Jens Bjørneboe, “Karakterer eller vitnesbyrd”, Originally published in Ny skole No. 8, 1954; reprinted in Under en Mykere Himmel, 1976. Samlede Essays: Pedagogikk,, 85-89. ©1976, 1995 by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag A/S. English translation ©1997 by Esther Greenleaf Mürer.
The greatest difficulty for the Steiner School is the eternal battle against the conception of schooling as training, as preparation for later employment.
We have never had plans to emulate trade or other professional schools, but still this is a daily problem: What do the pupils learn? I. e. , so that it can be measured and weighed? Every spring the school totters on its foundations and in the reason for its existence: the examination stands at the door—and an otherwise unimpeachable morale changes from a solid fortress wall to an old, tumbledown board fence. Through the cracks alien, cold gusts of wind blow into classrooms and corridors. This draft signifies the meeting with the clearest expression of everything which isn't the Steiner School, or rather, not school at all—namely the grade system inherited from the old days—the exact and absolute devaluing of all other qualifications than book learning.
Knowledge which, at least to the best of our ability, has been imparted for seven years as something which fuses people together in trust and common work, something which makes you free and strong, which creates equality, brotherly love, helpfulness and joy—this same knowledge is suddenly turned against the children as a weapon. The whole thing has been a con game: You have enjoyed yourself in small classes, when you learned to read and write, when you went on class trips together in Asbjørnsen and Moe, when you roamed bravely with Little Freddie and Tom Thumb, pressed forward through all kinds of thorny woods forward to the horse Fallada and the unhappy princess in Grimm. You met Reynard the Fox and Francis of Assisi, you went with the Jewish people through Pharaoh's imprisonment in Egypt, you got to know the Bunny and the Crocodile, you studied faces and forms among the flowers, heard all kinds of mythologies about the good Balder, about Loki, Thor, about Orpheus, Euridyce, about Demeter and Isis, you put on plays, did eurythmy, played recorder, modeled, drew, painted, made your own books, learned about the valiant Hellenes, about the Romans and about the miracles of chemistry. Now and then you were naughty—when it was necessary to be naughty; for the most part you were very nice. Thus you grew big and frightfully clever and wise.
But the whole time you were mistaken when you believed that these things which you were learning were something which one learned for the joy of learning, in order to become even wiser and better, and even more glad to learn—that knowledge and proficiency were worth something for their own sake, or that one should be able to help others with them. You were very much mistaken, if you believed this. For in reality knowledge is something which is used to grade and classify people with, to sow a competitive spirit, egotism, vanity, discord and mistrust.
So this is why we teach you this. So that you shall understand that life is one big fight against everybody, where the point is to get to the top as fast as possible, to get as many people as possible under you. To learn this, we have invented the grading system, and we have expanded this to grade points and intelligence tests, so that you shall learn this thoroughly, once and for all: People are of different worth, and how much every individual is worth is an easy thing to calculate. And at the exam we throw you into the balance.
And both the school authorities and your parents are interested in getting you weighed. Amen.