Introduction

This lecture focuses on the importance of cognitive and moral virtues for educators. There are included in the study materials some extensive extracts from Steiner on this topic and which constitute the primary study material here (see pdf document called “Virtues for Educators -Extracts”). There is also included in the learning materials the complete pdf document of Steiner’s “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds” (KHW). The extracts are composed of the practical aspects of Steiner’s writings on this topic and so it is worthwhile considering the reason for this. For those who are interested, a reading of the full text is worthwhile and what one may find there are two distinct, but inter-leaved, categories of content: The Metaphysical Ideas and the Practical Virtues.

L3) Virtues for Educators.By Dr Robert Rose

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The Metaphysical Ideas

In the supplied text, it can be observed that the primary objective there is to describe a developmental path for those wishing to “attain knowledge of higher worlds”. The text contains terms and expressions which refer to a proposed different levels of reality than that provided by the sense world: “higher beings”, chakras, astral body, etc. There is extensive anthroposophical literature related to this. Some people, however, may find such references off-putting, and, when faced with the many questions that teachers are, may sometimes wonder what such references have to do with them: why should I bother striving to reach higher worlds (assuming they exist) when I have a class of children to deal with? For such people, in the long term, this can lead to a rejection of anthroposophy and which can end up with a “Waldorf Education without Steiner” (or without anthroposophy) as reported in Jost Schieren’s article (cf Reading section in the Learning Materials). The only problem is that this “attaining higher worlds” is, in the first instance, about the development of fundamental cognitive and moral virtues that can help a person be a good teacher or good person generally. In the case of the former, Waldorf / Steiner education is entirely dependent on these, so the statement “Waldorf Education without Steiner”, from this perspective, is an oxymoron.

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The Practical Virtues

As the reader will see, the “spiritual development” that Steiner refers to is, in the first stage, about the improvement of already existent cognitive and moral capacities, or as one may say “practical virtues”. There is nothing very strange about any of the exercises from a purely practical point of view and one may simply focus on this perspective should one wish. So when Steiner writes about “positivity, openmindedness, equanimity, etc” one can, should one wish, concentrate on what value these can have for the teacher, or anyone else for that matter. If the metaphysical element is of no interest, one can simply see the exercises as practical measures to become a good example, a good natural authority or a good guide (see Lecture 1, first table, this module). These virtues are also of much significance for parents and carers in Steiner Education contexts.

The first set of virtues in the texts was specifically given to teachers and which Steiner considered to be fundamental for good teaching. The second set are the ones laid out by Steiner that he considered to be vital for the formation of a good healthy person as well as providing the grounds for a just society. They form part of his discourses on Self-Development generally.

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In the attached extracts, the black texts are quotes taken from Steiner whilst all other colours, as well as black bold, are very minor changes to the original. All pictures are additions.

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What are Virtues?

There are a number of different interpretations in modern philosophy of what

constitutes a virtue, but our aim here is to understand the concept of virtue in the context of Steiner / Waldorf Education. Broadly speaking, a virtue may be seen as a capacity for the Good. In terms of the previous lecture, a virtue may be conceptualised as an embedded capacity, or ability, in our characterological disposition so that the good may come about. In the context of teaching, this, by implication, means having or acquiring abilities so that good teaching may come about. In Steiner education, this means that teachers strive to have or acquire capacities for good education.

There are two basic categories of virtue in this context. The first is cognitive, this means that teachers seek to develop the abilities to acquire knowledge, of whatever type, and which can lead to good actions. In terms of Steiner Education, this means cultivating the inner disposition to observe and think clearly and truthfully leading to good deeds.

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The second type of virtue is directly ethical or moral. In this context, this means the inner character dispositions that lead to good action. This means for example, in terms of the previous lecture, dispositions for moral intuition, moral imagination, moral technique and moral love.

There are also a number of different types of virtue related to the universal constitution of the human being: body related virtues, spirit / soul related virtues in “I”, thinking, feeling, willing, imagination and perception.

The supplied text extracts show Steiner’s suggestions for how a person may acquire or develop such virtues.

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Openmindedness

One of the primary educational virtues is that of openmindedness which we partially considered in modules 1 & 2 under the umbrella of “presuppositionlessness”. In the context of his educational philosophy, Steiner formulates this in terms of its significance for teaching:

“This is why a most essential aspect in Waldorf teacher training involves receptivity to changes in human nature... A Waldorf teacher must be prepared to face something that will be completely different tomorrow from what it was yesterday... We need open minds ready to receive new wisdom each day, and a disposition that can transform accumulated knowledge into a sense of potential that leave the mind clear for the new. This keeps people healthy, fresh and active... [this] must be a Waldorf teacher’s basic mood and nature”. Steiner, R (1922): The Spiritual Ground of Education, Anthroposophic Press, p. 124/5. [My bold]

Steiner is clearly pointing out that this inner disposition is a kind of thinkingvirtue of openmindedness and is significance for teachers. At the same time though, openmindedness requires a feeling virtue of receptivity and willing virtue to act in a different way in each situation. In the text extracts included, Steiner gives some advice on how to develop this within oneself.

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The place of openmindedness in Steiner’s suggestions should not be

underestimated: essentially it is the very first virtue. If a person does not have this to a sufficient degree already, then the potential teacher development of all other virtues becomes a moot point: if a person is not open to the notion of developing inner virtues in themselves, then they will not attempt to acquire them. For Steiner, the whole of virtue development depends on this, without openmindedness the whole of Self-Development stops. Consequently, as child development and learning depends on teacher virtues, without the cultivation of teacher virtues Steiner / Waldorf Education is not possible.

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Initiative –Interest – Truthfulness- Enthusiasm

Steiner also spoke about four fundamental attributes of the teacher:

“1) The teacher must be a person of initiative in everything done, great and small. [Universal Initiative]

2) The teacher should be one who is interested in the being of the whole world and of humanity. [Universal Interest]

3) The teacher must be one who never compromises in the heart and mind with what is untrue. [Universal Truthfulness]

4) The teacher must never get stale or grow sour”. [Universal Enthusiasm]

Steiner, R (1919): Discussions with Teachers, Closing Words, pp. 180-82

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Initiative lies at the foundation of creative educational activity in Steiner education, amongst other things. As a soul / spirit virtue, it is a kind of inner will to create. As has been indicated previously, Steiner Education does not have a fixed curriculum, rather it has a set of pedagogical principles which enable teachers to create a curriculum for their particular case. Through initiative, the teacher is able to enter into a subject in a free way and create opportunities for learning for each unique context and child. Developing initiative for the teacher in Steiner settings becomes paramount as without it either the education does not happen or it becomes based on tradition. Were that to happen, then the uniqueness of situation and child is not recognised. Hence Steiner encouraged initiative in teachers in order to enable the creative source of the education. Consequently, if pupils perceive teachers having, or trying to attain, creative initiative, they will strive for this too.

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Interest in all things is likewise crucial to the education. Interest is a emotional – cognitive process that can positively enhance learning. In one of the original meanings of the term, interest meant something like: “between the essences”. Through the virtue of interest, the teacher is able not only to engage with the essence of the subject they teach, but also develop a deep understanding of the children, that is in their typological age-phase characteristics, temperament and individuality. Genuine interest bridges the gulf that can exist between teacher and student and helps form educational connections.

Truthfulness lies at the core of Steiner education in the sense that the teacher strives to establish the truth content of that which they teach as well as of their knowledge of the children. In this sense, truthfulness incorporates observation and thinking as teacher virtues. It may be recalled from modules 1 & 2, that “truth” is defined as the rightful union between concept and percept. It is a simple formulation but it is well worth remembering. Many things we regard as true are often merely due to thought processes without accompanying perceptions. Speculations, guesses, hypotheses, rumours, etc, fall into this category. A person we trust or an authority may have told us an idea and we consider this to be true. But without the right set of perceptions they are just thoughts, ideas or concepts and are not therefore necessarily true.

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Through the virtue of truthfulness a teacher can recognise this and apply the principle of the epoché – we hold such things in temporary suspension until corroborating perceptions can be acquired.

Similarly, if something is merely perceived, the virtue of truthfulness enables the teacher to seek for the appropriate concepts that should go along with the perception. The mere linking of a percept with a concept is not necessarily the result of truthfulness – sometimes people associate the wrong concept with the percept. It is only when the right concept has been found that truthfulness can be attributed.

This virtue can sometimes put teachers in difficult position because they may be expected by society to teach something they cannot establish the truth of. This becomes particularly pertinent in the upper school, say in science, when the knowledge content of what is taught is dependent on specialised knowledge and specialised methodology. So the question here would be how to deal with this in the sense for “striving for truth” rather than “having the truth”. Obviously, this is dependent on the teacher’s virtue of “truthfulness” as a striving rather than a having.

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Enthusiasm for teaching what you teach and who you teach also is significant for Steiner Educators. As a soul / spirit virtue, it is this that provides the emotional ground for teaching and learning. Steiner was of the conviction that if a teacher could teach with enthusiasm, then this would enable the pupils to feel enthusiastic about the subject being taught and overcome emotional barriers to learning. A teacher who is bored with teaching and with what they teach erects those barriers and obstructs or prevents learning.

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Gratitude – Love – Respect

Steiner also speaks of the three golden rules for being a teacher, rules which are essentially virtues that all good teachers need to have or acquire. These virtues are, unusually, distinctive for the three main phases of child development as discussed in module 3:

“These must become the three golden rules in the art of education: they must imbue the whole attitude of teachers and the whole impulse of their work. The golden rules that must be embraced by their whole being, not as a theory, are these:

First, reverent gratitude toward the World for the child we contemplate every day;.. [Regarding phase 1 of child development]

Second, gratitude to the universe and love for what we have to do with the child; [Regarding phase 2 of child development] and

Third, respect for the child’s freedom, which we must not endanger, since it is this freedom that we must direct our teaching efforts, so that the child may one day stand at our side in freedom in the World.” [Regarding phase 3 of child development]

Steiner, R (1922): The Spiritual Ground of Education, Anthroposophic Press, p. 56/7.

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Gratitude enables the early years educator, as well as the later years teacher, to genuinely accept the children in their care. Without this, there will always be a gulf between the child and the teacher, sometimes with the latter seeing the former as a mere functionary of their work: “I teach children because I have to for my job”. Steiner sees the teacher’s role as an act of care: you teach because you care for children – it is central therefore to be grateful for the actual children that come to you, not just the “ideal” ones you would like to have. Gratitude creates “being to being” relationships and enables the teacher to be a good example: without the feeling of the teacher’s gratitude towards the children, they may not feel recognised and therefore not perceive you as good example.

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Love, as moral educational love, is, for Steiner, twofold: love of the subject and love of the children. Love is, at least in part, an emotionalvirtue that enables the teacher to really engage with the subject at hand. Whilst Steiner designated this virtue as relevant for the lower school teacher, it is just as valid for the other teacher periods. If a teacher only has an intellectual understanding of their subject there may be an inner feeling barrier to the subject for the teacher and thereby the pupils. If the children have the perception that the teacher does not love or even like what they are teaching, then they will wonder why they should. Similarly, if the teaching does not have moral love for the children, then the latter will feel the gulf between them and have the feeling that this person does not really want to be with them; so the child’s feeling would be: “how could I learn from them?”.

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Respect for Freedom is especially relevant for the gradually becoming independent adolescent. As all virtues are, respect for freedom is, or can be, an inner reality of the teacher; but it is not only a cognitive respect but also emotional, this can then become expressed as an outer deed. In other words, this can manifest in how a teacher teaches: it manifests itself in the creation of learning spaces whereby students can exercise their independent judgement. If a teacher attempts to operate just out of their authority, or the authority of others, this is, at least partially, a denial of the student’s growing independence. “Bad behaviour” may follow as a consequence. When educational content is presented as merely based on “authorities”, i.e. even in a more positive sense of the term, such as from the scientific community, it is important to create a framework whereby this content can be questioned and debated in a free way. In this sense, is the teacher’s virtue of “respect for freedom” important for the education of the free judgement of the student. Put another way, a Steiner teacher should neither accept or expect students to follow their authority or that of others.

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Willing the Virtues: Into the DepthsA vital question that can arise is: what do I do if I don’t have one or other of the virtues. Steiner’s answer to this question is deceptively simple: you can will them to become. For Steiner, the deepest part of the human being is what we have come to understand as the “I”. One aspect of this is the deep inner Will. If a person does not appear to have a particular cognitive or moral virtue, it is still, according to Steiner, possible to will them within yourself through to the agency of the “I”. This is one of the reasons why he called the following the three fundamental all inclusive virtues of the teacher:

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“As a teacher and educator, you are part of the social setting, and

that you personally bring the social environment and its ethical attitudes to the growing pupil... They are three fundamental virtues. The first concerns everything that can live in will to gratitude; the second, everything that can live in the will to love; and third, everything that can live in the will to duty. Fundamentally, these are the three principal human virtues and, to a certain extent, encompass all other virtues...

1) All that flows, with devotion and love, from a child’s inner being toward whatever comes from the periphery through the parents or other educators—and everything expressed outwardly in the child’s imitation—will be permeated with a natural mood of gratitude. We only have to act in ways that are worthy of the child’s gratitude and it will flow toward us, especially during the first period of life...

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2) In the years between the child’s change of teeth and the coming of puberty... The second fundamental virtue, which is love, then grows from that when the child is in the process of also developing the physical basis of love. But one must see love in its true light... the teacher must have acquired at least some degree of appreciation for the universal nature of love; for sexual love is not the only thing that begins to develop between the child’s second dentition and puberty, but also love in its fullest sense, love for everything in the world. Sexual love is only one aspect of love that develops at this time of life. At that age one can see how love of nature and love for fellow human beings awaken in the child, and the teacher needs to have a strong view of how sexual love represents only one facet, one single chapter in life’s book of love.

3) from the inner being of the adolescent, the third fundamental virtue develops, which is the sense of duty. It is impossible to drill it into young people. It can only unfold as a part of natural development, based only on gratitude—in the sense described yesterday— and on the ability to love... : “Duty is a love for what one demands of oneself.” Here again you see how love plays into everything, and how the sense of duty

must be developed so that one eventually comes to love it. In this way one integrates properly as a human being into society.”

Steiner, R (1923):The Child’s Changing Consciousness, pp. 124-153

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As can be seen from these quotes, these are virtues which Steiner education aims to develop in the young person. But it is clear from the first part and elsewhere that these are virtues that the teacher needs to cultivate in themselves so that the pupils can thereby acquire them. The “willing of the virtues” can then be seen as valid for all of the above virtues. There may be occasions when a teacher or educator may feel they don’t have the required cognitive, moral and volitional virtues, so the question then becomes: how do I acquire them then? Steiner’s idea of “the will to...” is one answer to this in that, for him, the agency, or inner will, of the “I” is a reality possessed by everyone, no exceptions. In that sense, willing the existence of a virtue, through practical exercises (see Text extracts) becomes a viable solution to this problem.

A further word is necessary concerning the last of these virtues “The sense of Duty”. In his book “The Philosophy of Freedom”, Steiner made an argument against Duty, but here he is recommending it! But one has to recall that in that text the interpretation of “duty” was based on the works of Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) who saw duty as that which is imposed on one by an external authority and had little to do with love of the task at hand. In his later interpretation, Steiner conceived duty in a completely different way in that it comes from oneself and one loves it or learns to love it through willing oneself to.

If one can do this then it becomes possible, in Steiner’s words , to: “bring the social environment and its ethical attitudes to the growing pupil”.

We may then represent these teacher attributes as a kind of pyramid of virtues:

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A Virtue Pyramid

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Openmindedness

Universal:

Initiative - Interest – Truthfulness – Enthusiasm

Reverent Gratitude - Love - Respect for Freedom

Will to Gratitude - Will to Love - Will to Duty

Exercise

As an exercise, consider, for each virtue, how it might be of value in a real teaching or life circumstance.

Try to write your own notes on this, they might be of help for the assignments.

As preparation for the assignment, it may be worth reading the text: “Virtues for Educators - Extracts” now.

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