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.A man who can think in accordance with reality must sometimes have very painful experiences.For in Einstein's books you even find, for instance, how you could take a watch and send it out into the universe at the speed of light, and then let it come back again; we are then told what happens to this watch if it goes out at the speed of light and comes back again.I should like to get an actual sight of this watch which, having whizzed away at this speed, then comes back again; I should like to know what it looks like then! The essential thing is that we never lose sight of reality in our thinking.Herein lies the root of all evil in much of the education of today, and you find, for instance, in the “exemplary” Kindergartens that different kinds of work are thought out for the child to do.In reality we should make the children do nothing, even in play, that is not an imitation of life itself.All Froebel occupations and the like, which have been thought out for the children, are really bad.We must make it a rule only to let the children do what is an imitation of life, even in play.This is extremely important.For this reason, as I have already told you, we should not think out what are called “ingenious” toys, but as far as possible with dolls or other toys we should leave as much as we can to the child's own fantasy.This is of great significance, and I would earnestly beg you to make it a rule not to let anything come into your teaching and education that is not in some way connected with life.The same rule applies when you ask the children to describe something themselves.You should always call their attention to it if they stray from reality.The intellect never penetrates as deeply into reality as fantasy does.Fantasy can go astray, it is true, but it is rooted in reality, whereas the intellect remains always on the surface.That is why it is so infinitely important for the teacher himself to be in touch with reality as he stands in his class.In order that this may be so we have our Teachers' Meetings in the Waldorf School which are the heart and soul of the whole teaching.In these meetings, each teacher speaks of what he himself has learnt in his class and from all the children in it, so that each one learns from the other.No school is really alive where this is not the most important thing, this regular meeting of the teachers.And indeed there is an enormous amount one can learn there.In the Waldorf School we have mixed classes, girls and boys together.Now quite apart from what the boys and girls say to each other, or what they consciously exchange with each other, there is a marked difference to be seen in the classes according to whether there are more girls than boys or more boys than girls or an equal number of each.For years I have been watching this, and it has always proved to be the case that there is something different in a class where there are more girls than boys.In the latter case you will very soon find that you yourself as the teacher become less tired, because the girls grasp things more easily than boys and with greater eagerness too.You will find many other differences also.Above all, you will very soon discover that the boys themselves gain in quickness of comprehension when they are in a minority, whereas the girls lose by it if they are in the minority.And so there are numerous differences which do not arise through the way they talk together or treat each other but which remain in the sphere of the imponderable and are themselves imponderable things.All these things must be very carefully watched, and everything that concerns either the whole class or individual children is spoken of in our meetings, so that every teacher really has the opportunity to gain an insight into characteristic individualities among the pupils.There is one thing that is of course difficult in the Waldorf School method.We have to think much more carefully than is usually the case in class teaching, how one can really bring the children on.For we are striving to teach by “reading” from the particular age of a child what should be given him at this age.All I have said to you is directed towards this goal.Now suppose a teacher has a child of between nine and ten years in the class that is right for his age, but with quite an easy mind he lets this child stay down and not go up with the rest of the class; the consequence will be that in the following year this child will be receiving teaching which is meant for an age of life different from his own [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]