Publisher's View
Setting a light to powder kegs or ideas
In September, sixteen people died in Pakistan because a fanatic in the USA had insulted the Prophet Mohammed in a film. That led to angry protests in the Muslim world which escalated into bloody violence in several countries and which also claimed the life of the US ambassador in Libya. How things will continue is hard to say today; but one thing is certain, this is not the last “intercultural” powder keg which was made to explode by a single spark. Our children are growing up in a world in which the differences between cultures, religions and a sense of justice are becoming increasingly pronounced. This is a world which is subject to a never-ending wave of emotional kitsch produced by gigantic media machines, in which financial speculators can... [more]
Publisher's View
Loss and trust
One of the great riddles of our time is undoubtedly how people managed to survive for millennia without self-help books or courses. Even today we can still see mothers in remote parts of the world who, barely twenty years old, make their way through life – or do they stumble? – with a baby on their hip, another one by the hand and a third one attached to their leg in total ignorance of our bookshops full of advice books on education, health and how to throw a birthday party. Back home after our travel adventure, casting our gaze over the grey-haired ocean of an orderly German shopping street, the question arises: “How do these young mothers bring up their children? Are they allowed to at all?” [more]
Publisher's View
Who owns the Waldorf school?
We have lived with the tradition that schools are a public task for such a long time in Germany that we forget that we are the public: the state has considered public life to be its property since absolutism spread across large parts of Europe in the eighteenth century, and thus it sees itself as being entitled to manage the school system. [more]
Publisher's View
Brave new Ritalin world
Eighty years ago Aldous Huxley published his Brave New World. The novel is about a society which has pledged itself to the ideals of peace, stability and freedom. In order to achieve these aims, embryos are physically manipulated and the children are subsequently brought up through sophisticated manipulation of their minds to become members of different castes ranging from the exclusive Alpha Plus group, who are the leaders, to Epsilon Minus, the people who do the most menial tasks. [more]
Publisher's View
Do what you want
Why, actually, are there Waldorf schools at all? I do not mean your particular school but Waldorf schools in general? Why is there a worldwide boom in the establishment of this type of school 93 years after it was invented, a boom which is difficult to understand given the sometimes extremely hard circumstances under which Waldorf schools in many countries around the world have to operate? [more]
Publisher's View
To the villages, steady, go ...
“It takes a village to raise a child,” is an African saying. But what happens when there are no longer any proper villages – with a baker, blacksmith, cobbler, carpenter, minister and village policeman – at least not for most children? Who raises them then? “It takes a city to raise a child” gives us the creeps, signals anonymity instead of security. And yet this saying is also true because the majority of children worldwide grow up in towns and cities. We therefore need villages in the cities, many villages for many children! [more]
Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen e.V.