According to Dr. Rudolf Steiner—and we can read about in one of the basic lecture series for teachers collected in the book, “Balance in teaching”— awareness of the speech process is quintessential for the creation of the healthy soul life in the kindergarten or the classroom. 

Consequently, the very first speech excercise Dr.Steiner  created, originally in the German language: ” Erfullung geht …” (and in English translation :”Fulfilling goes…”), if practiced, enables teachers not only to develop elasticity of speech and a sense for the threefoldness of the human constitution, but also enables them to speak the meaning of the words on the wings of the sounds.

But in addition to our own experience of listening to or forming the living word, we may also like to look at it from a phenomenological point of view, and raise the question: “what  actually are those wings? And how is the meaning of the new-born sound carried to the listening ear?”  It is possible to observe this phenomenon with a simple experiment: the speaker needs to inhale the smoke of a cigarette and speak out while the smoke still has a good density level.  What becomes visible then are the organic forms each sound creates in the surrounding breathed-out air.

 Relationships between  the character of the sounds and created forms can be obvious: for instance, the impact sound “K” creates a sharp form, as if someone were to cut into the breath with an invisible axe.  Similarly, the lip sound ” M” creates a harmonious flower-like form.  But as soon as we speak syllables, words, or several words, the forms become so complex that our understanding of their ever changing interplay needs to surpass anything we know about metamorphosis in Nature, including the plant and animal kingdoms.

 So one possible answer to our question is that this liveliness in the newly created, gesture-filled speech is responsible for the winged uplifting quality which also carrieswithin the formed meaning.

 Moreover, if we are following the same train of thought, we also can realise: “Within creation only the speaking human being has the ability to make free use of those forces from which he originates, theforces of Logos. He thus shares in a deeply creative process, regenerating the creation of the world. He creates anew, changing and transforming the world and himself.”* 

So, to return to the classroom situation,  a desirable pedagogical outcome is, on the one hand, the teacher’s ability to get hold of that very fine chisel which cuts the speech forms in the stream of the breath and enables more intuitive and soulful conversations to unfold in a classroom;  and, on the other hand, the benefit for the children is, via immersion in the living language which stimulates their sense for the Word, the ability to move inwardly, while at the same time remaining still outwardly and thereby receiving the content of the lesson much better.

Bothmer gym excercises make a good foundation for this process via solidifying the physical body and bringing about the congruency between the body and soul landscapes.

Speaking in educational terms we can enter the first landscape by practicing the original Greek pentathlon culminating with class 5 Waldorf schools olympics. The soul follows, expressing itself through the six archetypal gestures within the speech and drama school productions.

Looking at the same from an “early years”perspective, we can observe that in the first year of life children are making attempts to lift their upper body, to roll onto their sides, crawl, stand up and finally walk.  While learning to relate to the space around them, their senses of balance, hearing and touch are awakening.  Moreover these experiences serve as a basis for acquiring speech. 

Development can not but continue, like the flowing of a river, and by  mastering speech,  the virtue of thinking is initiated.  

Then, during the third year of a child’s life, he or she is able for the first time to say “I am” and begins to recognise him- or herself as an unique individual. 

So looking from this described three-fold developmental point of view—walking, speaking, thinking—we can say that the disciplines of Speech formation, together with Bothmer Gym and Eurythmy are activities that are able to recapitulate that very process of child development, but now in a much more conscious way. 

 In other words, the  pedagogical aim is not to get stuck in a duality of “blind will” and “abstract thinking”,  but rather to develop living-thinking and willing-devotion in accordance with the three-fold constitution of the human being. 

 One question is still hanging in the air: “What is the role of eurythmy  within the educational triad of  Head, Heart and Hands?”

 In that regard we can say that eurythmy is the practice that engages all three, and like a captain of the soul, leads through the eye of the needle of the physical body to thatother side of  reality – the etheric side, where the physical laws are coming to their limit and invisible starts to guide visible.  It is the realm of rhythm and overflowing movement, the homestead of living imagination.

 So in the process of becoming a holistic three-fold practice, Bothmer gym, Speech formation and Eurythmy make effective the path of integration of the lower and higher senses within body and soul, and the development of that most precious and  unique human property ,the “I am”.

Danijel Grcevic