Body, Soul & Mind
Not uniform but multifaceted
Rudolf Steiner based Waldorf education on a teaching of so-called anthropological threefoldness. It includes not only the division of the human being into body, soul and spirit, but also the associated activities of thinking, feeling and volition. As a class teacher, how can we find an approach to it and become educationally effective in such a way that the children can feel at home in their body, soul and spirit? [more]
Body, Soul & Mind
Learning to accept otherness for independence
At the 24th Kassel Youth Symposium in June this year, New York author and essayist Siri Hustvedt gave a series of lectures on what it is like and what it means to be human. At the same time, the event honoured 100 years of upper school teaching at Waldorf schools with the question: How can we, as learners, engage with new and different things in order to expand our knowledge and transform ourselves? Can teaching open up the opportunity for us to face ourselves anew as we learn? [more]
Body, Soul & Mind
The medium is the message
“The medium is the message” was one of the fundamental insights of the Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980). According to McLuhan, media are not only about the content conveyed, but above all about the respective device that makes the conveyance technically possible. [more]
Living lessons, Body, Soul & Mind
Bothmer gymnastics. Relict of a previous time or impulse for the future?
In 1929, the first article on Bothmer gymnastics appeared in Erziehungskunst. In it, Count von Bothmer described the form of movement he had developed. In 1922, Rudolf Steiner asked the Count to join the staff of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart as a gymnastics teacher. This was at a time when the principles of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the father of gymnastics, and the Prussian school gymnastics of Adolf Spiess still predominated, and the main focus was on physical training in the sense of training for military service. [more]
Waldorf worldwide, Body, Soul & Mind
Waldorf alumni. A form of school with developmental tasks
The Corona crisis shows how important social contacts and community are – especially for adolescents. In the past months, they have clearly experienced the limits of digital learning in remote lessons and learned that an educational institution is more than just a place where knowledge is imparted and where pupils are prepared for entry into the world of work. But what exactly is school supposed to do? In the study We went to a Waldorf school (published by Beltz Juventa), former Waldorf pupils provided information about their time at school and its influence on their later life. In the following interview, co-editor Professor Dirk Randoll talks about surprising results, confirmed prejudices and the challenges for Waldorf schools in the future. [more]
Editorial
An unconventional understanding of the human being
Anthroposophists and friends of Waldorf are not infrequently ridiculed by the public, or indeed viewed by critics to be “pre-Enlightenment cranks” because of their worldview. Some critics say that parents, who have come to know and appreciate Waldorf education because they have experienced in their children and in themselves that it is simply beneficial, should be protected from anthroposophical indoctrination. [more]
Waldorf worldwide, Body, Soul & Mind
The first independent Waldorf school in Bucharest
In Romania it is not easy to found a non-state, independent school and to develop it in the spirit of Waldorf education. In 2012, the first private Waldorf school was founded in Romania: the Free Waldorf Lower School – Şcoala Primară Liberă Waldorf – an event that first showed itself as a tender shoot, because getting a real Waldorf school off the ground is a project for life. [more]
Editorial
Wherever your journey takes you
Holiday time – travel time. Some take their homes with them, others stay in standardised accommodation – only the scenery changes like the tropical wallpaper in the living room at home. And still others radically expose themselves to abroad, i.e. in the people they meet on the way or at the destination of their journey. [more]
Holidays & Travel
Iona sees you
The small island of Iona in the west of Scotland still lies in Europe and yet it is a completely different world. Although we can get almost anywhere quickly today, you still have to “journey” to Iona. [more]
Holidays & Travel
Travel lessons
The War was over, four years of lockdown! No, no, in 1945, when people still spoke German and corona was only known from Latin lessons. But we were locked up for four years and I was fourteen and wanted to get out. For five years I had appeased my thirst for travel with bicycle tours but after graduating from school I ran out of patience. [more]
Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen e.V.