«Everything is in motion, there is no standing still. Don't let yourselves be dominated by outdated concepts of time. ... Stop resisting change. ... Resist the fearful weakness of not moving, in petrifying moments and in killing the living... Stop drawing  time. Stop building cathedrals and pyramids that crumble like candy. Be free, live! ... Breathe deeply, live in the now, live in the flow.»

On 14^th March 1959, bits of paper bearing these words fluttered from the sky onto the suburbs of Düsseldorf. The Swiss artist Jean Tinguely had thrown them out of a small aeroplane.¹

Anyone coming to Basel can read the «Statik Statement von 1959» in the Tinguely Museum, and admire the artist's sculptures. However, you are in the uncomfortable position of being disturbed while looking at them, as the sculptures are constantly moving, turning and changing shape: loud, noisy machines that have been crudely welded together from old scrap iron.

We see everything we experience from the perspective of our past experiences. And so, as a  teacher and educator, looking at a squeaking monster brought back many educational memories. Strange movements that attract attention, surprising behaviour that makes observation and understanding difficult, constant changes in appearance that make the whole thing seem puzzling: how does the current appearance relate to the previous one? What will be revealed in the future?

Tinguely's kinetic art provokes the wary  museum visitor. I would so much like the sculpture to stand still and be easy to look at. Its chaotic movement and unpleasant form of expression present us with a choice: either walk away, or develop a different level of perception. Do I dare to practise inner mobility? Am I prepared to be disturbed or surprised? Can I pay less attention to what I find pleasant or unpleasant, and simply look? Do I dare to think in complex dimensions?

«Stop resisting change. ... Resist the fearful weakness of not moving, in petrifying moments and in killing the living.»

When I came to the museum, it seemed to me that the machine sculpture was the problem. Now I realise, I am the problem. As soon as I stop «resisting change», as soon as I overcome the weakness of «not moving and in fossilising moments of time», things become interesting.

I often thought the children were the problem. Now I think, I am the problem. I am far too comfortable to  respond directly to the child. Weak powers of observation, lack of empathy and sensitivity, fixed ideas, quick judgements and rigid concepts. The child lives in a great developmental dynamic, the younger the child, the stronger and livelier the dynamic. It is, therefore, obvious that all those who accompany the child's development (parents, educators, teachers and everyone else), should take the text that Tinguely threw out of the aeroplane to heart as an important source of inspiration. Let us do something about our mental immobility, let us learn to observe movement, to feel, to think, let us overcome the tendencies we have to cling to our own sympathies and antipathies, let us not take so seriously whether this or that behaviour of a child is unpleasant to us, let us learn to enjoy it when the child gives us problems, surprises and riddles, and above all, let us overcome the feeling that the way the child and I and the world are today, thus, it has always been so, and will always be...

This tendency, which Tinguely exposes as an inner weakness that «petrifies the moment», is one of our greatest pedagogical challenges. It makes us confuse the appearance of today with the essence of the child. If I take a photo of a moving sculpture, it is clear that I have only captured it in a very one-sided way. But if I identify the child, who is screaming in my ears today and can't keep up with mental arithmetic, only with today's appearance and give it great importance, the child feels no better understood than the artist through the photo of his moving sculpture.² «Stop drawing time.»

The essence  reveals itself in an infinite number of past and future transient forms that are not there at the same time. But this does not mean that the essence of the child is completely inaccessible to us.

If I learn to observe with empathy and feel intensely many surprising things about the child may be revealed over time, that she or he has already experienced many upheavals. If I have thought through numerous anthropological and psychological concepts, then I may learn to read the image of my present encounter as a sign through which I can sense something of the future development of this personality. Of their greatness, their dignity.

We often suppose that complex, difficult life circumstances, the deluge of modern technology, even the parents are the problem. And indeed, the most experienced colleagues have questions upon questions. What methods, what content can help this or that puzzling child to develop? And there is no doubt that the situation of many children is dramatic, characterised by traumatic experiences and physical or mental developmental difficulties.³

But, as in the Tinguely Museum, there are few choice; either to leave (which is unfortunately becoming more and more common, and is leading to a great shortage of educators and teachers in many countries), or  transform one's own «anxious fits of weakness»,and make oneself more capable of cultivating a way of thinking, feeling and willing that can respond to the lively, developing child in a rapidly changing age.

Good news! In a Steiner or Waldorf school I am not alone with this demanding task. For over a hundred years (Rudolf Steiner's original suggestion), a weekly development  and support event for colleagues has been part of the paid working time.⁴ Strength through team building, joy through shared  attempts to build  good relationships with enigmatic children. Training our observation, thinking and empathy skills together. Studying child development in general and considering  individual children together.

Steiner, like Tinguely, was of the opinion that it is extremely difficult for  us to understand evolving, changing, living beings and to establish a relationship with them:

«People today, if one may express it somewhat paradoxically, love being comfortable in their concepts. The fact is that  an inclination towards the rigid concept, towards the concept that can be grasped in sharp contours, can only be applied to the dead, which does not move, and therefore, allows the concept to be fixed.»⁵

The pedagogical faculty meeting was actually intended to overcome this tendency towards rigidity in our intellectual and psychological lives. To creatively develop educational practice in line with the times and the local context.⁶ To continue learning and developing ourselves, as we  work to be learning and development companions for the children and young people.

Where the weekly meetings of the pedagogical team are only used for school administration and organisation, or where they no longer take place at all due to overload, this opportunity is wasted. Then the only option left is to continue doing what we have always done. And that is usually tiring.

Children who challenge us, and the times with live in with their many crises can hopefully give us the impetus to realise this essential feature of a Waldorf institution more and more dynamically, and to find a form that suits each institution. To create a refreshing educational research and support event on a weekly basis, that helps all colleagues and the whole school to learn from the problems and the challenges and to develop further over time.

Philipp Reubke

Translation: Trevor Mepham