Download the article: Charter Schools in Relation to the Waldorf School Movement
by Gary Lamb
This article was published in the Research Bulletin, Fall/Winter 2015, Vol 20 #1

Introduction
    The introduction of publicly funded charter schools has blurred the distinction between public and non-public education in the United States. Charter schools exhibit an assortment of outer features attributable to both public and private schools, some of which previously were marks of distinction between them. So too, their rapid growth has had a negative impact on the levels of enrollment in both local public and private schools. Some people view this as simply the side-effects of necessary change as parents exercise the opportunity to express their wishes for their children.¹ Others take the view that charter schools are a corporate, philanthropic, and government-financed Trojan Horse whose effect, if not its intended purpose, commercializes and extends market thinking into all aspects of education.
    This paper compares charter schools with traditional public and private schools and outlines their history and the reasons for their phenomenal growth. It also examines the relation of education as a whole to the realms of politics and business and offers some thoughts on what all this may mean for Waldorf education.

Download the article: Child Development and the Teaching of Science

by David Mitchell

Stimulation of the Senses → Astute Observation→ Rigorous Training in Thinking →Phenomenological Thinking

Waldorf education works with the developmental stages of growth in children. The harmonious unfolding of the personality depends on the healthy maturation of each developmental stage, and each progression builds upon the one before it. Strengthening a child’s later cognition in science begins with the building of a strong foundation in the early years, initially by parents and family and later by teachers.

Preschool children are informed about the world through their bodily or sense impressions. The wonder in the world passes directly into their physical, sensory organization through every experience they encounter. Impressions are stored as cellular memory as the organs of the body are being sculpted. Young children have a feeling of “oneness” with the world, and the world is their teacher. These sensory engravings later become the basis upon which scientific cognition is founded.

Download the article: Childhood Dreams

by CAROLINE VON HEYDEBRAND
Published in Present Age, Vol.1, No.6, 1936 (England)

A LITTLE girl, still quite young, often makes the following experiment: going upstairs, she stops suddenly on one of the steps, shuts her eyes, and stands quite still. She thinks: "The world in which we live is only a dream. There is another 'real' world, a world quite different from my present surroundings. This other world cannot be described; it is quite different, but it is the real one. Presently I shall open my eyes and find myself in that real world." The child has absolute faith in this; confidently she opens her eyes-and is full of bitter disappointment when she sees the well-known staircase, the hall down below; above the staircase the landing with the stairs leading to the rooms in which she is accustomed to play and to work. Though she is bitterly disappointed, nevertheless she continually repeats the same experiment, for she never ceases to long for this world which is so much more real to her than all her earthly experiences, though she could by no means describe the peculiarities of it. There are moments in this child's life when she seems to seize something of this "real world"; these are the moments before she falls asleep. Sounds come to her not from outside; music is in her ear, in the listening soul. A succession of beautiful melodies makes her very happy whilst she falls peacefully to sleep.

Download the article: Children's Quarrels

By Elisabeth Klein
Published in Education as an Art, Vol. 22, #1, Autumn, 1961
(Translated by Ruth Pusch)

It is often said that children reveal a great deal of their inner nature through their drawings and paintings. Some time ago, a boy in my class Wolfgang - provided a picture of himself in one of his drawings that was more convincing than any photograph could have been. It was drawn at the beginning of our study of Man and Animal in the Fourth Grade, when the children were between nine and ten.