34 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Steiner the tutor
Real in-depth research. So quick to rush to
judgement. A five-minute look in Steiner's autobiography, using
a keyword search on the word "tutor" (online at http://www.elib.com/cgi-bin/wwwelib)
will serve you well.
Daniel
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From: Daniel Hindes
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2004 4:54 pm
Subject: Steiner the private tutor
Prompted by my discussion with Diana I have
collected a number of quotes by Steiner concerning his activities
as a private tutor. These demonstrate his extensive practical
experience in pedagogy with pupils of all ages (from early elementry
to post-graduate) and all levels of skill.
From "The Course of My Life" by Rudolf Steiner,
Chapter 2:
From my fifteenth year on
I taught other pupils of the same grade as myself or of a lower
grade. The teachers were very willing to assign me this tutoring,
for I was rated as a very "good scholar." Through this
means I was enabled to contribute at least a very little toward
what my parents had to spend out of their meagre income for my
education. I owe much to this tutoring. In having to give to
others in turn the matter which I had been taught, I myself became,
so to speak, awake to this. For I cannot express the thing otherwise
than by saying that I received in a sort of dream life the knowledge
imparted to me by the school. I was always awake to what I gained
by my own effort, and what I received from a spiritual benefactor,
such as the doctor I have mentioned of Wiener-Neustadt. What
I received thus in a fully self-conscious state of mind was noticeably
different from what passed over to me like dream-pictures in
the class-room instruction. The development of what had thus
been received in a half-waking state was now brought about by
the fact that in the periods of tutoring I had to vitalize my
own knowledge.
On the other hand, this experience
compelled me at an early age to concern myself with practical
pedagogy. I learned the difficulties of the development of human
minds through my pupils.
To the pupils of my own grade
whom I tutored the most important thing I had to teach was German
composition. Since I myself had also to write every such composition,
I had to discover for each theme assigned to us various forms
of development. I often felt then that I was in a very difficult
situation. I wrote my own theme only after I had already given
away the best thoughts on that topic.
From "The Course of My Life" by Rudolf Steiner,
Chapter 2:
His teaching gave me much
to do. For he covered in the fifth class the Greek and Latin
poets, from whom selections were used in German translation.
Then for the first time I began to regret once in a while that
my father had put me in the Realschule instead of the Gymnasium.
For I felt how little of the character of Greek and Roman art
I should get hold of through the translations. So I bought Greek
and Latin text-books, and carried along secretly by the side
of the Realschule course also a private Gymnasium course of instruction.
This required much time; but it also laid the foundation by means
of which I met, although in unusual fashion yet quite according
to the rules, the Gymnasium requirements. I had to give many
hours of tutoring, especially when I was in the Technische Hochschule(4)
in Vienna. I soon had a Gymnasium pupil to tutor. Circumstances
of which I shall speak later brought it about that I had to help
this pupil by means of tutoring through almost the whole Gymnasium
course. I taught him Latin and Greek, so that in teaching him
I had to go through every detail of the Gymnasium course with
him.
This quote shows not only that Steiner derived
money from tutoring, but also that he was familiar with scientific
method and laboratory work, and conducted experiments:
From "The Course of My Life"
by Rudolf Steiner, Chapter 4:
"In the views at which
I had arrived in the physics of optics there seemed to me to
be a bridge between what is revealed to insight into the spiritual
world and that which comes out of researches in the natural sciences.
I felt then a need to prove to sense experience, by means of
certain experiments in optics in a form of my own, the thoughts
which I had formed concerning the nature of light and that of
colour.
It was not easy for me to
buy the things needed for such experiments; for the means of
living I derived from tutoring was little enough. Whatever was
in any way possible for me I did in order to arrive at such plans
of experimentation in the theory of light as would lead to an
unprejudiced insight into the facts of nature in this field.
With the physicist's usual
arrangements for experiments I was familiar through my work in
Reitlinger's physics laboratory. The mathematical treatment of
optics was easy to me, for I had already pursued thorough courses
in this field. In spite of all objections raised by the physicists
against Goethe's theory of colour, I was driven by my own experiments
farther and farther away from the customary attitude of the physicist
toward Goethe. I became aware that all such experimentation is
only the establishing of certain facts "about light"
- to use an expression of Goethe's - and not experimentation
with light itself. I said to myself: "The colours are not,
in Newton's way of thinking, produced out of light; they come
to manifestation when obstructions hinder the free unfolding
of the light." It seemed to me that this was the lesson
to be learned directly from my experiments. Through this, however,
light was for me removed from the properly physical realities.
It took its place as a midway stage between the realities perceptible
to the senses and those visible to the spirit.
From "The Course of My Life"
by Rudolf Steiner, Chapter 4:
Now, by reason of an inner
necessity, I had to strive to work in detail through all of Goethe's
scientific writings. At first I did not think of undertaking
an interpretation of these writings, such as I soon afterward
published in an introduction to them in Kürschner's Deutsche
National Literatur. I thought much more of setting forth independently
some field or other of natural science in the way in which this
science now hovered before me as "spiritual." My external
life was at that time not so ordered that I could accomplish
this. I had to do tutoring in the most diverse subjects. The
"pedagogical" situations through which I had to find
my way were complex enough. For example, there appeared in Vienna
a Prussian officer who for some reason or other had been forced
to leave the German military service. He wished to prepare himself
to enter the Austrian army as an officer of engineers. Through
a peculiar course of fate I became his teacher in mathematics
and physical-scientific subjects. I found in this teaching the
deepest satisfaction; for my "scholar" was an extraordinarily
lovable man who formed a human relationship with me when we had
put behind us the mathematical and scientific developments he
needed for his preparation. In other cases also, as in those
of students who had completed their work and who were preparing
for doctoral examinations, I had to give the instruction, especially
in mathematics and the physical sciences.
From "The Course of My Life"
by Rudolf Steiner, Chapter 4:
My activity as a tutor, which
afforded me at that time the sole means of a livelihood, preserved
me from one-sidedness. I had to learn many things from the foundation
up in order to be able to teach them. Thus I found my way into
the "mysteries" of book-keeping, for I found opportunity
to give instruction even in this subject.
From "The Course of My Life" by Rudolf Steiner,
Chapter 6:
IN the field of pedagogy Fate
gave me an unusual task. I was employed as tutor in a family
where there were four boys. To three I had to give only the preparatory
instruction for the Volkschule(1) and then assistance in the
work of the Mittelschule. The fourth, who was almost ten years
old, was at first entrusted to me for all his education. He was
the child of sorrow to his parents, especially to his mother.
When I went to live in the home, he had scarcely learned the
most rudimentary elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
He was considered so subnormal in his physical and mental development
that the family had doubts as to his capacity for being educated.
His thinking was slow and dull. Even the slightest mental exertion
caused a headache, lowering of vital functions, pallor, and alarming
mental symptoms. After I had come to know the child, I formed
the opinion that the sort of education required by such a bodily
and mental organism must be one that would awaken the sleeping
faculties, and I proposed to the parents that they should leave
the child's training to me. The mother had enough confidence
to accept this proposal, and I was thus able to set myself this
unusual educational task.
I had to find access to a
soul which was, as it were, in a sleeping state, and which must
gradually be enabled to gain the mastery over the bodily manifestations.
In a certain sense one had first to draw the soul within the
body. I was thoroughly convinced that the boy really had great
mental capacities, though they were then buried. This made my
task a profoundly satisfying one. I was soon able to bring the
child into a loving dependence upon me. This condition caused
the mere intercourse between us to awaken his sleeping faculties
of soul. For his instruction I had to feel my way to special
methods. Every fifteen minutes beyond a certain time allotted
to instruction caused injury to his health. To many subjects
of instruction the boy had great difficulty in relating himself.
This educational task became
to me the source from which I myself learned very much. Through
the method of instruction which I had to apply there was laid
open to my view the association between the spiritual-mental
and the bodily in man. Then I went through my real course of
study in physiology and psychology. I became aware that teaching
and instructing must become an art having its foundation in a
genuine understanding of man. I had to follow out with great
care an economic principle. I frequently had to spend two hours
in preparing for half an hour of instruction in order to get
the material for instruction in such a form that in the least
time, and with the least strain upon the mental and physical
powers of the child, I might reach his highest capacity for achievement.
The order of the subjects of instruction had to be carefully
considered; the division of the entire day into periods had to
be properly determined. I had the satisfaction of seeing the
child in the course of two years accomplish the work of the Volkschule,
and successfully pass the examination for entrance to the Gymnasium
(2). Moreover, his physical condition had materially improved.
The hydrocephalic condition was markedly diminishing. I was able
to advise the parents to send the child to a public school. It
seemed to me necessary that he should find his vital development
in company with other children. I continued to be a tutor for
several years in the family, and gave special attention to this
boy, who was always guided to make his way through the school
in such a way that his home activities should be carried through
in the spirit in which they were begun. I then had the inducement,
in the way I have already mentioned, to increase my knowledge
of Latin and Greek, for I was responsible for the tutoring of
this boy and another in this family for the Gymnasium lessons.
I must needs feel grateful
to Fate for having brought me into such a life relationship.
For through this means I developed in vital fashion a knowledge
of the being of man which I do not believe could have been developed
by me so vitally in any other way. Moreover, I was taken into
the family in an extraordinarily affectionate way; we came to
live a beautiful life in common. The father of these boys was
a sales-agent for Indian and American cotton. I was thus able
to get a glimpse of the working of business, and of much that
is connected with this. Moreover, through this I learned a great
deal. I had an inside view of the conduct of a branch of an unusually
interesting import business, and could observe the intercourse
between business friends and the interlinking of many commercial
and industrial activities.
My young charge was successfully
guided through the Gymnasium; I continued with him even to the
Unter-Prima(3). By that time he had made such progress that he
no longer needed me. After completing the Gymnasium he entered
the school of medicine, became a physician, and in this capacity
he was later a victim of the World War. The mother, who had become
a true friend of mine because of what I had done for her boy,
and who clung to this child of sorrow with the most devoted love,
soon followed him in death. The father had already gone from
this world.
A good portion of my youthful
life was bound up with the task which had grown so close to me.
For a number of years I went during the summer with the family
of the children whom I had to tutor to the Attersee in the Salzkammergut,
and there became familiar with the noble Alpine nature of Upper
Austria. I was gradually able to eliminate the private lessons
I had continued to give to others even after beginning this tutoring,
and thus I had time left for prosecuting my own studies.
From "The Course of My Life"
by Rudolf Steiner, Chapter 13:
When I was fourteen years
old I had to begin tutoring; for fifteen years, up to the beginning
of the second phase of my life, that spent at Weimar, my destiny
kept me engaged in this work. The unfolding of the minds of many
persons, both in childhood and in youth, was in this way bound
up with my own evolution. Through this means I was able to observe
how different were the ways in which the two sexes grow into
life. For, along with the giving of instruction to boys and young
men, it fell to my lot to teach also a number of young girls.
Indeed, for a long time the mother of the boy whose instruction
I had taken over because of his pathological condition was a
pupil of mine in geometry; and at another time I taught this
lady and her sister aesthetics.
In the family of these children
I found for a number of years a sort of home, from which I went
out to other families as tutor or instructor. Through the intimate
friendship between the mother of the children and myself, it
came about that I shared fully in the joys and sorrows of this
family. In this woman I perceived a uniquely beautiful human
soul. She was wholly devoted to the development of her four boys
according to their destiny. In her one could study mother love
in its larger manifestation. To co-operate with her in problems
of education formed a beautiful content of life. For the musical
part of the artistic she possessed both talent and enthusiasm.
At times she took charge of the musical practice of her boys,
as long as they were still young. She discussed intelligently
with me the most varied life problems, sharing in everything
with the deepest interest. She gave the greatest attention to
my scientific and other tasks. There was a time when I had the
greatest need to discuss with her everything which intimately
concerned me. When I spoke of my spiritual experiences, she listened
in a peculiar way. To her intelligence the thing was entirely
congenial, but it maintained a certain marked reserve; yet her
mind absorbed everything. At the same time she maintained in
reference to man's being a certain naturalistic view. She believed
the moral temper to be entirely bound up with the health or sickness
of the bodily constitution. I mean to say that she thought instinctively
about man in a medical fashion, whereby her thinking tended to
be somewhat naturalistic. To discuss things in this way with
her was in the highest degree stimulating. Besides, her attitude
toward all outer life was that of a woman who attended with the
strongest sense of duty to everything which fell to her lot,
but who looked upon most inner things as not belonging to her
sphere. She looked upon her fate in many aspects as something
burdensome. But still she made no claims upon life; she accepted
this as it took form so far as it did not concern her sons. In
relation to these she felt every experience with the deepest
emotion of her soul.
There are more references in a number of Steiner's
lectures, but I don't have the time to collect them now.
Daniel Hindes
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