WaldorfSV
A nationally organised Waldorf pupil council has not existed for long when compared with the state schools. Today it is represented on all the larger bodies of the German Association of Waldorf Schools and is developing its presence on a regional level. The pupils are elected to the council for a two-year period. [more]
Recognising oneself in the other
Interview with Klaus-Peter Freitag and Christian Boettger, the two managing directors of the German Association of Waldorf Schools about their views on education. [more]
Current topics – Salutogenesis
On 24 August 1922, Rudolf Steiner formulated the remit of “all education and teaching” in the following words: “It should strive to turn children into human beings who are physically healthy and strong with freedom of soul and clarity of spirit. Physical health and strength, freedom of soul and clarity of spirit comprise what humanity will need most in its future development also in a social respect.” (GA 305). The Waldorf curriculum is designed accordingly. All the lesson content aims to provide the physical, emotional and intellectual stimulation which is necessary for a healthy development. Even if Steiner did not coin the term “salutogenesis” – that was the American medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994) – we can nevertheless say today... [more]
Current topics – changing media
When the first Waldorf school was founded, well-off households might possess one telephone. Newspapers and magazines were widespread and there was a cinema in each town. German radio was officially opened in 1923. At the time that the Waldorf schools were banned by the Nazi rulers, the first television channels began to broadcast short programmes. From the 1950s onwards, televisions began their conquest of the living room. During this period Waldorf teachers critically and defensively investigated the effects of this new medium on children. But when in the 1980s the personal computer entered the household, there were not a few Waldorf teachers who acquired a C64, for example, to show their pupils how a computer is programmed. The schools began to... [more]
Current topics – Inclusion
Monday morning. Start of the mathematics main lesson in class 12 – twenty-five pupils with a great range of abilities. The classroom has been transformed into a workshop: everything has been taken out, the blackboard is blank and black sticky tape has been used to cover the floor with a grid of one-metre squares. Confusion among the pupils: is this how a main lesson starts? There is nowhere to sit down. The morning verse is spoken standing in a circle, imagination exercises are done in moving over the grid. Then the pupils are given a question which they investigate in groups using the given subject matter and from which they develop a hypothesis which is to become visible in the jointly produced “product”: “How can a person precisely determine the... [more]
Current topic – migration
Rudolf Steiner identified the deeper cause of the catastrophe of the First World War as the clash of two developmental streams: the rise of a globalised economy on the one hand and a feeling of community still tied to “blood and soil” not able to cope with this development on the other. The world economy necessitated a type of education which developed the abilities to have a free relationship with national, social or religious affiliations and to experience oneself as a member of a world community. But this was only possible if the education system was removed from the administration of nation states and made self-governing. It was not the subjugation of the individual to communally decided “values” which socialised but the I itself – as soon as it... [more]
Current topics – school and vocation
Waldorf100 shows that a holistic education with a spiritual foundation is not only possible but successfully connects with the needs of children, young people and their parents worldwide. Our Waldorf schools have decades of positive experience with an educational concept which is not primarily guided by outdated educational content defined by societal and economic interests but by the developmental tasks and processes of the children and young people. It is an educational concept that integrates cognitive, artistic and practical vocational aspects in the range of lessons, something which is becoming ever more relevant in view of the current and future challenges. These challenges include a lack of equal opportunities in education, the growing craze... [more]
Current topics – Waldorf education and education studies
Waldorf schools are among the best-known and most widespread institutions in the field of progressive education. Despite their overall successful and positive development, it has to be said that in education studies the educational concept of Waldorf education has either barely registered or that its theoretical foundations are severely condemned. Academic critique There was no fundamental, still relevant commentary on Waldorf education in the field of education studies until the 1980s after a wave of new Waldorf schools was founded in the 1970s. At the time Klaus Prange in his 1985 book with the arresting title Erziehung zur Anthroposophie (Education in Anthroposophy) described from the perspective of education studies the... [more]
Editorial
What was and what is
Waldorf100 is a mammoth project. Never before has such a combined effort been made in the Waldorf world to celebrate an anniversary. [more]
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Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen e.V.