Waldorf Education is a worldwide independent school movement developed in Europe nearly 100 years ago by the world-renowned Austrian philosopher, scientist, and social reformer, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Today, Waldorf education is represented across the globe, with about 1,000 schools and nearly 2,000 early childhood programs in over 60 countries.

In Waldorf Education, the learning process is based on a holistic understanding of children and their developmental stages. The learning process is essentially threefold, engaging:

• head
• heart &
• hands

or

• thinking
• feeling &
• doing

This is the basis out of which Waldorf teachers work to nurture and engage each child through a curriculum that integrates academics, arts, and practical skills.

Music, dance and theater, writing, literature, legends and myths, math and science are not simply subjects to be read about and tested for. They are experienced. Through these experiences, Waldorf students cultivate their intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual capacities to be individuals certain of their paths and of service to the world.

The predominant opinion in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century was that children were not separate, complete individuals. Rudolf Steiner, however, started from the premise that unique personality traits already exist in babies and infants, and that each child enters the world with an autonomous will to live and learn.

As a result of his spiritual investigations, Rudolf Steiner concluded that people return to earthly life repeatedly, with certain time intervals in between. He also realized that we bring with us something from our previous lives as well as our own individuality that stays with us throughout all of our lifetimes. Babies are not born as blank slates. He proceeded on the assumption that every person has an individual task on earth that calls us to be with the people around us at that particular time. There is a reason why we speak of people as having a calling.

We endeavor to shape our lives meaningfully for ourselves and others and to continue to develop according to our callings. We experience fulfillment and satisfaction by making positive changes in ourselves and our environment and by working towards the common good. Raising children in a supportive atmosphere that encourages them to unfold their full potential helps them become sufficiently self-aware so they can better find their calling.

Parents can help their child develop his individuality step by step by looking at the child himself. To do this, it is important to understand the phases of child development. It is important to know, for example, that talking develops from learning to walk and thinking then develops from talking. The way in which a child accomplishes these developmental steps, and the intensity with which he experiences them, are an expression of his individuality. It is important to trust the child and give him the time that he needs to unfold his potential.

Rudolf Steiner taught that each person chooses her social environment, her parents, and the family into which she is born. Nothing is left to chance. Even before conception, the unborn child has a spiritual and emotional relationship with the people who will one day be her parents.

The child commits himself to his parents’ care in full trust. A newborn baby is extraordinarily sensitive to what happens in his surroundings, not only to what can be seen and heard, but also to the spiritual and emotional energies.

The current assumption in alternative medicine is that everything we experience is stored in every cell of our bodies. We take this idea more for granted now, but a hundred years ago, Rudolf Steiner first professed that through their limitless openness, children are affected on every level of their being by everything they experience. The quality of human social interactions around the child is especially influential. The atmosphere surrounding the child should, therefore, be as harmonious as possible, with joy and cheerfulness in everyday situations. This does not mean that children should be jollied along or entertained, but rather that the quality of human social interactions should match the quality of the child’s untroubled mind. Even very small children can tell the difference between artifice and what comes from real human joy.

In the first years of life, a child learns the most important and difficult things: walking, speaking, and thinking. Nobody can teach her this. In order to learn these things, a child needs to grow up among people who walk, talk, and think. She learns through imitating them. The parent should lovingly accompany the child, giving her honest and authentic support without interfering in her development. As the child grows older, her ability to imitate reveals itself in the small events of everyday life. She will treat others the way that she is treated herself or experiences other people being treated. She will encounter her world with the same love, respect, and care—or with the same impatience — that she observes in others. When playing with a doll, for example, children emulate what they have experienced themselves or have seen happening around them.

During approximately the first seven years, children do not learn through their intellect. They learn through their own exploration and through imitation. By perceiving everything in their surroundings with all their senses and by imitating adult conduct, values, and norms, they come to know the world profoundly and comprehensively. All these experiences, which permeate their senses and are holistically internalized, form the basis for intellectual learning later on.

When one realizes how much a child learns through imitation, how much everything that happens around him influences him, it becomes clear why Rudolf Steiner placed so much value on the self-education of adults. Both children and parents are learning; development never stops. Like the child, the adult is also in a state of becoming. The child’s efforts to learn are tireless, and if the adult is to maintain authenticity and credibility, she must demand the same of herself.

The whole of anthroposophy, which was founded by Rudolf Steiner, can in this sense be seen as a path of self-education for the adult. Its aim is to awaken us to our humanity – body, soul, and spirit. Ultimately, the goal of anthroposophy is for people to unfold their unique potential and to find the strength and confidence required to shape their lives meaningfully.

“As a former Waldorf student, I am convinced that we all come here for a particular reason and with unique potential. My search for what’s meaningful in my life brought me to my heart’s desire, which is to foster the precious potential of children and the peaceful well-being of the whole family.

Waldorf education helped me to deeply understand our daughter’s needs and behavior, to trust her will to learn, her capacity for self-initiated movement, and her endless creative potential to change this world for the better..

What I also learned is that the only way to educate my child is through self-education, because the young child learns through example & imitation. To practice self-education is both: my daily challenge and my daily opportunity.” Pia Dögl, Parent Coach, Special Educationalist, Author & Founder, Beginning Well®