Houses from Umbrellas
Q: If a child from the city builds an imagined house from umbrellas, isn’t it better to start from umbrellas as they are familiar to him or her?
A: Why is it better?
Q: Better than, for example, houses built from fog or drops of water?
A: There are no better or worse ideas, all are enjoyable. But houses are not built from umbrellas, even that is unusual, a child’s solution. If they said they build houses from wood or stone or bricks, that could be typical of adult thinking.
Q: But you still steer the child towards your own objectives, and reward those who help you on this way?
A: My objectives are varied. In some cases my aim is creativity, that is, departure from the typical or routine, but in other cases I have ethical or empathic objectives. I choose the most important aim on the spur of the moment, by instinct.
Q: Could you give an example?
A: Well… We may want to move in a house built of haze first because I would like the house to be as if it were in a tale or fable, to be the most improbable: with this I target children who have an overwhelming tendency towards reality. I may choose a dripstone cave, though, because I brought music which goes well with the sparkling. Yet again, I may choose a moss-house, because Marci kicked his brother, and I can see that he is angry: a moss-house helps me make peace between them.
Q: So you do have some objective?
A: I surely do, but I never set it beforehand, but let it appear when it is important.
Q: What may divert you from your objective?
A: Children’s ideas. In many cases they come up with much better ideas than I or most adults do. Their ideas help me develop new ideas and new aims instantly. These new aims appear for the first time, thus my set of objectives is getting ever larger.
Q: Do you have a permanent objective, one that is foremost?
A: I do. It is mutual respect. And a further one, it may be only a fantasy or daydream: that they rejoice in each other’s creation and success as intensively as in their own.
Q: Why is this a fantasy?
A: I have devoted my life to this idea, and I always strive to achieve this. I try to teach this, yet even the best of my students are only stumbling towards it. I do have some beautiful experiences, though, instances which prove that it is only rare, not hopeless.
Q: What is the greatest difficulty in achieving this aim?
A: One example is that of helping the parents to be enthusiastic for each of the children in a group as well as their own. Parents shouldn’t always compare themselves and their children to others. I have seen that even among colleagues there are more grimaces, at least secret grimaces, than wholehearted joy felt at the other’s success.
Q: What does one need for such a glorious spiritual attitude?
A: Inner harmony. If I feel my spiritual energies, they warm me up, bring light to my cobwebbed corners. One needs to store up warmth and light.
Q: How do you get these?
A: Are you asking about my personal sources of supply? Or for some recipe others can use?
Q: Is there a recipe?
A: There is no recipe, there are only individual solutions. And there is help, an immense amount of help everywhere in the world. All one has to do is to relax and listen.
Q: Are you classes for children always joyful?
A: There is always something beautiful in them, but I wouldn’t say they are joyful. Nowadays, for example, recording the classes on videotape and all that goes with it: lighting poles and the two cameras on tripods can be a real nuisance. Such equipment is overwhelming to children and inhibit them as well as the audience. If one is alone with the children, it is always easy to be playful and relaxed even with the people working on the set. In front of a silent and rigid audience, however, the whole thing can be really paralysing.
Q: What do you find out in these cases?
A: I always gather the children so that they would be close to one another, and then send them to the spectators with some sort of tactile message to establish personal contact. The children I used to work with would go up even to a stranger. Not these. The students at my course in Kaposvár promised to prepare the group and to have some initial sessions with the children. Nothing happened. The children were more passive than complete strangers.
Q: How did you finally manage?
A: I turned down the lights, had the curtains pulled, and we started to sing. They were singing beautifully, even canons, and so we could find joy in music. I can’t let children go without that.
Q: Do you think your message got through to the students?
A: Not at all. It was very unusual, for example, whole groups of students departed during my lecture claiming that it was Friday afternoon, and that their trains would be leaving, etc. For me, however, this was depressing. Many asked no questions about the session, as if they didn’t mind at all what they had seen.
Q: Weren’t there good questions?
A: Oh yes, there were some very good questions and a couple of wonderfully enthusiastic people. One of them gave a strict critique of teaching music in schools: I would have said the very same thing. It was good to talk to them and this is usually the case a few people out of many understand. Yet this seems to be no problem for most. What makes me sad, though is when I see that I can’t seem to put across the importance of what I would like to say. It is very difficult to start from the beginning all the time, that is to give the students the background for why such an approach to children is important for building character. I wish university students who would become teachers were more familiar with modern psychology and modern education. I wish it were taken for granted in education that personality is more important than achievement.
Q: What would be the best solution in these classes?
A: If I could bring along with me those pedagogues who already do my things, and they could talk about their experiences. This would be about practical life, and students would understand this more easily. Valika, for example, was excellent. I am sorry I left her presentation for the end of the class: I didn’t know so many people would leave early. I may call her in earlier next time, if it is possible.
Q: What is your problem with yourself?
A: I am impatient. I don’t have enough love, understanding, empathy towards those who know nothing else but the traditional. Dr. Géza Kovács would explain how and why these people should be understood and accepted. He knew better and he never lost his temper. I, however, don’t like if I am being looked at as if I were an alien.
Q: Which question was closest to your heart?
A: A young girl named Ágota asked how all this came to my mind. And I really had to think about how it occurred to me. I don’t understand why others have not come up with it. This whole invention of mine is so simple, so obvious. And yet it is not, not even for children, even now only few of them understood, the rest were fooling around or sitting quietly and did not understand what I wanted from them. One has to give them time, they have to find out again and again that their ideas are important for us and all adults. How deeply we humiliate children if we always make them feel small and stupid in front of us! Very deeply, down inside, there are only few of them who are cheerful enough not to care, because they enjoy themselves and don’t give a damn about adults.
Q: Is this our, i.e. adults’ fault?
A: Very much so. In our total uncertainty we make ourselves believe that we know life better, and that children have to learn from us. We will lead them and they follow, and if they don’t, it will be all the worse for them. Most of the children will do as we say and they support us, at least seemingly. I often feel that I want to change things so profoundly, so much from the basics that the task seems virtually impossible, at least nowadays. But you can’t give up, you really can’t.