V. The Teachers' Conference in the Waldorf School

There is another thing to be considered. In the Waldorf School practically all the teaching takes place in the school itself. The burden of homework is lifted, for the children are given very little to do at home. Because of this, because all the work is done together with the teachers, the children's attitude is a quite remarkable one. In the Waldorf School something very characteristic comes about, as the following example will show: There was an occasion when certain pupils had misbehaved. A teacher who was not yet fully permeated with the Waldorf School education felt it necessary to punish these children and he did so in an intellectualistic way. He said: “You must stay in after school and do some arithmetic.” The children were quite unable to understand that doing arithmetic could be regarded as a punishment, for this was something which gave them the greatest pleasure. And the whole class—this is something which actually happened—asked: “May we stay in too?” And this was intended as a punishment! You see, the whole attitude of mind changes completely, and it should never happen that a child feels that he is being punished when he has to do something which he actually does with devotion, with satisfaction and joy. Our teachers discover all sorts of ways of getting rid of wrong behaviour. Once it so happened that our Dr. Stein, who is particularly inventive in this respect, noticed that during his lesson in a higher class the children were writing letters and passing them round. Now what did he do in order to put the matter right? He began to speak about the postal service, explaining it in some detail and in such a way that the writing of letters gradually ceased. The description of the postal service, the history of the origin of correspondence had apparently nothing to do with the misdemeanour noticed by the teacher and nevertheless it had something to do with it. You see, if one does not ask in a rationalistic way: “What shall I do” but is able to take advantage of a sudden idea because one knows instinctively how to deal with any situation in class, the consequences are often good; for in this way much more can be achieved towards the correction of the pupils than by resorting to punishment.