A Modern Art of Education: (CW 307) (Volume 17) (Foundations of Waldorf Education) - Softcover

Steiner, Rudolf

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0880105119 ISBN 13: 9780880105118

Publisher: SteinerBooks, 1999

Synopsis

14 lectures and talks, Ilkley, Yorkshire, August 5-17, 1923 (CW 307)

In this fine introduction to Waldorf education, written out of a series of lectures given in 1924, Steiner provides one of the most comprehensive introductions to his pedagogical philosophy, psychology, and practice. Steiner begins by describing the union of science, art, religion and morality, which was the aim of all his work and underlies his concept of education.

Against this background, many of the lectures describe a new developmental psychology. On this basis, having established how children’s consciousness develops, Steiner discusses how different subjects should be presented so that individuals can grow and flourish inwardly. Only if the child absorbs the right subject in the right way at the right time can the inner freedom so necessary for life in the modern world become second nature.

“Readers of Steiner’s lectures printed here will be ‘quietly astonished’ and ‘genuinely enthusiastic.’ After an introduction, in which he speaks of reuniting science (intellectual knowledge), art, and morality once again, he turns to the principles of Greek education, in which body, soul, and spirit were still a unity. He then traces the development through the Middle Ages, during which new, evolving elements were added. In our time, he says, we must understand the concrete connection of the spirit with the human being, so that thinking, feeling, and willing can once more become alive. He relates this to the child’s developmental stages, as well as the human basics such a sleeping and waking. Then he turns to the specifics of the curriculum: reading, writing, nature study, arithmetic, geometry, history physics, chemistry, crafts, language, and religion. Finally, he turns to memory, the temperaments, physical culture, art, and the actual organization of a Waldorf school―to which this volume is, all in all, one of the best introductions.” ―Christopher Bamford, from his introduction

German source: Gegenwärtiges Geistesleben und Erziehung (GA 307). Previous English edition: Education and Modern Spiritual Life.

About this title

About the Author

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Croatia), where he grew up. As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe's scientific writings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his early philosophical principles into an approach to systematic research into psychological and spiritual phenomena. Formally beginning his spiritual teaching career under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, Steiner came to use the term Anthroposophy (and spiritual science) for his philosophy, spiritual research, and findings. The influence of Steiner's multifaceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, various therapies, philosophy, religious renewal, Waldorf education, education for special needs, threefold economics, biodynamic agriculture, Goethean science, architecture, and the arts of drama, speech, and eurythmy. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world. He died in Dornach, Switzerland.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Christopher Bamford

Rudolf Steiner's lectures and lecture courses on Waldorf education fill at least twenty volumes. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a certain amount of repetition in these works. It is the differences that are surprising. These often have to do with who Rudolf Steiner was addressing. He spoke differently, for example, to anthroposophists in Germany or Swiss public school teachers than he did to English audiences. The English lectures are especially interesting and uncannily accessible for the obvious reason that Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking culture is closer to us in America than, for instance, German or Dutch culture. Like The Kingdom of Childhood and The Spiritual Ground of Education, A Modern Art of Education has an immediacy and intimacy that makes it one of the best introductions to Waldorf education.

Steiner presented the lectures printed here in England in 1923, his sixth visit. He had first come to London for Theo-sophical Society congresses in 1902, 1903, and 1905, but did not return again until May 1913, after the split with Theoso-phy. When he did so it was at the request of the newly formed English anthroposophical group. He spoke then on two topics: “Occult Science and Occult Development” and “Christ at the Time of the Mystery of Golgotha and Christ in the Twentieth Century.” These important lectures have exceptional liveliness and depth, indicative of Steiner's respect for honest British “matter-of-factness,” which demanded that topics be broached head on and without prevarication. He clearly enjoyed the freedom this offered. There was no need for long-winded introductions. The Great War, and its chaotic aftermath, then intervened to make travel impossible.

As a result, Steiner was not able to cross the Channel again until 1922, when he gave several lectures and courses, including the education lectures published as The Spiritual Ground of Education, given at Oxford university and hosted by Professor Millicent MacKenzie of University College, Cardiff. As a consequence of these lectures, Rudolf Steiner was invited to give a lecture course the following year at Ilkley in Yorkshire under the auspices of “The Union for the Realization of Spiritual Values in Education.” A number of experienced Waldorf teachers (including Hermann von Baravalle, Carolyn von Hildebrand, and Karl Schubert) accompanied Steiner (they were all on their way to the International Summer School in Penmaenmawr, Wales) and gave demonstrations of the practice of Waldorf education.

We are lucky enough to have Steiner's own report on the event.1 His lectures, he says, were designed to show “how Waldorf methods are related to present-day civilization.” He writes: “On the artistic side, we wanted to show how we have evolved eurythmy out of the anthroposophical movement. In addition, six teachers from the Waldorf school were going to show how they put into practice what was described in the lectures.”

On his way north, Steiner observed the industrial and coal mining townships―for example, “Leeds, where unbelievably blackened houses are strung together quite abstractly, where everything looks like a condensation of blackest coal dust, concentrated into the shapes of houses where people have to live.” He remarked, “Do you see those thought forms―there you have hell on earth.” He concludes, “This kind of experience makes obvious how absolutely necessary it is that spiritual impulses should enter our present civilization.”

He also remarks how struck he was by the simultaneous evidence of remnants of ancient, Druidic culture:

Ilkley, then, is a place surrounded on the one hand by an atmosphere created entirely by these industrial towns. On the other hand, in the remains of dolmens and old Druidic altars lying around everywhere, it has traces of something that reminds one of the ancient spirituality that has, however, no successors. It is most moving to have on the one hand the impression [of the industrialism] I just described and then, on the other, to climb a hill in this region so filled with the effects of those impressions and then find in those very characteristic places the remains of ancient sacrificial altars marked with appropriate signs.

He then describes the course itself:

Each morning began with a lecture in which I tried to put before the audience the kind of education practiced in the Waldorf school, basing this on the whole historical development of education. My starting point was to describe how, in Greek culture, education had arisen from ordinary Greek life. This showed, I said, that no special method or practices should be invented for use in schools, for schools ought to bring children what is there in the culture around them.

Edition details

• Publisher: SteinerBooks
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0880105119
• ISBN 13: 9780880105118
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256