Download the article: Seven Myths of Social Participation of Waldorf Graduates
Waldorf education continues to be relatively unknown. When first making contact with this pedagogy, people in general tend to find in it certain oddities that may elicit admiration or incredulity, as well as some doubts. Parents who decide to send their children to a Waldorf school know that they are taking a courageous step to be “different.” The decision is not easy, because Waldorf education presents many differences in comparison with other teaching methods. Among the most obvious ones: • No textbooks are used. Students create their own.• There are no tests and no exams, at least in the lower grades. As a result, there is no failing of a grade.
• Reading and writing begin only in first grade and may take a long time to learn.
• All students remain grouped together for most of their classes from the first to the last (twelfth) grade (with occasional exceptions due to students entering or leaving the school).
• A single class teacher accompanies the class from grade 1 for up to eight years, teaching most or all the main subjects: mathematics, history, geography, the native language, and sciences.
• These subjects are taught in main lessons, daily classes lasting up to two hours each day for three or four weeks.
• Ideally, students learn the sciences such as physics, biology, chemistry, and geology using the so-called “Goethean phenomenological principle.” This means that first of all they intensely experience and describe the related phenomena, and only later come to learn and elaborate the intellectual concepts about what they have experienced.
• Arts have the same importance and receive the same attention as all other subjects. They are not offered as extra classes or elective subjects; they include form drawing, sketching, painting, sculpture, pottery, weaving, music, drama, and handicrafts. Furthermore, in the elementary school years (grades 1–8), every subject is taught in an artistic way.
• Waldorf education is based on an anthroposophical understanding of the human being developed by Rudolf Steiner at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly with regard to processes of child and adolescent development. The content of each school subject and the way the subject is taught follow specific guidelines about the characteristics of each age level.
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