The Will at Work
by Amanda Sanfilippo, Class of 2002
For eight years I was a tile maker. Then, after three years of training under the direction of Dorit Winter I became a Waldorf teacher. Now, as both teacher and human being, I study many things, including words. Words and their echo in the world interest me, as well as their hidden essences, their alchemical treasures. Verbs and nouns and their relationships interest me. When I think about active words it is easy for me to turn many of them into nouns: being, the being; finding, the find; working, the work; reading, a good read, etc. Shifting nouns into action isn’t as natural –think of words like star, child, earth. They are difficult to turn into verbs even though they are imbued with constant movement if we imagine them in their true senses.
What disturbs me in our time is that our actions are so hurried, so forced and yet so often empty of an understood or clear intention, and that our words, in response, are becoming more and more inert. Words are becoming things to consume as products or mere ornamentation so that they end up “uninhabited,” lost, their action never set free.
I speak of these things because they relate closely to my experience of enlivening the will for students. In the teacher training, I learned that it is not the words but the deeds of our day that create openings in work, in our understanding, and in the possibility for clear thoughts. If our deeds can be infused with flexibility, with lucid intentions, humor, and contemplation we can learn and subsequently we can teach. In my teaching of 6th and 7th graders in a recorder ensemble, I have learned that the children’s work is affected by how I create the mood in the class, how I enter and stand before the students, how I play the music they are to learn, how I listen and notice everything I can while in their presence, and how I reflect on them at home. The “how” is as important as the “what.”
I try to hold my students in a strong, yet open form. When they play music, I conduct them so the song is the form, inhabited by their will. In such moments, a certain construct of peace can ensue, a peace infused with dissonance, harmony and action. It is usually fleeting, but it is keen and physically as well as spiritually understood. It is when the will of child and teacher are engaged in releasing an unknown, yet expected beauty or truth that we fully experience the force of educating.
When I was a tile maker I taught myself to throw on the wheel. One of my favorite things to make was a mortar and pestle. I loved how it was both tool and vessel. I enjoyed its parts: the mortar sitting still and holding fast, and the pestle, when in an able hand, milling and releasing new elements held in the mortar. As a teacher, I realize the importance of a still form holding the children, while an active will liberates their true essence, their individuality, their “spice.” My aim is not to keep a closed or rigid form but rather a chalice; not to crush but to release. My goal is to support the transformation of my students in a savory or healthy way so that the magic of their “will” becomes the vital ingredient to their knowledge, their love and their freedom.
