VI. Teaching Eurythmy, Music, Drawing, and Language

The day before yesterday I showed how instruction in writing should be developed from instruction in drawing, or perhaps, from simple instruction in painting. That instruction will also serve for many other things I will mention. In the Waldorf School, I have generally made the attempt—and I believe there are certain indications that it was relatively successful after a short period of time—to begin with artistic activities even with the youngest children. Our youngest children in the Waldorf School are actually only occupied with school subjects for two hours a day. A relatively large period of time is spent with the younger children in teaching foreign languages. Although I am aware of the prejudices against this, there is a tremendously deep effect in regard to the children’s liveliness and attentiveness, that is, in regard to the awakening of their souls, when you attempt to teach foreign languages to young children without any grammatical pedantry, simply through speaking. Our children begin to learn French and English as soon as they enter school. In doing so, we use more time than is usual. The instruction in the afternoons consists almost only of music. We include in the normal school instruction what I have referred to as a drawing-basis for writing. Thus the younger children are primarily taught drawing in the way that I will describe later. Exception for a few hours in which the pastors and spiritual leaders provide religious instruction and where we need to work according to their schedule, afternoons are used almost exclusively for physical exercises and singing and music. When you begin in this way with the youngest children, you can see how you can include really the entire human being with this kind of artistic foundation of instruction.