Summary of the International School Doctors Conference 2024

It was in ancient times,

There lived in the souls of the initiates

Powerfully the thought

That by nature every human being is ill

And education was seen

As a healing process,

Which, as they matured, gave children the health

For life’s fulfilled humanity.

The international educators of Waldorf school and kindergarten doctors met the day prior to the conference to discussed worldwide training courses and the various conditions in which these trainings take place. Representatives from Brasil, Argentina, US, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Australia, Nepal, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Russia and the UK and Ireland, met in a hybrid meeting with the aim to understand the respective challenges and learn from good practice. The medical section in Dornach (Switzerland) coordinates the trainings content and requirements for certification of this three year post-graduate training. For those interested in training, to become a Waldorf school and kindergarten doctor, please see here for more details: https://schooldoctors-medsektion.net/en/training/training-opportunities

In this international forum, it was possible to further understand the shared challenges particular to our time across the globe. The challenges to mental health in a post-pandemic and highly digitalised world maybe not so surprising. The increasing delay in physical skills development in children entering school, growing obesity, mental health disorders in school aged children, rise in dependency symptoms (drugs, media, gaming) creates an image of increasing isolation and lack of warmth, both physically, socially and within the developmental process.

The topic of the conference: ‘The therapeutic tools of Waldorf education for children’s distress and parent’s worries’ draws on Rudolf Steiner’s Special Needs Education Course in which he ‘emphasises how crucially important it is to be familiar with the archetype of healthy development and the education based on it’, so the introduction to this year’s conference. In this course, Steiner describes the fundamental or basic dispositions which can be found in every human being. Learning to see these so called constitutional types are important tools in order to understand many children’s difficulties not only, but also specific to our time and the concerns these cause to parents and teachers.

Dr. med. Karin Michael, head of the Medical Section opened the conference highlighting the new edition in time for 100 years of the Curative Education Course (English translation expected).

Jan Goeschel described the unique perspective on development when seen from a spiritual scientific angle as time related process. He pointed out that our cultural heritage teaches us to be a linear path from left (the past) to right (the future), a deeper look may point us to a more enlivened representation of the line from the past circling around the present from which it spirals out into the future: This would much better reflect the fact that what was once process presents itself in the formations of the present. Such as the rings and lines within a piece of wood which bears the signature of the tree’s growth year by year. And, within the present we can find future possibilities long before these have become process such in the seed of a sunflower.

There are three important elements which underlie this developmental paradigm with each their own characteristics : the stream of inheritance with its genetics and individual pre-earthly intentions, the stream of the environment with its social and geological articularities and the stream of the individuality unique to each human being. Goeschel reminded us of the seven year rhythms by which these three elements become dominant in the process of the individuals configuration manifesting over time. The Special Needs Education Course describes these constitutional types and therapeutic in detail focusing mostly on the second seven year period. This is based on the understanding of the relationship of each organ with the relevant element to the world, such as the fluid element and the liver or the earth element (gravity) and the lung. These needs to resonate in order to be open for transformation for a healthy development. The experience of gravity for example is quite different when we look at an object falling to earth from a certain height and our own embodied experience of gravity: It signifies our DIRECT relationship to the world though our own body in which our I-organisation is present. If an organ is not well developed or integrated within/penetrated by the I-organisation, Steiner describes how the so called higher members (astral and I-organisation) get absorbed into the organ but cannot ray back out again and get crushed beneath the surface of the organ. This pent-up pressure leads to sudden ‘release’ that manifests for example in an epileptic fit, or emotional outburst. (See Special Education Needs Course: GA317, Lesson 3 Par.12,17 Lesson 4 para 7, 11).

The opposite is the case when the organ cannot hold the energy from the higher members of the four-fold organism and instead flow out. Not enough is held back to create the inner space of resonance leading the child feel raw towards the impressions of the world. As a response to this painful experience of the world the child may respond with anxiety or withdrawal of will impulses presenting as restlessness, squirming movements as it is trying to hold back the pain. Both therapeutic and educational remedial measures are described by Steiner, some of which were mentioned in the course. If the lung is implicated, breath- and also balance exercises have proved to be helpful. In case of the liver, the fluid element within the body needs activating.

A most helpful note of the speaker right at the end of the lecture let us consider how to work with these constitutional types. These are not to be understood as recipes or stencil cut out-s into which we might wish to match an individual child, but as an archetypal image we keep in the back of our mind. As well digested knowledge and understanding of these principles they can inform our observations, assessments, and healing impulses in our daily work as

clinicians, therapists and educators.

Small group work over the next three days worked through parts of the Special Education Needs Course: Lesson 5 para 9-12 describes the two opposing types in which on the one hand impressions cannot sink down into the lower body, the metabolic limbs system, these keep streaming back up again into the head creating a tendency to ‘paranoia’ and fixed ideas. A child may be shown an object, such as a watch, Steiner describes, and will repeatedly speak about the watch and cannot move on from there once the impression or conversation changes. The underlying reason Steiner describes as the I-organisation not penetrating well into the lower body which prevents the albumin substance in the body containing enough sulphur. The opposite condition, where sulphur-rich albumin, (where the sulphur in proportion to carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen is too high) according to Steiner the impressions that come from the world are completely swallowed up by the metabolic limb system. They get stuck and can’t be recouped or drawn out into consciousness again. The resulting disturbance it creates in the soul may manifest in the whole organism becoming agitated, like a slight tremor. Again, Steiner gives therapeutic indications, such as the importance of the rhythmical repetition of the morning verse as is custom in the Steiner Schools which will result in relieving the internal condition of disturbance in the soul life and rouse the world impressions to be brought up again from the periphery of the metabolic limb system into the head. It may encourage us to remind parents of the importance of saying a verse at meal times and before going to sleep! (If you hear of any study that has confirmed the sulphur content in human albumin in relation to

mental health, please let me know!!).

Lesson 5 para 29-31 describes that when the physical aspect of the body is too dense, in particular where the child finds it difficult to move legs and hands on instructions we can find a tendency toward depression and melancholy for which Steiner suggests a particular sequence of Eurythmy therapy (R,L,S,I) with the aim to stimulate the whole spiritual nature and to bring mobility into the metabolic limb system. In the opposing constitutional condition we may find the child is constantly moving which can effect both mind and limbs. For example, a child might learn a particular skill such as drawing a dragon (example from my own experience as school doctor) and whatever else is going on, it feels compulsion to first draw the image and cannot be persuaded otherwise. Again, a specific Eurythmy therapy sequence has proved to be an effective intervention here (M,N,B,P,A,U).

Dr Silke Schwarz, researcher at the University Witten/Herdecke presented her brand new paper in which she describes the outcomes of a nationwide study on parental screen use and child development in children up to the age of three. The article can be accessed here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.13578.

The main outcomes show a direct negative impact of parental screen use on developmental milestones, social and emotional development by the age of three. Information about the project and supporting material can be found here: ‘screen free until 3’; https://bildschirmfrei-bis-3.de/en/why-screen-free/

These annual conferences are a wonderful opportunity to meet like-minded colleagues and develop new contacts and collaborations. As you can hopefully see from my description above, it inspires with in depth work on the chosen topic. Importantly, the conference forms part of the international post-graduate training for Waldorf school and kindergarten doctors.