S2.EP18 一個關於人的教育：為什麼我們需要華德福教育？專訪Ben Cherry老師
當我們送孩子來到華德福學校時，我們是否曾經想過，這只是為了讓他有一個快樂的童年？亦或我們明白華德福教育的本質，是一個使人邁向健康自由，一個真正關於人的教育？ 這麼大的提問，我們請到在華德福非常資深的Ben Cherry老師來為我們解答，在這場訪談中，與其說是對談，更像是Ben老師給我們的一場精彩的演講，從各個面向來談人、談教育，並讓我們更深刻的體會到靈性是什麼？真正會讓我們內在感到安定充滿力量的又是什麼？我們如何看待自己又如何看待他人，特別是那些和我們非常不同的人，我們是否能尊重彼此都是獨特的個體？而不要忘記孩子都是如此單純深愛著父母也渴望父母的愛，我們必須真實的去面對來到眼前的孩子，也面對自己內心世界最真實的觸動。 當我們真正懂得人，就會理解華德福教育是一個關於人的教育。 如果您對華德福教育有興趣，也歡迎您報名【青禾華德福113學年新生入學說明會】 報名連結：https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd5TwkB70F4a68D3NupT9rKCAWg3NnU-sKscdyrvS3IvUmjQg/viewform?fbclid=IwAR0Wi5TbuZxqSJ3FapCyasjIdybVSYEjarJ7D58LVav0wBrJbWxIRu59RfA 說明會資訊 一、日期：2024年1月14日（週日） 二、時間：上午10:00～12:00 三、地點：台北市樂群二路262號 (濱江國中內，請從樂群二路266巷側門進入校園) 四、對象：113學年度入學一年級孩童與家長(非當屆入學之家庭，可先報名，如有名額將另行通知) 五、報名截止日期：2023/12/25 或 額滿為止 以下則是這場對談Ben老師的英文原文逐字稿，希望能帶給大家更多啟發和力量： It is, of course, a very big question. And. there's a deeper question within that question and that question is what is Waldorf education? What is anthroposophy? What is the connection between anthroposophy and this education? But in all of these questions, there is the real question What is a human being? We're living in a time now where this is, in my view, the most important question we have. You see, the way we think of ourselves directly influences how we behave, what we do. If we really believe. That we are animals and only animals. Well, how does one educate an animal? One trains an animal. One rewards and punishes an animal. Is that education? Is that a human way of working with other human beings? Equally. If we are robots. How do we work with robots? We program them. We already pre reorganize. How the robot is going to behave in a particular situation? Is this a human way? Of working with human beings. There's another question. What is a child? Is a child the same basically as an adult? It's just that the child is considered more stupid, perhaps, and ignorant, and we have to fill this head with as much information as we can and then they'll become an adult. Is that really what life is about? Because it's certainly not what my life is about. And for me, it's fascinating that at the same time that we are losing childhood on this earth, it is really in danger. At the same time as we're losing childhood, we're also losing old age. Because old age is considered to be some kind of sickness. It's a terrible thing to become old. I would like to, really encourage you to look forward to becoming old. It's a wonderful time of life, and it's intimately connected with the time of life that we call being a child. I'm sure many of you have experienced that there's a very particular relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. I haven't experienced great grandparents or great grandchildren, but it's enough for me to have the wonderful experience not only of having known one of my grandparents, the others I didn't know, but a very powerful lady, a very strong lady. The old kind of person who was really connected with reality, with practical things of life, and she. She was never ill. She was astonished that we children were ill so often and she couldn't understand it. The first time she became ill was at the age of 92. She got a cold. And shortly after that, she died. So for me, as a child, that relationship was incredibly important. Likewise, being her grandfather, my 2 grandchildren are in Australia. They're now both in adolescence. But this extraordinarily wonderful experience of being with them but not having the responsibility that a father and a mother have, and so one can watch them much more one can be just that little bit more distant. And and value value their process of learning. Little children are so intelligent. And this is known to modern science. It is known. It's it's simply a a fact of modern life. Children. Have an incredible intelligence and that this intelligence diminishes when they go to kindergarten. Shockingly diminishes. And when they go into the primary school, it it, it goes even further into into a kind of. I don't know it it it just Children now are are pushed to learn. They have to learn. It's no longer this love of learning. And another just incredible connection between old age and little children. You see? Both stages, at both ends of life, we are closer to the spiritual world. This is something we're not encouraged to talk about at all today. Spirit. What is Spirit is just some kind of superstition, some kind of religion. It's not. It's something absolutely real and practical. Little children. Have this spiritual intelligence and when we become old. Our childhood comes closer to us again. It's quite remarkable the memories that come up. So all of this is is to do with this question, this fundamental question What is a human being? And in today's world, we we have a very materialistic picture of what a human being is. The material part is very necessary. It's essential we live here on this material earth. We have to get to know this earth. But to confine our humanity, or indeed to confine the nature just to the physical, just to what is material. This, this, this is such a poverty bringing way of thinking. The richness of. What this world is? Is wiped out. I can tell you something else. If I had been born into a family that spoke Chinese, I would be as fluent in your language as you are. There's nothing. In my genes or in your genes, that dictates that you will learn a certain language. So how is it? What is this intelligence that enables a child so quickly to pick up whatever the host language is? Even 2 languages? Even 3 languages with different people? And each language brings a different experience for the child, a different feeling, a different. A different world. The same is true of standing. There are no genes that make the human being stand. Each child has to overcome gravity through his or her own power. This incredible power of will, this determination to do this and this is before they learn to speak, and it's before they learn to think. If you look carefully. At the progress the little children that babies make, one could say one can actually see without seeing it, with the clarity that I can see through my eyes, but one can see through the way the child is. That something is coming down. Not only the child is lifting herself up. But something is coming down, first of all after three months. The child learns to lift the head. And. Really. The neck now has a power, A power to hold this head. Three months later. The child can sit up. The whole of the upper part of the body now is becoming organized by the child itself, by the spirit that is coming down. And then three months later. The child is learning to stand. It's come right down into the legs, right down into the feet. And each time such joy. This incredible joy of achievement. Of the human will, overcoming the downward forces. We are upright beings, That's what we are. And if we really did descend from apes? Then the last achievement that we would have made would have been lifting the head. But in reality? That is the first achievement. so now perhaps I could rephrase this, this central question that has been presented to me. Instead of saying why do we need Waldorf Education, what I'd like to say is what we do need is a really refreshingly clear picture of what a human being is. And that means that we need to be able to recognize the presence of spirit, that it becomes a reality in our lives. It doesn't mean I can see the spirit. I can't. I have physical eyes. But I can definitely be aware that I have in myself and so can everyone else. You can be aware that you have in yourselves a power of uprightness. And this uprightness is a core aspect of a really human education and I see Waldorf education as a human education. So in Anthroposophy, which is not taught in the Waldorf School, but it gives the whole inner quality of this education, this science of the full human being. That's what Anthroposophy is. Wisdom of the human being, human wisdom. This is a three-fold picture of what we are. First of all, the spirit, which I've tried to characterize today. Secondly, we are beings of soul. And when we use the word soul, what we're referring to particularly is the middle part of the human being. As I'm speaking to you now, my hands are naturally moving in a certain way in connection with my own heart. The heart has been largely left out of education today. The heart is the center of the soul. In our soul, we have all kinds of different... We have a very, very rich soul life. We have all our fears and our hopes and our wonderful inner achievements and our happiness, our sadness, our pain, our joy. And of course, we have our bodies. One of the really challenging realities of the modern world is that more and more people are being brought up to think we are bodies. That's what we are. And if you think of, for example, the metaverse and all of this incredible, dazzling modern technology, i
