“Imagine a garden with ten thousand flowers. And only one of these flowers is blooming. Would you call this gardener a gardener? Is this school really a school? Would you really call such a teacher, a teacher? No, because this one flower is blooming not because of the gardener, teacher etc, but despite them. The flower actually managed to survive all the treatment, it was able to unfold anyway and become what it came here to be. How many children manage to survive school, in the same way that our flower survived?

There is a song from Reinhard Mey entitled: “You are a giant, Max.” Part of the lyrics are: “ Children are born as giants, but, with every new-born day, a piece of their happiness is lost, we are doing something to make them smaller. Children are able to move mountains, until the viscous devil’s circle awakens, until they are like us, adult dwarves, until they are finally as small as we adults are...”

Every human is an original and must be “treated” and respected as such. Normal schools however, are turning out virtually “copies”. But to live as a copy – unconsciously and mechanically – means to miss out on life! Children are free, clear, lively and truthful. We don’t have to teach the kids how to live, they are still alive! We just have to protect them from becoming like us, so that they can dare to go their own new ways, so that they may live as themselves. It is essential therefore, that children are given the possibility of a life school, so that they don’t make the same life-mistakes, that millions have made before them. 

Of course there are quaint expressions such as “upbringing,” but real upbringing doesn’t take place, because children just imitate what they perceive in their surroundings. And when that, what they find in life is not right, they still imitate it, even though other alternatives would have been possible.

What is needed is always to be re-minded of the essential thing, which is the child’s being itself, of it’s true, real, integral nature. Then there is a chance, that the child will live a life, which corresponds to his true self. A right, which every person should claim and realise for themselves.

At some point we are confronted with the task, of leading our lives as grown ups, to take responsibility for our own lives and then come to realise, that nobody has shown us how to do this. Caesar Hadrian said once: “Our main mistake lies in not encouraging the virtues that people possess.” The following story describes this in a very vivid way.

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