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Jakob Streit (23 September 1910 in Spiez, Switzerland – 15 May 2009 in Spiez) was a Swiss author, teacher and anthroposophist. Besides this he worked as musician and choirmaster as well as conductor and dramaturg
Jakob Streit was born in the Berner Oberland in Switzerland, the son of a watchmaker, and lived there for most of his life. He had four brothers and sisters and everyone helped to tend the family beehives, their cow and calf and their sheep.[1]
He studied education at the teacher training college in Bern, where his skills in Music, Education and Literature were honed. His musical education he completed with Hans Klee, the father of artist Paul Klee,[2] then began on a career as teacher of different age groups, in the course of which the many stories he told to the children were published as children's stories in over forty books. Many of these are translated into English and other languages. His educational method, and particularly his music instruction drew heavily on the indications of Rudolf Steiner on Waldorf education.
“When one has told stories to different age groups of children for 45 years on a daily basis, one learns a great deal from them, one is carried on the wings of Poetry, of the imagination. In later years, this interest grows into everything that is truly human. For example, this is how I came to write my first book about gnomes: A girl in the third grade brought a beautiful Edelweiss to my desk one morning, saying: “My father gave it to me and told me that, if you can tell us how the Edelweiss came about, you can keep it.” Quickly the children all sat down at their desks, for in their eyes the teacher of the third grade is capable of anything at all. Forty pairs of eyes are looking expectantly at you. (...) I began thoughtfully; soon there were gnomes and elves in the picture, finding magic ways to transform the stars of the night into the Edelweiss. Carried by the astonished eyes of the children, my story must have gone on for about 20 minutes. When the Edelweiss had finally been created, a little boy stood up and proclaimed: “Tomorrow you must deal with the Gentian.” In this manner, from day to day, we found our way through the different flowers of the mountains. I was not able to prepare at all. I needed the children to be there. Afterwards I wrote down the stories that had come about. They have been published as “Bergblumen Märchen” today with the publisher Oratio Verlag in Schaffhausen.”
After producing plays with children, he broadened his interest to amateur theatre direction, in the course of which he inaugurated the William Tell festival plays in Interlaken and the Spiez Castle Plays.[3] Having studied Piano and Organ, his work as choir conductor led him to produce a succession of operas, amongst others The Magic Flute and Orpheus and Euridice.[4]
Questions of Art, Art History and culture occupied him all his life and after his retirement he began to lecture in most of Europe besides increasing the scope of his literary work. For many years he was editor of the AVS-Mitteilungen, the newssheet of the Anthroposophische Vereinigung in der Schweiz, continuing with this until his death at 99 years of age.
