Research Bulletin

Download the article: Rudolf Steiner Library Information

National Library of the Anthroposophical Society in America
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The library is a treasure trove of material for home-schoolers and Waldorf teachers.

Membership
The Rudolf Steiner Library is a national, mail-order lending library. The library has over 25,000 volumes covering the full spectrum of western and eastern spirituality, and multimedia offerings as well. Members of the Anthroposophical Society in America are automatically members of the library; non-members are welcome to join for $20 a year, plus a one-time, refundable $25 deposit.

By David Mitchell

Download the article: Creating a Sense of Wonder in Chemistry

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to WONDER and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.…To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms-this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.
-Albert Einstein

Wonder is an experience which blossoms in the soul when one is suddenly surprised and amazed by the attentive consideration of something rare, astonishing, and extraordinary. When we feel wonder we feel enlivened through our own vitality and feel a direct connection with an archetypal spark in the Universe. Wonder is the seed of knowledge.

By Craig Holdrege

Download the article: Science a Process or Dogma?

A Waldorf high school science teacher stands before a wonderful and yet difficult task. We need to be at home in modern scientific research in the fields in which we are teaching, but we also need to transcend the narrow confines of the theory-driven, reductionist approach so widespread in science and science teaching today. Much of what we learn about science today has a dogmatic character - we learn about theories as if they were hard facts and not ways of interpreting the phenomena. Where textbooks and the Discovery channel offer answers, a Waldorf science teacher should be raising questions. We need to penetrate to the facts, to the actual scientific process. This is by no means easy.

In the following essay I describe a famous example from evolutionary biology that I gradually realized was much more complicated and problematic than my textbook knowledge. I now cringe at the thought that I had been passing this example on to my students. I came to see how this example can show the pitfalls and promises of so much science teaching today. I hope this essay will stimulate other science teachers to think more critically about the examples they use in the classroom to “prove” a point. I also hope non-scientists will benefit through the journey and gain a clearer, and more critical view of how science works. I offer one more prefacing remark: Waldorf schools are sometimes criticized for being soft on science or, even worse, for teaching pseudo-science. Such criticism may be valid in individual cases, but it cannot be directed at the Goethean, phenomenological methodology, which lies (or rather should lie) at the heart of Waldorf science teaching. This essay can at very least show that a Goethean approach in which one views participation on the part of the scientist as a central part of science - leads to a critical and reflective view of science that protects both student and teacher from dogmatism. And dogmatism should be the enemy of every science teacher. To help students view and experience science as a living process, and not as a teaching or an edifice of “facts” is, in my view, a far truer embodiment of the scientific spirit than much of what one finds today around the globe in classrooms and textbooks.

By Michael Howard

Download the article: Spirit Will and Ethical Individuality

The education and teaching of the future will have to set particular value on the development of the will and feeling nature....Feeling and will are left more and more to what is called chance, because there is no insight into the real nature of will.
Rudolf Steiner, The Foundations of Human Experience, Lecture 4

The Need For Insight Into Will
If our intent as teachers and parents is to develop our children’s full human potential, we will want to educate their feeling and will with as much insight and care as we bring to the development of their thinking. If we recognize that in this regard our insight is inadequate then our task is clear—we must seek every means to cultivate deeper insight into the nature and development of feeling and will.

By Mark Riccio

Download the article: Did Rudolf Steiner Want a Seven-Grade...

This article examines the question: Was the original eight-grade sequence in the Waldorf elementary schools the result of a necessary compromise Rudolf Steiner made? This question grows in importance because some Waldorf educators have been reconsidering the effectiveness of having a class teacher for eight years. In Switzerland, for instance, Waldorf schools have considered changing to a seven-year sequence because of the difficulties teachers have had growing with their class.

In Waldorf education, the teacher and students build a profound heart-to-heart relationship over the course of eight years. The advantages of such a deep and meaningful growing together become apparent to anyone who has experienced it, or its opposite for that matter. It has always been fascinating to me to hear veteran Waldorf teachers speak about how they had to meet the challenges of learning so many subjects and growing with their class. Some Waldorf teachers felt inadequate in the face of these challenges because they did not have the necessary background, skill, or support to grow with a class except for a limited number of grades. Should Waldorf class teachers teach the entire span of elementary grades? Was that span intended to be seven rather than eight years? In this article I do not attempt to arrive at final answers to these questions, but I hope to prompt further discussion regarding what is in the best interest of Waldorf students and their teachers.

By Harlan Gilbert

Download the article: Phases and Transitions in Waldorf Education

For Waldorf teachers, parents, and students, the question can easily arise: Why does the class teacher period last eight years? Waldorf education is based upon an understanding of child development in seven-year phases. The class teacher who takes a class for eight years remains with his or her students longer than a single developmental phase. This practice seems to be inconsistent with the principles of a developmentally-based education and also presents imposing academic, social, and practical challenges to all concerned.

When the first Waldorf School was founded in 1919, one traditional educational model in Central Europe consisted of the eight-year primary school, where the teacher remained with the same group throughout the eight years. To what extent the Waldorf School owes its eight-year class teacher period to Steiner’s familiarity with this system is an interesting historical question.⁽¹⁾ For the majority of the children in such a school, this eight years would have been the whole of their general schooling; work apprenticeships, trade school, or work on the home farm would have followed. In both Europe and America, this situation has changed radically with the introduction of universal general education up to the age of sixteen and an extremely high rate of school attendance up to the age of eighteen years of age.

By Douglas Gerwin

Download the article: Who is the Teenager Today?

Since its founding in the summer of 1998, the Waldorf High School Research Project (WHSRP) has been investigating the question “Who is the Teenager Today?” at three levels with an eye to promoting innovation and reform among the Waldorf high schools of North America. These levels include international research conferences, subject colloquia on specific areas of the curriculum, and individual research projects related to academic, extra-curricular, and social aspects of the Waldorf program.

I. Conferences on Adolescence
Most recently the WHSRP invited some 90 Waldorf high school teachers, counselors, and physicians to a retreat at the Franciscan Center, Andover Massachusetts to explore the changing nature of adolescents today and to outline new approaches to educating them. For five glorious October days, participants shared examples of the physiological, psychological, and spiritual changes to be observed among the most recent generation of young people. A picture emerged of a generation of students highly active in their nerve/sense system and correspondingly stultified in their metabolism and powers of volition.

By Kim Payne, Bonnie River-Bento, Anne Skillings

Download the article: Initial Report of the Waldorf ADHD Research Project

In recent times the Waldorf education movement began to be more clearly challenged by children who displayed attention related issues. Victor Frankl, the well-known psychologist spoke of aggression, depression, and addiction as being three signatures of our time but a fourth challenge could be added, attention. Yet how could we stand against the huge wave that was hitting families and schools that called for the drugging of children with such substances as Ritalin?

Waldorf Attention Related Disorders Research Project was launched in May 1999 to try to find some answers to this question. After two years of planning, fundraising and recruiting teachers and parents who enacted our suggested changes we are ready to release our initial findings.

By Earl Ogletree

Download the article: International Survey of the Status of Waldorf Schools

This survey of the status of Waldorf schools was conducted to determine whether Waldorf principles and Rudolf Steiner’s indications were being followed and implemented in Waldorf schools throughout the world. The purpose of the survey was to gain insight into how the schools are functioning and what Waldorf faculty and personnel think and feel about Waldorf education. The following subjects were included: teaching practices, curricula, outcomes, and the positive aspects and problems perceived by those working in the schools. The role of Anthroposophy and its esoteric aspects were examined in relation to teaching processes and influences on the students. I purposely made no comments on the results; readers can make their own interpretation. The survey instrument was reviewed by David Alsop, former Chairperson of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, Gunther Altehage, Director of the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen, and others.

By Nina Asher

Download the article: Case Study Research: The Waldorf Teacher

“Good teaching comes from identity, not technique . . .”
Parker Palmer⁽¹⁾

While there is universal agreement that teacher quality is indeed linked to student success, there is great polarity as to the components of teacher quality or how to define it. The political response involves establishing a teacher reward and sanction system based on student outcomes. Some states offer sizeable monetary rewards to teachers for completing the National Certification, a process to allow for documentation of accomplished practice. Additional discussion and literature on public school reform centers around issues such as curriculum, parent involvement, teacher empowerment, class size, and the creation of school communities.

Download the article: Being on Earth

This book was conceived as a phenomeno­logical approach to knowledge, that is, a study of the world in terms of its immedi­ate phenomena. Since the sciences, as they are presently constituted, are moving further and further away from sensible perception-chemistry, for example, may now be taught by computer without a laboratory component-our interest in phenomena brought us to the question: What is lost when knowing is separated from experience? In the academic classroom the answer to this question can sometimes appear to be “nothing,” but in actual practice, particularly in the field, researchers will often stress the need for a hands-on apprentice­ship before the new member of the team can even read the field manual properly. Practice, as opposed to theory, still demands perceptual experience, but in stated theory there is no account of the compo­nent that only experience can provide.

Download the article: “Let’s quickly go over that again....” Recapitulation and the Waldorf Curriculum

The idea of recapitulation has always seemed to me such a natural and fundamental part of teaching. As a matter of course teachers review what has already been covered before introducing the next step. Waldorf pedagogy has made an art of this methodology and it is found in Waldorf school classrooms from kindergarten to twelfth grade, in the practice of rhythmical repeti­tion and enhancement. We also find the idea of recapitulation in Steiner’s descriptions of the processes and rhythms of child development, the cultural epochs and, ultimately, in the anthropo­sophical perspective of the evolution of the Earth itself.₁

Download the article: Educating the Will—Part II Developing Feeling Will in Contrast to Sense/Nerve Will

In the first part of this article, which appeared in the January 2002 issue of the Research Bulletin, we established the perspective that every outer and inner challenge is an opportunity to develop spirit will, which in turn, develops our true individuality. The development of authentic individuality is the pole star that can guide all aspects of culture, especially education. We may accept as given that education strives to develop children’s bodily and soul potentials. In mastering their life/bodily and soul constitution children also can develop their spirit will. Spirit will is the charioteer; life will and soul will are the horses which the charioteer holds in rein.

Download the article: Organizations as Living Organisms-Developing a Seven-fold View

Introduction
In this essay I would like to develop a view of Waldorf Schools and other organizations that profess to honor the reality of human beings as beings of body, soul, and spirit. I must make it clear that while I am not a management or organi­zational expert, I have life-long experience in working in the Camphill movement and in a number of Waldorf schools throughout the world. My viewpoint is therefore that of a person dealing with growing and adult human beings.

Download the article: On Forgetting to Wear Boots

“I have no doubt that Camphill is an expression of a great intuitive thrust out of the deep heart of nature which has us in its keeping and knows that both we and it are in mortal peril.”
—Sir Laurens van der Post

Whenever friends visit my wife Phyllis and me, one of our favorite places to take them is the nearby Camphill Village in Copake, New York. The village is part of a thriving, worldwide movement for the care of people with special needs. You will find here villagers with Down Syndrome and a great variety of other mental handicaps-all pursuing their lives in a beautiful, restful, productive, socially supportive, and artisti­cally rich setting. If there is a place that can bring healing to a high-tech society, surely this is it.

By Stephen Sagarin

Download the article: No Such Thing: Recovering the Quality of Rudolf Steiner's Educational Work

Introduction

Waldorf Education does not exist. It is not a "thing" and it cannot necessarily be distinguished from good education anywhere. Because it docs not exist, it cannot be found in the boxes we call Waldorf schools. To narrow its definition to identify it with schools named Waldorf or Steiner schools, or to identify it with a particular curriculum or technique is to reify Waldorf education in a way that may describe part of what is but necessarily ignores what may also be. What we call Waldorf education may perhaps be found in any school, or anywhere that teachers teach and students learn. There is no characteristic nor quality that is unique to what we call Waldorf education that cannot potentially be found some­where else.

By Langdon Winner

Download the article: Beyond Innovation- Education and Ethos in an Era of Ceaseless Change

This article is only available as a pdf, please click the link above to read.

By Gertrude Reif Hughes

Download the article: How Poems Teach us to Think

The Twentieth-century poet, Marianne Moore, began her poem called "Poetry" with the line, "I too dislike it." Her dis­arming opener implies that many people dislike poetry and I think they do. It is intimidating and off-putting to be confronted with a poem that is hard to understand, as many poems arc. Perversely enough, when you do finally perceive a poem's meaning, you'll find that you can't convey it to any­one else except by repeating the poem, because poems tend to elude restatement and translation. All this unpleasantness can be useful, however. By resisting our understanding poems make us pay attention to how we make sense of things; by resisting paraphrase, they force us to acknowledge the nature of their originality.

By Michael Howard

Download the article: Educating the Will, Part 3 - Common Will and Comprehensive Will

This article is presently available as a pdf only, please see link, above, to read

By Susan Kotansky

Download the article: Whom are We Teaching?

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By Joan Almon

Download the article: The Vital Role of Play in Early Childhood Education

“The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health.”
Ashley Montagu

Over thirty years of working with children, families, and teachers in Waldorf kindergartens all over the world, I have observed one overwhelming similarity: creative play is a central activity in the lives of healthy young children. It helps children weave together all the elements of life as they experience it. It allows them to digest life and make it their own. It is an outlet for the fullness of their creativity, and it is an absolutely critical part of their childhood. With creative play, children blossom and flourish; without it, they suffer a serious decline.

These articles are a part of a Special Section: The Push for Early Childhood Literacy, Taking a Careful Look
Download the articles

Included are:

Editorial Note
Moving in Slow Motion by Barry Sanders
The Push for Early Childhood Literacy: A Risk Factor in Child Psychopathology by Sharna Olfman
The Push for Early Childhood Literacy: Critical Issues and Concerns by Nancy Carlson-Paige
The Push for Early Childhood Literacy: The Loss of Nature by William Crain
The Push for Early Childhood Literacy: A View from Europe by Christopher Clouder

Keywords: oral tradition, reading, media, technology, play, testing, school readiness

By Georg Kühlewind

Download the article:In What Respect are Star Children Different?

Studies concerning the extension of childhood*

People from different cultures often experi­ence difficulties understanding one another; they are often intolerant or hostile toward one another. We can hardly stand it when people are different. Many exterminated groups of people were not inferior to their executioners, just differ­ent and, above all — less egotistical.

By Christof Wiechert

Download the article: Rudolf Steiner and the New Educational Paradigm

I read the article by Stephen Keith Sagarin, “No Such Thing: Recovering the Quality of Rudolf Steiner’s Educational Work” {Research Bulletin, January 2003,Volume VIII, Number 1) with great interest. I would like to make a few comments about it, as Stephen Sagarin’s work raises an important issue. Isn’t it true that every active teacher confronts again and again the questions, “What is truly authentic in my work?” “ What is original and new?” Often these questions manifest only as a feeling that our own work is not authentic and original enough, because we know that authenticity and honesty are needed in teaching. I can understand Stephen Sagarin wanting to call our attention to this, because Waldorf schools as institutions do not provide a guarantee for quality; for quality is found only in teachers.

By Christopher Clouder

Download the article: Teaching as Learning in a Steiner Waldorf Setting

“The importance of the role of the teacher as an agent of change, promoting understanding and tolerance, has never been more obvious than today. It is likely to become even more critical in the twenty-first century.”

This bold statement from the 1996 UNESCO report underlines the crucial role of the teacher in our contemporary societies and also its formidable professional responsibilities_^.1 To be able to live up to such a task, it is clear that on-going professional development is a sine qua non, and that schools themselves have to be valued and constructed as learning institutions for all involved in them. This perception has also been a basic principle of Waldorf education since the founding of the first Steiner school in Stuttgart in 1919 and it is integrated in various forms in all the present 870 schools worldwide. As a whole, the report is based on the moral values explicitly stated in the authors’ introduction as their perspective of education as “an indispensable asset in its attempt to attain ideals of peace, freedom and social justice.”_² The teacher’s role is delineated within a cultural context where:

The need for change, from narrow nationalism to universalism, from ethnic and cultural prejudice to tolerance, understanding and pluralism, from autocracy to democracy in its various manifestations, and from a technologically divided world where high technology is the privilege of the few to a technologically united world, places enormous responsibilities on teachers who participate in the molding of the characters and minds of the new generation,_³