Articles in the Online Waldorf Library come from many sources. Quite a number are from the archives of journals and publications published over the past 50+ years. When possible we have noted the specific source although this is not always possible.
Included in the "article" search database are all articles in currently in print journals: Gateways, the Research Bulletin and the Waldorf Journal Project.
The Online Waldorf Library includes:
Education as an Art, the first widely circulated journal about Waldorf education in the United States. It began in 1940 as the Bulletin of the Rudolf Steiner School Association. The purpose of the journal was to inform Americans about Rudolf Steiner's pedagogy. In 1969 the journal became known as Education as an Art: A Journal for the Waldorf Schools of North America.
To search for articles specifically from Education as an Art, please enter the journal name into the search box "with the exact phrase".
Lectures from the 2002 AWSNA National Teacher's Conference, to search for the 8 lectures presented, please enter AWSNA lecture in the search box and click "exact phrase"
Download the article:Babylonean Gods and Heroes
by Walter Johannes Stein
Published in the Journal, Present Age (England), in 1938, from the archives of the Rudolf Steiner Library, Ghent, NY
IN CHAPTER V. OF HIS BOOK on Babylonian Life and History, Sir Wallis Budge makes the remark that the Babylonian story of the flood as told in the Gilgamish epic has nothing to do with the mythical hero Gilgamish. It is therefore difficult to see why this story has been included in the epic.
Download the article: Bibliography for Middle School Science
Compiled by David Mitchell, Douglas Gerwin, and Michael D’Aleo
Resource books are important, however, there are many poor science preparatory books on the market, including some written by anthroposophists. The brief list of titles below was complied jointly by David Mitchell, Douglas Gerwin, and Michael D’Aleo. We recommend that as many as possible of the following books be available in your school’s faculty library:
Download the article: Bidding and Forbidding
by Alfred Schreiber
(translated by Gladys Hahn and Clara von Woedke)
Published in Education as an Art, Vol. 23, #1 & 2,Winter/Spring, 1963
Discipline is a worry to all parents and teachers; questions and conversations circle round and round the problem, which is becoming more and more urgent in today's education. Here in abridged form is Alfred Schreiber's attempt to solve it, from his 'Briefe über die religiosc Erziehung lvi Elternhaus" (Letters concerning religious instruction in the home).
A mother asked Rudolf Steiner, "At what age should one expect a child to obey?" This was his response: "Obey what is said to him in words - 'Do this, do that'? Not before the seventh year. If a child does not learn to obey by imitating, which is the right way up to his seventh year, if he simply obeys orders that are thrown at him, he will become a sneak and a hypocrite for the rest of his life."
Download the article: Biography in Education
by William Bryant
Published in Education as an Art Vol. 29, #1 – Fall/Winter 1970-71
We are all individuals. Occasionally we fiercely defend our individual rights and freedom as a unique entity -a centric being which we call "I." Often we feel imprisoned within the physical vessel we call a body - sometimes striving to protect itself from other bodies with a will and independence of their own. We can easily sense the meaning of Schweitzer's 'reverence for life.'
'I am the life that wills to live in the midst of other life which wills to live.' Yet as we set great store by our independence, so do all men possess a deep desire to transcend the personal and unite with the lives of other beings around us. We bear the polarities of independence and social need and desire. We are caught in, or suspended within, a dynamic tension between our self and our fellows about us. The personal and the self transcendent are a rack we are hung upon by the very nature of our humanity. There is a deep desire in man to know and to love his fellows, in spite of his weakness, and the frailties of his companions. Here lie the real roots of our need for biography. We can glimpse for a moment or two the correspondences between men. We can measure and reaffirm the nature of our humanity - that we belong with all other men to mankind.