III. Knowledge of Health and Illness in Education

There is another point to be considered. Usually, when people talk of the theory and the practice of education, they feel that they must uphold an ideal that they can then elaborate in great theoretical detail. This approach, however, can lead to rigid forms and fixed claims. When one has to deal with pedagogical questions and when, as I was for instance, one is asked to guide the Waldorf school, a thought strikes one again and again. On the whole, audiences like to hear talks about education which seem to make sense to them. People like such talks. And, indeed, anyone who is scrupulously honest—and anthroposophy must always be scrupulously honest—can’t help feeling: “There certainly is a need for our new education.” And people, hearing about it, come and say, “This is wonderful. If only we could have gone to a school like the Waldorf school!” But, so often, the very people who want to pioneer educationally in this new way are the very ones who had to go through the worst forms of education themselves. They may have had to put up with the worst, most corrupt forms of education in their own schooling. And yet, in spite of their negative experiences, they are able to call for improved educational systems. Then the idea might strike one: does one really have the right to plan and think out, right down to specific details, how children should be educated? Would it not be better by far to let them grow up wild, as many biographies testify, telling us of persons who were not pressed into any particular educational mold, but nevertheless matured into most capable and responsible people? Do we not sin against the growing child if we present a pedagogical system that has been worked out down to the finest detail?