Download the article: The First Seven Years: The Physiology of Childhood
If you have ever wished that someone who had fully digested Steiner's Study of Man would focus on the first seven years of the child's life and expand and deepen our communal understanding by writing a book on that theme, then consider your wish fulfilled. Dr. Edmond Schoorel, a Dutch pediatrician, has written such a book. Originally published in Holland, it has been translated and published in English and is available now. As Rena Osmer says on the back cover, "This book may well become the new study text for Waldorf early childhood educators." Dr. Schoorel looks at all aspects of early childhood and penetrates it with his deep understanding. The workings of the four bodies of the human being, the developing and function of the senses, the workings of the etheric all receive in-depth treatment in a clear and accessible way. In particular, Schoorel examines Steiner's admonitions in Study of Man to teach the children how to breathe, and how to sleep. So he looks at much of child development, and the activities that can support that in the light of breathing and/or sleeping.
One example that caught my attention right away is the description of the polarity of naughtiness and curiosity, the former being an awake and antipathetic activity, and the other a falling asleep into something as sympathy.
Also fascinating is the description of a kindergarten group as an organism having its own ether body. This organism is created out of the individual children, the habits and "norms" that prevail and the design that created the kindergarten that comes from teacher, parents, institution and tradition. And this kindergarten organism must obey the etheric laws.
These include: each single part has an influence on the whole; there must be equilibrium between maintaining form and adjusting to changing circumstances...[The ether body is] a form-giving entity that works between the polarities of substance and form, aiming at proper development, and using time processes. (p.81)
In his preface, Dr. Schoorel says this book is written as a travel guide for the developmental processes of young children. This book is not about education, but about the landscape in which education takes place.
The First Seven Years is a profound example of what one can do with applying a sort of "Study of Man thinking" to a particular phase of child development, and is filled with challenges to the reader's thinking to find ways to support the child as he or she travels the highways and byways of early childhood.
This book, rich with its descriptions of the landscape of the first seven years and the mapping of various roads and scenery along the way, is an invaluable resource for Waldorf early childhood educators, caregivers and parents. I am grateful that it arrived in my mailbox, and recommend it to all of you. But don't merely put it on your bookshelf. Read it. Use it. Refer to it. Share it with colleagues and parents. Study it with others.
And send a thank you note to Dr. Schoorel for writing it and Steiner College Press for publishing it when you start to notice your copy's dog-eared pages, underlines and high-lightings.