By Neil Boland and Dirk Rohde
Steiner Waldorf education has undergone many developments since it was first introduced in Stuttgart in 1919. Some of these have been the result of pedagogical experience, others in response to outer requirements, while others have been a response to changed and changing circumstances. Numerous articles have been published outlining changes Waldorf education has undergone since its establishment 100 years ago, and how it will need to develop in years to come.
We look at development in relation to a fourfold concept of time: past, present, future and eternity. Instead of looking at changes and developments in general, we consider them in relation to one of these four aspects of time.
We look at what eternal qualities in Waldorf education might be, and what development could comprise in connection to the eternal. Lastly, we consider how working with such a concept can help with processes of revitalisation and renewal which have been called for by many authors.
Steiner Waldorf education has undergone many developments since it was first introduced in Stuttgart in 1919. Some of these have been the result of pedagogical experience, others in response to outer requirements, while others have been a response to changed and changing circumstances. Numerous articles have been published outlining changes Waldorf education has undergone since its establishment 100 years ago, and how it will need to develop in years to come.
We look at development in relation to a fourfold concept of time: past, present, future and eternity. Instead of looking at changes and developments in general, we consider them in relation to one of these four aspects of time.
We look at what eternal qualities in Waldorf education might be, and what development could comprise in connection to the eternal. Lastly, we consider how working with such a concept can help with processes of revitalisation and renewal which have been called for by many authors.
Introduction
Waldorf education began in 1919 with a single school in Stuttgart, Germany at a specific historic time and under specific cultural circumstances. From there, it has gradually spread around the world and is now practised on all inhabited continents and in a wide range of locations and cultures.
In spreading from a single point into the wider periphery, it has created many networks and focal points, with many changes of pace. During this process, the significance of the original centre has waned. Steiner education is constantly in a process of development, a process influenced by all manner of conditions worldwide.
Some idea of these processes of adaptation within the last hundred years can be gained by comparing changes in the curricula from Heydebrand to Stockmeyer to Richter. The image of Steiner education has become global; if one wants to get to know how Steiner education is interpreted today, one has to find out how it is realised worldwide. It is likely that Steiner education will develop further. However, what is missing so far from this discourse is an interrogation of what is meant by “development” and different types of development.
Numerous authors have expressed their thoughts on ‘what Waldorf needs to do’; we look at some suggestions below.
What unites these authors is their common agreement that change is needed, that the status quo is neither desirable nor tenable. Part of this is grounded in the realisation that, at the same time as the movement has expanded, what might be called the core of the education has gradually become diluted.
In this article we consider what the entity ‘Steiner education’ is which is considered to undergo development and view development through the lens of time.
We see the need to find new ways for meaningful and critical exchange of ideas. In our experience, colleagues meet, listen to talks, applaud, have a short discussion with little follow up. This format – essentially a lecture format – was inherited from Rudolf Steiner and remains substantially unchanged.
Articles and books are written, but not always read and still less discussed. We end this article with questions to encourage extended dialogue on Steiner education and its development for the continued health and relevance of the worldwide education movement.
Suggestions for development
Many authors have written on changes and needs which they observe within Steiner education, and how the education can or should be further developed. We do not attempt here to give a full overview of this work, and instead concentrate on a small number of publications.
After a series of meetings, the members of the International Forum of Steiner/Waldorf Education adopted a list of what they called Key characteristics of Waldorf education. This is intended as “binding guidance for the worldwide Waldorf school movement” though “may be supplemented by specific cultural characteristics.”
Looking closely, (only) three characteristics are precisely formulated as essential: that the “artistic element in structuring lessons forms the essence of Waldorf education”; that self-governance is “a key feature of the Waldorf school”; and, thirdly, that “a school is a Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner school when a majority of the teachers lives by the spark of the spirit.”
On the other hand, Martyn Rawson lists 18 generative principles of Steiner education. These principles take into consideration the ideas of Steiner, educational theory since Steiner’s time, as well as 100 years of pedagogical practice. They are meant to generate new and evaluate existing practices.
Each principle is accompanied by a list of skills teachers need to develop in order to work effectively out of the principle, plus questions for further research. Principles include: taking the spiritual dimension seriously (#1); a particular form of block teaching (#7); artistic teaching (#11); and the responsibility of the teachers themselves for the educational leadership of the school (#16).
Gilad Goldshmidt’s recent article, "What should Waldorf look like today?", contains three key suggestions on how to further Waldorf pedagogy. He argues that, on a continuum between form and life force (flexibility), Waldorf pedagogy has moved too far towards the form pole over the last 100 years.
By emphasising Waldorf traditions, the education has, to a greater extent, lost its liveliness. Goldshmidt argues that Waldorf pedagogy needs to regain an inner dynamic to refresh itself. He identifies three means to do this: esoteric work; researching contemporary Waldorf practice; and extending the Waldorf impulse to as many children as possible worldwide.
Between 2017 and 2019, a number of colleagues worked on the International Teacher Education Project (ITEP) under the auspices of the Pedagogical Section in Dornach to help to “ensure sufficient consistent and high-quality teacher education to support the need of Steiner educational initiatives for well-trained and well-supported teachers”. ITEP identifies nine core areas for teacher development, including the arts, self-development, an expanded understanding of the human being, and context sensitivity.
Finally, we want to mention the article by Eugene Schwartz, "Reflections on Steiner’s Death Day", written in the context of the United States. Schwartz argues that the spiritual foundation of Waldorf education (Anthroposophy) will necessarily manifest in different ways at different times.
Like Goldshmidt, he sees that the Waldorf movement is weighted down by bureaucracies and has moved too far towards the ‘form’ pole. In the near future, he expects a revitalisation to occur through more Waldorf charter schools being founded as well as “’homeschool pods’ and ‘micro schools’ serving families who, for the most part, want their children to receive a ‘real’ Waldorf education, rather than the simulacra” currently offered in too many schools. He comments unfavourably on ‘woke’ responses he observes in North American Waldorf practice and instead asks that people do the hard “work out of Anthroposophy".
To sum up: when addressing Waldorf education and development, unique characteristics are identified: Anthroposophy is the spiritual foundation of Waldorf education; Steiner education involves a specific artistic approach to teaching which is responsive to the context in which it happens; the form in which Waldorf education manifests cannot be fixed; and teachers are jointly responsible for the school they are teaching in.
We take these points to reconceptualise how Waldorf education manifests over and through time. We hope this will be a helpful process and one that opens up new ways of thinking and “a language of critique and possibility”. In particular, it is a way of conceptualising the idea of the ‘renewal’ and ‘revitalisation’ of Steiner education which appears in many authors’ writing...
This is only the beginning. Click here to read the full article.
This is an excerpt from the full article published on acadmia.edu with extensive footnotes.
