Teorías relacionadas al tema

Visiting Factories and Plants in Grade 9 Experience shows that it is most beneficial to visit the service industry in grade 9 . One representative example is described below in detail .

The visit to the garbage incineration plant Zürcher Oberland was a rewarding trip, especially due to the director, who was one of the pioneers of the concept of waste separation in private households . The students met a human being who did not only fulfill his tasks, but actually almost worked against his own enterprise by fighting for the least amount of garbage possible to be burned in his plant . This way the region Zürcher Oberland was a good example:

Regional composting, strict waste separation by the consumer and the passing-on of the separated materials to recycling companies has been working well for many years .

The incinerator itself was well worth even a longer visit . Students could follow the path of a garbage bag from the intermediate storage in a bunker to the charging into the furnace . The process of combustion could be observed through special peepholes . The incombustible slag could be inspected on a belt conveyor . The produced heat was first converted into steam and powered an electric generator; the water was cooled down to 90°

C and served for the distant heating of the surrounding industrial plants .

Such tours of factories and plants serve several purposes: They allow the students opportunities to examine today’s civilization processes and understand the functioning of such plants . Students should experience that facilities work well when the inventive and realizing genius of human beings is activated . The initiating and running of such plants is achieved through an appropriate thinking . Thirdly, the young people awaken in respect to their own actions as ordinary

visits to the garbage incineration plant that garbage separation units were established in the classroom . Parents reported that their sons and daughters took care of the garbage separation at home, at least for awhile . It is typical for 9th graders that they want to practice immediately what they recognize to be the right thing to do . In this case, this is easily done .

Additional tours depend on local opportunities: a mail distribution center, a bread factory of a large food chain, a paper mill, the city gas plant . Everywhere it can be experienced how human beings work in tedious jobs to allow other people to enjoy relatively comfortable day-to-day lives . Manual skills were practiced in many ways . Now it is important to move from getting-to-know things and skills to more discovery-based learning experiences, hence the term

“technology .” This transition is begun with the spinning class. (Karutz 1991a; 1991b) Manual skills are further trained and an increasing mental understanding of the work processes is added . Students appreciate the congenial inventions from the hand spindle to the hand spinning wheel and the treadle wheel in hands-on doing . (Hentschel 1975)

In review of the spinning block, the textile technology class might begin with socio-economic aspects as we will specifically investigate below . Good sources for an understanding of the developments in textile technology are the books Spinning and Weaving, Bohnsack, (1981), as well as Burnham (1981), English (1969), and Hecht

Steiner referred to the importance of industrial region, the Zürcher Oberland [Zurich highlands] was always characterized by the textile industry . After the first pioneer plants were developed in England, the first textile factories on the continent were established in the Zürcher Oberland . Most of this is already known to the students from their local history, geography, and natural history classes in the lower school . Many old buildings from this period remain part of the landscape but today are often used for other purposes .

Industrialization took place in this region due mainly to two conditions: a previous presence of the textile craft and the availability of rivers . In the hilly Zürcher Oberland, farmers always needed a second source of income . On each homestead there was a weaving loom, and several spinning wheels stood in damp basements . In domestic work, wool, flax, hemp, and cotton were spun and processed into fabric . Over centuries, elaborate textile skills and a well-functioning trade organization were established . After the invention of the first machines in England, people quickly realized how favorable the existing plenitude of small rivers with appropriate downward gradient was for the use of waterpower-driven machines . Due to this, many technically innovative strategies of energy conversion were developed via spinning and weaving mills .

It is interesting to track how the occupational situation of spinners and weavers changed due to developments in technology . (Bohnsack 1981) As the social consequences of these technological

revolutions were not reduced, wage cuts and unemployment alternated between spinners and weavers . Simultaneously, impressive and oppressive are the portrayals of child labor in factories . As in the example of the industrialist Guyer-Zeller, social inventive genius and ethical behavior slowly implemented social achievements such as health insurance, social welfare, humane working hours, social housing and other benefits . The ongoing reduction of working hours paralleled the construction of more powerful and efficient machines . (Berner et al . 1962)

In class, portrayals of the open-ended technology can be continued up into present time . Key phrases appear such as: low-wage countries, globalization of the world economy, factory robots and the impoverishment of the so-called less-developed countries . But these modern themes cannot yet be processed; they are, if at all, reserved for the economy block in grade 12 .

Why of all topics is it precisely the textile industry that is covered in grade 10? Based on historic investigations, we can show that the entire story of the development of industrialization happened in the textile sector . The first small manufacturing and factories occurred in textile processing and finishing . The chemical industry developed out of textile dyeworks, the machine industry started with the construction of textile machines, and modern energy conversion machines like the steam engine were first used in the textile sector . Practical experience has shown that it is highly beneficial to implement Steiner’s suggestion of the principle to review the steps of the development of mankind once more . The 11th grade is the right time to study energy conversions (chapter 8), and grade 12 takes an exemplary look at the production and trade of essential foods (chapter 10) .

Preliminary Remarks

It is the intention of the present chapter to introduce the reasons an astronomy block should follow the study of man, and to provide suggestions for the design of this block . For the basic scientific principles, you should consult primarily Rhythms of the Stars (1986) and Davidson (2004), and consider observing the starry sky itself, with the help of periodically published star calendars such as the one from the mathematical-astronomical section of the Goetheanum [Freie Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft Dornach], the Abrams-Planetarium and/

or the Griffith-Observatory [both in the references] . An alternative approach to this 11th grade block was published in a special issue on astronomy of the German educational journal Erziehungskunst . (Haag 1998) In addition, there are two German publications on astronomy through the grades by the astronomer and high school teacher Schmidt . (Schmidt 1998; 1987) Epistemological Principles of the Concept of Intentionality

[Intentional Relation]

As will be shown in the following sections, the 11th grade practice theme is the awakening to handle intentional events . Let me first explain the key concept of

Within the epistemological part of the introduction, an example was used to explain the four stages of the formation of reality, starting with the prototype of ideals and leading to an imaginable, solidified world of deeds (refer to chapter 1) . Most difficult to understand is the second stage, representing the transition from an idea to a life process adapting to the conditions of the real world . Steiner dealt with and elaborated on Brentano’s concept of intentionality in Von Seelenrätseln . (Steiner 1917, appendices 5 and 6, translated in part as The Case for Anthroposophy by Owen Barfield 1978) Witzenmann described intentionality [the intentional relation] in a series of essays called “4 x 12 and 3 x 7: The on-looking power of judgment and being aware sensually and morally .” These essays follow the four causes of Aristotle [the causes of substance, form, movement and purpose] resulting from observations of mental and emotional processes: When merging the perceivable incoherent and the conceptual coherence, the creation of reality occurs in four steps . After the mental performance of grasping a universality, which is called purposeful activity corresponding to Aristotle’s purpose cause, Witzenmann described the next stage as follows: “Because of this generality of the purposeful activity, it needs to be adjusted

Chapter 7