Pedagogy and Art

The art of pedagogy¹ can only be based on genuine knowledge of human nature. And this cannot be complete if it is limited to mere observation. One does not get to know the human being through passive knowledge. At least to a certain extent, what one knows about the human being must be experienced as sensed by the creative part of one's own being; one must sense it in one's own will as a knowing activity.

A passive knowledge of the human being can only lead to a lame educational and teaching practice. For the transition from such knowledge to practice must consist of external instructions for activity. Even if one gives oneself these instructions, they remain external.

Knowledge of the human being as the basis of pedagogy must begin to live by being absorbed. One must immediately experience every thought about the human being as one's own nature, just as one experiences proper breathing and proper blood circulation as one's own health.

When faced with the task of educating and teaching a child, knowledge of the human being must flow naturally into action. And love must live in this naturalness. There is no such thing as passive knowledge of the human being, and then the external consideration: because this or that is so and so in the child, therefore you must do this or that. There is only direct experience, which is what it recognizes in its own existence. And then the educational treatment of the child becomes an activity that arises in love and takes on its necessary character because it is experienced through the child. A knowledge of the human being that is woven into life takes up the child's essence like the eye takes up color.

Knowledge of nature can remain theory; for the healthy feeling person, knowledge of the human being as theory is like having to experience oneself as a skeleton. There is no sense in speaking of a difference between theory and practice in the knowledge of the human being. For a knowledge of the human being that cannot become active in life practice is a sum of ideas that hover shadow-like in the mind but do not reach people. A life practice that is not illuminated by knowledge of the human being gropes uncertainly in the dark.

If the teacher has the right attitude, then he has the prerequisite for developing his humanity in front of his pupils in a way that is full of life and invigorating, and for encouraging the emerging human being to reveal himself.

And the right educational attitude is the essential thing in all pedagogical work.

This attitude draws attention to the child's expressions of life, which appear as germinal states of the developing human being. The human being must be active in his work without losing himself in a mechanism of work. The child's nature demands that preparation for work be based on the revelation of the human being. The child wants to be active because activity is part of human nature. The harsh world demands that adults produce finished work. In the child, the developing human being demands activity, which, if guided correctly, develops the seed of work.

Those who, with genuine insight into the human being, can eavesdrop on the child's being on the way from play to life's work will overhear the nature of teaching and learning at this intermediate stage. For in childhood, play is the serious revelation of the inner urge to activity, in which the human being has his true existence. It is a careless way of putting it to say that children should “learn by playing”. A teacher who organized his work accordingly would only educate people for whom life is more or less a game. But the ideal of educational and teaching practice is to awaken in the child a sense of learning with the same seriousness with which it plays, as long as playing is the only emotional content of life.

An educational and teaching practice that sees this through will give art the right place and its cultivation the right extent.

Life is often a strict teacher for the educator as well. It makes its demands on the training of the mind. Therefore, one will do too much rather than too little in relation to this training. It is the moral that truly makes man human. An immoral person does not reveal the full human being within himself. Therefore, it would be a sin against human nature not to cultivate the moral development of the child to the fullest extent. Art is the fruit of man's free nature. One must love art if one is to recognize its necessity for the full human being. Life does not compel love. But it thrives only in love. It wants to be in the unconstrained element.

Schiller was the only one who sensed this; and this perception led him to write his “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man”. Schiller sees the most important element of all educational art in the penetration of man with the aesthetic state of mind. Man should permeate the cognitive drive with cognitive love in such a way that he behaves like the creative artist or the aesthetically receptive person in his activity. And he should experience duty as the expression of his innermost human nature, as he feels in aesthetic experience. (On this occasion, reference may be made to the excellent presentation of Schiller's intentions in Heinrich Deinhardt's writing “Beiträge zur Würdigung Schillers”, which was recently published by Kommenden Tag Verlag in Stuttgart).

It is a pity that Schiller's “Aesthetic Letters” have had such a limited effect on pedagogy. A stronger impact would have had a significant effect on the place of art in educational and teaching practice.

Art, both visual and poetic-musical, is required by children's nature. And there is an engagement with art that is appropriate even for children when they reach school age. As an educator, one should not talk too much about this or that art being 'useful' for the development of this or that human ability. Art is there for art's sake, after all. But as an educator, one should love art so much that one does not want to deprive the developing human being of the experience of it. And then you will see what the experience of art does for the developing human being – the child. It is only through art that the mind comes to true life. The sense of duty matures when the urge to be active artistically conquers matter in freedom. The artistic sense of the educator and teacher brings soul into the school. It allows one to be happy in earnest and full of character in joy. Nature is only understood through the intellect; it is only experienced through artistic perception. The child who is taught to understand matures into 'ability' when understanding is practised in a lively way; but the child who is introduced to art matures into 'creativity'. In 'ability', the human being expresses himself; in 'creativity', he grows with his ability. The child who models or paints, however clumsily, awakens the soul in himself through his activity. The child who is introduced to the musical and poetic senses the sense of being moved by an ideal soul. He receives a second one to his humanity.

All this will not be achieved if art is taught only on the side, if it is not organically integrated into the other forms of education and instruction. All instruction and education should be a unified whole. Knowledge, life training, and practice in practical skills should lead to the need for art; artistic experience should foster a desire for learning, observing, and acquiring skills.