Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education - a dynamic relationship
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Among educational academics Waldorf education tends to be viewed with a considerable degree of critical scepticism. Their criticism is not focused on the education as such, but upon the worldview behind it, namely, anthroposophy. Klaus Prange (Prange, 1985, 2005), Ehrenhard Skiera (Skiera, 2009), not to speak of Heiner Ullrich (Ullrich, 1986, 1988, 2015), all incisively stress the fact that Waldorf education’s dependence on anthroposophy renders it unacceptably “worldview-laden”. In his latest publication (Ullrich, 2015) Heiner Ullrich lays out the details occasioned by this basic critical stance. He singles out Waldorf education as having an ideological bias unique among the various forms of progressive education: “It is founded entirely upon the view of the human being and of the world contained in Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy. This determines not only teaching methods, but also, in diversely inter-related ways, the content of the curriculum and the subjects taught. No other type of school from among the classical canon of progressive education has a culture moulded by a single worldview to the extent that the Waldorf school has been.” (Ullrich, 2015, p.173) Ullrich is concerned to show not only that anthroposophy underlies an otherwise positive educational movement, but that it also dominates the latter in every facet of its operation. The critical verdict upon this ideology problem is expressed with considerable vehemence, a clear impression of which is conveyed by the following lengthy quotation: “In the account of the specifics of what goes on in a typical Waldorf school the immense significance of the anthroposophical worldview has become clear in many respects. Recall particularly the architectural form of the school buildings, styled according to the essential nature of the human being, the collegial style of governance organised in accordance with the idea of the threefold social order, the doctrines of seven-year developmental periods and the temperaments (in relation to the four basic soul-forces) that guide the work of the class-teacher, the main lesson methodology that encompasses nocturnal processes of excarnation and incarnation, the curriculum based upon cultural epochs that follow the progressive history of consciousness, and goetheanistic, alchemistic science teaching resting upon the notion of essential correspondences between the human being and nature. In the face of all this the conclusion is inescapable that anthroposophy (anthroposophical spiritual science) provides the master key to understanding the whole gamut of Waldorf education from its curriculum to its classroom practice. The founder of anthroposophy is Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), who remains to this day the exclusive figurehead1 for the disciples of his worldview.” (Ullrich, 2015, p. 91).
Source: Research on Steiner education
Author: Jost Schieren
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2303013124