V. Some Remarks About Curriculum

In Stuttgart I had to compromise, since under present social conditions it is not possible to develop a school purely on the basis of this kind of education. I said we needed to take three stages into account. We need complete freedom in how we present the curriculum during the first, second, and third grades, but we want the children at the end of third grade to have learned the same things as children in other schools. The same is true until age twelve, that is, the sixth grade, and again when they leave the school. All we could achieve was to present the curriculum in these stages: in the first three school years, the second three, and in the third stage, the last two school years. These are simply things that we must accept as compromises under today’s social conditions. Nevertheless, within these three periods, we have been able to achieve some things. We can, for example, base our work upon the sound principle that we do not begin with the intellectual, as modern instruction generally does. We do not need to begin with this one characteristic of developing human beings—the intellect—instead we can begin with the whole human being.