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Pedagogical Sectionat the Goetheanum

Waldorf Education in Future – China – Middle Classes – Morning Verses

The Journal of the Pedagogical Section

Publisher: Pädagogische Sektion am GoetheanumPostfach, CH-4143 Dornach 1Tel.: 0041 61 706 43 15Tel.: 0041 61 706 43 73Fax: 0041 61 706 44 74E-Mail: [email protected]: www.paedagogik-goetheanum.ch

Editors: Florian Osswald, Dorothee Prange, Claus-Peter RöhCorrection: Angela WesserCover picture: Waldorf 100 Festival 2019 in Berlin, Tempodrom,

Photo Charlotte Fischer

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Pedagogical Section, Journal No. 68

Imprint

Index

3 Foreword Dorothee Prange

4 Future of Waldorf Education

4 Perspectives for the Future of Waldorf Schools Gilad Goldshmidt,Israel

8 The Waldorf School in its Second Century Christof Wiechert, Netherlands

17 Contribution to the Development of Independent Christian Boettger,Schools for a Society of Free Individuals Germany

21 Pedagogical Musicality in the Immediacy of Teaching –How to Change Oneself in Teaching the Upper Middle Grades Claus-Peter Röh

25 Eyewitness Reports from Chengdu by several authors

27 The Structure of the Morning Verses in Waldorf Schools Dorothee vonWinterfeldt, Greece

33 Research Week of the Pedagogical Section Jon McAlice, USA

34 Aspects of the International Engagement and Co-operation Albrecht Hüttig,by the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen (the Association of GermanyIndependent Waldorf Schools, Germany)

36 Agenda 2020/2021/2022

Pedagogical Section, Journal No. 68 1

Index


Foreword

The new decade has started. What is our des-tiny for our Waldorf schools? This questionfrom our previous edition continues to beasked. Let us approach all new things withjoy!

The current Coronavirus situation in Chinai.e. Asia and now almost everywhere in theworld poses new challenges for the peoplethere. The teachers are requested to teachtheir pupils via the Internet as there are nolessons taking place in the classrooms as nor-mal. How long will this situation continue?Until the end of March? Until April or evenMay?

Do we teach kindergarten children via thescreen too? How do you teach lower andmiddle school lessons online? It is not so dif-ficult to imagine digital lessons in the upperschool. A collection of emails giving eye wit-ness reports from Chengdu provide us with aconvincing experience of the situation.

The significance of the basis of our pedagogyis ever increasing. What is it we are buildingon? What are our foundations? How do wemake the study of anthroposophy, on whichour pedagogy is based, a resource in the 21st

century?

How do we renew our approach to the morn-ing verse? Following the publication of thelittle book ‘The Morning Verse in DifferentWorld Languages’, Dorothee von Winterfeldthas written an article in which she shares her

many thoughts about the structure of themorning verse thereby giving us clearer un-derstanding. It is very inspiring!

What are the questions that continue to oc-cupy us with regards to the middle school?Claus-Peter Röh shares some thoughts, com-plemented by some ideas from the MiddleSchool Working Group.

Articles by Christian Boettger, Gilad Gold-shmidt and Christof Wiechert pursue thequestion of how we will work with WaldorfPedagogy over the next 100 years. Manyideas are shared here to inspire all of us inour schools and communities to go on asearch for renewal i.e. to imbue the founda-tions with new impulses and to penetratetraditions!

Jon McAlice presents decades of researchfrom the work of the Pedagogical Section.

Finally we include another institutional re-port, this one is by Albrecht Hüttig about theinternational engagement by the Bund derFreien Waldorfschulen in Germany.

As ever, we hope to provide our readers witha great variety of ideas and information.

With all best wishes, and in particular wish-ing strength to our Asian friends for theircurrent challenges!

The Pedagogical Section

Foreword

Dear Colleagues,

IntroductionThe Waldorf school is 100 years old! We canlook with pride at the Waldorf movement inthese 100 years; yet also with concern at theyears that we have ahead of us. Proud be-cause we have become a proper world move-ment; concerned about the great challengesthat we are facing.

Our Strength is our WeaknessMore and more children on all continents arebeing taught at Waldorf schools or atschools with elements of Waldorf education.For an education system to exist for 100years and then to flourish too is not a matterof course. The main reason, in my view, is thespiritual inspiration – the anthroposophicalbackground – which Waldorf education isbased on, and the very clear and formedstructure of the education that Steiner andhis successors created in lots of books, lec-tures and college meetings; education whichpenetrates right into the details of teaching.

We, as Waldorf educators, have a tradition;we have practical methods, we know “how itshould be done”, we already have 100 yearsof experience, and we know that it “func-tions”. This is our strength.

Precisely this is our weakness too. Our forms,our tradition, our methods derive from a spir-itual source of inspiration, but from a sourcewhich was revealed 100 years ago. Becauseour work is of spiritual origin, it works. It wasdefinitely in keeping with the times then, butis this the case today as well? We live in a verydifferent world from then: the air we breathe,the water we drink, the food we eat are en-

tirely different from 100 years ago. Is it notalso the case with the children’s needs, theviews of the parents and the motivation andinner attitudes of the teachers?

Knowledge is a two-edged sword: it is aforce, it creates security and offers a basis;however, it can also close something off andhinder something new. In order to respectSteiner’s heritage, to cultivate it further andto work in keeping with our times, i.e. tothink through the given forms, to listen tothe stream of time – to do this we must makea huge effort.

My attempt to seek an answer to all thesedifficult questions – or better put, to seekthe direction of an answer – leads me to thefollowing three levels:

Esoteric WorkI take the view that if an individual doessomething with their whole heart, then theyare able to realise what to do and how to doit. In any case, it is like this with the vocationof a teacher or educator. In the language ofanthroposophical human evolution, we maysay: what we formerly learned from the gods,should come from the depths of our soulstoday. Thus, in our limited, difficult andsometimes chaotic soul life there is a sourceof the spiritual stream, of wisdom – but thequestion is: How do we get there?

The Waldorf impulse first came into theworld through Steiner himself. Then therewere his trusty followers, who developed theimpulse further and extended it. We are liv-ing in a time in which neither Steiner nor his

4 Pedagogical Section, Journal No. 68

The Waldorf School: Perspectives for the Future


Gilad Goldshmidt, Harduf, Israel

followers nor exceptional individualities whocan teach us, are alive. We are all alone,fending for ourselves. That can be discourag-ing. However, I prefer the conclusion: Thenwe must rely on our own resources.

The major issues of our time will not be re-solved by Steiner’s lectures or books. Thebooks can and ought to give us a certainbasis, enabling us to form an inner attitude,serve as a guide; the answers will only comethrough ourselves.

Thus, the matter is not complicated. We, asteachers, have the answers in ourselves andaround us in our interconnections and inter-relationships. Yet, how are we to reach intothese depths?

*

For many years, I have been accompanyingteachers and young people in Waldorf train-ing courses. In recent years, I have observed acurious phenomenon. A lot of young traineeteachers or young teachers, even those witha deep connection to anthroposophy, carryout their spiritual training through otherspiritual paths: Buddhism, mindfulness, yoga,Kabbala, Judaism, Sufism, to name but a few.Thus, a young Waldorf teacher completedthe training with excellent results, is a goodand much-loved teacher, but for herself shepractises Buddhism.

There is nothing to be said against it, yet Ifind this phenomenon strange. Why do youngpeople come to us, learn a lot about the an-throposophical world-view, form a deep con-nection with Waldorf education, and yetchoose other spiritual paths for their self-de-velopment? What are we to make of that?

In my view, it is caused by the difficult, chal-lenging and lonely, anthroposophical spiri-

tual path. What counts as a matter of courseon all the other spiritual paths that I knowof, for example mentoring for the individualand supportive groups, are missing us. A lotof young people find our spiritual path toolonely, too difficult, and personal accompa-niment is lacking. Thus, they work in a Wal-dorf school and find an answer to their deepspiritual needs somewhere else.

These thoughts have led several teachers andformer teachers from the Waldorf school inHarduf, Israel, to try to develop exactly theseabove-mentioned methods as a part of theanthroposophical path of spiritual training.The approach is based on working as a group,in which each person is a student and ateacher at the same time. The group has astrength, which is the actual teacher. Wehave resolved to take the first steps on theanthroposophical spiritual path together(The basics first: “How to attain Knowledgeof the Higher Worlds”, the “Auxiliary Exer-cises”, etc.). In Harduf we meet at least oncea week. Several people take turns in leadingthe group and the work varies in a rhythmbetween small groups of 3 or 4 and largegroups. The main thing for us here is medi-tating together, exchanging personal experi-ences of the past week and talking aboutnew steps.

After having practised this method of work-ing in Harduf for a certain time period our-selves, we intend to continue cultivating thiswork with the college of teachers in variousIsraeli Waldorf schools. Parallel to this, I ambringing this method of working into theWaldorf training courses in Israel.

It is my conviction that, if our students andteachers find their spiritual path in anthro-posophy, if they find companionship, conver-sation, an exchange of personal findings, in acommon effort and, of course, find the deep



perspectives of the spiritual training course,we shall be able to reach the spiritual source.

Exoteric Work The Waldorf impulse came to all human be-ings and should, in my opinion, benefit allchildren, if at all possible. This cannot suc-ceed, if we simply carry on the way we areaccustomed. In most countries of the world,the Waldorf school is a privilege for richand/or educated, aware parents. Indeed, wehave managed to spread very broadly as aworld movement, and admirably so, but wenormally remain within the same circles.

Here I see a swing of the pendulum. Weshould move in an inward direction – the lastpart – and then swing outwards. Movementin one direction strengthens and enlivens theother. That is movement between the polesso that we continually go deeper in each di-rection: the more the esoteric-meditativework is deepened inwardly, the more influ-ence we will have outwardly and vice versa.At present we tend to be in the middle and ata standstill. Therefore, we need movement!

Research into Daily TeachingThe third level is to be found in research ofthe daily work in the Waldorf school itself. Asalready mentioned, the Waldorf movementhas its strength in tradition, in the formswhich Steiner and his successors have cre-ated. That is where we feel secure; we know alot. Yet it is there that we have our weaknesstoo. For the forms have the tendency to stay,to become rigid and constrain us. In order toperceive the new era, the challenge of ourenvironment and to face current issues, weneed to open up, create a free space and atleast for a while, forget the forms.

We may find help in the question: What is oflasting value and what has temporary valuein our educational work? In other words,

which elements should we keep and whichshould we change so that they can rise up tothe call of our time?

We must have the courage to question manyelements of Waldorf education such as con-tent, method and customs. I will emphasisemy starting point once more – that each ofus actually has the answers within them andthat proper group work can help take usthere. The path to a profound, spiritual place,where the indications to the answers lie,should definitely be taken.

By this, I mean work on the basics: Groupwork based on trusting and listening to theothers. In the college meeting we can call allour teaching work into question. We can ob-serve the signs of the times, the world inwhich the children are growing up, i.e. thecircumstances of the school and the children,reading these signs in the children, alongwith the parents and young teachers. Basedon these observations, we should researchthe educational traditions (what is done atthe Waldorf school): What should stay? Whatshould we change? In which direction? Whatexactly do our children need? What fosterstheir well-being? When and where do wehave the feeling that the children arestrengthened in their life forces? When andwhere do we have the feeling that they aredrying out, getting tired?

In recent years, I have been accompanyingseveral colleges of teachers who want towork on these questions. I cannot go intomore detail in this article, but, if we answerthese questions, and show the courage fornew developments, based on our (anthro-posophical) understanding of the humanbeing, our pedagogy will develop further.Lots of qualities, such as, e.g. the artistic el-ement in lessons, the significance of natureand the question of relationships for all



forms of learning, require renewed affirma-tion.

According to my experience in Israel, thereare a lot of people in all educational circles,who have a deep yearning for precisely these“Waldorf qualities”. In recent years we havehad really lovely experiences with stateschools and kindergartens that were lookingfor “Waldorf” inspiration.

I would like to stress my intentions evenmore clearly. I do not think that a state

school will be transformed into a Waldorfschool. What matters to me is simple: that asmany children (and teachers too) as possiblepractise the art of education, practise art,work in the garden, admire nature, look afteranimals and so much more and from time totime use Waldorf methods.

What I see before me is a great public educa-tional movement which takes its inspirationfrom the Waldorf impulse. Parallel to this, thereis the Waldorf movement. Both movements canwork in a good relationship to one another.



IntroductionWe are looking back on a string of importantcelebrations all over the world. They havebeen colourfully documented and the media,too, had important things to say about them.

A great vista unfolds of what Waldorf andSteiner Schools around the globe haveachieved, with much imagination and inspi-ration, in order to celebrate their centenary.

We can now gratefully conclude that thesefestivities have grown on truly fertile peda-gogical ground. Stuttgart laid on a congressrich in content; major education confer-ences were held in Dornach, Bangkok andBuenos Aires. In many other places and invarious events people reflected on the foun-dations of this art of education; and finally,a powerful manifestation of forces inBerlin’s Tempodrom, where enormous effortswere made, not for reward’s sake but for thecause itself.

What remains are musical and pictorial im-pressions, vying in colour and movement fora place in our memories. In summary we cansay that the Waldorf Schools have demon-strated what they are capable of after a hun-dred years.

This contribution will ask about the future.Will the images stay the same? Will the sec-ond centenary look just like the first? Willthe schools and this art of education con-tinue to meet with the same levels of accept-ance and criticism?

It is good to ask how Waldorf Steiner Schoolswill develop and what their second hundredyears will be like.

Outline As we enter into this dialogue we need toconsider how long the individual schoolshave existed. Schools that only embarked onthis new adventure fifteen or so years ago,will have a different self-image and answerthese questions differently from schools thathave practised Waldorf education for thirtyor forty years. Besides this largest group,there are also schools that are over fiftyyears old. The two latter groups feel the urgeto shape the future, the need for a future-vi-able perspective, most strongly.

The very young initiatives are still in aprocess of self-finding and self-identifica-tion. The thoughts expressed here will there-fore be less relevant to them. But we will asknonetheless where Waldorf Education isheading. Quo vadis?

OppositionWe must also think of the critics and oppo-nents who, after a hundred years, keep tar-geting the school and the movement with thesame accusations. Are their claims justified ordo they need to be refuted? Again we need toask how we will deal with this in future.

Our Self-ImageThe self-image of Waldorf Steiner Schoolsrests essentially on five pillars: firstly, a so-phisticated developmental psychology arising


The Waldorf School in its second century

The Waldorf School in its Second CenturyAn invitation to an exchange of views

Christof Wiechert(translated from German by Margot M. Saar)

from Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific re-search and underpinning the education. Wethink that we have important methodologicalindications for this. Secondly, a curriculum –ranging from pre-school to the end of sec-ondary school and derived from the child’s oryoung person’s developmental stages – thatfacilitates gradually awakening and increas-ing learning experiences. For many subjectsimportant and original methodological indi-cations have been given that allow for abroad rather than narrowly defined imple-mentation of the curriculum. Human devel-opment is, after all, a major undertaking thatleaves no room for narrow-mindedness.

Thirdly, there is the artistic approach in allsubjects, not as an end in itself but as a meansto an end. These artistic influences bring in-tellectual and practical skills together andmake the growing human being ‘whole’.

Fourthly, Waldorf Steiner Schools have theirown sociality; there is no selection based ontalent or on parental means, no repeating ofclasses, no standard punishments, no dis-criminating grading in the lower school; andthe administrative ideal is that of a teachers’republic. The fifth pillar is the firm convic-tion that the state must limit its influenceand not seek to prescribe teaching contents,so that independent teaching is possible.

The modern view of the educational systemis that the civil society – that is to say, theparents who wish for this education andthose who are willing to provide it – takes re-sponsibility for it.

The picture outlined here describes theschool in its essence. Anyone who knows andunderstands education cannot seriously arguewith this.

Rudolf Steiner must have been thinking ofthis when he said to the teachers inSwitzerland, “Another aspect is that thecrux of anthroposophical education is itsmethod. The schools apply a certainmethod. It is not a question of any particu-lar political direction but purely and simplyof method. It is also not a question of anyparticular religious creed, or of seeing an-throposophy somehow as a religious creed.It is simply a question of method. In the dis-cussion that followed my lecture cycle1 myanswer to the questions on this was simplythat the educational method representedhere can be applied anywhere, whereverthere is the good will to introduce it. […] Ibelieve it would be a good thing if youcould always give the greatest prominenceto these two aspects2. They are perfectlytrue, and much damage has been done to usby the constant repetition of the view thatWaldorf Education can only be carried outin schools apart from the main stream,whereas I have repeatedly said that themethods can be applied in any school.”3

History has taught us that schools ‘apartfrom the main stream’ have basically becomethe rule. Beautiful, flourishing gardens ofWaldorf cultures have sprung up. And whilethey can continue to grow ever more beauti-ful, they are hardly in touch with the sociallandscape around them.



1 Rudolf Steiner: The Child’s Changing Consciousness and Waldorf Education, GA 306, AnthroposophicPress 1996, transl. R. Everett.

2 The first was the establishing of so-called ‘model schools’.3 Rudolf Steiner at the meeting of the Swiss School Association (Schweizer Schulverein) during the Christ-

mas Conference, 28 December 1923, p.m. In: Rudolf Steiner, The Christmas Conference for the Foundationof the General Anthroposophical Society 1923/1924, Anthroposophic Press 1990, p. 168, transl. J. Collis.

In the 1990s, Professor Heinz Buddemeyerconducted an interesting experiment in Bre-men (DE) that deserves not to be forgotten.The city-state’s education secretary at the timeasked Buddemeyer to join forces with PeterSchneider and examine whether Waldorf edu-cation was possible in a mainstream setting.

Some Waldorf teachers then began working ina regular elementary school. The experimentturned out to be very beneficial for thatschool: the students’ performance, attitude,social skills as well as the general mood in theschool, parental satisfaction, in short thewhole ethos improved considerably. When theteachers were asked four years later whowould like to continue, none of them said ‘yes’.It was too late. The Waldorf Schools had, bythen, cultivated their own ‘gardens’.4

I should mention here that Rudolf Steinerhad envisaged a much faster spreading ofWaldorf Schools. The opposition stirred up bythe social threefolding ideas and the attacksfrom economists, politicians and the churcheswere so intense that fast growth, into thestate education system in particular, was nolonger conceivable.5

An Extended PictureAnother picture to hold up next to the schools‘apart from the main stream’ is that of theschool of methods that can be put into prac-tice wherever there is ‘the good will to intro-duce it’. Such a school will probably differfrom a traditionally grown one in that it will

be more institutional, fact-oriented, incon-spicuous. And yet, we need to bear in mindthat Rudolf Steiner thought this possible.

The Intercultural Waldorf School in Mannheim(DE) (a model that has been tried out in otherplaces since), is such an extended school, asecond form of Waldorf School that is less‘garden’ but has more of an impact on thesocial environment.6

In Oakland, California, too, a Waldorf Schoolhas been established in a socially deprived area.This school does indeed operate with almost nogarden but has become a refuge for children ofmany nationalities and ethnic backgrounds.These children learn through the art of educa-tion, but they also learn to live in peace withone another. This is the Waldorf CommunitySchool, which, unlike the Mannheim School, issupported by the State of California withoutany pedagogical interference.7

What characterizes this school is the smoothtransition between school life and the stu-dents’ family lives in the city. The two pene-trate each other in that the school life is ab-sorbed by, and can unfold in, the family life.There are no discussions on the school’s prin-ciples or foundations, unless they benefit thestudents and their families.

We also see large city schools with up to athousand students that consist only of anupper school. I met a college of almost a hun-dred teachers in one such school, all of whom



4 Heinz Buddemeyer and Peter Schneider, Waldorfschule und staatliche Schule, ein Erfolgsmodell nicht erstseit Pisa (Waldorf School and state school: a successful model not only since Pisa), Meyer, 2002.

5 Tomás Zdrazil, Die Freie Waldorfschule in Stuttgart, 1919-1925, Edition Waldorf 2019, cf. the chapter oncritical voices and opponents, p. 266.

6 Michael Brater, Albert Schmelzer, Christiane Hemmer-Schanze, Interkulturelle Waldorfschule. Evaluationzur schulischen Integration von Migrantenkindern (Intercultural Waldorf School. Evaluation of the Inte-gration of Migrant Children), VS Verlag, 2009.

7 See online: Community School for Creative Education, Oakland (CA). Founded by Dr. Ida Oberman in 2010. Cf.Festschrift of the Friends of Rudolf Steiner Education, 100 Years of Education Towards Freedom, Berlin, 2019.

have quite a relaxed view of ‘Waldorf training’(because upper school teacher training hardlyexists). They have nonetheless a profoundsense of what Waldorf education is. Most ofthem are young and relate naturally to itsmethods and approaches. Like the CommunitySchool these schools have an open relation-ship to the Waldorf School and the surround-ing social landscape. But they are indeedplainer and more institutional than conven-tional Steiner Schools. They don’t look likeWaldorf. These schools can only exist if theyconvey the art of education in some otherform. The Rudolf Steiner Upper SecondarySchool in the centre of Oslo (NO) with its fu-ture-oriented concept is one example.8

This form of school was pioneered in Wanne-Eickel (DE) where upper school students canchoose vocational training along with a clas-sic school education, allowing them to gainexperience in the working world as part oftheir schooling. The same principle is appliedin upper schools that operate as technicalcolleges.9

What all these initiatives have in common isthe attempt to make the art of educationopenly accessible and, in doing so, realizeRudolf Steiner’s intention to apply the Wal-dorf method wherever there is the ‘good will’to introduce it.

Let us return to the traditional Waldorf Schoolthat operates ‘apart from the mainstream’.

Its separateness has created a space for manyinternal innovations. Class 12 projects havebeen ‘invented’, for instance, or basket-mak-ing and metal work in the craft lessons, the‘moving classroom’, the evolving approach tomedia education, the class plays and upperschool plays, eurythmy graduations, puppetshows and so on: the list of ways to imple-ment the curriculum is endless. Hardly any ofthem go back to Rudolf Steiner. The latestedition of the ‘Richter Curriculum’ has 800pages, while the original curriculum, collatedby Caroline von Heydebrand, had just about40.10

Many of these achievements risk theschool’s main concern – the ‘how’ of learn-ing – taking second place. Often, even theidentity of the Waldorf School is sought inall these extras rather than in the slim andconcise description of its essence. This isone reason, no doubt, why the general pub-lic has less and less understanding of theWaldorf schools. Due to these excessivemanifestations and possibilities, the realeducational goals are lost from sight, a de-velopment that in turn provides more tar-gets for critics (who may sometimes evenhave a point).11



8 See OECD – Innovative Learning Environment Project (ILE) at Oslo Rudolf Steiner Upper Secondary Schoolat www.olso-bysteinerskole.no

9 For an overview of these developments see Volume 9 of Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge der AlanusHochschule. Peter Schneider, Inge Enderle (eds), Das Waldorf Berufskolleg. Peter Lang, Wiesbaden, 2012.

10 Caroline von Heydebrand, The Curriculum of the First Waldorf School. Floris Books, 2010, transl. E. M.Hutchins. See also Martyn Rawson, Tobias Richter, Kevin Avison (eds), The Tasks and Content of theSteiner-Waldorf Curriculum, Floris Books, 2014, transl. J. Collis.

11 A striking example of this is Till-Sebastian Idel’s, Max – Matrose auf dem Klassenschiff. Einehermeneutisch-rekonstruktive Interpretation eines Waldorfzeugnisses (Max, seaman on the class vessel.Hermeneutic-reconstructive interpretation of a Waldorf report). Quoted in Volker Frielingsdorf, Waldorf-pädagogik in der Erziehungswissenschaft, ein Überblick (Waldorf education within the education sci-ences), Weinheim 2012. It is about a report written for a boy in relation to his behaviour in the so-called‘rhythmical part’ of the lesson, in which one is indeed hard pressed to discover any pedagogical relevance.

Before a new school year starts we some-times notice that new textbooks have beenordered, with new approaches to maths,reading and history teaching. None of themhave anything to do with Waldorf teachingbut they are used by the teachers, while theschools in question advertise themselves ex-plicitly as Waldorf schools.

There is a danger of form and content fallingapart, which, moreover, also leads to anabove-average number of burnouts amongteachers because the pressure to do every-thing that needs doing, including the Wal-dorf extras that are – explicitly or tacitly –expected, is immense. The weight of theseexpectations is a well-known problem inmany schools. It is not the pressure to serveWaldorf education, but the pressure to pro-vide all these extras, which are deemed tomake Waldorf schools what they are.

This makes the school socially vulnerable, in-ternally as well as externally, and opens thedoors to all kinds of preconceptions.

How shall we deal with this in future?

A Future Image of the Waldorf SchoolA new Waldorf School could be more mod-est, slimmer. Instead of countless extracur-

ricular ‘happenings’, it should provide some-thing innovative and focus on the ‘how’ ofteaching! That should be what singles it out.

If we ask people today what they rememberfrom their own school years they tend tomention class trips and class plays first. A fu-ture Waldorf School should be rememberedfor its special way of teaching.12 A new sim-plicity would transform the relationship be-tween students and teachers because theywould be working next to rather than oppo-site each other.

This new simplicity would make schools moreaccessible so that the public interest would bedrawn to them. They could offer adult educa-tion or other courses (many music schoolstoday are using the premises of Waldorfschools for their lessons).

A new sense of quality could evolve, basednot on exams, comparison and selection buton teachers feeling a new responsibility to-wards the children and students.13 Child andstudent consultations instead of tests.14

School Sociality:the Example of Language TeachingWhen the Waldorf School was started in 1919,Rudolf Steiner envisaged a strong modern



12 Heiner Barz, Dirk Randoll, Absolventen von Waldorfschulen – eine empirische Studie zur Bildung undLebensgestaltung ehemaliger Waldorfschüler (Waldorf School graduates – empirical study on the educa-tion and biographies of former Waldorf students) VS Verlag, 2007. This publication presents the number oftrips, class plays and outings as memorable rather than the teaching itself. Rudolf Steiner once said of theWaldorf School that the ‘how’ of teaching would inform the memories of former students; cf. lecture of11 May 1919 in Stuttgart (GA 192); for an English translation of this lecture cf. Rudolf Steiner, Educationas a Source for Social Change, Anthroposophic Press, 1997, transl. R.F. Lathe, N. Parsons Whittaker.

13 At the end of GA 293, Rudolf Steiner called on teachers to sharpen their “feeling for responsibility of soul”.What he meant was a responsibility for the development of the child or adolescent, not only their achieve-ments. Cf. Rudolf Steiner, Foundations of Human Experience (formerly Study of Man), GA 293, Lecture 14,5 September 1919. A new English translation of the entire First Teachers’ Course (GAs 293, 294, 295) willbe published around Easter 2020.

14 See Steiner’s prophetic description of the child study in Human Values in Education, GA 310, lecture of 21July 1924 in Arnhem (NL), Anthroposophic Press, 2004, transl. V. Compton-Burnett.

language programme, with lessons in two dif-ferent languages (at the time English andFrench) after every main lesson.15

This was only possible, as Tomás Zdrazil quiterightly points out, because (most) classteachers spoke other languages.16 Conse-quently, there was also no distinction be-tween types of teachers. As the schools grew,more subject teachers and language teacherswere needed and this resulted in a divisioninto class teachers on the one hand, and lan-guage and subject teachers on the other. Theclass teachers were the ‘main teachers’ whiletheir language colleagues, above all in thelower school, were in danger of being seen asless important. This was detrimental both tothe teachers’ sociality and the teaching oflanguages. Modern language teaching wasoften below par; and again, this was mostnoticeable in the lower school.

This state of affairs would need to be reme-died in the ‘new’ Waldorf School and thereare ways of achieving this which need to beexplored. If a school has parallel classes, forinstance, the class teachers of two oppositeclasses could take on the language teachingin their own and the parallel class. If that isnot possible they could cooperate closelywith language teachers, with the latter tak-ing co-responsibility for particular classes.The language teachers would still remain re-sponsible for their particular languages. Thiscan also work in schools that have only oneclass per year.

The new simple school will also question theproportion of part-time staff. The college ofteachers needs to ask this question and es-tablish conditions for the part-time col-leagues, for instance that attending teachers’meetings is mandatory. All teachers musthave the same responsibility in future; therecan be no division in primary and secondaryresponsibilities. Interestingly, this was anissue even in Steiner’s time.17

The importance assigned to modern lan-guages (which Steiner saw as part of theschool’s identity) must be re-established inthe new schools. This includes the endeavourto achieve other, and above all better, resultsat all stages.

Simple Forms, Strong EducationA school’s main concern is teaching. Whatdoes good teaching look like?

Els Göttgens18, a colleague who passed awayseven years ago, was mentor to manyschools, most of them on the west coast ofNorth America. For many years, she wasmuch loved and her work was greatly es-teemed there, despite the fact that she wasquite ‘pedantic’ and strict. She would, for in-stance, sit in with lessons, stopwatch in hand,and after 120 minutes point out how manyminutes had been spent on real learning(usually not enough). How much time hadbeen spent on proper practising? (usually notenough). She would also look out for a goodlesson structure and whether all the children



15 See the first faculty meeting of 8 September 1919, or faculty meetings 40, 41 and 42, when a newtimetable and new approach to language teaching was attempted. In: Faculty Meetings with RudolfSteiner, 2 volumes, Anthroposophic Press, 1998, transl. R. Lathe, N. Parsons Whittaker.

16 Tomás Zdrazil, Freie Waldorfschule in Stuttgart, Edition Waldorf 2019, p. 188.17 When Rudolf Steiner attempted to introduce a form of self-administration that was not carried by one

colleague alone (in this case Karl Stockmeyer), others expressed the view that it seemed as if there werefirst- and second-class teachers. Cf. the faculty meeting of Tuesday 23 January 1923 (see footnote 15).

18 Dutch Waldorf teacher, 19.05.1921 – 30.06.2013, founder of the Brabant Waldorf School. Her book Wal-dorf Education in Practice is widely read in North America.

were addressed in a lesson; whether therewas a healthy balance between artistic activ-ities and learning, and whether the learningwas artistic, original and creative. Aside fromthis rather ‘technical’ approach, she was atrue expert in the art of education and inspiritual science.

Els Göttgens’ conclusion was that howevernice a school is, it can only be a WaldorfSchool if it practises the art of education.She often complained that, while teachersknew about the temperaments, they hardlyever applied this knowledge in class. It washer view that, if students practised properly,the time allocated to the main lesson wouldhardly suffice. And yet, many colleaguesstruggled to fill that time and much pre-cious time was wasted. The essence of Wal-dorf education was her main concern. Ifteachers were able to grasp this essence, shethought, they would not only enjoy theirteaching but gain energy and strength fromit. Developing this faculty in teachers waswhat she aspired to. We often had thepleasure of experiencing the effect of herwork in our schools: teachers seemed to‘understand’ through her what an ‘art of ed-ucation’ actually implied. It is a concrete,precise, consistent art and not somethingvague, woolly and personal. Els Göttgenslived Steiner’s words that “the practice ofeducating and teaching in the Waldorf

School must be impregnated with a truespiritual-scientific understanding of humannature”.19

The Concept of ArtRoland Halfen wrote a wonderful essayabout this, which is worth reading.20 Also inthe centenary year, Wenzel M. Götte pub-lished a volume on the artistic element inWaldorf education. His introduction makesus aware of the fact that this artistic elementis not an end in itself but that it always un-folds its effect in the pedagogical context.21

The new simplicity plays an important role inconnection with the question of art. Everyartistic activity has an integrating effect. Itlets the ‘upper’ human being work into the‘lower’ one and vice versa. In other words,artistic activities involve (almost) our wholebeing – certainly cause enough for workingin an artistic way! In addition, it is also trueto say that the way we teach becomes an artin itself when we apply certain principles,such as making sure that the lessons‘breathe’ between concentration and relax-ation, that they are well structured and thatthere is a balance of images and words.When all these factors are in place, we canspeak of an art of education. This art requiresa skill that, once we have acquired it, will letus, almost unconsciously, do the right thingat the right moment.22



19 Rudolf Steiner, Die pädagogische Grundlage und Zielsetzung der Waldorfschule, three essays, Einzelaus-gabe 1969, Zbinden, Basel (third essay; in GA 24, The Renewal of the Social Organism, AnthroposophicPress, 1985, transl. E. Bowen-Wedgewood, R. Mariott; chapter ‘The Pedagogical Basis of the WaldorfSchool’, p. 110.

20 Roland Halfen, Erziehungskunst: Annäherung an einen Fundamentalbegriff in Anthroposophie und Päda-gogik (The Art of Education Approaching a Fundamental Concept of Anthroposophy and Education),Beiträge zur Allgemeinen Menschenkunde, in Tomás Zdrazil (ed.), Edition Waldorf, 2017.

21 Wenzel M. Götte (ed.) Das Künstlerische in der Erziehung (The artistic aspect of education) Waldorf Edition2019. In the introduction Götte describes space and time in connection with an enhanced understandingof human nature as elements of education; with special reference to Friedrich Schiller.

22 Rudolf Steiner described this faculty and how it can be acquired in his lecture of 21 September 1920 inStuttgart. In: Rudolf Steiner, Balance in Teaching, GA 302a, SteinerBooks, 2007, p. 30, transl. R. Querido.

(I would like to mention here that 20th and21st century lifestyles have favoured imagesover the spoken word. This has resulted in apronounced one-sided focus on imagery, onthe visible, in all spheres of life, particularlyeducation, while the spoken word, the audi-ble, has moved to the background. It is partof the mission of Waldorf education to cor-rect this one-sided tendency.)23

The question we face here is to what extentthe arts or artistic activities serve educationand when do they become an end in them-selves. There are situations in the life of theschool where one can ask ‘Does this (artistic)activity serve the education or has it becomean activity in its own right? Or is it simplythere because art is always right and appro-priate?’

Some schools’ advertising makes you wonderif they are still about education at all. Thesame applies to other areas: Are Class 12 proj-ects the pinnacle of education or have theybecome ends in themselves that have no ped-agogical relevance in the life of the school? Isthere any educational value in imitatingthese projects in Class 8? Is there a point tohaving a rhythmical part that has nothing todo with the rest of the lesson? How aboutwet-in-wet painting? We understand that ithelps children use and experience colours andtheir effect independently of representa-tional objects. The exercises we use are morethan a hundred years old now. Will they, be-cause they are so effective, be the same in ahundred years’ time or are there other waysof achieving the same goals?

How is it with drawing, or form drawing? Orwith handwork? Will the crocheted “Waldorfhats” ever be old hat?

Waldorf schools should present innovativeideas to each other, always asking if the newapproach serves the evolving young personand the mission of Waldorf education.

There are many things, but they are strug-gling to become established. In the 1990s theEducation Section organized World TeachersConferences that included performances bystudents: recitation, recorder playing and eu-rythmy were not permitted. We were amazedat the original contributions we saw on theGoetheanum stage! The conference mem-bers, who had come from all parts of theworld, were amazed to see eurythmy on uni-cycles for the first time in their lives! In 2019,at the Tempodrom in Berlin, the audiencesaw (and heard) eurythmy performed inwooden clogs!

Questions for Schools in the Near Future1. Can modern language teaching be rein-

vented in the way outlined above?

2. The gap between a purely human exis-tence and algorithms and robots is grow-ing smaller. Schools need to develop les-sons that illustrate that we are spiritualindividualities who can and must mastermachines. The students need to experi-ence that they are in charge when theywork with computers. What is humanand what isn’t? Could this be an addi-tional task for religion teachers?

3. Because children and students use tabletsand smartphones, they need more prac-tice in improving the agility of hands andfeet. Craft activities are not reserved forChristmas but have a place in the cur-riculum. An additional task for handworkteachers?



23 This situation is impressively described in Rudolf Steiner, Man and the World of the Stars, GA 219, Anthro-posophic Press, 1963, Lecture 6, Dornach, 17 December 1922, transl. D.S. Osmond.

4. If the technologization proceeds at therate it does now, we should considerspending a whole day per week teachingoutside, not only in Class 1, so that thesenses can develop properly.

5. Given that, in Waldorf Schools too, moreand more subjects become visualized, wewill have to help the children or studentsto form inner images, of the stories wetell, for instance, or of other subjectssuch as geometry and history. Fewer es-says and more imaginative exercises andconversations!

6. A thorough scrutiny of school life: Whatis essential and what is questionable andpossibly irrelevant?

7. Can the school separate what is essentialin Steiner’s indications on education and

on teaching methods from more special-ized anthroposophical contents? Anthro-posophy is so rich and comprehensivethat aspects that don’t serve educationcan cause confusion. Each specializedarea has its own anthroposophical disci-pline. Can we ask which aspects of spiri-tual science do or don’t belong to the lifeof the school? Do we have to slim downand become more agile in this respect,too?

Pondering on the evolving human being isa worthwhile task. Pondering on an evolv-ing school is equally worthwhile. But it isnot only worthwhile, it is essential becauseif we don’t do it, others will think for usand then it might be too late because‘those who do not move, will be moved byothers’.




Contribution to the Development of Independent Schools for a Society of Free Individuals

I was moved to write this article on changingour “school landscape” by two books that Iwas able to read in summer 2019: “Alleskönnte anders sein” (meaning: “Everythingcould be different”) by Harald Welzer and“Weltklasse” (“World Class”) by AndreasSchleicher. This article consists of three parts:in the first I will present my thoughts on apossible course of school development andthen two bridges will lead to the thoughts ofWelzer and Schleicher, which led me to re-flect in this way.

A School with a Prospect of BiographicalDevelopment I imagine a school in which even at the timeof teacher training, but then particularlywhen a new teacher enters the school, theyare asked to which of the four possible areasof responsibility they would like to committhemselves.

The first area would be the area of researchand development of Waldorf education. Thisinvolves constantly developing Waldorf edu-cation further through research work. Thiskind of task can, for instance, be workedupon in collaboration with the researchers ofuniversities or teacher training courses. Withappropriate prior qualifications such a taskmay lead to a doctoral thesis, if applicable,via a scholarship. Of course, it is key that thisresearch work always benefits everydayteaching work.

The second area would be that of trainingand further training. One can imagine herethat such colleagues would first focus on de-

veloping their skills in introducing and men-toring new members of staff, but that thensteps are taken in the work of training newteachers and also that the co-operation withteacher training centres for those studyingwhile already teaching and those on full-time courses will be strengthened. For theschool itself they could put forward interest-ing further training courses or workshops onan ongoing basis or even give them them-selves. Training and further training will thusbecome an area of responsibility of theschools and will lead to the extensive net-working of different schools.

The third area would be the work in theschool’s self-administration. This would in-volve relieving staff, who are active in otherareas, of this engagement, taking on the di-rection and management of the school andpreparing potential common decisions sowell that they can be made without requir-ing a lot of time. This task is obviously an in-ternal one in the school organism. It safe-guards the autonomy of the school andschool community, it connects the work ofall teachers with the parents. A further areaof responsibility, though, would be repre-senting the school in the work of the associ-ation.

And the fourth area would be social work incompletely independent areas outside theschool; in principle, voluntary work on behalfof the whole school. According to the ideasof Harald Welzer, this work could be quitefreely chosen. It would link the school withits surroundings or local community and

Contribution to the Development of Independent Schools for aSociety of Free Individuals

Christian Boettger

would probably bring back important issuesto the school.

Of course, in the course of their teachingwork at the school people could switch theirarea of responsibility; however, for the com-petence level gained to really enable theschool’s progress in self-governing and net-working the period of commitment to one ofthe four types of task should be at least 5years. I am convinced that these four areaswould be of clear benefit not only to the in-dividual school, but also to the association ofWaldorf schools as a whole. For, they willhelp to strengthen a school’s autonomy in acompetent way and to foster solidarityamong the teachers and the schools andteacher training centres. Of course, it is im-portant for the colleagues working in thefour areas to have time to share and discusstheir experiences so that they can flow backto the college of teachers. Certainly, every-thing does not need to be so tightly pinneddown in these four areas; the choice of fieldsof responsibility should take place in inten-sive, supportive, individual consultations.

I can hear two questions or objections:firstly, about the financing of such an under-taking and secondly, as to how someone cansuggest such a thing, when everyone actuallyknows that teachers, especially teachers atWaldorf schools, are always so overloaded. Ibelieve the many tasks in the school can onlybe satisfactorily resolved through a gen-uinely good distribution of them. If it is clearto everybody that our pupils are looking notonly for teaching competence in their sub-jects from their teachers, but also for themtaking an interest in the school as a wholeand its educational basis, then ways will befound to reduce the teaching load as a wholeand thereby to make activities possible that

go beyond the lessons as they stand; these, inturn, will have a healthy effect on the schoolorganism. I think, once again following thesuggestions of Harald Welzer, that even smallchanges can have a big impact at the end ofthe day, but you just need to make a start.Indeed, a school may possibly receive supportfrom a foundation for such a project so as togather the initial experiences.

A Brief Look at the Work of HaraldWelzer: “Alles könnte anders sein”.Harald Welzer, a sociologist and, as his col-leagues call him, an architect of the future,who has become well-known as an author ofbooks such as “Selbst denken” and “Diesmarte Diktatur”, suggests in his book “Alleskönnte anders sein” to simply think of soci-ety anew and he encourages people to startwith small steps in the direction of their ownidea of the future. The dead end with ‘no al-ternatives’, often conjured up, really meanshaving ‘no imagination’. Now this is not theplace for a detailed book review, but in orderto arrive at the helpful thought for schooldevelopment which, among other things, ledme to the idea of this article, I need to por-tray the outlines of his analysis of societyand utopia.

From the start, Welzer’s book is encouraging,based on the initial analysis that not every-thing in today’s society is bad. It is a societywhich opens up “the greatest possible free-dom for its individual members”1 that peoplemight be able to enjoy: a society which for-gives mistakes. The mistake, he continues, issimply that in this society knowledge istaught and ignorance is practised. Peoplemay wonder how it comes about that thereis still this incredible discrepancy. Accordingto his analysis, at the same time, liberaldemocracy is under attack, geopolitically, in-



1 Welzer, Harald: Alles könnte anders sein, p. 23; Fischer Verlag Frankfurt, 3rd edition, 2019.

ternally and digitally, whereas a state basedon freedom can only survive, if the moralsubstance of the individual citizen calls forand grants this very freedom.

In his next and key chapter he shows 17 build-ing blocks with which a future world for freepeople can be built. Then in his final chapterthe building blocks are checked to see how re-alistic a perspective there is for establishingthem. In our schools we can see time andagain that self-organisation and self-govern-ment will be one of the huge issues for thenext century of Waldorf school development;and it is also one of the huge tasks for the sur-vival of our democratic society.

In this article, the outstanding building blockis solidarity with and for our fellow humanbeings. In a society, in which solidarity andsupport for other people is handed over in-creasingly to the nanny state, the individualperson is to some extent becoming unaccus-tomed to solidarity. Welzer suggests re-thinking this, “Instead, in a free society peo-ple would have to find a different kind ofbalance, in the sense of taking part in andsharing without discrimination benefits orassets in the public domain, this being imple-mented not only by the administration, butby all citizens. For the citizen, freedommeans being different and being able tocount on help”.2 Effective solidarity wouldmean a win-win situation for both sides, inthat each person would stand for a cause orsomeone else without there being an imme-diate benefit for themselves. Welzer’s stu-dents at St. Gallen University have developeda convincing idea within the scope of theirdissertations: “At least 20% of study, train-ing or work hours should be available forvoluntary work”.3

This so-called 80/20 concept, he goes on, isan effective measure against isolation, it cangive the individual more meaning in their lifebeyond working in their occupation, is realempathy training and, in the end, will lead tovalue creation in society. These students alsomade suggestions for its implementation bysimply compensating employers for the soli-darity work with payments from taxation. Itis evident how much employers would gainfrom this active involvement of their work-force, for the satisfaction found through vol-untary work outside their usual work wouldflow back to the workplace.

At this point, the work of our teachers atWaldorf schools occurred to me. What wouldit mean for the schools, if their staff wouldalso get time besides their lesson time forsuch involvement outside the classroom?What would it mean for their lessons, fortheir relationship to the children and adoles-cents and, of course to the parents? Mindyou, it obviously sounds utopian in the faceof the serious shortage of teachers and theheavy load of work through the many othertasks that a self-governing school brings.How can space be created for these volun-tary commitments?

Andreas Schleicher: “Weltklasse-Schulefür das 21 Jahrhundert gestalten”(Forming a World-Class School for the21st Century)The second book is “Weltklasse 2” by AndreasSchleicher, who heads the Directorate of theOECD in Paris and is a co-ordinator of thePISA Programme. In this book he summariseshis view of the schools of tomorrow whichhe gained from countless travels and investi-gations of the most varied educational sys-tems around the world. Thus he says in the



2 Ibidem, p. 142.3 Ibidem, p. 208.



introduction, “In order to overhaul theschool system comprehensively, not only isquite a different vision required of what ispossible, but also intelligent strategies andeffective institutions”4. According to hisanalysis, today’s schools are the creation ofthe Industrial Revolution, in which the pre-vailing norms were standardisation and con-formity to rules. Today, very different abili-ties are called for, for the system has turnedout to be much too slow in this fast-livingworld. At the moment, even the best schoolsystems in the world could not manage to dojustice to the needs of the pupils and teach-ers any more. It requires, he argues, com-pletely different basic conditions, underwhich the innovative powers of the teachingstaff and schools can unfold. Reading thesesentences, I wondered whether his experi-ences with Waldorf schools come throughhere, which he does not make public in hisprofessional work.

In the course of the book, the educational sys-tem in Singapore, which came out first in oneof the PISA studies, is looked at time andagain. The Singapore Minister of Educationmade it clear to Schleicher in 2014 “whatgreat significance Singapore attaches to thefostering of creative and critical thinking, so-cial and emotional abilities as well as goodqualities of character”5. Altogether, his bookendeavours in six chapters to develop a con-cept of education through the eyes of an aca-demic, and to expose myths about education.He pursues the question of what distinguisheseffective educational systems, endeavours toapproach the task of fairness in education andthen describes in the two final chapters howpeople can enable educational reforms to

happen and which steps are the next ones totake. I do not want to get more into a book re-view, but rather portray one of the ap-proaches for school development from Singa-pore that led me to the idea for this article.

“Singapore promotes teacher developmentthrough its Enhanced Performance Manage-ment System. This system, which was fullyimplemented for the first time in 2005, is apart of a career and support structure in theeducational system”.6 This programme envis-ages that right at the start of their profes-sional life new teachers are offered three dif-ferent career branches to choose from. “Firstly,the teaching branch, in which the teachers re-main simply teachers and are able to rise tothe level of master teacher, secondly, theleadership branch, in which teachers can takeon leading positions in schools and in theMinistry of Education, and thirdly, the SeniorSpecialist Fast Track, in which teachers enterthe Ministry of Education in order to (…) forma strong core of specialists (…) which opensup new territory and helps Singapore tomaintain its leading position”.7

You will notice straight away that thesebranches do not have much to do with thedevelopment of Waldorf schools, but, afterall, the basic idea is fascinating that nowa-days there seem to be fewer and feweryoung people who want to remain in theirprofession their whole lives without an out-ward change. Maybe this is a reason why inwestern societies fewer and fewer people de-cide for the teaching profession. In any case,we could ponder what kind of interesting bi-ographical development opportunities wecould offer young teachers.

4 Andreas Schleicher, Weltklasse, Schule für das 21 Jahrhundert gestalten, Bielefeld, 2019, p. 16.5 Ibidem, p. 27.6 Ibidem, p. 109.7 Ibidem, p. 109.


Pedagogical musicality in the immediacy of teaching

Out of the International Forum two yearsago a colloquium started, concerning itselfwith the pedagogy of the upper elementaryclasses. All members of this group of 7 to 9colleagues are or have been class- and sub-ject teachers. The aim of this initiative groupis to work on urgent questions concerningthe specific development and methods ofClasses 6 to 8 and to make that available forthe school movement.

The sequence of the themes correspondedwith the steps of change during the firstteacher course of 1919: Out of the perspec-tive of the human development at this age,practical methodological aspects for teach-ing were looked for. Therefore, the metamor-phoses of the anchoring in body and soul,leading to the rising ability to judge, stood atthe beginning. This was followed by the spe-cial meaning of the imagination at this age,by the rhythm of day and night in the so-called “threefold steps“ of teaching and bythe development of the etheric heart (seePart I in the Journal of the Pedagogical Sec-tion, Easter 2018, Nr. 63). To realize more ex-change with the colleagues in the schools,colloquia and conferences about the meth-ods in those Middle classes took place in Es-tonia, Hungary, Switzerland and Germany.

In September 2019, some members of thegroup had the chance to meet before theWaldorf-100 Celebration in the Tempodromof Berlin. This time the main theme was theteacher himself: How do the dynamic

changes of the pupils challenge the teacherto change himself? The starting point wasSteiner’s Lecture 6 out of Art, seen in theLight of Mystery Wisdom (CW 275, 2nd Janu-ary 1915). In that lecture the art of musicstands opposite to the art of sculpturing andarchitecture. Out of that polarity, the aim isdeveloped, to strive for new connections be-tween the two sides, even up to a “reconcili-ation of the arts“. From the interweaving ofthe arts in the building of the firstGoetheanum, the perspective turns to peda-gogy: A stream of sculptural forces ruleswithin the young human being, within thepupil. What was brought along out of therealm of pre-birth wants to mould itself,wants to find its forms. An expression of thissculptural stream is bodily growth. Closelyconnected with that, the soul forces striveforward.

The forces of the teacher, with which hemeets those sculptural lifeforces comingfrom the past in the children, are describedas musical and as coming from the future:“The very best in you which your spirit canthink and your soul can feel, and which ispreparing itself to make something of you inthe next incarnation, can work on the partof the child that is sculpturing its form outof times long past.“ In relation to this, theconversation led to different pictures of themusical quality in the teacher:

• Out of the aim of the Waldorf School tostrive for an ‘education towards free-

Pedagogical Musicality in the Immediacy of Teaching –How to Change Oneself in Teaching the Upper Middle GradesColloquium of the International Forum concerning the pedagogy of theupper elementary classes – Part III.

Claus-Peter Röh

dom’, the concept of 'musicality' iswidening to a basic forming force inteaching. In this sense, the immediate ef-fect can be experienced not only whilepractising music, but also in all rhythmic-musical elements of the lesson: This canbe in the healthy change from tension torelaxation in the rhythm between listen-ing and speaking or in the breathing be-tween the element of thinking and theactivity of the will.

• The influence of the musical element onthe community can be experienced inmany situations of teaching: Encounter-ing the young human being and buildingup a conversation in a lesson, the musicalelement leads to a quality of awareness,in which the individual impulses as wellas the perception of the social wholenessof the group live within each other.

• The main point of the musical quality inthe teacher was described as a growingtrust in future development: By workingon himself, by questioning the necessarysteps for the future and by experiencingchallenging 'eye-of-a-needle-situations',inwardly and outwardly developmentalsteps, which were not visible or expectedbefore, can be realized.

Following this description of the effects ofthe pedagogical-musical elements on theliveliness and changeability of teaching,the question was posed in relation to themiddle classes: According to your experi-ence, which are the existential turningpoints in the work as a class- or subjectteacher in the transition from the lower tothe middle classes? Which own develop-mental steps were helpful and reliablemeeting the new challenges of this age? Inthe following final part three main aspectsof each participant are expressed:

Ellen Fjeld-Koettker (Norway)– We need to widen our interest and try to

have an imagination of the true being ofthe “other,” of every pupil with whom weinteract daily.

– It is important to be aware of how ourpupils respond to the content we teach– is it relevant and meaningful? Do wegive them the necessary soul space tobreathe and enough opportunities to in-teract?

– Can we ask ourselves: Why do we teachthis theme or block at this time, justnow? Is it appropriate according to theage and development of these pupils?

Michal Ben Shalom (Israel)– Find out: What is my ‘water of life‘?

Where do I ‘drink‘, to gain new forces? Isit my daily work, a conversation, a dailywalk, a moving thought out of anthro-posophy, a moment of quiet, poetry ormusic?

– Can I realize a new step of teamwork outof a healthy exchange in my faculty?

– Can I find a way to formulate and tomove questions between meditation,night-time, “fishing” in the morning andexperiences in the classroom?

James Pewtherer (USA)– Passionately remember your own youth

when you were that age. Love the waythese pupils see and meet the world now.

– Try to make an inner picture of who thisyouth will be in the future: What do yousee? An engineer, an artist, a doctor, asocial worker or a journalist? Can youhelp them to find their own destinypath?



– Create spaces where you call on their will,on their own activity as pupils. Obligethem to be co-creators of their world.

Pedagogical Musicality in the Immediacyof TeachingThe final task was to develop concrete, per-haps small, but realistic working steps fromthese questions and objectives. In the attemptto formulate the effects of these steps onteaching, different gestures and time qualitiesbecame apparent. First of all, effects on thestudents' side, which are in a clearly notice-able temporal succession to the teacher’s ac-tivity, were described.

The intensive mental preparation and think-ing through of a topic the next morningoften leads to an increased inner security inthe teacher. A feeling can arise from havingmade the topic one's own in such a way thatit is available with greater flexibility.

In addition, the effect of one's own artistic,voluntary work, for example when drawing orsketching during the preparation of contentand method, often appears the next day inthe variety and determination of the workingapproaches, also on the students’ side.

Other effects of the above-mentioned exer-cise steps do not come into play as a directconsequence, but rather appear as metamor-phoses and transformations: Where, for ex-ample, a space of questioning mental reflec-tion on a situation or an encounter in theclassroom is formed, a transformation of theatmosphere towards greater awareness andattention can often be noticed the nextmorning. It seems as if yesterday's intense re-flection has "tuned" one's attention like akind of instrument.

If the interest in the way in which the stu-dent personalities participated and expressed

themselves increases, a noticeable conse-quence in the following days is often an in-creased awareness for sensory perceptions ofthe individual pupils: How do they move andmeet each other? How do they individuallyapproach work? This metamorphosis plays adecisive role, especially where students inthis time of the Middle Classes confront uswith new riddles through their behaviour: Adeepened interest in the moments of innerreflection opens up new possibilities of per-ception and new perspectives on the youngperson in the following encounters.

This "tuning" of one's own "instrument ofperception" can take place in different ways,for example, as described above, by remem-bering one's own student and youth time.Through conversations with other teachers inthe class or with parents, the inner space ofquestioning interest can also be widened tosuch an extent that new aspects of develop-ment can again become apparent in thecourse of the lesson.

If we continue to follow the qualities of themusical "tuning" of an "instrument of per-ception" in the educator, the liveliness of im-mediate teaching and encountering corre-sponds to the performence of music. In aconcert, the essence of a composition is re-alised through the harmony of the peopleperforming music. Thus, in the moment ofteaching, education is realized through theharmony of the human being: If the educa-tor succeeds in attentively observing theyoung person as he goes along, he can 'hear'his inner reactions and questions from theimmediacy of the encounter and connect hisactions with them. Conversely, in the midstof the events, the young person also experi-ences the whole person in the educator. Ifboth sides sound together in such a musicalway, both directions of will can meet in afree way on the respective theme.





This level of a deeper teacher-student en-counter has been one of the foundations ofWaldorf Education since its foundation.Steiner describes such a perception of theyoung person in the immediacy of action asan intuitive element necessary for education,which has its roots in music: "One must alsolearn to read, so to speak, the result of one'sown pedagogical action. Then, when youfully appreciate this, you will see what anenormous importance it is to intervene in theright way, especially with the musical ele-ment, in education and teaching in elemen-tary school (up to Grade 8) and to have anunderstanding of what the musical elementin a person actually is". (Rudolf Steiner, TheEssentials of Education, Lecture 3, Stuttgart,April 10 1924 in German: GA 308)

The need to be alert to one's own pedagogi-cal actions resulting from the encounter withthe pupils is also the call for self-evaluationof the work. Especially where the develop-ment of the students in the Middle School isgoing through dynamic changes, it is of deci-sive importance to perceive the effects ofone's own teaching. In this sense, such a mu-sical teacher-student relationship forms thebreeding ground for learning through mu-tual free will impulses. At the same time, thismusicality is a key to a deeper perception ofone's own actions and thus to continuousdevelopment. Being questioned about themusical secret of his life and work the 80-year-old cellist Pablo Casals once answered:“I think I’m slowly making progress“.


Eyewitness Reports from Chengdu

Fortunately the Pedagogical Section is in fre-quent contact with our Asian friends. Theyand their initiatives are currently goingthrough a period which is not at all easy. Col-leagues are relating their experiences, theirworries:

“Suddenly everything stood still, many sickpeople, many dead, overworked doctors andnurses! No more room in the hospitals, newones were quickly put up. The crematoria arein need of assistance to help them managethe situation. People are sad, fearful, frus-trated and upset at the same time. Everyoneholed up together in their small apartments,

all working online to keep up with schoolwork and jobs. All of a sudden daily life takesplace in a completely different way”.

At the same time our friends in China havebecome creative: hotlines have sprung up foranswering questions, information on every-day living is available, ranging from ideas forplaying games together to reading a book.Teachers’ meetings are taking place via Skypeand several pre-planned pedagogical meet-ings and visits are replaced by a series ofSkype conversations. This, to date, applies toChina, Hong Kong and Korea!

An introduction to the report from China consisting of different emailscollated by colleagues from Chengdu

Dorothee Prangetranslated by Steffi Cook


by several authors

In China, because of this terrible epidemic,everything has paused. The whole environ-ment and atmosphere are really intense.Many people are infected and dead. Manydoctors and nurses have also collapsed. Peo-ple who work in a crematorium in Sichuanhave to go to Wuhan, to support the crema-torium, because so many people have died. Inthe crematorium in Wuhan lots of cellphonesare on the ground and they have not beentaken away. Relatives cannot come and thereare no ceremonies. People are very sad, veryangry, frustrated and upset. This is a huge dis-aster and trauma for most Chinese people.

We are already at home and cannot go outfor a month. Now, everything is slowly get-ting better. This Spring Festival we must stayat home without school and work, this givesus a lot of time to be with the family, to bewith children in daily family life, cooking,cleaning, reading, playing games, and medi-tation, etc. Many people have cherished lifeand a sense of family very much. This is a veryprecious gift from this terrible event. We allhave learnt so much from this terrible epi-demic. I hope the governments can also makebig changes to make medical and sciencetruly independent from political control.



It may take a few weeks to start the newschool term again. So we are all at home towork through internet. Our early childhoodeducation forum (CECEF ) has done a lot ofwork to support parents and children to-gether to go through this difficult time.

Because there is no school, that governmentrequired "no school but have to keep learn-ing”. Therefore, all schools must havelaunched online courses which means thatteachers have to do broadcasts live or sendwork to children online. Since a couple ofdays ago, every day, according to the school'sdaily schedule, parents request to assist theirchildren to study in front of the screen. Chi-nese, math, English, sports, art, etc. A lot ofyoung children cannot follow and focus, soparents have a very hard time. It's very messy,crazy and confusing, just like a drama. Andthe teachers and schools have to constantlyadjust, and it is also very hard for them. Now,many children say they really want to go back

to school and have face to face study, nomore online courses. It is very interesting. Ireally hope that someone can do research onthis special situation to compare the differ-ences between online learning and in-classlearning for young children. It must be veryvaluable research.

As Waldorf teachers, we have to strive tofind a balance in this process. On the onehand, we minimize the time and chances foryoung children to use the screen, but we stillhave to use the Internet to do some work.For primary schools and kindergartens, ourfocus is to use the online courses to supportparents and encourage them to take care oftheir children's lives and studies at home. Formiddle or high school students, they do needsome online courses. I have to say that weare also all learning how to cooperate withthe Ahrimanic forces, not simply confront oravoid them. It is very interesting innovationand experimentation for us too.


The Structure of the Morning Verses

Translator’s Note: some passages in this arti-cle refer specifically to the German language.I have included them in this translation be-cause they might be of interest to English-speaking readers too. When it comes topunctuation and structure it can be helpful –as the author points out – to look at RudolfSteiner’s handwritten versions even if onedoes not understand the language.

This year, we celebrate not only the cente-nary of the Waldorf School but also that ofRudolf Steiner’s handing over of the Morn-ing Verses to the teachers of the first schoolin Stuttgart (DE). Why and how this cameabout – shortly after the school’s opening –is described in detail in the little book DieMorgensprüche in den Sprachen der Welt[The Morning Verses in the Languages of theWorld], published by the PädagogischeForschungsstelle [education research centre]in Stuttgart. We also learn about the back-ground of the verses from the minutes ofmeetings Rudolf Steiner had with the teach-ers once the school was founded, particularlythe meetings of 25, 26, and 27 September1919.

The morning verses have since been trans-lated into many languages; almost 40 ofthem are included in this little book. In manyschools they are spoken by the studentsevery morning. I therefore often worked onthem with teachers and student teacherswhen I visited Waldorf Schools and teachertraining seminars across Europe, because inmany cases I had the impression that theverses had been passed on but their contentwas not really consciously penetrated.

Among other things, this was apparent fromthe fact that the structure given to theverses by Rudolf Steiner was often not ob-served but had been replaced, particularly inthe verse for the older classes. I, too, hadlearned this different way of speaking theverses as a young teacher and it took sometime before I realized that I had stumbledinto the traps Rudolf Steiner may well havedeliberately set for us.

When studying the verses in diverse workingcontexts, it was my main concern to encour-age the course members to observe the versesprecisely. I would always hand out copies ofRudolf Steiner’s original handwritten versions(extracts of which can be found on the coverof the book mentioned above!), with a printedversion on the following page for clarity. Wewould start by looking “naïvely” at the origi-nal manuscript because one can discovermuch in them even without knowing German.We then looked at sounds, rhythms, grammarand syntax. It is enlightening even to just lookat the punctuation Rudolf Steiner uses, whichhe does in some places in quite a pronouncedand deliberate way.

Before I go on to my main concern, which isthe structure of the verses, I will point outvarious other aspects hoping to inspire read-ers to study the verses in more depth.

SoundsHave you ever noticed that the verse for thelower classes does not initially use the sound“oo” [the vowel ‘u’ in German]? Have a lookfor yourself when it appears for the first timeand where else it is used.


Dorothee von Winterfeldt – Atsiki, Limnos, Greece, October 2019 Translated from the German by Margot M. Saar

RhythmsThe verse for the lower classes uses theiambic metre. This has a strong waking-upeffect on the children that guides them intothe school day as it were. If the verse hasbeen spoken over a longer period of time,however, without being consciously pene-trated and with a strong emphasis onrhythm, it ends up being just rattled off. Wecan prevent this by gently raising the chil-dren’s consciousness (I refer to a passage inLecture 4 of Balance in Teaching, whereRudolf Steiner speaks of the polarity be-tween the ‘I’ being too much or too little in-carnated.)

(By the way: I have often heard people saythat one should not discuss the verses withthe children. Yet, in his meetings with theteachers Rudolf Steiner says quite clearlythat one can explain aspects of the verses tothe children once they know them by heart.)In the verse for the higher classes there wasoriginally a line where the rhythm couldhave become a trap, but Rudolf Steiner cor-rected this by indicating, in the fourth linefrom the end, that the order of two wordsshould be reversed [see footnote 2].

Grammar and syntaxIn German, the verse for the lower classesbegins with a genitive (Der Sonne liebesLicht – the Sun’s loving light), leading usfrom the periphery to the centre. The word ‘I’does not appear at all for some time. Theverse for the higher classes, on the otherhand, begins with ‘I’, and it is essential thatthe students themselves articulate this word.If the teacher leads the recitation there is al-ways the danger that the students only comein on the second word, omitting the impor-tant word ‘I’!

I am glad to say that the debate about thefirst line of the morning verse for Classes 1 to4 has subsided: for a long time the view hasmade the round in the German Waldorfworld that Rudolf Steiner had meant to say,or dictate, “Der Sonne Liebeslicht” (The sun’slight of love), rather than “Der Sonne liebesLicht” (literally: The sun’s dear light). The dif-ference soon becomes apparent if one famil-iarizes oneself with the essential qualities ofthe parts of speech.

And why, one may ask, did Rudolf Steiner [inline 5] not use one compound noun “Son-nenlichtesglanz” [as would be customary inGerman] rather than keep the three nounsseparate [which is unusual]: “Sonnen LichtesGlanz”?

In conclusion, I would like to call attention tothe metamorphosis, in German, from “arbeit-sam und lernbegierig” (diligent and eager tolearn) to “zum Lernen und zur Arbeit” (forlearning and for work). Originally, RudolfSteiner had also used nouns in the lower-school verse but he amended this later byhand.

Maybe these brief contemplations can in-spire readers to study the verses in moredepth.

Incidentally: In a course I gave as part of apost-graduate training programme, we spokevery openly about personal experiences ofthe verses. One course member said she re-ally had a problem with the words “arbeit-sam und lernbegierig”.1 We agreed that weshould not recite anything with the childrenthat we feel uncomfortable with, but thatwe also have to learn to understand thechild’s soul in a new way, because childrenare often able to cope with difficult con-



1 Both words are unusual in modern German and can come across as old-fashioned.

cepts. – As the course went on, we discussedRudolf Steiner’s suggestion to “explain” as-pects of the verse to children once theyknew it by heart. I proposed to give Class 2children a small task as homework: the chil-dren should, for the next day, think aboutwhat their favourite word from the versewas. This can be a helpful remedy whenclasses tend to “rattle off” the verse (seeabove). Looking in more detail at the mean-ing of words gently raises awareness. – Themother in question came back laughing onthe next day, saying she had asked herdaughter, a Class 2 child, what her favouritepart of the verse was and the girl’s enthusi-astic answer had been “arbeitsam und lern-begierig”.

The Structure of the Morning VersesIf we look at Rudolf Steiner’s handwriting“naïvely”, as I suggested earlier, we noticethat entire passages appear to have beenwritten seamlessly, without changes, while inothers words were deleted or amended. It isworthwhile comparing these changes withthe original versions.

At first glance, one cannot discern a clearstructure that would indicate shorter orlonger pauses in recitation. But a structureemerges if we look at the punctuation.

Comma, semi-colon, full stop and dash areimportant structuring aids. People no longerknow the purpose of the semi-colon todayand rarely use it. In order to understand itsmeaning, we only need to look at the twosigns of which it is composed: a full stopabove a comma. They signify that a mainclause, and therefore a partial thought,comes to an end (full stop) while the overar-ching line of thought continues (comma).

Rudolf Steiner’s use of these punctuationmarks is conspicuous and they are important

indicators as to whether the voice should goup or down at the end of a line. After a fullstop or semi-colon the voice goes down, in-dicating a conclusion; a full stop will be fol-lowed by a longer, a semi-colon by a shorterpause before the next phrase. After acomma, the voice goes up because the sen-tence continues. A full stop followed by adash clearly indicates the end of a paragraph.

I don’t need to say any more, really, because Ihave already given you enough material sothat you can embark on your own research.But I would like to say something in sum-mary about the structure of the two verses.

The verse for Classes 1 to 4 is basically madeup of one single extended thought: the firstfull stop only appears shortly before the end.The final two lines are like a summary – indi-cating an interaction of “from thee” and “tothee”. The structure here truly reflects theoverall content of the verse.

The verse for the higher classes has a veryclear threefold structure, with the first partonly coming to an end after “I look into thesoul that, living, dwells in me”, not before! Inthis section it is also important to note thesemi-colon after “wherein the stars aregleaming”. It indicates that the voice must godown because a new line of thought begins:first we looked up to the heavens and thecosmos; now we look down to the fourfoldworld of stones, plants, animals and humanbeings. But we have not finished looking yet,because now we also look “into the soul”. Fullstop!

This more analytic, linear section is followedby a shorter one of four lines that has moremovement and a lemniscate quality, endingwith a full stop and a dash.

The entire verse concludes with an expression



of will, in the wonderful statement “I, seek-ing, turn myself”. Here, the rhythm is brokenby the insertion of the word ‘seeking’ wherethe expected rhythm would have a rathersoporific effect.2

I discover in this structure a threefoldnessthat one could relate to the familiar triad of“thinking, feeling and will”.

This threefoldness can be made visible byprinting the verse with a space in between theindividual sections.3 How the verse should bespoken is shown by the punctuation – semi-colon, comma and full stop, as describedabove. Special attention needs to be given tothe semi-colon after “wherein the stars aregleaming”, the comma after “the plants theylive and grow” and the semi-colon after “adwelling in our soul”. The first two of these ex-amples in particular, illustrate how much im-portance Rudolf Steiner attached to the con-scious penetration of the verse’s content.Letting oneself be guided by the rhythm dic-tated by the words “wherein the” at the be-ginning of each line, leads to the incorrectpunctuation and ultimately the distortion ofthe structure intended by Rudolf Steiner.

Of the translations into European languagesthat are accessible to me and which are in-cluded in the publication mentioned earlier,only a few follow Rudolf Steiner’s indica-tions. This may be because these transla-tions are based on faulty German versions.Maybe this article will inspire readers to lookat the verses with new eyes.

In the Greek language, by the way, the semi-colon has a different meaning because it is

used where we would put a question mark. Insuch a case, the punctuation cannot simplybe taken over from the German. The semi-colon needs to be replaced by a full stop, butone needs to be aware that the line ofthought continues.

The translating of Rudolf Steiner’s workposes an immense challenge, and respect andgratitude is due to anyone taking on such atask. I would also like to take this opportu-nity to warmly thank the editors and collec-tors of verses who made the little book ofmorning verses possible.

I would like to end by sharing some ofthe experiences I had on my many schoolvisits:Many years ago, at Eckernförde WaldorfSchool in Germany, a Class 6 gave me one ofthe most wonderful experiences I have hadon my travels when they spoke the morningverse in Latin – with incredible presence andradiance. Unforgettable!

In a school in Estonia the class teacher letthe class speak the verse by themselves,without even starting them off. There, too, Iwitnessed how children can connect inde-pendently with Rudolf Steiner’s words.

In Trianemi, the first school in Greece toapply the principles of Waldorf Education,Class 5 were speaking the verse in their firstyear when I was invited to visit them. I askedthe class teacher if I could speak the verseonce in the German original, and she happilyagreed. It was wonderful to see the children’seyes as they followed my recitation withearnest devotion. When I had finished one



2 Translator’s note: in the German original Rudolf Steiner first suggested “Will ich mich bittend wenden”(following the expected rhythm), but then indicated that the words ‘mich’ and ‘bittend’ should be re-versed: “Will ich bittend mich wenden” which results in an (unexpected) syncopated rhythm.

3 Cf. the 2005 edition of GA 40, Wahrspruchworte, p. 349f; and at the end of this article.

boy called out, “TELIA” – which means asmuch as “perfect” – and the whole class ap-plauded. Thank you, Rudolf Steiner!

And finally, we all know that upper schoolstudents can grow tired of the verse. I cameacross such a situation in a Class 9 in Askim,Norway, where I was invited to spend twoweeks teaching English for two hours everymorning. The students vigorously refused tospeak the verse with me, in whatever lan-

guage. I suggested to them that we couldcreate a new translation, in English: this alsogave us good lesson material and allowedthem to work intellectually with the verse.Taking the German original and their Norwe-gian translation as a basis, we worked inten-sively every morning at the beginning of thelesson – for two weeks. Imagine my surprisewhen they asked me on the final day if theycould speak their newly created English ver-sion together!



Bibliography

Dorothee Prange (ed.), Die Morgensprüche in den Sprachen der Welt, Stuttgart, 2019.

Rudolf Steiner, Wahrspruchworte, GA 40; ninth, revised edition, Dornach, 2005.

Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner, 1919-1922, Volume 1, Hudson, NY, 1998, translated by Robert Lathe &Nancy Parsons Whittaker.

Rudolf Steiner, Balance in Teaching, Great Barrington, 2007, lecture of 22 September 1920, translated by RuthPusch.



Der Sonne liebes Licht, Es hellet mir den Tag; Der Seele Geistesmacht, Sie gibt den Gliedern Kraft;

Im Sonnen-Lichtes-Glanz Verehre ich, o Gott Die Menschenkraft, die Du In meine Seele mir So gütig hast gepflanzt, Dass ich kann arbeitsam Und lernbegierig sein.

Von dir stammt Licht und Kraft, Zu dir ström' Lieb' und Dank.

---------

Ich schaue in die Welt, In der die Sonne leuchtet, In der die Sterne funkeln; In der die Steine lagern, Die Pflanzen lebend wachsen, Die Tiere fühlend leben, In der der Mensch beseelt, Dem Geiste Wohnung gibt; Ich schaue in die Seele, Die mir im Innern lebet.

Der Gottesgeist, er webt Im Sonn'- und Seelenlicht Im Weltenraum, da draußen In Seelentiefen, drinnen. –

Zu dir o Gottesgeist Will ich bittend mich wenden, Dass Kraft und Segen mir Zum Lernen und zur Arbeit In meinem Innern wachse. –

The Sun with loving lightMakes bright for me each day;The soul with spirit powerGives strength unto my limbs;

In sunlight shining clearI do revere, o GodThe strength of humankindThat though so graciously Hath planted in my soul,That I, with all my might,May love to work and learn.

From thee comes light and strength,To thee stream love and thanks.

---------

I look into the world,Wherein the sun is shining,Wherein the stars are gleaming;Wherein the stones are resting,The plants they live and grow,The creatures feel and live,And we to spirit giveA dwelling in our souls;I look into the soulThat, living, dwells in me.

God’s spirit lives and weavesIn light of sun and soulIn heights of worlds withoutIn depths of soul within. –

To thee o spirit of GodI, seeking, turn myselfThat strength and grace and skillFor learning and for workIn me may live and grow. –


Pedagogical Section Research Week

Since the early 1990’s the Pedagogical Sectionhas hosted an annual research week focusedon various aspects of Rudolf Steiner’s anthro-posophical/anthropological understanding ofhuman development. Initiated by Heinz Zim-mermann and Jon McAlice, the research weekhas continued under the guidance first ofChristof Wiechert and more recently of Flo-rian Osswald and Claus-Peter Röh.

Initially, the work focused on deepening an un-derstanding of the 14 lectures of the Study ofMan as a source of pedagogical insight andcreativity. It later branched out to include otheraspects of Steiner’s approach to understandingthe nature of being human and how these re-late to his educational lectures. In recent years,the work has expanded to include considera-tion of the mantra of the lessons of the FirstClass of the School of Spiritual Science as apath towards a deepened understanding ofRudolf Steiner’s anthropological approach.

Over the course of a number of years, thequestion of Rudolf Steiner’s concept of the “I”has been the focus. Remarks made in Bolognaand then explicitly again in the last chapter ofthe new edition of the ‘Riddles of Philosophy’point towards an understanding of self andself-as-agency that comes to expression as anongoing dynamic between the peripheral orlived “I” and the centered “I” that is consciousof itself. This dynamic expresses itself as an it-erative dialogue between the experienced andthe cognized world. The shifting nature of thisdialogue can be recognized both in the courseof the development of humanity and the de-velopment of the individual human. It is thesoul/spiritual context within which Steiner’secological approach to education evolved.

These considerations of the nature of the selfand its relation to the world within which itbecomes conscious of itself have led to fruit-ful discussions of a number of key aspects ofSteiner’s pedagogical approach: the role ofsense experience in child development,sleeping and waking, the development ofmemory, the role of movement and rhythm.They have also led to a considered question-ing of the challenges Waldorf education isfacing in light of the changing life-world oftoday’s children and young people. This leadsto a questioning of many of the assumptionsthat lie at the foundation of current ap-proaches to education. Do all children needto learn the same things at the same ages?How much math does one need to be trulyhuman? What role does the artistic play in anindividualized learning process? To what ex-tent can Steiner’s characterization of thestages of child development based on his ob-servations a century ago still be said to bevalid?

In addition to shared study and explorationof Steiner’s work, each year participantspresent their individual work. Topics canrange from teaching mathematics in the 6thgrade to the role of humor in esoteric stud-ies. In recent years, insight of the growingpresence of digital technology in the life-world, there has been a recurrent focus onquestions relating to the healthy develop-ment of bodied consciousness and the rolethe etheric plays as the medium throughwhich the soul/spiritual takes hold of andgives form to the bodily organism.

We look forward to other research weeks inthe next years.

Pedagogical Section Research Week

Jon Mc Alice

It is a well-known fact that the Bund derFreien Waldorfschulen (the Association of In-dependent Waldorf Schools) has been en-gaged internationally for decades, and thiswork is continuing. Their initiatives can belisted as follows: European Council forSteiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE), Euro-pean Forum for Freedom in Education (effe),International Association for Waldorf Peda-gogy in Middle and Eastern Europe and otherEastern countries (IAO), the Pedagogical Sec-tion at the Goetheanum, the InternationalForum/The Hague Circle and the Friends ofRudolf Steiner’s Art of Education. These di-verse institutions reflect the fact that Wal-dorf pedagogy is effective worldwide. This inturn, means there are global tasks to be tack-led; among them are the right to own atrademark, global legal and political scenar-ios, the quality of Waldorf education and, byassociation, the quality of Waldorf teachertraining courses, the creative adaptation ofcurricular indications depending on the geo-graphical regions, etc.

Understandably, a recurring question hasbeen whether this engagement and its finan-cial implications should be part of the im-portant tasks of the Bund der Freien Wal-dorfschulen. My answer to that question is,yes. Why? Anthroposophy and Waldorf Peda-gogy are focused on the human being, andnever limited to a region, nation or conti-nent. The cultural impulse that was chan-nelled into the founding of Waldorf Schools

applies to all human beings. Overcoming na-tional feelings, especially after the FirstWorld War, was an enormous concern andinner goal for Rudolf Steiner because all na-tional thinking presents a dangerous, de-structive luciferic force. The rage of fascismwas based on such thinking. All Waldorfschools – including the kindergartens andtherapeutic institutions – have the chance tocontribute to a vision of ‘one humanity inone world‘ – which is exactly what they aredoing.

Far-right populism with its nationalistic mo-tivation, which is growing in many countriesand regions including Germany, is a threatnot only to the fundamental principles ofstate, but also to the formation of a globalsense of being human together. Anthroposo-phy and consequently Waldorf pedagogy arecommitted to this task. Numerous Waldorfschool partnerships are effective in this way.

Another significant motif for me is thatbrotherhood as an original revolutionary de-mand is still very much a current issue whichis also in need of being transformed intosomething concrete. The Waldorf Schoolmovement in Germany, unlike other associa-tions, has resources which make it easier toprovide help where help is needed. This hasto be actively wanted and supported by allthose involved in the decision making. Forexample, in the spring of 2019, the Waldorfschools in Germany decided to support the


Aspects of the International Engagement and Co-operation by the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen

Aspects of the International Engagement and Co-operation bythe Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen(the Association of Independent Waldorf Schools, Germany)

Dr. Albrecht Hüttig, member of the Board of the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen from2007 until 2017; member of the IAO Board, lecturer at the Freie Hochschule StuttgartTranslated by Steffi Cook

work done within the Rudolf Steiner archive.This extended beyond promoting the publi-cation of CW volumes relevant to WaldorfPedagogy, which had in fact already beendone. A sum of over € 80,000 was pledgedto enable the continuation of current workon maintaining and making accessible thecollection of manuscripts, notes, books, es-says, etc. left behind by Rudolf Steiner. Thecontribution will cover a period of threeyears after which the subject will be re-viewed.

The engagement of the Bund is also relevantwith regards to the trademark. Using a trade-mark is necessary to legally protect the Wal-dorf quality, and to prevent anyone from ap-plying the term „Waldorf“ to a pedagogicalinstitution – school, kindergarten or thera-

peutic institution – without authorisation.The Bund will take legal action if this rule isnot observed. A delegation of representativesfrom the International Forum and the Bundder Freien Waldorfschulen are working to-gether on issues of trade law. The vision forthe future is that the right to use the trade-mark will be administered internationally. Aninternational Waldorf organisation willaward a licence if a school wishing to call it-self a Waldorf School meets the quality re-quirements of Waldorf pedagogy. The futurewill show whether this idea can be appliedglobally once it has been tested in a smallsetting. It goes without saying that globalengagement will require global conscious-ness by all those involved. We are now giventhe opportunity to work together to culti-vate this consciousness.


Aspects of the International Engagement and Co-operation by the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen

Agenda

2020

June 2020, 5 – 7 Trinitatistagung(only in German)

June 2020, 17 - 19 Faustschülertagung(only in German)

October 2020, 24 – 27 Conference for support teachers and schooldoctors (German, English, Spanish)

2021

March 2021, 3 - 6 Conference about Cleaning in Schools(different languages)

2022

April 2022, 18 - 23 World Teachers‘ Conference(different languages)


Agenda

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