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Educationists Ellen and Wolfgang Koettker from Norway believe schools should prepare children for life
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TOGETHER ELLEN and Wolfgang Koettker have traversed varied tracts across countries and as teachers, have spent a long time in creating an ideal education context. At their school, Rudolf Steiner Skolen in Vestfold, Norway, both Ellen and Wolfgang "prepare children to meet life". The couple was in Hyderabad in the last phase of their trip to India, after visiting Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore. Both went around to general schools and also those specifically inspired by Waldorf method — as their school in Norway is.
They visited the Waldorf initiative for old people and the physically challenged at Bangalore, and the remedial school in Chennai, among other places. They spent a little more than three months altogether and shared their opinions, experiences and their joy of discovering the system of education here.
Ellen speaks of her stint with the Waldorf system — she had gone to Scotland to study town planning. She saw a residential school for physically challenged children and was inspired enough to start her Waldorf training at that school. That's where she met Wolfgang. "Mainstream education here is much more intellectual with a lot of pressure to do `well'," said Wolfgang. Ellen added, "middle-class parents have a single child and there is a lot of attention around that child; in our culture, children have to do much more themselves (clean dishes, for instance). Here, they have house help. Children (mainly from the middle class) don't seem to take hold of their daily lives until much later."
Ellen also pointed out, "children are made to learn the alphabet, write and count, whereas the Waldorf system believes in giving time for each human being to develop, as per his/ her own individual capacity. The idea is to let children be children. They have to be ready to learn what they are being taught. Reading and writing, and writing numbers is taught at the age of six or seven and not earlier. And that is through activities."
What are their impressions on India after this visit? Ellen pointed out at once, "the hospitality here is something I never experienced before. There is a multitude of people and there are so many contradictions — colours, beauty, and the poverty. We don't experience that in our country." Wolfgang was particularly amused at the sight of the old coal iron box still in use despite people having automatic irons in their own homes!
Speaking of education, Ellen believes that mainstream schools only consider a child "neck-upwards" — just concentrating on how much they memorise, and deal with numbers, whereas there are other systems, including the Waldorf, which believe in developing the entire persona, including the psychological, emotional and spiritual facets of a growing child.
But the support for education in a country like Norway can in no way be compared to that in India. For, one is informed, the State pays 85 per cent of the costs (for a child) and the parents pay the rest, and that too, if they can. There is provision for every child to go to school. Besides, children are given the freedom and the right to be taught in their own language — be it the indigenous Sámi children, or Greek, or Russian or Pakistani. In schools in Oslo, 20 different languages are taught. Wolfgang informs, "The running costs of State schools are the same as that of a Waldorf school."
In their school in Vestfold, Norway, most of their teachers are from different nationalities "Children today are world citizens, and things are becoming global. One must take care of one's own heritage and background, and be able to meet the world at the same time. We must look through many windows to get a wider view and freedom in a larger context. In the end, the child has to be able to meet life and its challenges," says Wolfgang.
Together, the couple takes back memories of the life and challenges of Indian people, as they do the extreme contradictions, besides the smiles of children they met in their three months of stay in different cities in India. They leave with a dream of visiting again.
R. UMA MAHESHWARI
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