Waldorf 101: The Essentials, Part 1

In 1924, 5 years after the first Waldorf School opened its doors, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures regarding education. The question he posed at the start of these lectures was the following: “What is the role of education and teaching to be for the future in terms of both the individual and society?” He pointed to a widening gap between what we know in terms of information, and what we have lost in terms of knowledge of the human being and the implications this had for the future of society and the environment. Over the next century, Waldorf Education became the fastest growing independent school movement in the world and one year ago, this centennial was marked with worldwide celebrations. As we looked into the world of September 2019, and as we turned our eyes towards the next 100 years, while we celebrated the ideas and ideals of Waldorf Philosophy, its now global reach, and the contributions to society Waldorf graduates have made, we also faced more difficult questions of where it has failed in meeting the needs of a changing world - and why? Just 6 months later, schools were shuttered, global lockdowns kept us apart, and every vulnerability, disadvantage, and inequity built into our society for years, was magnified. 

The pandemic’s first shockwaves had us all diving into the unknown with the urgency to do what needed to be done for our students. We logged on, we sent packets, we created content, whatever we could do to keep connected, to carry on. Though we may not have had much time to ponder them yet, major questions concerning the future of education loomed in front of us. In the age of remote learning, as information systems replace teachers, would education survive?  One year after the celebrated centennial and with a new glimpse of the future landscape, we must return to the self reflection that began a year ago with the courage to find answers. What, in Waldorf Education, moves us forward through changing times, without losing relevance, holding our course against the rip tides of societal trends so we can be responsive and not reactive? As we returned to in-person schooling this summer and fall, the answers to these questions felt present, palpable, living in the soul of our work, more noticeable perhaps in contrast to the months of separation. 

When Rudolf Steiner gave his indications for the Waldorf curriculum, they came out of a direct connection to human development and an understanding of the human being that is not just physiological and intellectual but that is inextricable from soul and spirit. Teaching, Steiner told us, must come out of this understanding and through the relationship of the teacher and student. “This relationship to the teacher—the activity of the hidden forces between the child’s heart and that of the teacher—is the most important aspect of the teaching method.” This is what was so clearly present when we returned to school this summer and fall. Every day, our faculty and staff meet our students with love and appreciation, inspired to bring meaningful and appropriate content. At Otto Specht School, our students often present us with puzzles; capacities that have developed outside of the usual framework and timeline of human development, with incredible gifts and heightened intelligences, developing alongside blocked pathways of expression, and diverted connections. By understanding the developmental processes and by building strong relationships, we allow each student to guide us in his or her education. As Steiner said, “Thus, from week to week, month to month, year to year, a true knowledge of the human being will help us read the developing being like a book that tells us what needs to be done in the teaching. The curriculum must reproduce what we read in the evolutionary process of the human being.” We don’t always get it right, but each day we return to the task with open hearts, ready to try again. 

As educators, we understand our task is not just for today and that our best efforts may not be seen for years to come. But if we have learned anything over the past six months it is that the world can change very quickly, and sometimes in unexpected ways. We cannot respond to global crises with information alone. Waldorf Education must have the courage to keep course, guided by these essential principles - first, that education must come from a true understanding of the whole human being and the arc of human development, and second, that education must be brought through the relationship between the student and teacher as a truly social endeavor. This will allow us to answer some of the more complex questions about the successes and failures of Waldorf Education thus far, how it will stand the test of time, and how it must move forward to reach across social and cultural divides and meet the needs of the future.