Foundations of Waldorf Education

This course on education contains some of the most remarkable and significant lectures ever given by Rudolf Steiner. Because these lectures were given to teachers, however, they have suffered the misconception that they are useful only to teachers. Any teacher who wants to teach in a way that encompasses the whole child certainly needs a functional understanding of what Steiner presents here, but these lectures will also greatly benefit parents, psychologists, counselors, or anyone else involved with child development.

Steiner gives his most concise and detailed account of human nature in these lectures, which are absolutely essential for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of Steiner's spiritual science. Those who are willing to work through this work will discover here a new, powerful, convincing, and profoundly phenomenological "anthropology" of human spiritual psychology.

In these lectures, Steiner laid out for the first time the principles that form the basis for renewing the art of teaching. The Foundations of Human Experience is probably the most important text for studying and understanding the human developmental and psychological basis of Waldorf educational principles.

Translated from the German editions: Allgemeine Menschenkunde als Grundlage der Pädagogik (GA 239); appendix from Geist und Stoff. Leben und Tod (GA 66). An earlier translation was titled Study of Man.

The lectures in Death as Metamorphosis of Life address us in our soul life and speak to our hearts. They make clear the bond that must unite our inner, spiritual work and the outer work of manifesting spirit in life. For, if spiritual wisdom does not live and grow as a reality in the souls of those who practice it, then the practical wisdom of service called for by the spirit of the times will come to nothing.

The particular realities that Rudolf Steiner focuses on are twofold: working with the dead (and the spiritual hierarchies) and coming to know the Christ. What these two have in common is that they are both Earth-centered. They teach us the fundamental importance of everyday human destiny and earthly life--not just for humanity, but also for divinity and the cosmos. We learn not only what the dead can teach us about the spiritual world and the working of the hierarchies, but also what it means to be human in a spiritual sense. We learn of the importance of working with the dead and the angelic worlds, both for our own and for their development, as well as for the future evolution of the Earth.

The Mystery of Golgotha is equally important; we must understand it spiritually. As Steiner says, "It is the will of the gods that the most important event on Earth must compel us to spirituality." The Christ must be experienced inwardly, not historically. At the same time, he must be found on Earth--for instance, in human destiny. The more we become aware of what is secretly, invisibly, and unconsciously working in our lives, the closer we will come to working with the dead and to the kingdom of Christ.

How can we find the Christ? Steiner quotes the seventeenth-century mystic Angelus Silesius: "The Cross on Golgotha cannot save you from evil if it is not also raised within you."

Death as Metamorphosis of Life is translated for the first time in its entirety from the German of Der Tod als Lebenswandlung (GA 182). Individual lectures have appeared in Angels: Selected Lectures; Evil: Selected Lectures; and Staying Connected.

14 lectures, Stuttgart, August 21-September 5, 1919 (CW 294)

How do Waldorf teachers put their educational ideals into practice in the classroom? How does a teacher connect geography and art and language in a way that enlivens the souls of children? What does a child's respect for the teacher mean for later life? These are only a few practical aspects of this initial course for Waldorf teachers.

During an intensive two weeks, Rudolf Steiner gave three simultaneous educational courses to those who would be the first teachers of the original Waldorf school. One course provided the foundational ideas behind Waldorf education (The Foundations of Human Experience); another provided a forum for questions and lively discussions on specific issues in the classroom (Discussions with Teachers). In this course, Steiner takes the middle-path by integrating theory and practice.

Here, Steiner spoke of new ways to teach reading, writing, geography, geometry, language, and much more. His approach is tailored to the spiritual and physical needs of the children themselves, not to an arbitrary curriculum based solely on external results.

At a time when public education is in a state of crisis, this book describes how children around the world are being guided into adulthood with a fuller sense of themselves and with a creative approach to life and the world around them.

German source: Erziehungskunst. Methodisch-Didaktisches (GA 294).

World War I destroyed the structures, values, and self-confidence that created the seeming greatness of the nineteenth century. In its place stood ruins and the shards of a civilization. In response to this, Emil Molt--the director of the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Factory and a student of Rudolf Steiner--decided to establish a school to educate people who could create a new culture. Thus, the Waldorf school movement was begun. Rudolf Steiner agreed to act as the school's consultant, and his insights guided the school in accomplishing this ambitious task.

The goal of this education was that, through living inner work guided by the insights of Rudolf Steiner, the teachers would develop in the children such power of thought, depth of feeling, and strength of will that they would emerge from their school years as full members of the human community, able to meet and transform the world.

These lectures occurred around the opening of the first Waldorf school. They serve as an excellent, inspiring introduction to Waldorf education as a whole. Here Steiner outlines--with freshness, immediacy, and excitement--the goals and intentions of a new form of education and speaks to parents of prospective students. He explains the school's guiding principles and describes how parents must participate, with understanding and interest, in the awakening of their children's creative forces so that a healthier society can come about.

Contents:

• Introduction by Robert Lathe and Nancy Whittaker
• The Intent of the Waldorf School
• The Spirit of the Waldorf School
• A Lecture for Prospective Parents
• Supersensible Knowledge and Social Pedagogical Life
• The Social Pedagogical Significance of Spiritual Science
• Spiritual Science and Pedagogy
• The Pedagogical Objective of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart
  An essay by Rudolf Steiner from the Journal The Social Future

Sponsored by the industrialist Emil Molt and inspired by the philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the first Free Waldorf school opened in Stuttgart, Germany, on September 7, 1919. Since then, the Waldorf movement has become international with many hundreds of schools around the world.

This book contains all of the more-or-less informal talks given by Steiner in the Stuttgart school from 1919 to 1924. Included are speeches given by him at various school assemblies, parents' evenings, and other meetings. Steiner spoke here with spontaneity, warmth, and enthusiasm.

Readers will find a unique glimpse of the real Steiner and how he viewed the school and the educational philosophy he brought into being.

German source: Rudolf Steiner in der Waldorfschule, Vortäge und Ansprachen, Stuttgart, 1919-1924 (GA 298).

Following a lecture of November 27, 1919 requested by the Basel Department of Education, sixty members of the audience invited Rudolf Steiner to return and deliver a complete lecture course on his approach to education. These lectures are the result.

Rudolf Steiner begins by outlining the gradual development of the child with the help of spiritual forces and enlightened educational practices, which form the basis for Steiner's approach to education. He describes the problems that modern educators face and provides practical solutions. Steiner explains the effects of morality on real freedom and how the development of a child's will leads to a free, flexible ability to think. He describes the life-long effects that teachers have on children through the ways they teach in the early grades.

The subjects of these lectures cover a broad range, from the threefold nature of the human being to the teacher's responsibility toward their students' future; from arts such as music and eurythmy to the problems involved in training teachers; from zoology and botany to language, geography, and history. Like many of Steiner's lectures to public audiences, these are accessible and practical and provide a real overview to his ideas for renewing modern education.

This book is a translation of tge German edition, Die Erneuerung der pädagogisch-didaktischen Kunst durch Geisteswissenschaft, Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, 1977.

In these eight talks on education for teenaged young people, Steiner addressed the teachers of the first Waldorf school two years after it was first opened. A high school was needed, and Steiner wanted to provide a foundation for study and a guide for teachers already familiar with his approach to the human being, child development, and education based on spiritual science.

Steiner's education affirms the being of every child within the world of spirit. This approach works within the context of the child's gradual entry into earthly life, aided by spiritual forces, and children's need for an education that cooperates with those forces.

Some of Steiner's remarks may be controversial, but unbiased study will lead to an appreciation of the profound thought and wisdom behind what is presented here.

German source: Menschenerkenntnis und Unterrichtsgestaltung (GA 302).

By the time of this second collection of Steiner's public lectures on Waldorf education, the Waldorf school movement was gaining increasing recognition. In this collection, as in the previous volume, Steiner is outspoken about the spiritual nature of human beings and the world, including the spiritual nature of Waldorf education.

Topics include:

• Education and Teaching
• The Art of Teaching from an Understanding of the Human Being
• Education and Art
• Education and the Moral Life
• Introduction to a Eurythmy Performance
• Why Base Education on Anthroposophy?
• Waldorf Pedagogy
• Anthroposophy and Education
• Moral and Physical Education
• Educational Issues

Original book: Geistige Zusammenh nge in der Gestaltung des Menschlichen Organismus, vol. 218 of the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner,

These lectures follow from those presented in Soul Economy. Given during a conference on spiritual values in education and life and attended by many prominent people of the time, Steiner's Oxford lectures present the principles of Waldorf education at the highest cultural level. The Manchester Guardian reported:

"Dr. Steiner's lectures...brought to us in a very vivid way an ideal of humanity in education. He spoke to us about teachers who, freely and unitedly, unrestricted by external prescription, develop their educational methods exclusively out of a thorough knowledge of human nature. He spoke to us about a kind of knowledge needed by the teacher, a knowledge of the being of man and the world, which is at the same time scientific and also penetrates into the most intimate inner life, which is intuitive and artistic."

These lectures form one of the best introductions to Waldorf education.

Contents:

• Introduction by Christopher Bamford
• The Spiritual Ground of Education
• The Perception of Soul and Spirit
• The Spiritual Ground of Physical Education
• The Art of Educating Young Children
• The Art of Educating Older Boys and Girls
• Teachers As Artists in Education
• The Organization of the Waldorf School
• Moral Teaching & Eurythmy in the Waldorf School
• Teachers in the Waldorf School

German source: Die geistig-seelischen Grundkr fte der Erziehungskunst. Spirituelle Werte in Erziehung und sozialem Leben (GA 305).

Three and a half years after the founding of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany, these talks were given to an audience of Swiss school teachers, most having little knowledge of Anthroposophy. This is the context of these lectures, which are among Rudolf Steiner's most accessible talks on education.

A teacher who attended the lectures wrote in the Berne school paper:

In other words, these lectures are ideal for anyone who is approaching Waldorf education for the first time. Using language that any teacher or parent can understand, Steiner goes into the essentials of his educational philosophy, providing many examples and anecdotes to convey his meaning. In this way, against the background of the developing child, he allows the curriculum and the method of teaching to emerge as the commonsense conclusion of practical experience.

German source: Die pädagogisch Praxis vom Geichtspunkte geisteswissenschaftlicher Menschenerkenntnis (GA 306).

These talks were given during an educational conference in 1924. They are the last public lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in Germany. According to one member of his audience, "Seventeen hundred people listened to him; the prolonged applause from this great crowd at the end of every lecture was deeply moving, while at the end of the last lecture the applause became an ovation that seemed as if it would never end." This kind of adoration was the result not only of who Steiner was as an individual but of what he accomplished as well. People had already begun to realize the potential and the promise for the future that Waldorf education held out to the children of the world.

The Essentials of Education, together with its companion book, The Roots of Education, present a remarkable synthesis of what Waldorf education is and what it can become. The Waldorf "experiment" had matured for five years since 1919, when Steiner helped to establish the first Waldorf school. He had guided that school from its beginning, observing very closely all that happened. As a result, he was able to distill and present the essentials of Waldorf education with elegance as well as with the urgency he felt for the coming times.

German source: Die Methodik des Lehrens und die Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens (GA 308).

These lectures on Waldorf education were given as a course during Easter week, 1924, in Bern. Although these talks were given more than eighty years ago, they remain remarkably contemporary. Every word still resonates with passion and dedication to the human adventure.

"We must develop an art of education that can lead us out of the social chaos into which we have fallen during the last few years and decades.... There is no escaping this chaos unless we can find a way to bring spirituality into human souls through education, so that human beings may find a way to progress and to further the evolution of civilization out of the spirit itself."
--Rudolf Steiner

At the time of these lectures, Steiner had only eleven months left to live in this world. The first Waldorf school had been established five years earlier, and the intervening period witnessed Steiner's tireless activity in every area of that school's life. Now it was, in a sense, time to bring the ripe fruit of this work to the public.

Together with its companion course The Essentials of Education, presented three days earlier, this book provides a stimulating synthesis of the Waldorf approach to education. Teachers, parents, and anyone interested in education will discover the fundamental characteristics of a new art of education.

The lectures:

• Lecture 1: A new education requires a new knowledge of the whole human being in body, soul, and spirit. The change of teeth signals the end of the first stage of childhood. Soul and spirit descend into a body provided by inheritance, which is used as the model for the "second" human being. During the first stage the child is a sense organ that perceives moral influences. The influence of the teacher's temperament.
• Lecture 2: The goal of Waldorf education is to reveal new methods of teaching. The power of spiritual perception for understanding children and adults. Sleeping and waking. The seasons reflected in the human being. Thinking as an etheric "grasping." Materialistic ideas and insomnia. Psychic influences and physical effects.
• Lecture 3. Memory before and after the change of teeth. The physical and etheric bodies. The etheric body and sculpting. The astral body and music. The I-being and speech. The musical scale and the human body. The teacher as therapist. Doctors and the school. Teaching letters.
• Lecture 4. The sense organization and moral development at the change of teeth. Mathematics begins with the whole. The child's natural religious impulse. The need for images after seven. The need to feel a connection with destiny after fourteen. The child's relationship with the world.
• Lecture 5. The three divisions of the middle stage of childhood. Nature and history. Children after puberty go into life. The experience of immortality. Punishment. Reading the child. The need for a living experience of one another today. Moon and Sun forces in the plant world. Spiritual science reveals the unity of the human being with the world.

These lectures are contained in the German Anthroposophische P dagogik und ihre Voraussetzungen (GA 309), published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland.

The underlying thesis of these lectures--volume 20 in the "Foundations of Waldorf Education" series--is that true education must be based on knowledge of the whole human being and that such knowledge cannot be attained without love. On this basis, Steiner presents his understanding of every aspect of child development-bodily, psychological, and spiritual.

At the same time, Steiner shows that, to prove worthy of their calling, teachers must begin a process of inner development. In his view, it is the human being who gives value and meaning to the world, but modern education is gradually undermining this fact. These lectures demonstrate that education can heal such a lack of meaning and restore the value of human beings for the world.

Steiner also discusses the practical, day-to-day operation of the school. He talks about styles of teaching, teacher conferences, parent-teacher meetings, and how Waldorf education is related to the anthroposophic movement.

This book, while serving as a good introduction to Steiner's ideas on education, also represents the fruits of four years experience in the Waldorf school.

Translated from Rudolf Steiner's Der pädagogische Wert der Menschenerkenntnis und der Kulturwert der Pädagogik (GA 310), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1989.

Steiner shows the necessity for teachers to work on themselves first, in order to transform their own inherent gifts. He explains the need to use humor to keep their teaching lively and imaginative. Above all, he stresses the tremendous importance of doing everything in the knowledge that children are citizens of both the spiritual and the earthly worlds. And, throughout these lectures, he continually returns to the practical value of Waldorf education.

These talks are filled with practical illustrations and revolve around certain themes--the need for observation in teachers; the dangers of stressing the intellect too early; children's need for teaching that is concrete and pictorial; the education of children's souls through wonder and reverence; the importance of first presenting the "whole," then the parts, to the children's imagination.

Here is one of the best introductions to Waldorf education, straight from the man who started it all.

German source: Die Kunst des Erziehens aus dem Erfassen der Menschenwesenhiet (GA 311).

SYNOPSIS OF THE LECTURES

• LECTURE 1: The need for a new art of education. The whole of life must be considered. Process of incarnation as a stupendous task of the spirit. Fundamental changes at seven and fourteen. At seven, the forming of the "new body" out of the "model body" inherited at birth. After birth, the bodily milk as sole nourishment. The teacher's task to give "soul milk" at the change of teeth and "spiritual milk" at puberty.
• LECTURE 2: In first epoch of life child is wholly sense organ. Nature of child's environment and conduct of surrounding adults of paramount importance. Detailed observation of children and its significance. In second epoch, seven to fourteen, fantasy and imagination as life blood of all education, e.g., in teaching of writing and reading, based on free creative activity of each teacher. The child as integral part of the environment until nine. Teaching about nature must be based on this. The "higher truths" in fairy tales and myths. How the teacher can guide the child through the critical moment of the ninth year.
• LECTURE 3: How to teach about plants and animals (seven to fourteen). Plants must always be considered, not as specimens, but growing in the soil. The plant belongs to the earth. This is the true picture and gives the child an inward joy. Animals must be spoken of always in connection with humans. All animal qualities and physical characteristics are to be found, in some form, in the human being. Humans as synthesis of the whole animal kingdom. Minerals should not be introduced until twelfth year. History should first be presented in living, imaginative pictures, through legends, myths, and stories. Only at eleven or twelve should any teaching be based on cause and effect, which is foreign to the young child's nature. Some thoughts on punishment, with examples.
• LECTURE 4: Development of imaginative qualities in the teacher. The story of the violet and the blue sky. Children's questions. Discipline dependent on the right mood of soul. The teacher's own preparation for this. Seating of children according to temperament. Retelling of stories. Importance of imaginative stories that can be recalled in later school life. Drawing of diagrams, from ninth year. Completion and metamorphosis of simple figures, to give children feeling of form and symmetry. Concentration exercises to awaken an active thinking as basis of wisdom for later life. Simple color exercises. A Waldorf school timetable. The "main lesson."
• LECTURE 5: All teaching matter must be intimately connected with

"Now the time has actually arrived when...we have a subconscious glimmering of the impossibility of the modern approach to nature and some sense that things have to change."--Rudolf Steiner

This course on light--also exploring color, sound, mass, electricity and magnetism--presages the dawn of a new worldview in the natural sciences that will stand our notion of the physical world on its head.

This "first course" in natural science, given to the teachers of the new Stuttgart Waldorf school as an inspiration for developing the physics curriculum, is based on Goethe's phenomenological approach to the study of nature. Acknowledging that modern physicists had come to regard Goethe's ideas on physics as a "kind of nonsense."

Rudolf Steiner contrasts the traditional scientific approach, which treats phenomena as evidence of "natural laws," with Goethean science, which rejects the idea of an abstract law behind natural phenomena and instead seeks to be a "rational description of nature." Steiner then corrects the mechanistic reductionism practiced by scientific positivists, emphasizing instead the validity of human experience and pointing toward a revolution in scientific paradigms that would reclaim ground for the subject--the human being--in the study of nature.

German source: Geisteswissenschaftliche impulse zur Entwikkelung der Physik, Erster Naturwissenschaftlicher Kurs: Licht, Farbe, Ton-Masse, Elektrizität, Magnetismus (GA 320).

Also included are several early lectures on education, ranging from 1906 to 1911, well before the birth of the Waldorf movement in 1919.

ORIGINAL SOURCES The essay "The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science," translated by George and Mary Adams, appeared originally in German in the journal Lucifer-Gnosis (nr. 33), 1907, under the title "Die Erzieuhung des Kindes vom Geschictspunkte der Geisteswissenschaft." It is included in vol. 34 of the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1987. The lecture "Teaching from a Foundation of Spiritual Insight," translated by Robert Lathe and Nancy Whittaker, is included in Ursprungsimpulse der Geisteswissenschaft, vol. 96, as "Erziehungspraxis auf der Grundlage spiritueller Erkenntnis"; the lecture "Education in the Light of Spiritual Science," translated by Rita Stebbing, appeared as "Die Erziehung des Kindes vom Standpunkt der Geisteswissenschaft"; and the lecture "Education and Spiritual Science," translated by Rita Stebbing, appeared as "Schulfragen vom Standpunkt der Geisteswissen-schaft" in Die Erkenntnis des Ubersinnlichen in unserer Zeit, vol. 55; the lecture "Interests, Talent, and Education," translated by Robert Lathe and Nancy Whittaker, is included in Antworten der eisteswissenschaft auf die grossen Fragen des Daseins, vol. 60, as "Anlage, Begabung und Erziehung des Menschen," all of which are in the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1987. The lecture "Interests, Talents, and Educating Children," translated by Robert Lathe and Nancy Whittaker, appeared originally in the magazine Die Menschenschule, vol. 31 (nr. 6),1957 and vol. 48 (nr.1), 1974.