VII. The Problem of Teacher Training

Perhaps, however, you could attempt to have some experiences with the following. When preparing for your classes, in addition to your normal preparation, try to add a kind of meditative preparation. Add something that has not the least to do with the material you are to present, but has more to do with raising your own soul, that has something to do with imbuing some material or some feeling that opens the world to you. When in the evening you have gone through such a meditative inner view, and you enliven that view so that on the next morning you can recall it and in a sense reexperience it, then you will notice an effect when you go into the classroom. This may sound as though I am telling you some superstition, but these are things that cannot be comprehended through any theory. You need to see them. When you observe them you will find them confirmed. Most people today are not particularly interested in observing such things. But we will have to become accustomed to such observations if we are to come out of the misery of the present time. From them corresponding convictions will arise, particularly for a type of education that is meant to include all of humanity. With the student I described before, it is quite clear that when she said she loved the teacher, her training in will was under the direct influence of that personal relationship. Although we can philosophize about this as much as we want, all training in will is always under the sway of personal relationships until children are past the age of puberty.