Chapter 1 Waldorf Teacher Education
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Chapter 1 Waldorf Teacher Education: Methodology of the Study Section 1 Introduction 1. Background information The primary focus of most of the literature on Steiner or Waldorf Education ~ whether couched in ways variously intending to theorise, compare, inform, expound, or extol ~ has been on the question of how children (whether of early childhood, primary or high school years) should be educated. The main aim of this thesis is to explore the question of how Waldorf teachers should be educated. In order to begin to tackle this seemingly straightforward question it seemed logical to begin at the beginning, that is, with the theory underlying what Waldorf teachers were being educated for. Steiner’s educational theory is explicit in maintaining that education is about facilitating the process of becoming more human. But aren’t we human enough already? What does it mean to become more human? How are human beings (for so long referred to as ‘Man’) constituted? What is ‘Man’? In some ways the trend of the questioning is reminiscent of, and inevitably leads to, the Classical Greek injunction “O Man. Know Thyself”1. It was in contemplating these questions that the realisation came of what the underlying core of the thesis would be. Something had to be said about what Steiner believed the human being to be, and therefore how the education of the human being should proceed. More specifically still, how the teachers who were to implement the 1 This injunction was engraved above the portal of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. 2 educational ideas would themselves be educated. But why make a study of what constitutes an ideal Waldorf teacher education? Why be concerned about the implications for teacher education of Rudolf Steiner’s educational philosophy and its practice in Waldorf schools? One goal of this study is to bring to the attention of a wider readership some of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas. It is wholly appropriate that an educational philosophy as coherent and internally consistent as Steiner’s, and a teaching method as comprehensive and thoroughly articulated as Waldorf pedagogy, should be more widely known and understood in educational circles. In Teacher’s College or University library shelves, normally laden with books on educational philosophies, one can hardly find a reference to Rudolf Steiner or Waldorf education. Even in the context of progressive educational theory and practice the name of Steiner is barely visible amongst the more popular and somewhat revered figures of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Dewey, Neill, Montessori, and others. One would hardly be aware that the latter three educators were Steiner’s contemporaries. Only a few within the stream of writers on progressive or alternative educational ideas have ventured to try to penetrate or discuss Steiner’s educational work.2 Steiner education or Steiner schools and Waldorf education or Waldorf schools are used interchangeably in this thesis as well as in the Steiner or Waldorf school movement. In recent times the two names have been combined and the terms Steiner Waldorf education and Steiner Waldorf schools are generally used. ‘Steiner’ of course refers to the man who articulated the educational philosophy and brought it into 2 A notable exception to those who omit to mention Steiner, among the ‘mainstream education’ writers, is the text by S. J. Curtis & M. E. A. Boultwood’s A Short History of Educational Ideas, University Tutorial Press, London, 1953. Of the writers in the progressive education stream, a fair coverage of Steiner education is provided by W. A. C. Stewart, Progressives and Radicals in English Education, 1750-1970, Augustus M Kelley, New Jersey, 1972. Chapter 1 Section 1 3 practical expression, and ‘Waldorf’ refers to the name of the very first school which opened on the grounds of the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, the founding of which will be discussed in detail in due course. Knowledge about Waldorf schools varies widely around the world; for example, they are well known in Germany since Waldorf education began there eighty years ago, and constitutes the largest non-government school movement. However, this widespread knowledge about and acceptance of Waldorf schools is not the case in English speaking countries like Australia, Great Britain or the United States of America. There are at least four reasons for the relative obscurity of Steiner Waldorf schools. • First: After the first Waldorf school was founded in 1919, it (and subsequent schools) did not become a member of the New Education Fellowship which, founded in 1921, included most of the progressive school movement at that time. It is probable that either the Waldorf school teachers did not know of the existence of the NEF, or they were not invited, Germany being the recently defeated WWI enemy. Hence their absence at NEF conferences probably contributed to their continuing obscurity among the wider community of progressive schools. • Second: Waldorf schools largely kept to themselves, perhaps believing that they had a unique educational mission to accomplish, the aim of which was incompatible with many developments in a world which seemed increasingly to be adopting materialistic values. For example, the instrumentalist aims and greater dominance of the economy in education was compromising both teachers’ and students’ spiritual freedom. Waldorf schools were probably hoping to maintain, as Chapter 1 Section 1 4 one Waldorf educationist wryly commented, ‘an educational moral high ground…in an increasingly laissez-faire world’.3 • Third: After Steiner’s death in 1925, the growth of Waldorf schools amounted to a cultural phenomenon, largely proceeding from a ‘grass roots’ level using local networks. There was no ‘central headquarters’ initiating or promoting the expansion of the Waldorf school movement, and therefore its growth around the world did not acquire a high profile. • Fourth: The literature on Waldorf pedagogy was not readily available in English translation until the 1970s, and what could be purchased was not always digestible to readers outside of the Waldorf school movement. Nevertheless, from the early 1970s there was a rapid growth in the number of Waldorf schools in many countries, including Australia. It was not until the late-1980s and beyond, with notable exceptions, that efforts were made within the Waldorf Movement to become less isolated from mainstream education and more visible to government funding bodies as well as the broader world of what came to be called ‘the education industry’, including teachers’ unions and academia. Such attempts at bridge building could be seen in the efforts of a new generation of anthroposophists4, including some Waldorf educators, who began publishing their own research in diverse fields, reinterpreting Steiner’s original work or extending it. Some areas of Steiner’s work, such as the Threefold Social Order, were revisited and found currency in such fields as Business Management, Economics and Social Science. For example, the theoretical justification for freedom in education could be found in Steiner’s Social Theory, and 3 Brien Masters, An Appraisal of Steinerian Theory and Waldorf Praxis: How do they compare, Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Surrey, England, 1997, p. 5 Chapter 1 Section 1 5 this theory could help support the resistance to the pervasive influence of economic rationalism. Having been one of the founding teachers of a Waldorf school in the late 1970s, and further working as a classroom teacher for twelve years, educational administrator, Waldorf consultant and teacher educator, and having assisted Waldorf school initiatives to develop, and seen the number of schools grow from five to fifty in Australia in under twenty years, it became increasingly obvious to me, as I travelled around the country visiting new schools, that the continued value of Steiner’s educational philosophy, and the integrity of the Waldorf school movement, lay in the quality of the education, both pre-service and in-service, undertaken by those working in the schools. This then provided the primary motive for undertaking this research: to interrogate the validity of my concerns by investigating them from both a theoretical as well as empirical basis. 2. Research questions The various practical initiatives in the Waldorf School Movement ~ from Early Childhood, through to Primary and Secondary Education ~ provided a range of fields from which to choose an area of research. As mentioned above, from the late 1980s an increasing number of writers began exploring Steiner’s ideas and started to review and reinterpret his views on child development, as well as his practical indications on the development of a wide range of curriculum areas. However, little attention was given to the field of teacher education, despite the fact that its vitality, richness and effectiveness were crucial to ensure that the rapidly growing number of Waldorf schools could be staffed with trained Waldorf teachers. It appeared that developing a healthy education for children took precedence, and rightly 4 The adjective derives from the noun ‘Anthroposophy’, which is the name Steiner gave to his Chapter 1 Section 1 6 so, but how were the educators to be educated? What constituted best practice in Waldorf teacher education? The essential starting point in pursuing these questions must be Steiner’s educational philosophy, and his views and practice in training teachers for the first Waldorf school. From that starting point, it is also necessary