Fall/Winter 2019, Volume 24 #2

Table of Contents • 1 From the Editor Ilan Safit . 2 How Waldorf Alumni Fare After Graduating from High School Douglas Gerwin . 4 Waldorf Education in the US and Canada 1928-1979 (Part II) Nana Göbel . 9 Grounding through the Sense Experience: Preface to Articles by Rudolf Steiner and Albert Borgmann Craig Holdrege . 15 A Path to the Reality of the Sense World Rudolf Steiner . 17 The Nature of Reality and the Reality of Nature Albert Borgmann . .. 22 Engaging the Sense of Well-Being: School and Classroom Design in Waldorf Schools Elizabeth Seward. 30 Becoming a Waldorf Teacher: A Narrative Research on Waldorf Teachers’ Professional Identity Formation Mária Mesterházy . 39 The Collegium: A Case Study in Pedagogical Governance Peter Lawton. 48 Book Review: Tending the Spark by Betty Staley Stephen Sagarin . 56 Report from the Research Institute for Waldorf Education and Waldorf Publications Patrice Maynard . 58 Report from the Online Waldorf Library Marianne Alsop . 59 Index of Research Bulletin Articles . .61 About the Research Institute for Waldorf Education . 67 Research Bulletin • Fall/Winter 2019 • Volume 24 • #2 2Editor’s • Editor’s Introduction Introduction Ilan Safit The Waldorf100 celebrations are raging on. To programs, and the names of the various active figures these celebrations we, at the Research Institute for in the American Waldorf movement, this chapter offers Waldorf Education, have recently made a contribution a clear moving-picture of the history that formed our by completing a wide-ranging survey of Waldorf gradu- present as Waldorf educators in North America. ates. Soon to be published as a book, named Into the World: How Waldorf Graduates Fare After High School, In a tripartite piece on the wisdom to be learned from the survey aimed to capture the salient shared traits of conscious observation and from self-conscious science, North American graduates who have completed their Craig Holdrege of the Nature Institute offers us an in- Waldorf high school education in the past 25 years. An triguing pairing of Rudolf Steiner with a contemporary overview of the findings of this extensive study opens German-American philosopher. Under the heading the current issue of the Research Bulletin, with an in- “Grounding through the Sense Experience,” Holdrege troductory article by Douglas Gerwin, who co-authored juxtaposes teachings from one of Rudolf Steiner’s bet- the study with yours truly and in collaboration with ter-known lectures and the writing of Albert Borgmann, Connie Stokes and Andrew Starzynski. professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Montana. Of the many lessons to be learned from our study, I would underline here one clear conclusion arising Steiner’s seminal 1911 Hannover lecture series, known from the sea of data—both verbal and numerical, both in English as “The World of the Senses and the World of anonymous and personal—collected for this project. the Spirit,” provides a description for some, for others This conclusion is that Waldorf graduates recognize a prescription of a step-by-step process of investiga- (and are overwhelmingly appreciative of) the influence tion of the world around us, an investigation infused by their school had in forming the individuals that they are feeling—starting with the feeling of wonder—as much today. By recognizing from a distance of time how and as it is guided by intellectual method. In a nutshell and which elements of one’s education have contributed to in Steiner’s words, translated anew by Craig Holdrege: the shaping of one’s self, these graduates indicate that “Wonder, reverence, wisdom-filled harmony with the they clearly know themselves. With such an outcome, phenomena of the world, and surrender to the course the American Waldorf movement should be satisfied of the world—these are the stages through which we that at least half of its aims have been achieved. have to pass and which must always run parallel with thinking, never deserting it.” That we are to learn from Following Douglas’ mostly celebratory summary of the the world rather than impose our expectations and observed outcomes of Waldorf education, we return the logic of our sciences onto the world is indicated by to celebrate its inception in the second part of Nana this last step, where we “surrender” the former to “the Göbel’s chapter on the first 50 years of Waldorf educa- facts as they present themselves and let them form tion in North America. This chapter is taken from Ms. the judgment.” Göbel’s comprehensive history, recently published as Die Waldorfschule und ihre Menschen Weltweit, and Albert Borgmann is a well-known and well-respected which is currently being prepared for English publica- voice in the circle of philosophers and academics en- tion as The Waldorf School and Its People Worldwide, gaged in questions of technology and its intersections in a translation by Jan Kees Saltet. The installment pub- with culture and with nature. He is also carefully attuned lished here, by kind permission from Nana Göbel, starts to the lessons that we can still learn from nature, though with the tightening collaboration between veteran and not because it stands in contrast to culture and its newly-founded Waldorf schools in the second half of various products. In the 1995 article presented here, re- the 1960s and the emergence of The Waldorf Schools printed by kind permission from Island Press, Borgmann Conference of North America, which later transformed briefly traces the ancient separation of nature from the into AWSNA. With a timeline noting the sprouting supernatural or divine to the modern differentiation of of many new schools during the 1970s and 80s, the nature from the man-made, the artificial. It has become accommodation of much-needed teacher training more than problematic, though, to suggest that “true Research Bulletin • Fall/Winter 2019 • Volume 24 • #2 Ilan Safit • 3 nature” is wilderness and wilderness is nature uninter- the training program—the teacher’s professional auto- rupted by human activity. Such distinctions, Borgmann biography—in which trainees explore in writing the life argues, are hard to hold in an age of an artificially in- course and significant experiences that have brought terrupted climate that affects all of nature, just as the them to the profession and to the identity of a teacher, distinction between the natural and the artificial has a Waldorf teacher. become imperceptible through the ever-advancing capacities of modern technology. Not only do we still Finally, Peter Lawton of the City of Lakes Waldorf School have much to learn from nature, Borgmann suggests, in Minneapolis reports of his school’s experimenta- perhaps we will learn even more from nature that bears tion with its governance model. Following a period “the traces of human action,” as the latter will reveal of healthy enrollment and staff stability, the school’s our various relationships with and connectedness to the faculty and administration decided to explore changes world of nature. Such connectedness and continuity is in self-governance by forming a schoolwide body they central to Borgmann’s view, which prescribes that in the named the Collegium, forming a wider circle around world of nature, as well as in the activities of culture, the traditional College of Teachers. The wider Collegium the “eminently real” calls on our attention not only due provides the traditional College of Teachers with both to its “commanding presence”—its outstanding unique- the mandate for governing and a collegial oversight ness, identity, and dignity—but because this command- over its decisions and procedures. With the model of ing presence is “an embodiment and disclosure of the the Collegium, which meets three times a year and as world it has emerged from.” required, the school was able to draw more colleagues into the responsibility of self-governance without nec- In his brief but poignant introduction to these two texts, essarily overburdening them with the demands and Holdrege brings together Steiner’s prescription for in- tasks of the College. tellectual yet passionate investigation and Borgmann’s indication how both natural and cultural phenomena While this experiment is still in its early stages—the reveal whole webs of relations that entangle us within Collegium was established at the beginning of the previ- them when we pay the right kind of attention to the ous school year—it is presented here as a case study for reality out of which they emerge and to which we, other Waldorf schools that are grappling with their ex- too, belong. isting model of school governance. What is of additional value in Peter’s article is that it tells the history of this We turn next to another set of three articles, each ad- experiment just as much as it offers a possible blueprint dressing a different central aspect in the life of a Waldorf for other schools to follow. school. In “Engaging the Sense of Well-Being,” Elizabeth Seward explores the architectural style and classroom Towards the end of this issue, you will find a helpful design of Waldorf schools. Seward aims to describe how review by Stephen Sagarin of Betty Staley’s recent book, the physical environment of these schools and their Tending the Spark: Lighting the Future for Middle School recognizable designs support human development in its Students, of which we plan to print a sample chapter in threefold elements of head, heart, and hands. the next issue of the Research Bulletin . Seward devotes special attention to Steiner’s indication We conclude, as usual, with reports from the Waldorf of 12 human senses and how the Waldorf study-space is Online Library, as well as with news regarding new designed specifically to support the four basic senses of titles coming out from Waldorf Publications and the touch, well-being, movement, and balance.

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