Waldorf Education

ABSTRACTRudolf Steiner founded the first Waldorf school in Germany in 1919. Unique elements of Waldorf education include an arts-based curriculum in which students learn subject matter through a variety of forms of representation, a pedagogy designed to meet students' developmental growth, an administrative system in which teachers govern the school, an organization devoted to sustaining a sense of community, and an integrated conceptual approach to education generally—a place where the cosmic and the mundane are intertwined.Rudolf Steiner's life and writings are the foundations on which Waldorf schools are built. Therefore, this article is devoted to an overview of his work, which should assist us in understanding what goes on in contemporary Waldorf schools. Also, because Waldorf schools in North America are based on the first Waldorf school, I have included an examination of elements of that school's educational program. However, I do not present a simple chronological account of Steiner's life or of t...

The time is 8:20 a.m. Mr. Stevensen moves swiftly around the room, preparing for morning circle and talking to various 5th graders at the same time: "Timothy, this place was not clean." "We swept it." Carl Stevensen is 39 years old and has been involved with Waldorf education for 14 years. He pushes chairs to the sides of the room. "I had to rush out of here yesterday. I didn't get to do what I wanted to do," he tells me. He places sunflowers and several pumpkins on top of an orange cloth in the center of the room. "Could we please begin everyone?" Some students are waiting outside. The ones inside the classroom exit so that they may line up at the door and enter the room when Mr. Stevenson is ready for them. The walls of the classroom are yellow-green. Plants and natural artifacts are everywhere: pumpkins, Indian corn, gourds, bark, pine cones, sunflowers, 11 potted plants on the window sills, and two finches, Odin and Frigga (acquired and named during the 4th grade main lesson block on Norse myths). The desks, too, are made of wood, and over one of the two chalkboards is a wooden frame designed to cut off the right angles. Several ceiling lights augment the natural light that comes through thin, lacy, yellow curtains. Mr. Stevensen shakes hands with each child. Regardless of how hassled he is before school, he tries to be friendly yet formal when he greets his students. "Good morning to you, Jessica. Please come in. Good morning to you, Sonja."

Waldorf Education, founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1919, is based on the philosophy of critical idealism, in which teachers assist in the natural unfolding of children's preexistent possibilities. But because there has been little research on Waldorf Education, few data have been gathered on the effectiveness of its teaching methods and organizational structure, or on students achievement. An international study was conducted to determine if there was a significant difference between the creative thinking ability of Waldorf students and state school students in England, Scotland, and Germany. The hypothesis was that disparate educational practices in Waldorf and state schools were influenced by disparate educational philosophies. The sample consisted of 1,165 third through sixth grade children--479 English, 193 Scottish, and 493 German students. The findings obtained from administration of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking Ability, suggested that Waldorf students were more creative than their state school peers. Particular credit for this was given to the maturational-readiness and nurturing curriculum of the Waldorf Schools, which includes: having the same teacher follow students from grades 1 to 8; de-emphasis on academic performance in early grades; use of art in instruction; and other teaching and curriculum considerations. (Contains 20 references.)

Two years before the Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, and at the height of his powers, Rudolf Steiner travelled to Oxford to deliver a course on education. The lectures were translated by George Adams Kaufmann who was later to be the first to translate the Agriculture Course. The Oxford Conference in the summer of 1922, 15-29 August, introduced Waldorf education to a British audience and laid the foundations for its international diffusion. Steiner dominated the Conference proceedings although he was only one of the listed 14 speakers for the 'Spiritual Values in Education & Social Life' event. Contemporary documentation is examined to reveal key aspects and the significance of the Conference at which there were 230 attendees. Steiner presented each of the 12 morning lectures at Manchester College, now Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford; he spoke in German. Afternoon and evening events were presented at the nearby Keble College. Conference events included, reportedly, the first Eurythmy demonstrations in Britain. Performances were presented by Eurythmists from Dornach as well as by Oxford school children. The Conference received widespread press coverage. An outcome of the Conference was a five paragraph statement issued by the delegates and stating the intention to create a world-wide association to foster the founding of new schools. A Provisional Committee of at least 11 members was elected and charged with this object. The Oxford Conference served as a catalyst for the establishment of Waldorf schools in Britain and the broader English-speaking world, and is a key historical event in the proliferation of Waldorf education.

Abstract. This article explores the ideas, meanings and use of space and architecture in Waldorf education. Waldorf schools represent an interesting alternative to contemporary trends in school architecture and education, among them the current hegemony of open plan school architecture, and the shift of the public school curriculum toward liberalist and individualist perspectives. Based on interviews with Waldorf teachers and architects, the article concludes that spatial reflection is an integral part of Waldorf education. Furthermore, spatial considerations are aimed at supporting the development of the child through age-specific aesthetic-spatial support, fostering the class as a reflective community and providing room for thinking. Keywords: school architecture, theories of learning, thinking, Waldorf education Zusammenfassung. Dieser Artikel untersucht Ideen, Sinngehalte und Nutzung von Raum und Architektur in der Waldorfpadagogik. Waldorfschulen verkorpern eine interessante Alternative zu heutigen Entwicklungen in Schularchitektur und Bildung, unter ihnen die gegenwartige Vormachtstellung einer offenen Schularchitektur und der Verschiebung des Lehrplans zu liberalistischen und individualistischen Sichtweisen. Basierend auf Interviews mit Waldorflehrern und Architekten von Waldorfschulen, kommt der Artikel zu dem Schluss, dass die bewusste raumliche Ausgestaltung ein integraler Bestandteil der Waldorfpadagogik ist. Daruber hinaus zielt die raumliche Ausgestaltung darauf ab, die Entwicklung des Kindes durch altersgerechte und ansprechende Raumlichkeiten zu unterstutzen und dadurch die Klasse als Klassengemeinschaft zu fordern und den Raum fur Gedanken bereitzustellen. Schlusselworter: Schularchitektur, Lerntheorien, Theorien des Denkens, Waldorfpadagogik

13 After 10 years of teaching art in public schools, I arrived at a state of query that set in motion my search for alternative approaches to learning. As I was feeling stifled in a seemingly sterile education institution with its overdependence on and pedagogy aimed at standardized tests, I came across a reference to Waldorf Education in Eric Jensen’s (2001) Arts with the Brain in Mind. I wondered if Waldorf Education, especially with its seamlessly arts-infused curriculum and focus on children’s imagination, could provide public school educators alternate ideas and structures for supporting thinking in and through the arts. Ultimately my wondering led me to a PhD program of study with the sole purpose of allocating time to the exploration of Waldorf Education. I entered my inquiry without any schooling, background, or connections to the Waldorf community. As a practicing art educator and artist, I specifically desired to discover the nature of art experiences in Waldorf Education. Waldorf Education: Breathing Creativity

The facilitation of human rights values might be considered a means to rethink and redefine values education in South Africa. This study aimed at determining how human rights values were addressed in the context of independent Waldorf Education and government initiated outcomes-based education in South Africa, and how educators facilitated these values in various circumstances. In exploring the philosophies, theories and practices of these education models against the background of paradigmatic and post-paradigmatic philosophies in support of the socially constructive curriculum theory, important notions were highlighted that have preceded, and might follow, the facilitation of human rights values. The epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies of the emancipatory paradigm and postparadigmatic framework appeared to provide appropriate philosophical departure points regarding the facilitation of human rights values. This study anticipated the theoretical clarification of the concept human rights values and included a discussion on the importance of these values in various school contexts. Values identified from the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (2001), that were also present in the Curriculum: Waldorf Schools in South Africa (1995), were discussed as possible human rights values. Empirical research was conducted to explore how human rights values were attended to in good practice scenarios in order to provide insight into the questions posed regarding the facilitation of human rights values. Through systematic ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews it appeared that in both school contexts human rights values were more frequently addressed in incidental situations than in formal curriculum contents. This is interesting seeing that the outcomes-based education model has a number of documents to guide the facilitation of human rights values within formal curriculum contents, whereas the Waldorf approach has no such supportive documents. One might question the value and influence of numerous documents if basic knowledge that is required for the meaningful interpretation of such documents is not communicated from the outset. Moreover, it became evident that since Waldorf educators are adequately trained in Anthroposophy, the philosophy to which Waldorf schools adhere, they deal with curriculum matters such as socially constructing a curriculum more effectively. The training of outcomes-based education educators can be questioned regarding the philosophy, theory and methodology of outcomes-based education in view of the hasty implementation of this new model for government schools. As a result of this hurried process, educators of outcomes-based education are experiencing numerous Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za

Waldorf education began in 1919 with the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart and nowadays is widespread in many countries all over the world. Empirical research, however, has been rare until the early nineties and Waldorf education has not been discussed within educational science so far. This has changed during the last decades. This article reviews the results of surveys during the last 20 years and is mainly focused on German Waldorf Schools, because most investigations have been done in this field. Findings are reported with respect to the following central aspects of Waldorf education: the holistic and integrative approach, the self-governance in the organization of the Waldorf schools, the Waldorf curriculum, and the principle of class teachers from 1 st to 8 th grade. Furthermore, Waldorf education also provides its own unique teacher training. All of these aspects have been explored and evaluated from different points of view and with different methods. The results show strengths as well as weaknesses of Waldorf education in the daily practice in schools, which indicates the kinds of challenges Waldorf education will have to face in the upcoming decades. The authors themselves have contributed in several investigations to the field of Waldorf education. Keywords: Waldorf Education; Waldorf teacher training.

Abstract. Steiner Waldorf education is usually perceived as based on Rudolf Steiner’s comprehensive vision of human nature and development, the knowledge of which is the basic element of Steiner Waldorf teacher education. However, Steiner considered it important for teachers to be aware of the social and political issues of the times and his educational ideas can be seen as part of a social philosophy of Menschenbildung. This paper relates Steiner’s idea of a threefold social structure to various theoretical notions that have appeared recently within social and political philosophy. In particular, Cohen and Arato’s concept of civil society is found to be similar to Steiner’s notion of culture as a third, relatively independent social sphere, balancing the powers of the state and the market. The power of civil society in general and education in particular is based on the creation of meaning and identity. Steiner Waldorf education supports the formation of a cosmopolitan identity based on the universally human. Such an educational impulse is needed today as a counterbalance to the global market forces. Zusammenfassung. Die Waldorfpadagogik wird gewohnlich aus dem umfassenden Bild vom Menschen und dessen Entwicklung verstanden, wobei dieses Verstandnis auch ein fundamentales Element der Lehrerbildung darstellt. Gerade weil Steiner es fur die Lehrer als wesentlich erachtet, ein Bewusstsein fur die sozialen und politischen Fragen ihrer Zeit auszubilden, konnen seine Bildungsideen als Teil einer Sozialphilosophie der Menschenbildung angesehen werden. Der Aufsatz verknupft Steiners Idee der Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus mit einigen theoretischen Begriffen, die in der neueren Sozialphilosophie diskutiert werden. Insbesondere Cohens und Aratos Theorien der Zivilgesellschaft weisen eine Ahnlichkeit zu Steiners Begriff der Kultur als einer dritten, unabhangigen Sphare des sozialen Lebens auf, welche die Krafte von Staat und Wirtschaft ausbalancieren kann. Fur die Zivilgesellschaft im Allgemeinen wie auch die Erziehung im Besonderen ist die Schopfung von Sinn und Identitat wesentlich. Die Waldorfpadagogik fordert kosmopolitische Identitatsentwurfe, die sich an einem universellen Menschenbild orientieren. Ein solcher Bildungsimpuls bietet ein erforderliches Gegengewicht zu den globalen Kraften des Marktes.

ABSTRACT This article reviews the educational approach known as “Waldorf Education” or, alternately, “Anthroposophic Education,” from the perspective of the spiritual outlook on which it is founded. The review first looks at the anthroposophic approach as established by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) and which includes the spiritual aspects in Waldorf Education’s principles and foundations. Among the areas encompassed are spiritualistic attitudes to the entity of each boy and girl; the spiritual-meditative aspect in training teachers for this educational method; how karma is related to in the educational method’s framework; efforts at seeing, and relating to, the child’s whole entity; the special role held by art and creative processes in the Waldorf school; the developmental approach integrated into the act of educating; and the focused attention given to nurturing the aspects of reverence and religiosity as an inseparable part of spiritual education. The article seeks to show the difference in Waldorf Education’s education-focused thinking and philosophy among adults, being teachers and parents, and the act of educating that the child encounters in the variety of classes.