Human Being's Capacity to be Affected

Reflections from the World Teachers' Conference in Dornach - Part 4 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

By Judi Remigio, Parent and Child Teacher

Further to our perception that the human being's capacity to be affected or moved, as our most important characteristic, our experiences of life, death, 'the other', and the world, are what affects us, and are also all interrelated.

Life affects and gives us a sense of joy, death affects us with experience of anguish, 'the other' or 'you affect me' and bring the experience of the different modalities of love. We do not overcome these experiences, but we respond to them.

Finally, the World affects us with the experience of Wonder.

The world is the most important 'infinite' experience in education. To "indicate" is a gesture connected to care (not power). The main gesture of "the world" is not to dominate, but to make the world available to the others; in other words, hospitality.

When a teacher indicates something beautiful in the world, this is formative. It is a gesture of generosity, to become (the teacher becomes) a source of forms; the human being (the student who will become and mature) ultimately becomes a source of forms, and hence, this generosity is passed on, and will be passed further.

The world comes to us and 'wonders' us through its beauty. The world reaches us through contemplation, of its deepness and harmony within itself. The world also reveals itself through becoming because the world is in its own becoming (hence we learn by example).

The human being's inner response to this becoming is commitment, which makes for more world, and respectably, more humane human beings.

World Teacher's Conference Photo Gallery