Steiner on Humans & Animals

Many Waldorf homeschoolers express their difficulty or even discomfort with what is known as the Man and Animal block traditionally presented in fourth grade. I have had a hard time myself with some of the concepts some years. But reading Steiner’s description of this block is freeing. It finally makes sense.

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Steiner’s lecture to teachers on Day Seven in Practical Advice to Teachers is all about schooling the child age nine and up. Here he emphasizes a definite BREAK from the method used for children before the nine year change.

I collaborated with my friend Alison on this post and here are her wise words:

I think this is VERY important to us as homeschoolers, that we as teachers grow and expand and deepen our teaching approach as our children grow and mature. Don’t keep them stuck in the nursery forever. Their entire being – heart, hands and head – yearns for the type of instruction that Steiner is promoting here. They are ready to not just co-exist with the world but to step out and OBSERVE it. That is why the man and animal block is such a genius move by Steiner. Animals are a delight to observe. And children of this age not only have a natural affinity for animals, they now have the language available to them to make these observations.

Steiner opens his lecture by stating that “country schools sometimes have the better teaching methods” because with less equipment, teachers have to rely more on “the powers of invention and simple devices.” And as teachers, we need more tools and equipment after the age of nine. The biggest benefit of a country school is that during this particular block, they can bring the animals right into the classroom for the children to observe!

As a recap, Steiner notes that natural history before the age of nine is presented in narrative form (stories). However, after the age of nine, children need more specific descriptions and in-depth comparisons. 

This is one of the places where Steiner makes an ultimatum: “Lessons will be ruined if we don’t start natural history lessons by describing man.”

His reason is that humans are a synthesis of three kingdoms of nature. Not that we tell the children this. But we must know it and show them that the three kingdoms of nature – represented by the head, trunk and limbs – are brought together in human beings. In other animals, only one aspect of nature is represented at a time.

Alison and I both want to happily emphasize that Steiner models an approach here that is heavy on detail and light on weird abstract comments about the human being and our place in the chain of beings. Because this is often how many of us come away from others’ explanations of this block. 

Steiner suggests, “Perhaps you will start by describing man’s external appearance to the nine-year-olds.”

Steiner’s example is a drawing activity where the head is round like a ball, perched on the trunk, awakening the feeling and will element. The trunk is then a fragment of the head like the sliver of a moon carved off, sitting below the ball holding it up. The limbs are then appended onto the trunk, added on, inserted from the outside. Steiner also suggests that perhaps in addition to drawing this image, children could model the form out of wax or kneaded dough. 

But the most important message of this lesson is that human beings have feet that carry us about and arms and hands that allow us to be of selfless service to the world.

Steiner says that only after these exercises of imagining the human body in this way (so that we can conclude the lesson by conveying the message that we are capable of doing good in the world) do we move on to the rest of natural history.

In studying individual animals, the first step is to familiarize the students with that animal by way of a complete description including where it lives. It’s ideal to bring a live animal to the classroom, Steiner says, or to make a drawing. One year in our family’s homeschooling, we were able to borrow a diorama of a taxidermied field mouse from our natural history museum for sketching.

The animals that Steiner uses as examples include:

• a cuttle-fish as the best representative of the head;
• a mouse, lamb, horse or other mammal which represents the trunk; and
• human beings, in which the limbs are the most significant

In our detailed descriptions of the animals, we want to give children “a certain feeling for the difference between animals” by way of comparison to human beings.

“By teaching in this way we gradually awaken in the children a strong sense and feeling for the fact that the character of the lower animals is head-like, that of the higher animals is trunk-like, and that of man limb-like.”

The end result is the the moral element: children are left with a strong impression that we humans can take up a piece of chalk and write, and we can do this because our hands and arms are not needed for other work. Steiner says, “there is no more wonderful symbol of human freedom than man’s arms and hands.”

Steiner explains that this is a very important approach to take in teaching about animals. Because so often, we hear the message that human beings are higher beings because of our heads, our thinking. Steiner wants to instill the message that we are higher beings because of our limbs and that all of the activities of nature are united in us. This helps to develop a firm moral concept in children by appealing to their intellect and strengthening their feeling and will.

Steiner concludes by saying that we want to guide children to understand how we are only fully human when we use our hands for working in the world. And we will not achieve this moral component if we only describe each animal by itself.

Alison: this is exactly why I so enjoyed this lecture. It was so far less top heavy on theory than all the other stuff I have read about this block over the years. And it is our LIMBS that are the real juicy difference rather than our HEAD. Everything else I’ve read on this block seems to emphasize our head. But emphasizing the limbs completely changes the moral seed that might start to take root in this block.

The chapter ends with a very interesting description of Goethe’s activities in nature as a child.

Sound like a description of a Nature Table, anyone?

“When (Goethe) was seven he built himself an alter to nature, taking his father’s music stand and placing on it plants from his father’s herbarium and also minerals and crowning it all with a little incense candle that he lit by focusing the beams of the morning sun with a burning glass; an offering to the great god of nature, a rebellion against everything imposed on him by education.”

Looking for more resources for animal study? Check out the titles below.

May you find new ways of working with the Human & Animal main lesson block after reading these reflections!

The Steiner Cafe is a place to explore and reflect on the lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave at the Teacher’s Seminar in 1919, the very first Waldorf teacher training. 

To read reflections on previous lectures, check out The Steiner Cafe.

These lectures are published in three books. Below are affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

  The morning lectures are found in The Foundations of Human Experience; later morning lectures in Practical Advice to Teachers; and afternoon lectures in Discussions with Teachers. 

We invite you to pick up the books and read along. Or if you prefer, you can read online at www.rsarchive.org. Or listen at www.rudolfsteineraudio.com.

Lot’s of options! Hope you’ll join in the conversations.