Responsibilities

Anthroposophy is not simply a philosophical attitude, to be studied in isolation, but gives meaning to all aspects of our lives, to the small concerns as well as to the larger issues. Participation in the seasonal festivals and the Sunday services has a logical place in this and, while everyone\'s personal beliefs are respected fully, it is important that all co-workers should feel able to perceive the value and significance of those events.

Your major responsibility at all times is to the pupil in your care, whether in the classroom or the house. The task is to care for and to educate each child to the fullest extent possible. As a new co-worker you will be helped by more experienced colleagues to learn how to establish a successful relationship with each pupil, how to gauge what expectations to have for the individual pupil, and how to develop each pupil\'s potential to the fullest extent possible, so that maximum independence and self-reliance are achieved. Think of it this way: you are setting out on a personal learning experience while helping the pupils themselves embark on a similar voyage of discovery. Their needs are paramount at all times, however. That is why this booklet concerns itself with the basic rules of care, organisation and self-discipline.

You may find the following quotes helpful. The first is a free paragraph taken from a passage in Rudolf Steiner\'s second lecture on Curative Education and deals with the importance of empathy:

• "If, as a co-worker, you can gradually make your own way into the situation of the young pupil, can sense how the pupil perceives the world, and can begin to share something of what the pupil actually experiences, then you will have taken the first steps in developing a real understanding of the child\'s inner world of feeling. By educating yourself in this capacity for empathy, you will escape from the subjectivity of your own experience and will learn to acquire an insight into the child\'s own intellectual, emotional and spiritual means of communicating with the surrounding world."

Rudolf Steiner - Excerpt from “In Education towards Freedom” (1924)

• “what you say to a small child, what you teach him, does not make much impression on him. It is what you are, whether you are good and manifest this goodness in your behaviour which is of vital importance, or whether you are irritable and subject to outbursts of temper. In short, all that you are yourself reverberates within the child. One can say that he is a sense organ reacting to every impression to which he is subjected.”

Rudolf Steiner

All new co-workers take part in the Foundation Course and, for those who remain longer at Camphill, there is the opportunity to embark upon the BA Programme in Curative Education. By offering a theoretical and practical insight into Rudolf Steiner\'s view of our human situation, these courses complement the experiential learning gained through one\'s daily duties at Camphill.