Today as parents we want our children to be “all knowing” at a very young age. In fact many parents feel very proud to see their preschool children eloquently having conversations with people about everything from conserving the environment to the covid pandemic and in between. I had a 3yr old explaining the entire human anatomy to me from a medical encyclopaedia and I was 15 at that time and quite clueless still. Every bone, tissue and muscle and its function was explained in great detail. Giving children educational gifts is the in thing now in India, and by educational I mean STEM toys, Smart toys etc (it took me more than a year to figure out the full form of STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Everyone wants to make their kids smarter, as if kids are born with low IQs..let’s remember that they all figure out breast feeding, gazing, grasping, sitting up, crawling and walking not to mention talking “all by themselves”… they need no help from us in this department. I often wonder where we parents got the idea that they needed this kind of intellectual support from us. So what really is our role ? As parents ? As teachers ?
When Rudolf Steiner met his first set of teachers, before they opened the first school it Stuttgart, he said something that continues to remain the backbone of Waldorf education. “ it is not the WHAT and the HOW but the WHOM that we educate”. The child is a living spiritual being and we must bear this in mind always as teachers and parents.
When we look at our life, the course it takes usually has 2 parts to it. Initially we are “receivers” —> we receive from our parents, our teachers, nature and society. In our later life we must become “givers” —> we are called upon to contribute to life sometimes very visibly with big lofty tasks and most often very ordinarily. Receiving comes naturally, BUT Giving has to be learned. Every Human Being must make the transition from receiving to giving. And this transition can either be helped or hindered by something just as basic and simple as “Education”, the education we receive from our parents in our homelife and teachers in our school.
The World is Good, The World is Beautiful and The World is Truthful. The Child is “receiving” these beliefs through Waldorf Education.
Question – how will we as parents and educators help the child transition from receiving of these beliefs into giving ? What morals/virtues will these 3 beliefs develop in the child ?
Answer – If the World is good, “I must be Grateful for it”
If the World is Beautiful, “I must Love it”
If the World is Truthful, “I must honour it and be responsible to it”
Gratitude breeds Love breeds Responsibility.
Put simply Responsibility is nothing but Our way of reciprocating the gratitude and love we receive isn’t it ?
In these 7 years cycles of childhood we are also moving from Willing to Feeling to Thinking to finally what?…….We are moving back to Willing, to doing with our hands, our capabilities. If we do not give each faculty its needed focus and time, we will not achieve the ultimate goal of moving back to being a Willing being. A Human Being must be a willing being. We only carry our deeds done in this current life into our next life as nourishment for it, we do not carry our thoughts and feelings, we drop them on the way, so as parents and educators we have to develop our children into “doing” adults.Thats All Folks!
I cannot agree more with every word that you have spoken through this blog post. We truly need to reflect on what we as adults have acquired from our environment and what we are passing on to our children. Is it really beneficial?!
We may not be able to change everything all at once but little changes gradually will make the difference
So so true and agree whatever you have transcript in this blog.We are deviating from all this natural process of learning or spritual.
Thank you Reshma
as parents and educators we have to develop our children into “doing” adults and being doing adults ourselves
Yes very true, the child always imitates the ways of his/her parents