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English

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Sociologie, société et politique

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Publié par	Hawthorn Press Ltd
Date de parution	01 janvier 0001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781912480494
Langue	English

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BETWEEN FORM AND FREEDOM
A practical guide for the teenage years
BETTY STALEY
Between Form and Freedom copyright © 1988, 2009 Betty Kletsky Staley
Betty Staley is hereby identified as the author of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. She asserts and gives notice of her moral right under this Act.
Published by Hawthorn Press, Hawthorn House, 1 Lansdown Lane, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 1BJ, UK
Tel: 01453 757040 Fax: 01453 751138 email: info@hawthornpress.com www.hawthornpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means (electronic or mechanical, through reprography, digital transmission, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover photography by Fred Chance Cover design by Bookcraft Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire Design and typesetting by Bookcraft Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire Printed in the UK by Athenaeum Press Ltd, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
First edition published 1988 Second edition published 2009 Reprinted 2011
Every effort has been made to trace the ownership of all copyrighted material. If any omission has been made, please bring this to the publisher’s attention so that proper acknowledgement may be given in future editions.
The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher.
The excerpt from Another Brick in the Wall © 1979 Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd is reproduced with permission.
The Logical Song by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson from Supertramp Breakfast in America © 1979 Almo Music Corp – Delicate Music, is reproduced with permission from Rondor Music (London) Ltd.
The excerpt from Mending Wall from The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem © Estate of Robert Frost, is reproduced with permission from Henry Holt and Co Inc NY and Jonathan Cape Ltd, London.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Staley, Betty Between Form and Freedom: a practical guide for the teenage years. (Lifeways) 1. Adolescents. Development. I. Title. II. Series 305.2’35
ISBN 978 1 903458 89 1 eISBN 978 1 912480 49 4
Contents
Foreword     Joseph Chilton Pearce
Introduction
I. THE NATURE OF ADOLESCENCE
  1. How do you get to be an adolescent?
  2. Stages of adolescence
  3. The search for the self
  4. The birth of intellect
  5. Release of feelings
  6. Understanding our sons and daughters
  7. Introduction to the temperaments
  8. The melancholic temperament
  9. The sanguine temperament
10. The phlegmatic temperament
11. The choleric temperament
12. The development of character during adolescence
II. THE CHALLENGE OF ADOLESCENCE
13. The needs of teenagers
14. Teenagers and the family
15. Teenagers and friends
16. Teenagers and the schools
17. Waldorf education
18. The teenager and the arts
19. Power and loyalty
20. The role of love
III. THE PROBLEMS OF ADOLESCENCE
21. Problems of self-esteem
22. Pregnancy and the teenager
23. Teenagers and alcohol
24. Teenagers and drugs
25. Teenagers and food
26. Extreme behavioral problems
27. Teenagers and media
Conclusion
Appendix I. Bibliography
Appendix II. Study questions
Appendix III. The ages of children
References
Author’s acknowledgements
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my three children – Andrea, George and Sonya – and to my high school students. They all have again and again taught me the great lessons of life.
This book is also dedicated to my father, Israel Jehuda Kletsky, otherwise known as Izzy. He was one of the many idealistic Russian immigrants who came to the United States to find freedom and to contribute their fire and energy to the betterment of this land.
His dreams for a better society inspired him to teach me about those people who cherished liberty and to hold out a hope that one day we would all live in peace.
Through his concern for his fellow workers, he organized a union local, participated in demonstrations and pickets, and taught me the importance of sacrifice.
His dedication to those who were fighting for racial equality made me an enthusiastic fan of Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, as well as giving me an understanding of social justice.
His love gave me the confidence that I could be whatever I willed to be.
Foreword
Joseph Chilton Pearce
An editorial entitled What’s Wrong with These Kids? was reproduced in newspapers and magazines across the country. The author asked with self-righteous indignation: “… after all we’ve done for them, why do today’s kids act the way they do?” There followed a long, glowing account of the materialistic benefits, the erotic freedoms, information accesses and technological wizardry, which we, the generation of the Great Depression and World War II, have given our young people. The article pointed out that, though deprived of all these freedoms and wonders, we, the elders, had come through pretty well and built a marvelous world. Ignored was the glaring fact that today’s youth, “given everything” materially, are starved on emotional-spiritual levels. These may have been scanty in our childhood too, but we had the nurturing of marvelous imaginations, dreams, and hopes. Erotic materialism, “giving everything”, is bought at a price.
Most public, and private, educational systems treat today’s child and adolescent as prospective consumer-producers vital to the gross national product. Most parents demand of education only that it equip their child to get a “good job” and make lots of money. The criteria and model presented for the child’s imprinting from birth is that of being no more than a dollar commodity value in our economic schemes. A major magazine devoted a serious article to “today’s materialistic kids”, pointing out that through use of the right psychological inputs, we could, by age six, “determine the child’s buying patterns for life.” With such attitudes reflected by parents, teachers, and all media, the young person has no access to any other self-evaluation or self-image. With such a violence to the natural development of intelligence occurring from the beginning of life, small wonder that violence among our teenagers becomes endemic.
Until we again recognize the spiritual side of life as primary, particularly in childhood and adolescence, our mounting social catastrophe can only continue. For only through the recognition and nurturing of the spirit can a true intelligence unfold. In this excellent book, Betty Staley has given us a compassionate, intelligent, and intuitive look into the mind of children and adolescents. Even the most casual reader of this book will never again respond to children and adolescents in the old mechanical ways.
Young people unconsciously look continually for some signal from their world that the true inner needs of their life might be met. The strength and power of Steiner or Waldorf education lies in just this recognition, and in providing young people with proper guidance, stimuli, and help at the proper times. The fact that most Waldorf educated children are happy, intelligent, adaptive, cooperative, and, above all, love their school and love learning, indicates that our young people, given such a message, will themselves respond positively and overcome many of the culturally induced negativities and dysfunctions facing them outside the school.
My own spiritual journey has been different from, though in some ways roughly parallel to, that of Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf education, and the major model for Betty Staley’s work. In no way do my personal qualifications of the Steiner system “disqualify” it. My points of disagreement with Betty are minor and no more than statistical, incidental when faced with the overwhelming need our young people have for genuine developmental models and guidance, which Waldorf certainly approaches. Steiner education is easily one of the most beneficial systems currently available (rivaled, perhaps, only by Sister Grace Pilon’s Workshop Way ), just as Steiner’s philosophy is an extraordinary and profound insight. 1 Any shortcoming that I find therein are dismissable within the overall picture of optimistic hope Waldorf offers all educational systems.
This book is about the development of intelligence in the whole person, which subject I would make compulsory in all education, at all levels. What happens, or is supposed to happen, in the early years, the middle years, and the adolescent period? At present we enter into these periods in “dark ignorance” – totally unprepared. Our parents, teachers, and leaders are equally ignorant of what is at stake and what the needs are. We pass this ignorance on, unknowingly, generation after generation. What kind of world would we have were we not entering into each stage of life in such ignorance and darkness? The Steiner schools, and works like Betty Staley’s, are a significant step in the movement toward breaking this cycle and achieving a true knowledge – knowing our needs and how to meet them.
This book is not, however, just for Steiner teachers, parents, or those familiar with Steiner. It offers a wealth of information and insight for every teacher, parent, and individual interested in breaking from the suicidal trends of our day, and opening toward the life of the spirit within us. Some of Steiner’s language may seem archaic, some of his terms may seem from a past era. I ask, however, what have our clever, sophisticated, mechanistic “naked ape” terms given us? What kind of world and society has the erotic materialism of the behaviorists, currently shaping academic and public belief, actually given us? I claim only a slide toward global suicide and despair.
An ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic stated that there were two sources of knowledge: intuition, coming from a general intelligence; and analytical logic, coming from individual intellect. The same informatio