Waldorf Schools and the History of Steiner Education an International View of 100 Years

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION Waldorf Schools and the History of Steiner Education An International View of 100 Years Thomas Stehlik Palgrave Studies in Alternative Education Series Editors Helen Lees Independent researcher London, UK Michael Reiss UCL Institute of Education London, UK This series emerges out of a recent global rise of interest in and actual educational practices done with voice, choice, freedoms and interpersonal thoughtfulness. From subversion to introversion, including alternative settings of the state to alternative pathways of the private, the series embraces a diverse range of voices. Common to books in the series is a vision of education already in exis- tence and knowledge of education possible here and now. Theoretical ideas with potential to be enacted or influential in lived practice are also a part of what we offer with the books. This series repositions what we deem as valuable educationally by accepting the power of many different forces such as silence, love, joy, despair, confusion, curiosity, failure, attachments as all potentially viable, interesting, useful elements in educational stories. Nothing is rejected if it has history or record as being of worth to people educationally, nor does this series doubt or distrust compelling ideas of difference as relevant. We wish to allow mainstream and marginal practices to meet here without prejudice as Other but also with a view to ensuring platforms for the Other to find community and understanding with others. The following are the primary aims of the series: • To publish new work on education with a distinctive voice. • To enable alternative education to find a mainstream profile. • To publish research that draws with interdisciplinary expertise on per- tinent materials for interpersonal change or adjustments of approach towards greater voice. • To show education as without borders or boundaries placed on what is possible to think and do. If you would like to submit a proposal or discuss a project in more detail please contact: Eleanor Christie [email protected]. The series will include both monographs and edited collections and Palgrave Pivot formats. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15489 Thomas Stehlik Waldorf Schools and the History of Steiner Education An International View of 100 Years Thomas Stehlik School of Education University of South Australia Magill, SA, Australia Palgrave Studies in Alternative Education ISBN 978-3-030-31630-3 ISBN 978-3-030-31631-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31631-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Maram_shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface: Why This Book? 2019 is the centenary year of Steiner Education since the first Waldorf School was established by Emil Molt and Rudolf Steiner in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919. One hundred years later, there are now over 1100 Waldorf Schools and 2000 Waldorf Kindergartens in more than 80 countries around the world including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and throughout Europe, as well as such diverse cultural environments as China, Israel, Kenya, and Brazil (Waldorf world list 2019). This book offers a critical review into the way in which the initial impulse of Steiner Education has grown steadily over the last century to become a worldwide alternative movement in education. The aim of the book is to analyse and compare the growth and development of Waldorf Schools and Steiner-inspired educational institutions around the world and the extent to which the original underpinning philosophy has been maintained against the context of other contemporary trends in education. The book investigates what it is about Steiner Education that makes it ‘alternative’ in comparison with mainstream schooling, yet appears to continue to be attractive to parents from very diverse contexts and cul- tures who are ‘looking for something different’ for their children. It would appear timely to offer such a review and comparative analysis given both the established success and perseverance of Steiner Education as an alternative to mainstream schooling; as well as acknowledging the v vi Preface: Why This Book? current debates within educational, social and political circles as to the effectiveness and future development of schooling systems and practices in the twenty-first century, given that the world has irrevocably changed politically, economically, technologically and even climatically over the last 100 years. To that extent, an underpinning question posed throughout the book is: What do we as a society want for the future of our children, and to what extent is the current system of education adequately preparing our children now and for the future? However the book also highlights some of the controversies, critiques and challenges that Steiner Education and Waldorf Schools have attracted and faced since the establishment of the very first school. The very specific pedagogies and methodologies that on the one hand have signified and distinguished Steiner Education have also been seen as dogmatic, inflexible and outdated by informed critics as well as casual observers. The book therefore includes a review of some of the literature that over the years has documented and presented conflicting and varying views on the methods, purposes and outcomes of Waldorf schooling (for example, see Chap. 5). A survey of Waldorf Schools in a number of different countries and settings further aimed to highlight the similarities, difference, challenges and opportunities that those working within the global Steiner Education movement are able to identify and articulate. In particular, the intention here is to investigate the extent to which the schools have been able to operate within the various modern day pressures of external regulatory environments and increasing state-based accountability frameworks, as well as societal expectations and traditions; against the internal challenges of maintaining the integrity and spirit of Steiner’s initial indica- tions about how to manage a Waldorf School. This is of particular interest, since the first school established in 1919 was known as the Waldorf Freieschule, or Free School. It was to be free of state control, dogmatic ideology and bureaucratic constraints; but also free to accept children from all social classes. Contrary to other uses of the term ‘free school’ it does not refer to the type of school developed by AS Neill for Preface: Why This Book? vii example—Summerhill in England—where children were free to decide what, when and how they wanted to learn anything, if at all (Neill 1960). As this book reinforces, the Steiner curriculum is actually highly struc- tured and follows a definite sequence through the childhood years, although it is also argued that within that prescribed framework, Waldorf teachers are free to interpret and deliver this curriculum in their own creative way (see Chaps. 3 and 6). In order to provide some empirical data to illuminate and support this retrospective and contemporary review of Waldorf Schools as a global community, the overall research question driving the text is as follows: Is there a universal essence of Waldorf education that can be recognised in different social and cultural contexts? In addition to the aim of addressing and seeking to understand this overarching comparative analysis, the book concludes with a series of questions and propositions about the future of schooling in general and the future of Steiner Education in particular, against this review of its first one hundred years. The Author’s Position and Perspective: Personal and Professional My own interest in Steiner Education developed initially through my involvement as a parent at the Mount Barker Waldorf School in South Australia in the 1980s. My partner Christobel and I were living in the Adelaide Hills, and when our eldest daughter Mimi was 5 years old we enrolled her in the local state primary school. As a secondary English and Humanities teacher myself I had experience of the bureaucratic and often impersonal nature of the state education system, and we were disap- pointed to find this even extended to the early years, as the Reception teacher had very firm and intractable views on how these precious, impressionable and trusting infants should be inculcated and commodi- fied into the world of institutionalised schooling. viii Preface: Why This Book? Around the same time we had been introduced to the work of Rudolf Steiner through our interest in Biodynamic gardening, one of the many movements that Steiner founded during his influential life (see Chap.

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