The social trimming
by Rubens Salles
The anthroposophical view of the social organism, conceived by Steiner, is one of the mainstays of Waldorf Pedagogy, and you will see later that it is reflected in the very structure of Waldorf schools. It seeks to answer the following question:
What society do we want?
In the existence of society and the individual, Steiner distinguished as an ideal the constitution of three independent vital spheres: the cultural-spiritual life, the juridical-political life, and the economic life. These spheres, forming what he called the social “trimembration”, should take place side by side, but autonomously, so that we all have the right to:
1) Spiritual freedom in cultural life – liberalism as the basis of spiritual life with a free educational system.
2) Democratic equality in legal-political life – democracy as the ideal basis for state institutions.
3) Social fraternity in economic life – solidarity as a starting point for an economic life organized in an associative way.
These are the same principles – “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” – of the French Revolution, but here each one is applied to a specific sphere of human activity. This conceptual innovation by Steiner shows his genius, as history has already proved, and continues to show us every day, that promiscuity between these three spheres generates highly harmful social effects, as in political representation, for example, where politicians legislate more for the benefit of economic power and the ruling classes than for the benefit of society.
Spiritual freedom in cultural life – Education for freedom
We must form minds without conforming them,
enrich them without indoctrinating them,
arm them without recruiting them,
give them strength,
truly seduce them
to lead them to their own truth,
give them the best of ourselves,
without waiting for them to grow up like us.
Jacques Merlan
According to this concept, all activities through which man performs as an individual, such as religion, art, education, sport, science, etc., should not suffer any interference from the juridical-political or economic areas. Just like the churches in Brazil, for example, all schools, universities, museums, etc., should be managed by the respective educational and scientific communities, and curricula and research programs should not be imposed by political or economic interests, as only men free people can promote and develop freedom, justice, world peace and human dignity.
“In the gears of current existence, institutions are needed that assume, as their publicly recognized function, the representation and defense of the 'Purely Human' in all situations, without considering any economic or political interest. […] The task of helping to fully develop latent inner tendencies in human beings in training can only be undertaken by educators who know them in depth and who are up to the pedagogical demands that arise daily in school life. The extent of the success of this work – carried out in homes and classrooms – defines the future of humanity”. (1) Frans Carlgren and Arne Klingborg
Thus, from the point of view of Anthroposophy, the human spirit needs to develop with total freedom, and education must be focused on developing the potential that exists in each one from an early age, with the aim of forming complete and autonomous human beings. , so that we always have young generations with new ideas that can renew the social order. We cannot be content to educate individuals just to continue the status quo, or to learn to pass an entrance exam.
The importance of total incentive and freedom for individual development is still based on two arguments that we can consider definitive:
1) No human being should be converted into a means to another's ends, because each Man is an end in himself, he has the right to his own individuality and to create his own path.
2) Everything that is created in the world is the result of individual achievements. Therefore, nothing is more important than having an education that encourages the unfolding of each individual's abilities and independence.
If we analyze the history of science, we realize that the great discoveries of scientists like Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Einstein and many others, occurred due to their initiative and intellectual independence. According to Marcelo Gleiser, “this independence produces a flexibility that allows, with the help of that elusive characteristic called genius, that these individuals find new and unexpected connections where others have found only dead ends.”(2) The same applies to the arts or any other area. another area of human knowledge.
Applied to education, the principle of equality means that every citizen should have the right to a complete basic education, regardless of social class, religion, gender and race, and no one should be excluded from this right due to being, apparently, less able to learn. . In the case of exceptional children, suitable schools must exist, but children considered fit for school must not be eliminated on the basis of elitist selection principles. The school must be at the service of the child, not the other way around.
Thus, every young person, regardless of their origin, social or economic condition, should receive an education of the same level, which would facilitate their full human development. After this general education, there would be professional training, according to the gifts and abilities of each one. The educational system idealized by Steiner has the objective of forming the human being with the ability to self-manage. For this you must:
1) To be shared by teachers who, with knowledge of the world and the human being, experience freedom, responsibility, initiative and emancipation in themselves;
2) Carry out an education whose educational plans derive from the essential right to individual development, ensuring dynamism and at the same time continuity, and establishing these development processes in an open manner;
3) Base its structures on freedom, responsibility and the right to decide, ensuring the self-management of the intervening agents;
4) Organize the training of its teachers independently of the State;
5 ) Have teaching plans developed and adapted for each school, considering its particular cultural environment;
6) Limit state intervention in schools to guarantee the achievement of the individual's rights contemplated in the laws of each country;
7) Organize all pedagogical tasks based on the responsibility of the students and all the educational agents involved;
8) Establish the necessary assessments through openness, dialogue and self-assessment.(3)
In Brazil, in the vast majority of Waldorf schools, the study is paid, which, unfortunately, makes them accessible only to an elite. But there are already four public elementary schools: Escola Micael in Aracaju – SE, Escola Araucária, in Camanducaia – MG and the Municipal Schools Cecília Meireles and Vale de Luz, in Nova Friburgo – RJ. Escola Aitiara, in Botucatu – SP, and Escola Rural Dendê da Serra, in Itacaré – BA, maintain a large number of scholarship holders without receiving, so far, public resources. Associação Monte Azul, in São Paulo, also maintains daycare centers with Waldorf Pedagogy in three favelas on the outskirts of São Paulo: Monte Azul, Horizonte Azul and Peinha. In Brazil, there is still no effective policy for the State to subsidize free schools.
In Europe, however, a European Parliament resolution of 14/03/1984 gives parents the right to decide what kind of education their children should receive, as well as giving Member States financial responsibility for education. It determines that “children and young people have the right to receive education and training; and among these is the child's right to develop their abilities and skills; parents have the right to decide what education and what type of education their minor children should receive, respecting the constitutions of the Member States and the laws on which they are based”, and adds (paragraph 9): “the right to liberty of education implies, for the Member States, the obligation to make it possible, also on a financial level, to exercise this right in practice, and to grant [private] schools the public subsidies necessary for the exercise of their mission and the fulfillment of their obligations under conditions equal to those enjoyed by the corresponding public institutions, without discrimination as to organizers [of schools], parents, students and staff”. Thus, in Europe there are Waldorf schools created on the initiative of private associations, but which are subsidized by the State. This is an objective that we must pursue in Brazil.
Democratic equality in legal-political life – education for democracy
In the same way that it advocates the total freedom of institutions responsible for the development of our individual spiritual and cultural needs, this social conception also considers that the individual needs a network of public bodies responsible for regulating human coexistence based on equal rights. A democratically elected public body, independent of the economic system, and without interference in the spiritual and cultural life, capable of legislating impartially for the benefit of the common good.
Considering that, relatively recently, kings exercised power by “divine right” and great colonial empires were established, we can consider that there was a great growth of democracy, although some dictatorships still exist. We know that it is still a democracy full of imperfections, but the major world problems, such as global warming, the destruction of the environment, poverty and refugees, have been causing an increase in citizen awareness, and are bringing individuals closer to political decisions. Strong social movements have emerged in several cities and countries and, with the help of new communication technologies, have been fighting for the expansion of social control over public management.
But for humanity to be able to build more quickly democratic regimes truly dedicated to the common good, it is necessary that the education of future generations allows, encourages and supports each young person to fully develop their human values and their potential in complete freedom.
Social fraternity in economic life – education for solidarity
Social fraternity in economic life, seen through the concepts of predatory competitiveness that govern economic activity today, may seem, at first glance, to be the most utopian of the three vital spheres considered by Steiner for a new society. We know that today economic power exerts great influence on policies that should be public. This promiscuity between public and private interests is a social disease that generates flawed legislation. It caused, for example, the serious economic crisis that began in 2008 in the United States, costing trillions of dollars of public resources, with losses for many countries. In Brazil, meanwhile, we live with growing corruption scandals.
Recently, the Brazilian economist Ladislau Dowbor proposed the concept of Economic Democracy, according to which economic decisions should also be taken based on a democratic/political process, which takes into account all their social and environmental impacts, so that the interests of of companies were not harmful to public interests. The author compares current social movements, which fight against the destruction of the environment, for better health, education, etc., to social movements that fought for the abolition of slavery, for the rights of wage earners and for the political inclusion of women. The author states that “the democratization of the economy may well become an axis of this construction of a more human life”. He also maintains that “limiting democracy to its political expression has become increasingly less realistic, to the point of making us increasingly skeptical about political mechanisms. We have to evolve towards a democratic concept of the economy itself, so that politics can make sense again.”(4)
Another serious influence of the current economic environment that impacts education is consumerism. We live bombarded by images and messages that seek to imbue everyone with the idea that happiness and personal success are directly linked to having things, houses, cars, electronics, etc., which are always new and modern. This promotion of exacerbated consumption directly influences children, and stimulates an extremely negative competitiveness. How to teach fraternity if our entire model of society is based on competitiveness and, generally, at any cost?
“Why transmit ideas such as altruism, merit or civics to our children, if they are permanently modeled on a financial success based on individualism, easy money and breaking the rules and laws as the supreme art of management?[…] In fact, what is addressed here is the central question between having and being and, therefore, the very nature of our life projects, both on a personal and collective level, on a local and global level, on the level of our lives. individuals and in the strategies of world transformation.”(5) Patrick Viveret
Viveret is one of the leaders of a world movement that fights for the development and establishment of new indicators of wealth, that evaluate the real economy, as opposed to the well-known GDP (Gross Domestic Product), which is based only on the financial resources generated by the activities. The GDP credits the financial result of an activity, but does not debit, for example, the damages of its environmental or social impact. When we export ore, the GDP increases but our ore stock decreases, and this debt is not included in the account. On the other hand, if an environmental disaster occurs, and the recovery of the affected region will need large investments, the disaster can be good for the GDP. Violence also appears to be good for GDP, as it requires large investments in public and private security. And it's also good for GDP when you get sick, and you spend money on doctors, medicine and hospital. GDP has nothing to do with quality of life.
However, several very interesting initiatives have been carried out in the opposite direction, such as the Happiness Indicators, developed and applied in Bhutan for over 20 years, which are now being adapted to other countries, such as Canada, with the support of UNESCO, and the launch of an annual popular consultation, starting in 2009, by the Nossa São Paulo Network, to compose the indicators of the IRBEM – Reference Indicators for Welfare in the Municipality.
Social fraternity in economic life can currently be seen in the work of agricultural cooperatives and credit unions. Poland, for example, escaped the 2008 crisis because its economy is based on the performance of 470 cooperative banks, and Brazil already has dozens of community banks, to start escaping our financial system, which is heavily cartelized. We also already have several platforms for crowdfunding. Thousands of projects have already been collectively financed through them, from small cultural productions to advanced research or technology development projects. There are also shared offices, where several small businesses share the same physical space and the same basic structure to operate more economically. In hosting services, platforms are also operating through which millions of people have started hosting people at home, and competing directly with the large hotel chains. Car-sharing systems already exist in some countries, such as in Paris, where the use of public electric cars, which do not pollute and one car serves many people, is expanding. In other words, there are already several initiatives and many people practicing social fraternity in economic life.
You may be wondering what all this has to do with pedagogy. It is important to note that the threefold conception of society, proposed by Steiner a century ago, is becoming increasingly current and necessary. It is becoming clear that we need to converge towards a more humanistic, supportive and sustainable society, and for that we need to train young people with freedom of thought, determination, creativity, enthusiasm and confidence to choose their own path and build a new era for humanity, and the Waldorf pedagogy can make an important contribution in this regard.
“Changes do not happen by themselves. are the result of
work of personalities committed to their time.”
Bodo von Plato
Bibliography
1) CARLGREN, Frans and KLINGBORG, Arne. Education for Freedom – the Pedagogy of Rudolf Steiner, 2005, p. 11
2) GLEISER, Marcelo, A Dança do Universo, 1997, p. 254
3) MCALICE, Jon and GÖBEL, Nana, et al, Otto Ulrich. Waldorf Pedagogy – UNESCO, 1994, p. 75.
4) DOWBOR, Ladislau. Economic Democracy, 2007, p. 185.
5) VIVERET, Patrick. Reconsidering Wealth, 2003, p. 13 and 43.
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