{"id":2543,"date":"2021-06-03T18:01:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T16:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bildungsgeschichte.de\/?p=2543"},"modified":"2023-11-27T11:25:47","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T10:25:47","slug":"why-waldorf-education-needs-critical-historical-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bildungsgeschichte.de\/index.php\/beitrag\/2543\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Waldorf Education Needs Critical Historical Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the first Waldorf school opened in Stuttgart in 1919, it was easy to overlook in the flowering of educational experiments and social upheaval sweeping Germany and the world. In the century since then, Waldorf education has grown into a major force in alternative schooling. With more than a thousand Waldorf schools worldwide, known as Steiner schools in some countries, Waldorf pedagogy offers a prominent contrast to conventional educational models. Instead of mainstream standards of academic achievement, Waldorf schools promise an education that integrates \u201cheart, head and hands\u201d into a holistic learning experience based on creativity and individual expression. Parents drawn to an unconventional classroom environment, with emphasis on the arts and music, find Waldorf programs appealing. In Germany and elsewhere, the schools tend to attract an affluent and cosmopolitan clientele. Many see them as a paradigmatic example of progressive education. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the history of the Waldorf movement reveals a more complicated picture. At its founding a century ago, Waldorf education represented an uneasy synthesis of tradition and reform, including crucial conservative elements directly at odds with progressive practices and alternative pedagogical ideals. In several ways, the movement\u2019s development since then has obscured its own origins. A fuller understanding of its history can give both admirers and skeptics of Waldorf schooling a more informed sense of its potentials and pitfalls. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waldorf schools were initiated by esoteric thinker Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), one of the major figures in the modern German occult revival around 1900. Born and raised in Habsburg Austria, Steiner embraced the esoteric doctrine of theosophy after the turn of the century, a period when occult worldviews appealed to educated strata in German-speaking Europe. In 1902 he became General Secretary of the German branch of the Theosophical Society until breaking away to found his own Anthroposophical Society in 1913. According to Steiner, anthroposophy is a \u201cspiritual science\u201d based on clairvoyant perception of the \u201chigher worlds\u201d that structure the cosmos and shape human affairs. His followers believed that Steiner held \u201cdivine authority\u201d and was \u201cmore or less infallible.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> While some schools have evolved beyond unquestioning loyalty to their founder, the same pattern of deference to Steiner continues in much of the Waldorf milieu today. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For critical analysts of Waldorf education, this is a serious concern. Steiner\u2019s teachings covered an enormous range of topics, some of them controversial, and the ensuing debates have shadowed public discussion of Waldorf schools for decades. An unresolved past hangs over the movement\u2019s present, while supporters and detractors alike increasingly look to examine the subject in more depth. Since Waldorf schools remain a part of the broader current of anthroposophy, with all of its esoteric intricacies, myths surrounding Steiner routinely get in the way of historical assessment. Interested observers nonetheless have a wide range of sources to draw on.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> Three main themes merit particular consideration in the present context: the development of the Waldorf movement in its early years; the relationship between Waldorf methods and progressive educational practices; and the ongoing influence of anthroposophist principles in the Waldorf classroom. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the success of the Stuttgart school, the growth of the larger Waldorf movement was initially precarious. Of the three further schools founded in Germany in Steiner\u2019s lifetime (1921 in Cologne, 1922 in Hamburg, and 1923 in Essen), two closed within a few years. The movement had an ambivalent relationship with the democratic structures of the fledgling Weimar Republic that emerged from German defeat in the First World War. One of the founding fathers of the Stuttgart school called for establishing a \u201cv\u00f6lkisch<\/i> state\u201d in Germany rather than bowing to \u201cthe democracy imposed on us by the West.\u201d <\/span> By 1933, when Hitler came to power, there were nine Waldorf schools across Germany. Standard accounts by Waldorf advocates typically report that the schools were simply persecuted and closed by the Nazi regime. The historical reality was much more complex.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Waldorf leaders were eager to compromise with Nazi authorities and readily adopted Nazi vocabulary. In correspondence with Nazi supporters, they rejected \u201cinternational reform pedagogy,\u201d condemned \u201cintellectualism,\u201d and complained that \u201cRudolf Steiner has been slandered by Jewish lies in the press.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> Waldorf schools in the Third Reich vigorously committed themselves to the Nazi vision of Erziehung zur Volksgemeinschaft<\/i>, of educating young Germans to be loyal members of the \u201cnational community.\u201d Nazi agencies nonetheless opposed private schools as enclaves of privilege. After years of accommodation, the Stuttgart Waldorf school was closed by hostile officials in 1938, while others continued until 1941. For decades scholars have admonished Steiner\u2019s latter-day followers for attempting to \u201cdismiss the Waldorf movement\u2019s deliberate proximity to National Socialism as a problem of personal mistakes and sympathies.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stance of Waldorf educators before and during the Nazi era revealed substantial differences with progressive pedagogy, some intentional and others contingent on historical circumstances. Much of Steiner\u2019s original design for Waldorf schooling was provisional, ad hoc, and somewhat hurried, rather than the patient unfolding of a considered plan. <\/span> But authoritarian elements were conspicuous from the beginning. The heart of the Waldorf model is a teacher-centered approach to pedagogy, in explicit contrast to student-centered approaches, combined with a sense of spiritual mission. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waldorf education relies on the child\u2019s \u201cnatural religious surrender\u201d to the authority of the teacher, who takes on \u201cthe position of priest, and the work of teaching becomes a kind of priestly office.\u201d <\/span> A sympathetic account by a long-time Waldorf teacher puts it thus: <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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„The principal objective of education as Steiner perceived it was to prepare the child\u2019s bodily \u2018temple\u2019 for possession by the spirit which would lead to a lifetime of moral thought and action in the image of the Christ archetype. As such, Steiner saw education as a \u2018salvation\u2019 and current teachers in Waldorf schools have referred to their task as preparing the child to become a vessel of the Solar Christ. The methodological practices Steiner devised for the Waldorf School were found to be based on the techniques fundamental to the meditative discipline of Anthroposophy and teaching content incorporated esoteric \u2018truths\u2019 via an \u2018inner\u2019 or \u2018occult\u2019 curriculum intended to create a worldview commensurate with Steiner\u2019s teachings.“ <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

By discouraging critical thinking and investing teachers with „unquestioned authority\u201d in the classroom, Steiner\u2019s educational paradigm departs fundamentally from core principles of alternative pedagogy and \u201cparadoxically reproduces the hierarchical power relations between adults and children common in mainstream schools rather than living up to its popular image of educational freedom.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Factors like these have stoked a series of public controversies over Waldorf schooling in recent years. Anthroposophist tenets are a persistent concern. Esoteric beliefs about karma and reincarnation underlie the Waldorf curriculum, while teacher training often elevates Steiner\u2019s doctrines over practical pedagogical skills. According to internal surveys of Waldorf faculty, only a tiny percentage of current teachers take a critical or skeptical attitude toward anthroposophy.[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> Steiner\u2019s idiosyncratic viewpoint on evolution and science guides instruction; Waldorf teachers hold that \u201chuman beings are not descended from the apes.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> Vaccine hesitancy and low immunization rates are a significant problem at Waldorf schools in Germany, the United States, and other countries.[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doubts about curricular content are sometimes exacerbated by an unwillingness among school representatives to acknowledge the anthroposophical provenance of standard Waldorf policies. This dynamic has led to repeated episodes of disillusionment: \u201cWaldorf parents frequently feel that they are being misled, tricked, left out, or left in the dark with what they perceive to be the secrets of Waldorf education\u2019s true basis.\u201d <\/span> Steiner\u2019s racial teachings continue to attract scrutiny, and charges of racism have been aired at various Waldorf schools. In Germany, recurrent incidents linking Waldorf teachers to the far right have impacted the movement\u2019s image, along with increasing media attention to the affiliations between Waldorf personnel and the conspiracy-minded \u201cQuerdenker\u201d or \u201ccontrarian\u201d milieu that has arisen in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> Right-wing spokespeople have claimed the Waldorf cause as their own.[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These dynamics did not appear out of nowhere in the twenty-first century alternative education scene. They have a history. Informed responses to such challenges, from within the Waldorf movement or without, will require critical historical perspective. Recognizing this responsibility has not proven easy; agitated reactions to critical inquiry have been a hallmark of anthroposophist discourse from Steiner onward. Contemporary observers noted that many anthroposophists were \u201cabsolutely uncritical and believe anything Dr. Steiner tells them.\u201d <\/span> Current academic researchers on Waldorf education observe that even today Steiner\u2019s followers \u201ccontinue to tolerate neither doubt nor open criticism.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public statements from Steiner\u2019s adherents all too often reflect this standpoint. In a telling early instance, a 1926 dissertation on Waldorf pedagogy provoked a furious retort in the official publication of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany, denouncing it as \u201cmoronic.\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> As with any multifaceted movement, however, there are countervailing tendencies. Some Waldorf representatives are working toward a candid dialogue with critical voices from outside the anthroposophical fold, in a process that is still halting but nevertheless promising. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that process is to bear fruit, it will need to engage in a historically contextualized \u201cdemythologisation of the figure of Steiner\u201d accompanied by an honest appraisal of inherited Waldorf traditions.[12]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> Steiner was a man of contradictions, and viewing him as a historical figure rather than a revered mentor can open up genuine alternative potentials embedded within the movement he initiated. Waldorf schools can aim to be more than a comfortable sanctuary for well-off families, more than an indistinct protest against the deficiencies of mainstream education, more than an institutional embodiment of esoteric ideals. As a younger generation of Waldorf advocates starts to challenge the historical complacency of their forebears, the paradoxes of the movement\u2019s past can help point it toward a more reflective future. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anmerkungen<\/span>[+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div>

\r\n\r\n
Anmerkungen<\/caption>
↑<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <\/span>. For a thorough historical account see <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>2<\/a><\/th> Critical studies include <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>; see chapter \u201cRudolf Steiner: Erziehung im Lichte der \u2018Vergeistigung\u2019 des Menschen\u201d, in: <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>3<\/a><\/th> For comparatively nuanced accounts from an internal Waldorf perspective see <\/span>; <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>4<\/a><\/th> Ernst Uehli, \u201cDenkschrift der Freien Waldorfschule\u201d (June 1933), Bundesarchiv Berlin R58\/6220b: 2-32; Elisabeth Klein, \u201cEiniges Wesentliche \u00fcber die Waldorfschulen\u201d (May 1934), Bundesarchiv Berlin R4901\/2519: 46. For context compare <\/span>; see the chapter \u201cEducation for the National Community? Waldorf Schools in the Third Reich\u201d, in: <\/span>; <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>5<\/a><\/th> <\/span>; cf. <\/span>, 34, 61-63; <\/span>, 14, 55, 70.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>6<\/a><\/th> <\/span>. Compare <\/span>; <\/span>. Spiewak describes the Institut f\u00fcr Waldorfp\u00e4dagogik in Witten, where Waldorf teachers are trained: \u201cWer hier studiert, trifft auf Steiner in jedem Kurs. Egal, ob es gerade um Mathematik, Geschichte oder Deutsch als Fremdsprache geht: Immer stehen seine Werke auf der Leseliste. [\u2026] Steiner-kritische Literatur fehlt im Lehrplan, didaktische Fachzeitschriften sucht man in der Bibliothek vergeblich. Nur einer der zwanzig Dozenten tr\u00e4gt einen Doktortitel.\u201d<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>7<\/a><\/th> <\/span>. For a detailed critical analysis see <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>8<\/a><\/th> <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>9<\/a><\/th> Press reports include <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>; <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>10<\/a><\/th> For a recent example from a prominent figure in the far right \u201cIdentitarian\u201d movement see <\/span>. Sommerfeld praises the \u201curspr\u00fcnglichen Vorstellungen Steiners von der F\u00fcgung in die geliebte Autorit\u00e4t, der heilenden Aufgabe des Lehrers, vom g\u00f6ttlichen Menschen, dem \u2018F\u00fchrer in mir\u2019, vom Organischen und von der \u2018Volksseele\u2019 im Kinde.\u201d<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>11<\/a><\/th> <\/span>, a polemic against <\/span>. Lauer calls the dissertation \u201ceine geradezu ans Idiotische grenzende Dilettantenpfuscherei\u201d (616).<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n
↑<\/span>12<\/a><\/th> <\/span>. For an instructive start in this direction, with ample detail on contemporary Waldorf pedagogy, see <\/span>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div>