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Freedom of Choice --

or Freedom From Choice?

by Eugene Schwartz

    I would like to begin by making a confession.  Although I am willing to write about this topic, I would have been far more comfortable if our theme had been something like, "Metamor­phosis as a Pedagogical Method in the Teaching of History, Grades Five Through Twelve," or, "Algorithms, Logarithms and the Development of Mathematical Consciousness in Adolescence."  Such subjects would have been far easier than the one I am asked to address in this essay.

     I feel reasonably able to represent the Waldorf method of teaching history, or mathematics, or any one of a dozen other subjects.  When it comes to the "Waldorf approach to discipline," however, I know all too well how often I fall short, both as representative and above all as practitioner. 

     I say this in part because I am not only a Waldorf teacher, but, like many of you reading this, I am the parent of Waldorf students as well.  And, as a liberal, egalitarian all-American parent, I often fail miserably at disciplining my own children.  As a parent, I am with my children early in the morning and late in the evening, when they and I are least awake or most fatigued.  I am with them when they are hungry, or thirsty, or assailed by the thousands of temptations that constitute modern culture.  When they catch me at the wrong moment, I say things I wish I hadn't said.  I sometimes make threats that I can't possibly carry out, and occasionally make promises that I can't possibly keep.  Far too often, I forget the ideals I hold most dear and the principles I know to be most beneficial and act merely out of expediency.

     If I were writing only as a parent, the preceding confession would pretty much constitute this article.  Writing as a teacher, I have more to say--but I hope that nothing I have revealed so far in­spires anything but commiseration among you.  It is certainly not my intention to inspire guilt!  Every parent has a formidable task facing him or her, a task which doesn't really grow any easier with the passing of time or the accumulation of experience.

     To the parent is given the task of helping the child meet his destiny under all of the most stressful and demanding circumstances in life, while the teacher is generally asked to work with the child only when conditions are optimum.  For example, when a child is ill and develops a fever, he does not go to school, but remains home in the parent's care.  Teachers usually meet the children in the controlled and aesthetic environment of their own classroom; it is  the parents who must deal with the youngsters in the trying and ugly settings of shopping malls, interstate highways and fast-food restaurants.

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