This chapter is entitled, “Watch Your Temper(ament)”, and how Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf Education, thought that class size was not as important as all of the children’s individual needs being met.  And the way he thought this could happen was by understanding the four temperaments.

In fact, author Poplawski writes:

A skilled  teacher has something in each lesson that appeals to each temperament and is also able to draw out and develop the special gift of each temperament. Thus the children learn to appreciate the strengths and virtues of those who are different from them……

The other approach to temperament work is equally important but perhaps more difficult. It requires that the teacher or parent take note of and then work on his own temperamental style. Balancing the excesses of this very intimate (and too often ignored) part of who we are constitutes an important path in our self development and has an important bearing not only in our interactions with our children but also in those with our friends, colleagues, and spouses.

Whew!  A tall order, to look inside and be aware, but so important in our work with our own children. Continue reading →

In this chapter of “Completing The Circle”, available for free on-line, we are looking at “The Four Temperaments”.   Thomas Poplawski writes:

The notion of temperament is very old, dating back at least to the ancient
Greece. Hippocrates, in the fourth century BC, spoke of four qualities or “humors” in the human being—cold, moist, hot and dry. In the second century AD, the physician, Galen, spoke of the mixing or “temperare” of these four humors to yield four temperaments. These in turn were related to the four elements yielding the fiery choleric, the airy sanguine, the watery phlegmatic, and the earthy melancholic.

Poplawski goes on to trace the idea of the temperaments through the ideas of the Greeks, and right into modern times and how the temperaments are used in Waldorf Education.  The job of an adult is to help a child break out of their habitual tendencies, and lead them toward balance

Poplawski then goes through all four of the temperaments of children. Continue reading →