Reading the World; Education for Sustainability

by Anne Greer, Board member SSWS, educator.

Watch a young child in a park, or a forest, or a beach and you will see learning at its best.

The child naturally jumps, skips, explores, gathers treasures, asks questions, and glows with health and well-being. That fortunate young person is secure in the truth of his or her own observations and full of wonder at the richness and the riddles of life.

In far too many children of even nine or ten, teachers and parents admit, “the light has gone out.” Joy, curiosity, and wonder, essential to reading the world and its delights, have already dimmed.

There is abundant recent research into how children learn best. Brain research over the last half century has brought a wealth of evidence and a new educational paradigm that promotes cooperation, creativity, and compassion, the necessary ingredients for a sustainable future.

Since Paul MacLean’s research in the 1950’s, we have come to accept the idea of the triune brain: the reptilian part with its instinctive control of muscles, balance and autonomic functions; the mammalian part with its limbic system, the source of emotional responses; the specifically human cerebral cortex that controls higher order thinking, creativity, empathy, reasoning, and speech. It is this part of the brain that allows so-called “executive functioning”.

All learning takes place first in the reptilian, then in the mammalian, and finally in the cerebral.

The trouble is, most educational practice tries to shortcut the learning process by attempting to fast track to the cerebral: doing too much, too fast, too soon, often resulting in stress and alienation. The best learning occurs when the whole brain is engaged at any given moment, for example when movement, art, and thinking are combined.

Most often, though, the young are expected to sit still, find the one “correct” answer, and compete with each other in assessment profiles that ignore the most essential aspects of being human.

There is an alternative. Almost a hundred years ago, philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner introduced a radically different path of schooling that has become the fastest growing alternative educational movement in the world with over 1000 schools worldwide. Waldorf education believes that through a gradual unfolding, children enjoy childhood, preserve the joy of curious exploration, and experience the deep satisfaction of skilful doing. 

The learning community of a Waldorf School is devoted to peacefully educating children within a non-competitive, arts enriched, academic curriculum that promotes respect for self, other beings, and the Earth.

Steiner, also the originator of Bio-dynamic agriculture, believed it essential that young children have time to strengthen their ability to “read the world” – to develop their full set of sensory, motor, verbal, and mental skills. This happens in young children through playing together with toys made from natural materials or simply with dirt and straw and sticks and stones, digging and climbing, feeling the wind and the warm sun – having time to connect with the natural world in unhurried sense filled hours.

Once the child is physically secure, imagination is possible. Seeing beyond what is present to what is possible, is essential for creativity. So is emotional engagement through music, movement, handwork, practical skills, drama, storytelling, painting, drawing and sculpture. All these ways allow a communication between what is present in the world and the human being while play and outside activity continue to strengthen self-esteem.

Adolescence is the time for the active engagement of the intellect, full of continued curiousity, and enriched by the security of being confident in oneself, at peace with others, and at home on the Earth.

What more could we want for our children?