Interview with Mr. Shourabh Mukherjee, Founder, Young Men's Welfare Society (YMWS)

Class 3 in Khelaghar, Raghunatpur (South 24 Pgs.), 26 Feb. 07

Q: How did you start YMWS?

Shourabh Mukherjee: St Lawrence Evening School is just 40 years old: We started on 2nd September, in 1968! There was social unrest in West Bengal, and Father Subir Biswas had created a platform of organisations in 1970-71 for working in the long run with the refugees. We focused on primary and pre-primary education.

Q: Where did you start?

Shourabh Mukherjee: We started in my house, with 2-3 friends. We had 29 pupils. We then went to St Lawrence School, where the Principal, Father Bruylants, was very responsive. He immediately gave us 2 class-rooms, then 4, then 8, and ultimately one full building, for free. Today, 482 children join the classes from 4 P.M. with 85% attendance. They come from all the neighbouring slums. St Lawrence School give us class rooms, free electricity, play ground, and to be in such a school also give a sense of pride.

Q: Are you a former pupil of St Lawrence?

Shourabh Mukherjee: No, this school was simply in our neighbourhood. Then, evening schools became a gradual movement.

Q:Like the Rainbow School in Loreto Sealdah?

Shourabh Mukherjee: And Don Bosco, Queen of the Mission, Teetly in St Xavier (where Father Bruylants went), and many others. Now, YMWS alone is running 8 schools with 3850 pupils. Among these schools, "Children's Foundation" in Taratalla and "Young Horizons" in Barakhola (E.M. Bypass), with 900 pupils each, can be termed "Regular Schools", under ICSE board. The other 6 schools are "Community Schools", or "Khela Ghar" (named after Tagore) with 2000 pupils. These include St Lawrence Evening School, the schools at Raghunatpur and Parvatipur on the road between Diamond Harbour and Kakdwip, the Kinder Garten on Theater Road, the primary school at Karaya Road, and since April 2007, Young Horizons Evening school. This one, the latest, already has 2 classes and 75 pupils. We campaigned by going straight to the people in the neighbourhood, door to door. We add one class every year, as the pupils get older, until class 6 when they join Young Horizons or an other regular school. We plan to open one new school per year in this manner. Children's Foundation is 25 years old, and Young Horizons started in 2002, on a land given by the Government, on a recommendation of Mother Teresa.

Q: I have seen the school at Ratghunatpur 2 years ago, on the occasion of the 5-day Waldorf Education Training by Aban and Dilnawaz Bana, that you organised for the teachers. I was kindly invited, and visiting the school next to the training centre, left on me a rare and durable feeling of plenitude and wholesomeness. This was so different from so many initiatives in direction of the poor, where things or processes often look shabby, improvised, or simply missing their target, as if things for the poor should "look poor", or a little inappropriate, or a little misplaced, for some obscure reason.

Shourabh Mukherjee: I hate this…

Q: But in your school, there was no broken pipes, no forgotten utensils in dusty corners, the painting was fresh, the garden was lush and tidy, and even the chappals of the pupils were neatly arranged on the steps of the veranda. The classrooms were full of beautiful and new drawings and paintings made by the pupils and their teachers, and the children were happy and active, but not excited, obedient but not timid, and I thought, this could be a good school for my daughter. I actually made up my mind then: If you could achieve that much in Raghunatpur, I became confident that Young Horizons, which is in my neighbourhood in Kolkata, must be an equally good school. What I perceived was this: Here is a clear and sincere interest for the children, unpolluted by any other consideration. This is what parents want, isn't it? Yet nothing expensive was there: no glazed windows, plain corrugated sheets on the roof, no false ceiling, extremely simple or no furniture, and nothing conspicuous purchased from outside, except the paper, pencils and colours. Or, from an other point of view: Nothing was there to intimidate parents or children, it was actually not very different from their homes, where they also remove their shoes before entering, and which are almost always clean and tidy, probably because when your life depends on very few possessions, chaos is an unaffordable luxury.

Shourabh Mukherjee: I believe in "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". It lifts the spirit, and gradually this spirit is invoked by you. You must give the children the best opportunities, and invest in infrastructure if you believe in the future. I also like what Narayan Murthy, of Infosys, says: "Check the toilets first"! Proper toilets, drinking water, clean surroundings, are essential. Children should be happy to go to school, they should feel in security, and parents should be happy to send their children to school. There are 326 pupils in our Raghunatpur school, with 90% attendance. It is a Muslim area, and the main alternative there are Madrassas. Pupils come from far away to Raghunatpur and Parvatipur, so we provide a bus service. But we also don't want the people to be dependant on charity. We give children a small tiffin (a cup of milk, biscuits, own-grown vegetables), because they need that energy to work properly, but that's all. It is not a lunch. It is not an incentive. And it is not publicised.

Every Human Being need an element of security, you can't give this security only from charity. For ensuring the long-term security of our Community Schools, we raise money from Young Horizons and Children's Foundation, to gradually build a fund. So if tomorrow one of our donors says, "I'm sorry, I can't continue", our schools will not close. They will never close.

Q: But the fees at Young Horizons are very reasonable, even cheap. How can you do this?

Shourabh Mukherjee: We are able to do it! Every year we raise about 40 lakh from both schools combined, and this goes to a fund, from which only the interest is utilised. Our Community Schools, with 2000 pupils, need 2 lakh per month .

However, these schools are only a part of our work in this area of South-24-Parganas. We also encourage women and children to save money in "savings groups". 764 mothers are involved. We also have a programme to provide drinking water to 100 villages, and we have conducted an extensive research on the state of Education in West Bengal. Our programmes are focussed on one area, along the road, so that people can see that something is happening, and get involved.

Q: Since 10 years, you train your teachers with the Steiner-Waldorf method. How did you come to know Steiner's method of education?

Shourabh Mukherjee: I met Berndt Ruff in Delhi 10-12 years ago. I then visited Waldorf Schools in Germany, and I found a similarity with Tagore's Education: "Children must grow in an atmosphere of aspiration and freedom". We also exchange teachers every year with Waldorf Schools in the U.K. We have one policy guideline for all teachers. 76% of our teachers are graduate girls, against 59% in government schools. We have only female teachers. Our work is an on-going process, we permanently seek to improve our work. For example, we had a 2-day Workshop for the teachers with Dr. Uday Parekh of I.I.M. Ahmedabad, and coming month (September 2008) we will have one more with him for 5 days, on "Spiritual Leadership in School". Because, unless there is an element of spirituality you cannot give your best.

We are also organising a big social conference on 20th January, 2009, on the "U.N. Millenium Goals": "Can we keep the promise?". There will be a Youth Festival in Kolkata, with contribution from people of different walks of life, food rights, education, etc.

Khelaghar, Raghunatpur, 26 Feb. 07

This interview was taken on 24th August 2008 by Laurent Fournier.

Child appropriate education

Earlier I posted questions from a Steiner school parent. These were questions asked to me by a good friend of mine who I convinced to enroll his children in the Steiner school in the Philippines. Some of his questions are common among the parents in the school. Others, are unique to him.

As a result of this Q&A, Laurent and I got to thinking, what are some of the unique features of a Steiner school compared to other schools. This is an interesting question and a very common question as well. It is easy to answer, yet a bit challenging to understand.

The easy answer to the question is that Steiner schools teach in a "child-development appropriate" way. What does this mean? It is best answered through an example:

One of the key challenges for parents placing their children in a Steiner school is related to reading. When do they learn to read? In most schools today, the alphabet and reading is introduced when children are quite young, even at the pre-school level. By comparison, reading in a Steiner school is taken up around class 2 or 3, quite late by modern standards. Why is this so? Let us look at what does it take to learn to read. It needs a few basic skills but the one key skill that is absolutely necessary is that the reader can sit still for the duration of what he or she is reading. It is very difficult to read while running about and jumping. Of course that's silly, I can hear everyone say, and yet this is a reality that is often overlooked.

Let us look at a young child, between the ages of 2-7 years of age (more or less). Being a parent with children that have already passed this age, I can say, with quite a degree of certainty, that at the age, my children just wanted to run and play. Sitting still was a real struggle for them. In rural areas, we see that running and playing are the key activities of children. This would mean that sitting still, even just to have dinner, can be a real effort and exercise for them. As they grow older though, you begin to observe that on their own, they can sit for long stretches without having to run and play. Once this happens, other activities may now be possible, such as learning in a classroom setting, and learning to read.

It is with this understanding of the characteristics of the child that Steiner education brings reading as an experience at a later age. And there is another approach they have.

I remember when I was learning to read. I read sentences like: "See Dick run. Run Dick run. See Jane run. Run Jane run." and so forth. To this day, I have no idea who Dick and Jane are. In a Steiner school, children first learn to write (in Class 1). They copy what the teacher puts on the board. By the end of the year, they have a book full of short sentences that they have written themselves. Come the next year, the same approach takes place. Again they copy what the teacher writes on the board. The difference is that later in that year, they begin to read it as well. What is it they actually learn to read? They learn to read something they wrote themselves, copying what the teacher wrote. Suddenly, it makes sense. It makes sense because they were part of the process that wrote the word and they can relate to what they wrote. This is what a Steiner school means a child development appropriate education. By this age (around 7-8 years old) the child can sit still long enough and allow his or her eyes to do the "running about". In other words, around this age, it is appropriate for the child to learn to read because they have developed to such a degree that they may now sit still long enough to learn.

All subjects and presented to the children in a Steiner school in this manner. This is why we can say that a Steiner school covers all the academic requirements of any school. It just does it appropriately.

Of course, some children will be gifted and will pick up reading earlier. This is a quality unique to this child. And, based on the above description, one can also see how modern life, TV, video games, etc, can have a strong impact on the child's development.. but that is another discussion.

We all remember history class

This is short description of how history works in a Steiner school. I have posted it with the hope of encouraging discussion to understand more about Steiner education

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We all remember history class. It was that really horrible class where we had to memorize dates and famous people (with names we couldn’t spell or pronounce), and larger than life events that had happened so long ago we didn’t even feel connected. Ah yes, this is the history class we love, and love to complain about. And yet, in Steiner schools, history is a class that spans about 12 years, namely from grades one to twelve. It is deeply imbedded in stories of the lower grades, and transformed into historical events in the upper grades. It is this relationship, this transformation of history in the lower grades to the upper grades that remains a unique feature of Steiner schools. This transformation clearly illustrates how the work in the classroom meets the development of the child.
Let’s take an example of starting the history in grade four. This is not a whimsical choice. There is a specific reason for starting in grade four. In a Steiner school grade four is the first time that the child meets history as we, the parents, conventionally understand it. In grade four, the young student is introduced to ancient civilizations, the Indians, Persians, Egyptians and the numerous contributions of these civilizations to the fabric of human development. To better understand what is so special about grade four, we need to situate ourselves in another historical event.
Imagine standing on the edge of a river just 50 kilometers from Rome. Behind you is your loyal and experienced army. It is a cold January day in 49 B.C. and you have been recalled to Rome. You know the existing Roman laws prevent you from bringing your army within less then 50 kilometers; but you efficient network of spies inform you that the consuls in Rome, worried about your successes against the Gauls, have decided to incarcerate you. It is the decision of a lifetime. With a sweep of your arm, you lead your army across the river and towards Rome. “Ala jacta, est!” is what history records as your statement during that fateful moment. Ala jacta est…the die is cast. Thus Julius Ceasar crossed the Rubicon, marched onto Rome and, as they say, the rest is history.
What this story brings as a picture is an important event in the fourth graders’ life: a coming of age, an expression of him or herself; the first tentative footsteps toward freedom as an individual. Around this age (9-11), the young student feels stirring within him or her, the initial impulses of this freedom. No longer are they under the spell of the parents: they are slowly, yet surely, awakening to that impulse within them that will eventually develop into their free being.
In step with this event, therefore, the history class must reflect this. It is not a surprise, then, the history in grade four starts to look at ancient civilizations, civilizations that brought about the first transformations for humanity, be it in agriculture, science, or art. These civilizations also reflect the first steps of humanity to take control of their destiny, and not leave everything to the gods…. like a fourth grader taking the first tentative steps towards freedom and independence. What used to be one world with one history is now a world full of many “histories” reflecting a wide range of independent steps taken by humanity in the course of its development.
A key to the transformation of this experience into ninth grade history lies in the changes brought about by these ancient civilizations, changes that may be referred to as “revolutions”. Yes, there was an agricultural revolution that occurred in ancient times; there was a social revolution; there were many transformations that may be referred to as revolutions. Appropriately enough, then, the theme of history in grade nine is revolutions, as this completes the transformation begun in grade four.
In grade four, the young student begins to experience changes brought by man. But all these changes bring about great civilizations. The unspoken question is then why do these civilizations pass away? Part of this may be seen in the discussion of revolutions in grade nine; but the seed for this question is planted in grade four. Yes, man’s development has allowed great civilizations to arise; but man’s “mischief” or misuse of this development, may bring about the collapse. This picture of misguided intellect comes through a different story for the fourth grader; it comes in the shape of Loki, the Norse god who causes the ultimate destruction of Valhalla and the death of Odin. These stories do not come in history class; they will come in the literature class. Here the fourth graders will experience that such a skill, such freedom, may also be abused to the detriment of all. But it is a story and a good one at that, where the evil or wicked nature of Loki is unmistakable. And through this story, a seed is planted, a seed that will germinate for the next four years to blossom in grade nine as a question – how can all this happen? This is the opening necessary in the context of polarities, the theme for grade nine, to now bring in the history of revolutions – real, violent, modern. People die (not just the citizens of Valhalla) in revolutions. This is the result of the deeds of men as well, just like the great civilizations; but here, the contrast between different points of view, different perspectives of the truth, is inevitable. The world may be a place of transformation but it is also a place of turmoil.
Thus, over time, a question that remains incipient in grade four, now blossoms fully in grade nine and is met in the history curriculum. In grade four, the civilizations are great, beautiful, testimonies to man’s greatness and individuality; but lurking the background is the Loki in each man, the Loki that can bring about Ragnarok, the end of the world. As the independence of the young student grows, the Loki in them becomes more inquisitive, more active, probing and testing the world until confrontation with the world is inevitable. Now the light of the civilizations meets the darkness of Loki. Men must choose; men are always right; what is the truth? These are questions of the young adolescent. Revolutions that changed the world will help the young adolescent in grade nine meet these questions.
Yes, history is still about dates and places, and people. When seen in the totality of the curriculum of a Steiner school, it is possible to see the continuity of the story of man that started in grade four and is transformed in grade nine.

আমার ইতিহাসের শিক্ষক

  মনে পড়ছে আমার ইতিহাসের শিক্ষক মনীন্দ্রনাথ মাইতির কথা। এতো সুন্দর করে তিনি পড়াতেন মনে হতো প্রতিদিন আকর্ষনীয় কোনো গল্প বলছেন। বাড়ি ফিরে নোট বানানোর সময় বই থেকে কিছু খুজতে হতো না। ছবির মতো সব মনে ভেসে উঠতো, সহজেই লিখে ফেলতাম।

  ওনার ক্লাসে আসার সময় আমরা দরজার দিকে তাকিয়ে থাকতাম। কখন উনি আসেন - ,উনি এসে সবার থেকে জানতে চাইতেন আগের দিনের পড়ার কে কোথয় বুঝতে পারনি? তার পর নতুন গল্প শুরু করতেন। সবাই শান্ত ভাবে বসে মগ্ন হয়ে ওনাকে শুনতাম। পরের ক্লাসের শিক্ষক যখন দরজার সামনে এসে দাড়াত তখন সবার ঘোর ভাঙত। তখন তিনি তার পাঠ শেষ করতেন, মাঝে মাঝে কোন বিষয় যদি একটু বড় হয় অন্য শিক্ষককে বলে দু-তিনটা ক্লাস একসংগে নিয়ে নিতেন। সেই সময়টাতে সকলের মাঝে এক স্বপ্নিল আবেশ বিরাজ করত।

  কিন্তু আমার ইংরেজীর শিক্ষক ছিলেন অন্যরকম, তিনি যখন ক্লাসে ঢুকতেন হাতে তার থাকতো একটা ছড়িআর একটা বই। ঢুকেই সবাইকে জিগ্গেস করত কালকে যে পড়া দিয়ে ছিলাম সবার হয়েছে? বুঝতে পার না পার ওনার পড়া মুখস্ত বলতে হবে।না পারলে কাকঁদতে হবে কিংবা পুরোটা সময় ওনার ক্লাসে দাড়িয়ে থাকতে হতো। তাই কোনো দিন ওনার ক্লাসে প্রথম বেঞ্চে বসতাম না পেছনে বসে অন্যদের সাথে গল্প করতাম।উনি শুধু বই দেখে পড়ে যেতেন। ঐ বিষয়ের প্রতি অনুরাগ জন্মায় নি। কোনো দিন নিজের থেকে পড়তে ইছে করত না বিষয়টি শুধু পরীক্ষার সময় জোর করে সবার বকুনি খেয়ে পড়ে পরীক্ষায় লিখতাম। পরে সব ভুলে যেতাম।

বীথি বেরা।
প্রাক্তন ছাত্রী, রাঙাবেলিয়া হাইষ্কুল।

Real questions from a real parent on Steiner education

In 25 words or less, each word of less than 4 syllables, what is anthroposophy? Is this the same as 'Steiner's philosophy' and 'the Steiner school method'?

Anthroposophy is a framework for understanding the human being’s spiritual and physical nature without one denying the other. The Waldorf approach is the application of anthroposophy in the field of education.

How is Steiner’s phillosophy applied to the Steiner education?
Anthroposophy is the foundation of Steiner education. It allows the child to learn in the context of both his\her spiritual and physical natures as they unfold in the course of their growth and development on earth. To be clear, spiritual is not used in a religious sense; it refers to those qualities in human beings that we experience but may not be physically palpable.

What are the stages of man's growth? What is the basis for this? How do the stages translate to education and maturity?

The basic cycle is the seven-year development of man; i.e. every seven years, a change occurs in man that brings about new possibilities of learning. The biological basis if you like is that it takes seven years to replace all the cells in your body. So every seven years, you have a new body. For a child, for example, the first real body that they have which is their own will come around the age of seven. Before that, their body is composed of the cells of the parents. Thus, Steiner education is founded on a deep understanding of this cycle and therefore prepares an education for the child that is appropriate for the development that they are undergoing at the time.

Over the seven years, the body’s forces are used to develop some element or quality of the human being. In the first seven years, the forces and strength of the body are to complete the physical body of the child. Organs, for example, only complete their development during the first seven years of an individual’s life. The culmination of this development is physiologically experienced as the birthing of adult teeth. The teeth are one of the hardest elements in the human body and so take the longest to complete (hence the agony of wisdom teeth even at a later age). At this point, when the child is about 6-7 years old, the body now has extra energy, the very energy that was necessary to complete the organs and the teeth for example, is now available for something else. That “something else” is school. The energy is now channeled into capacity to learn. It takes energy to sit still and listen. Since the physical body is now complete (it will only change in size), the energy that was necessary for the completion of the physical body is used to keep the same body still and to listen to the teacher. This process repeats every seven years (more or less) until about 21 with the birth of the ego, an individual’s highest self. Then the process starts over but now experienced by the individual as an adult. Other aspects develop and other insights are unveiled.

What are the learning objectives in each stage?

There are two ways to look at this… objectives and themes. Objectives are more complicated in the sense that these tend to color our expectations. For example, if we say that the objective of grade 2 learning is to be able to read simple words, then this becomes an expectation on reading. However, in real life, this is not the case. There are different themes through each year of school. These themes carry an experience of the child. These may also be been seen to correspond to the development of the 12 senses of the human being. In this way, one perspective, themes, is like a vessel to hold the individual; the other experience of the unfolding of the senses is to bring what is “inside” to the outer world. The themes that guide the 12 years are:

1. Grade 1 = Fairy Tale World (also the Spirit in the world and nature)
2. Grade 2 = Archetype
3. Grade 3 = Hebrew (not in the religious sense but in the wandering and searching sense, i.e. exodus)
4. Grade 4 = Norse mythology
5. Grade 5 = Greek world
6. Grade 6 = Roman world
7. Grade 7 = Medieval world
8. Grade 8 = Industrial world
9. Grade 9 = Polarities
10. Grade 10 = Process
11. Grade 11 = Analysis
12. Grade 12 = Synthesis

This can be discussed further through an interactive discussion for better clarity.

Can maturity and growth really be expected to proceed on a straight-line method?
No. That is purely an invention of modern science. To say yes to this question would be to deny the innate individuality of everyone on earth. However, this also does not mean that the development of growth and maturity does not follow a cycle. It does and there is every opportunity to appreciate and understand what has transpired so that we can learn and grow from that situation.

What happens to children in the Steiner school environment who mature earlier or later than their peers?

There is no motherhood answer for each individual would have to be seen in light of their karma, destiny, and the constellation of their friends. Each case must be seen on an individual basis.

Anthroposophy seems so western in its rigidity and intellectualism. Are there any aspects of fuzzy eastern thought that are integrated in anthroposophy that would make it more flexible, more 'spiritual' rather than focused on the material world, more other-worldly? I know there are the verses but even these seem very western philosophical.

In the west they would probably say that anthroposophy is very eastern in its philosophy. What makes it “rigid” is that spiritual science may be studied via a scientific method. This means learning and experiencing our spiritual nature may be achieved by everyone following a scientific approach. This does not turn it into cold and hard science, rather, it makes it accessible to everyone. One of the qualities of the scientific method is that it is replicable and the same result should occur. What Steiner brought through anthroposophy was the chance for everyone to have access to their spiritual nature through the proper preparation and training. In the old days, such clairvoyance was only possible to those selected few known as initiates. In older civilizations, initiates had many names ranging from priests, to pharaoh, to oracle, and so forth. Access to the spiritual world, so to speak, was only possible through these select few. As the world has changed and modernized, such talents have slowly slipped from humanity’s experience. Steiner is proposing that such talents are now available to all through an approach known as spiritual science, an alternative name for anthroposophy, and because it is a science, others can achieve the same results following an approach. This does not mean, however, that all one has to do is memorize the approach. Exercises provided by Steiner to develop these capacities are difficult due to their simplicity.

Having said that, anthroposophy is Christ-centered and gives every individual the chance to learn about it, grapple about it, in an individual manner. Steiner always gives two bits of advice: 1) don’t believe him just because he said – try it and find out for yourself and 2) he is offering an alternative point of view, that’s all. If anthroposophy is experienced with any rigidity of any sort, then it is possible that this is a dead form of anthroposophy. Of course this does not mean anything goes. On the other hand, anthroposophy has a very interesting way of developing each individual to eventually see a commonality in their experiences, not a uniformity. One may say that anthroposophy, for a philosophy, is quite practical in its nature.

Have any controlled evaluations been done on the Steiner education?

There probably are some out in the world somewhere. There are also evaluations done in reverse, i.e. what happens to students who pursue “mainstream” education. The fact that there are so many of us does not make it better. It could simply mean that it was appropriate for our time. Furthermore, success of Steiner education graduates are not usually headline news items. They generally find success in work that is socially oriented and not the usual business or news headline grabbers. The best guide that I can think of to answer this is the readiness of our graduates to face the challenges of the world, confident that they can address the issues that arise not because they know a lot but because they feel they have capacity to overcome the hurdle.

Are there any empirical (see, now you've got me spouting western philosophical terms) proofs to support anthroposophy, other than theories and anecdotal stories?

What proof is sufficient proof? In many respects the question is what is the truth? If a grownup says that they saw an angel, how will the world react? If a child says that they saw an angel how would the parents react? Is seeing the only way to experience an angel? While sight dominates our world, it represents a fraction of the entire experience. We choose to let light and color dominate our experience of the world. When this happens, the narrow experience of sight effectively makes us forget the other elements of the experience. What is the empirical proof that your spouse loves you and is faithful to you? In modern life, where we may not see our spouses for the most of the day, we consistently believe that we have proof that they are faithful and love us.

This is the challenge of empirical proof. What does empirical really mean? What does proof really mean? The root word of empirical is the Greek empeirikos which means experienced. On the other hand, proof comes from the Latin act of testing or making trial of anything. Thus, empirical proof would literally mean the experience of testing or making trial of anything. As you can see, empirical proof is in the experience not in the end result. Thus, anthroposophy is really about testing the experience one has. As parents, we currently experience Steiner education as parents, not as a children and so we can test our experiences as parents. Part of these experiences include our experiences of our children and their experiences through their eyes. So, in a certain sense, the proof of the pudding is in how we experience our own children. In a strange way, one could ask parents… do we trust our own experiences relative to our children.

The children in the upper levels seem exceptional in their abilities, in their intelligence, in their outlook of life, but what amount is due to Steiner education, and what is due to the exceptional family atmosphere created by exceptional parents?

This is only one perception. What is true about Steiner education is that the more involved the parents are in the education of the child, the more the child will “maximize” the chance to have a Steiner education. Parents who are actively involved in any child’s education, whether Steiner education or not, always give their children the chance to do better. The wonderful thing about Steienr education is we cannot give the children the answer to their questions. This is because Steiner education does not approach education simply through a question and answer perspective. Parents are challenged to work with the children and work through the experience as well.

Why is it that even parents of children who have been in the Steiner system for years, find in hard to accept the Steiner philosophy, and need to be constantly reassured that yes, it works, yes, it's good, yes, your children will learn, and no, they will not get left behind in the big, bad
world out there?

The best ones to answer this question are the parents who have these questions. What are the genuine fears of parents or the individuals who are the parents? The fears we often express in public are our sanitized fears; however, this is not the root cause fear. The fact that an individual may need continuous validation is also a question in itself. This does not diminish the fear; but the fear is a window to the inner being of the one who fears.

Is it possible they have extra-sensory perception powers that are warning them against the Steienr system, powers that I am sorely lacking? You see, I don't know anything about the philosophy, but I trust the process. I have faith in the system. but then, that's faith, isn't it?
the acceptance of things unexplainable and mysterious.

If they had genuine ESP, who knows what they might be doing. In any case, you could ask yourself the question… why do you have faith in the system? Faith is a very real experience. We should not demean it. What we forget is that faith is ultimately founded on knowledge. So perhaps we know something, this is why we have faith. The fact that we don’t know what it is that we do know will not alter the faith and is a completely different question.

How much can we tweak, modify, or localize Steiner education before it stops being Steiner education?

It depends on your definition of “tweak, modify or localize.” All Steiner schools have individuality. All Steiner schools work with the inherent culture of the countries in which they are located. These may also be perceived as tweaking, modifying or localizing the approach. The guideline is anthroposophy and its application to education (in the case of Steiner education). Once fundamental pillars of the philosophy, e.g. that man is spirit, soul, etheric, and physical body, are compromised, then one could say that the system or the approach is no longer consistent with what is generally referred to as Steiner education.

We're toying with the idea of holding teachers to 4-year terms rather than 8-year terms because of the difficulty of long-term commitments. But what's to stop this from being 2-year terms, or 1-year terms?

The challenge is the word “commitment.” This is almost like saying that a pre-nup agreement (an agreement between couples about to marry describing what and how things will be shared or divided if they separate) automatically prepares the couple for their eventual separation. Otherwise, if they were truly committed to each other, then they know that they could not separate or at least, they would enter the agreement with the belief that separation is not an option. Commitment literally means to do together. If the teacher is the bride, who is the groom? If the teacher commits, who will she work with to meet her end of the commitment? This is the real question in this case. The schools position is to still encourage the teachers to stay eight years accepting four as the minimum with the understanding that in some cases, there are teachers who work best in grades 1-4 and these are different from grades 5-8. Even existing Steiner schools have documented instances where teachers struggled beyond grade 5 and then recycled to grade 1 with a new teacher taking on the pre-adolescents.

And is it still Steiner education?

The question is what is the problem. Any solution is only as good as the problem identified. One of the greatest challenges in anthroposophy is coming up with the right question, the question that will open insight. The challenge is commitment. Commitment is a modern day question because it requires individuals working with others in community. For this reason, marriages, vocations, even business objectives are generally fraught with the issue of commitment. Commitment, by its very definition, means to send out together. Thus whether we send out or do something, the key element is that it is done together. Together with whom is the next obvious question. Thus a teacher’s commitment to eight years, for example, also requires the togetherness of the community she is in, the students, the parents, her fellow teachers, non-teaching personnel, etc. Without the commitment of the others, there is no “together” to speak of in terms of meeting one’s commitment. A teacher, regardless of how long they stay, will recognize their limitations in meeting their end of the commitment if they begin only with a one-year framework. While the teacher struggles with the daily grind of teaching, ideally, they keep a vision of the entire 12-year process of Steiner education.

If training teachers in the Steiner philosophy is so difficult and expensive, wouldn't it be better to pay the teachers higher salaries already?

Of course this is true; but in the nature of social communities, this is not how it works. This is a long and complex answer that goes into the nature of anthroposophical economics as well. The teachers are basically paid what they say they need. So if they say they need 10K a month, and we offer more and she refuses, then this is the call of the teacher. Working in communities, as discussed in anthroposophy, is quite complicated and not as clear-cut as we like to think. The overall administration of a Steiner school is a an entire field of study in itself, covering the breathe of community life, alternative economics, community social justice and rights protection while retaining its practical nature. So you can see, it is quite a challenge in its own way.

The Two Faces of Math

This is short article on a different perspective on learning math. Steiner school approach math in quite a different way and yet covers all the main concerns we, as parents, would normally have. Think of this as an overview of what may be possible if only one class, like math, were percieved in a different way...

The Two Faces of Math
One of the greatest anxieties of parents, particularly in the current times is how well will our kids will do in math. Of course we worry about the other subjects too, but math in particular seems to attract special attention. It is not unusual that many an entrance exams or preparatory exams to universities only tests two subjects: language and math.

With language we don’t seem as concerned. We figure, I suppose, that eventually and because we use it daily, our children will develop a proficiency in language that will allow them to survive. Some may develop an extraordinary proficiency that will turn them into authors. Unfortunately, we don’t view math in the same light. Math seems to have something “extra” that requires special effort to prepare for in order to effectively overcome. And, there are realms of math that are totally unapproachable, as far as the average person is concerned.

So why is it that we have such a relationship with math? Most of us, I am sure, have some horror story from math class. And, rightfully perhaps, we all want our children to do better than we did. All this, however, does not reveal to us what is this hidden “something” in math that makes us have such a relationship with it.
I think it is important, first of all, to understand that math has two different qualities. The first, the one we are most conscious about and concerned about is what you may call a mechanical quality. The mechanical quality is the reason why we drill in math; for example, 2+2=4 all the time. There is no shortcut. Effectively we have to remember this. The most common mechanical drill in math is the multiplication table. We need to remember this table in order to do multiplication. There is no shortcut. Hours of math exercises we traveled through the various grades in school made this quite clear to us. Either we learned and memorized or we didn’t. The fact that this is a mechanical skill does not mean we have to spend hours hunkered down in a chair memorizing. It can also be achieved through wonderful games with younger children where they do certain movements or activities in relation to learning these drills. Eventually, it forms part of their memory and they simply have to recall it to use. Whatever the case may be, this is the quality of math that we are most familiar with and have, perhaps, the greatest expectations.

There is, however, another quality of math that we are less conscious about although we encounter it just as frequently as the mechanical quality. This is what I call the spiritual quality of math. Math was the quality to become. What could this possibly mean? If I asked anyone to show me the number 1 in the world, they will find that this is impossible. Try it. Find the number 1 in the world used as a noun and not an adjective and you will find that this is impossible to do (or at least my friends and I have not been successful). The reason is more obvious that it looks… the number 1 does not exist in the world. It only exists in our minds, as a concept streaming from a time before our birth. We cannot effectively show what 1 looks like on earth. However, we all understand what it is. As in the equation above, 2+2=4, effectively does not exist in the physical world; however, it is true nonetheless as we experience it in our minds or hearts or wherever. It has a potential that can be unlocked. It is spiritual in the sense that it is not physically manifest in the world.

Herein lies the challenge of appreciating and understanding math. In our anxiety to ensure that our children are “good in math” we tend to confuse the two qualities of math. In other words, the rules that apply in the mechanical side of math do not apply to the spiritual side of math and vice versa. This is a tough one to grasp. A child who drills and drills in math improves their memory but not necessarily their understanding; whereas a child who works purely on understanding math does not necessarily develop the skill to do equations quickly. The two are separate. One exists as a skill, the other exists as a picture in our heads. As parents, when we complain that “our child can’t do math” what are we really complaining about? Are we complaining that the child’s mechanical skill in math needs improvement or the other way around? Could it not also be possible that the real challenge in developing any proficiency in math is linking the two, the mechanical with the spiritual while each retains their rules? Drilling does not build understanding. It builds habits and mechanical skill. Conceptualizing does not build a mechanical skill. Math requires both.

The burden on the teachers is tremendous. They must guide the children through an experience that will allow them to learn to bridge the two qualities of math. How can this be done? There is a simple way to link the two: a word problem.
Word problems are stories loaded with numbers. All word problems could easily begin with “Once upon a time…”and end with “…and they lived happily ever after.” In fact fairy tales, like those compiled by the brothers Grimm are loaded with numbers. A great way to appreciate a word problem is literally to treat it like a story, which it is. The quest in the story is how to make everyone live happily ever after. People live happily ever after because there is a balance, a harmony in the kingdom, the land, between the prince and the princess. That harmony is what math is all about. It even has its own symbol “=” to indicate this harmony. The final line in any word problem includes the “=” sign. Word problems are very useful because they help us build a picture in our heads where the numbers live and yet it has a practical application because in the end, there must be an answer. When looked at this way, we come to realize that making a good word problem maybe a bit of a challenge. Nonsensical word problems are just that much more difficult to resolve. In stories, the good prince always defeats the dragon to win the princess. Thus word problems should have a similar quality.

The objective of the word problem is for the child to develop an understanding of the relationship between the spiritual quality of math and the mechanical quality. In this way, the child begins to develop the bridge between the two. It is a great pity that when we grew up, solving word problems remained mechanical, i.e. we extracted the numbers and fit them into equations, totally ignoring the story. Who knows how many great stories we might have missed. As a result, word problems have degraded into statements so that the numbers can be easily extracted. They ceased being stories. They became mechanical exercises.

If we look at math in this way, we also begin to understand that there is a time and place for everything. I will use a 12-year system as an example (I grew up in one so I am most familiar with it). In the first four years (grades 1-4) math is in its formative state. This means that during these years, it is good for the child to learn the qualities of numbers (this includes the four basic operations and fractions). The four basic operations and fractions work because of the quality of numbers: they can be broken apart and put together again. The first four years in grade school is all about learning these qualities. If we don’t come to grips with the qualities of numbers, we will not be able to do any more math.

The middle years, grades 5-8, are about building bridges. This is where children encounter genuine word problems for the first time. They begin to see that numbers and math have intrinsic qualities that produce wonderful combinations. However, there is also more. To be able to bridge to the more spiritual quality of math, they will have to learn to build bridges. Thus word problems become a great learning step during the middle years. Geometry is introduced and geometry is great material for word problem or stories. All of geometry, which means to measure the earth, is spiritual in the sense that it is not visible in the physical world. We see expressions of geometric shapes; but as we learn about geometry, we also learn that these geometric shapes are pure imagination.

These middle years are then followed by upper school (grades 9-12). Here math enters a highly spiritual realm, algebra, trigonometry, calculus among others. Understanding these subjects requires a good foundation in the mechanical qualities of math and a good imagination, hence the spiritual qualities of math. Otherwise, there is no possible way to actually grasp the significance of a=bc or even the idea of an irrational number. To do higher math, an imagination cultivated on stories such as fairy tales and word problems, is essential.

As we look back on how we learned math, and try to reflect on the less memorable moments, perhaps we can see how our teachers then muddled up the various qualities of math and numbers. We hope, as we raise our children now, that a different way of looking a math may make it enjoyable and wonderful. Just like a good story.

A Steiner School pupil's memories

My memories from my education in the Rudolf Steiner School of Verrières-le-Buisson (France) are in equally stark contrast to what is generally criticised in schools, and to what is generally considered as "the way forward", the latest trend in addressing these failures.

My teachers never used "teaching aids". A blackboard, white and coloured chalk, that's all. When there was a need for direct observation or experience, we went on a visit (to farms, flour mills, factories, museums, other schools, etc.) or we practised handicrafts (clay, wood, stone, iron, cupper, wool knitting, stitching, gardening, cooking, etc.) In classes 10, 11 and 12 we worked for 2 weeks as trainees, successively in a farm, in a factory, and in an old-age home or home for mentally handicapped, etc. Even the science classes were based on the most simple ingredients, found in kitchens or hardware shops. In class 10 we all had to built our own electric engine, with a piece of wood, 2 nails and 2 pins, and some wire salvaged from a discarded transformer. In fact, almost everything that we had in our hands was made by us and everything that we learnt was through our own activity. But nothing was left to chance or unprepared: If you really want all your pupils in a class to have a rotating electric engine on their desk within one-and-a-half hour, you have to prepare at home for much more than that!

In our school surroundings, we could see only things made by us and sometimes by our teachers, or taken from nature. Even the school buildings were partly built with the hands of the parents and teachers. There was no photographs and no printed material anywhere on the walls, except the mandatory "exit" lights prescribed by the fire department. But the walls were very colourful, painted afresh in a new colour, every year, by ourselves under the direction of our class teacher, as we shifted into a new classroom. Our latest paintings and drawings were carefully affixed on the walls by our teacher, never a selection of "the best ones", but all the paintings of the entire class on a given theme or exercise, covering the entire surface of a wall. This was not a beautification exercise, not even remotely a competition or even a comparison: The names, generally written behind, were not easily visible. It never collected dust, since the wall surfaces were limited, it had to be removed to give place for the next painting/drawing exercise. It was not intended to impress our parents or outsiders: In fact, the entrance hall, the refectory, the school offices, the teacher’s room and all public spaces were never "decorated" with our paintings or any pupil’s school work. This periodically renewed class-room exhibition was just a part of our work, to look at the result of our labour, for a while. And this made our class rooms much more than colourful and beautiful: It was alive and permeated with meaning.

There was no T.V., no video, no sound system. When computers were introduced, it was not as a teaching aid for injecting mathematics or geography in the primary classes, in a more "funny" and dreamy manner. On the contrary, the course was rather stern and designed to help the elder pupils to experience the mechanisms and the concepts that make computers run, and to enable them, based on their own experience and rational thinking, to dissipate the cloud of magic surrounding these machines. The pupils were very eager for this course.

Children's reverence for their teachers

I never saw a teacher reading something in class, except, sometimes, for reading aloud a historical quotation, or when we were studying a piece of literature in the language classes. For all the other subjects, history, geography, mathematics, geometry, geology, biology, zoology, physics, etc. etc. our teachers never, never brought a book with them in the class room. They really had to prepare seriously! And we had an instinctive feeling of great respect for what was going to happen in the class, for we knew that our teacher, our dear teacher, had prepared something specially for us, for that very hour indeed, and we had a great respect for that particular time, this encounter with knowledge, that our teacher had prepared for us. We knew it was unique, and as I remember it was always an experience. It was unique in one more sense: Although our teacher knew each one of us very well, it was not possible for him or her to foresee exactly our reaction to a particular subject, to a particular idea or experience, and he/she had to improvise all the time, as only well-prepared people can do.

Of course, with the passing of time, and specially since I have myself been a teacher for some time, I understand that sometimes, when the course was disappointing, maybe because the teacher was tired, or was too busy the day before, it was often because he or she didn’t prepare seriously his/her class for the day. And sometimes it was also us, the pupils, who were tired and didn’t do justice to the hard homework of our teacher. But in a sense things were clear: There was no short cut, no escape to one’s responsibility, and not much scope for confusion about how to address the problem, on the teacher’s side and on our side.

Homework

In a sense, the moral justification for our home work came from the ample evidence that our teacher was doing a lot of home work. And sometimes, our laziness had its origin in our teacher’s laziness! We were followers. Our encounter with knowledge was carefully organised by our teachers.

Competition?

It was not before the age of about 30 years old that I discovered that in most schools, in fact almost all schools except Steiner schools and very few others, competitions are organised. This is particularly strong in India, where there are competitions on just about everything: exams, drawing, poetry, sports, songs, etc. No child activity is spared. One just can’t imagine a school cultural programme in India which doesn’t conclude with a distribution of first, second and third prizes. And it is astonishing how seriously people take it: They exhibit the school prizes of their children in their drawing room for visitors to admire, and instead of mitigating this social pressure they often add their weight to it, by gifting and celebrating their child, or scolding him, depending on his ranking in the competition.

Values?

Of course society has always a tendency to infuse its values in schools, and competition is one of these values. Gandhi doesn’t have many genuine followers. I understand now what a blessing it was to be born in an environment where competition is a part of life (it took the centre stage in professional sports, elections, and in many love movies), but had definitely no place in school.

A non-competitive school would not be difficult to make, if the only goal was educating children. In fact, it is much more easy and efficient to teach in a non-competitive manner, and much more is achieved without the distraction caused by the burden of competition. But schools are not answerable to children only, but also to society: Parents must justify to their friends and neighbours, how well their child is doing in school, and how good their school is. Schools must justify to the government how well they perform, and so on. In fact, it was this administrative necessity (government’s rules) that was at the origin of the first marks I ever saw, at the age of 18 years old. I was leaving the school, and my teachers had to translate their rather insightful, pointed and accurate observations into marks, to facilitate my admission for the 12th class into a mainstream school, because I had decided to prepare for the most competitive higher secondary examination (mathematics), to please my parents and my vanity, and because my Steiner school was not preparing for that particular maths examination.

So, at an age when some people discover that there is a world beyond marks and competition, I decidedly embraced the world of competition from which I had been so carefully protected. But there was never any doubt in my mind that this competitive world is just an insignificant and conventional set of arbitrary rules, sometimes useful in some very few and specific areas of life (like professional sports, politics, selecting an industrial process or machine, or getting admission in prestigious engineering schools), and that the only important thing in life is, what you are actually doing. This certitude was built in my early childhood.

Values!

A truly non-competitive school has deep implications; In fact everything can be drawn from that premise, and this is also the most outstanding idea shared by Steiner, Tagore and Gandhi about education. A non-competitive school is not only a proper environment for children, it is also a the proper answer to important problems of society. Therefore a good school has deep political implications. Which doesn't mean pupils should be "taught" politically correct ideas. On the contrary, children are never involved in political debates and arguments, which always get some air of ridicule when we try to bring these ideas to children. But the attitude of their teachers is consciously determined by many ideas, including political. Which doesn't even mean that it has to be perfectly uniform in the school, because what children need is to live in the company of adults who make a conscious effort to work responsibly. They have an instinctive respect for this.

A school is a very special institution indeed, because it is a creation of society that must be protected from the values of society. Society believes in competition and violence, it is even officially, openly based on capitalist competition and on government violence (This is not an advocacy for any sudden abolition of capitalist competition or government violence) but children have absolutely nothing to do with this. They are not concerned, and they don’t have to, before some maturity, enough interior strength, self confidence, and ability to trust others, is acquired.

What are children?

Children can't learn directly from nature or from experience. Their path to knowledge is mediatised by the adults around them. That's why everybody, everywhere, feels that, in front of a child, one has to "behave". It is not a cultural code, it is a perception of what children really need. And that is why children, even when grown-up, always remember with reverence their teachers.

A child is like a question mark, whose adult life is an attempt at an answer. In any society, education has always been based on the assumption that every child has a specific purpose in life, and therefore the only possible education is to feed the child with whatever is needed for gathering the strength for the child to achieve that purpose as an adult.

Steiner even said that "the child is a question that the spiritual world asks to the material world". He then went on elaborating that the cause of materialism in education comes from selfishness, because people are generally much more concerned about "the life after death" (meaning in fact, a confused desire for a kind of continuation of our material life and all our habits, possessions etc.) than about what comes in this world through birth, or so to say, "life before birth", which obviously has absolutely nothing to do with any of our small personnal habits, possessions, etc. And then he argued that a genuine concern for what manifests itself by birth, coming from the "spiritual world", or in other words, the children, is the basis of education.

This observation of Steiner seems to be more relevant today than it was 80 years ago, because unfortunately, our mainstream education system really looks like a tragic attempt at sterilising the fresh air that our dear children bring with them.