Theory and practice of Waldorf education

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Tyumen State University

The institute of psychology and pedagogy

Theory and practice of Waldorf education

Writes By: Vladislav Duplyankin

Group 29ППО128 / Psychology

And pedagogy

Checked by:

Masterskikh S.V.

Tyumen 2013

Contents

Introduction

1. Waldorf education theory

1.1 Anthroposophical basis

1.2 Developmental approach

1.3 Four temperaments

1.4 Assessment

2. Waldorf education practice

2.1 Pre-school and kindergarten: birth to age 6/7

2.2 Transition to formal academic learning

2.3 Reading and literacy

2.4 Elementary education: age 6/7 to 14

2.5 Class teacher

2.6 Secondary education: age 14 and up

2.7 Spiral curriculum

2.8 Spirituality

2.9 Information technology

Conclusion

Literature

waldorf education pedagogy

Introduction

Waldorf (Steiner) education is a humanistic approach to pedagogy based on the educational philosophy of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. The first Waldorf school was founded in 1919 in Stuttgart, Germany. At present there are 1,026 independent Waldorf schools, 2,000 kindergartens and 646 centers for special education, located in 60 countries. There are also Waldorf-based state schools, charter schools and academies, and homeschooling environments.

Waldorf pedagogy distinguishes three broad stages in child development, each lasting approximately seven years. The early years education focuses on providing practical, hands-on activities and environments that encourage creative play. In the elementary school, the emphasis is on developing pupils' artistic expression and social capacities, fostering both creative and analytical modes of understanding. Secondary education focuses on developing critical understanding and fostering idealism. Throughout, the approach stresses the role of the imagination in learning and places a strong value on integrating academic, practical and artistic pursuits.

The educational philosophy's overarching goal is to develop free, morally responsible, and integrated individuals equipped with a high degree of social competence. Teachers generally use formative (qualitative) rather than summative (quantitative) assessment methods, particularly in the pre-adolescent years. The schools have a high degree of autonomy to decide how best to construct their curricula and govern themselves.

Waldorf education is the largest independent alternative education movement in the world. In central Europe, where most of the schools are located, the Waldorf approach has achieved general acceptance as a model of alternative education. Waldorf education has influenced mainstream education in Europe and Waldorf schools and teacher training programs are funded through the state in many European countries. Public funding of Waldorf schools in several English speaking countries has been controversial, with questions being raised about the role of religious and spiritual content in or underlying the curriculum, and whether the science curriculum, which has achieved notable results, also includes pseudoscience and/or promotes homeopathy. The Waldorf movement has said that concerns over its stance on these matters are unfounded.

1. Waldorf educational theory

1.1 Anthroposophical basis

Rudolf Steiner's ideas on education grew out of his simultaneously emerging views on individual development. These are part of his larger spiritual philosophy, Anthroposophy, which regards the human being as composed of body, soul, and spirit.

Steiner's educational ideas closely follow modern "common sense" educational theory since Comenius and Pestalozzi. While anthroposophy underpins Waldorf schools' organisation, curriculum design and pedagogical approach (and frequently, the design of the buildings, as well as pupil and teacher health and diet), it is explicitly not taught within the school curriculum.

The curriculum of Waldorf teacher education programs includes both pedagogical texts and other anthroposophical works by Steiner. As in a Waldorf school, teacher training colleges and institutes attempt to develop the academic, practical and artistic capacities of their students. For example, art, music, poetry, and handwork are integrated into the adult educational curriculum and students are expected to produce not only essays, workbooks and lesson plans but drawings, paintings, theatrical performances and other output that demonstrates their ability to work across all areas of the curriculum.

1.2 Developmental approach

The structure of the education follows Steiner's theories of child development, which divides childhood into three developmental stages, each with its own learning requirements. These stages, each of which lasts approximately seven years, are broadly similar to those described by Piaget. Waldorf pedagogical theory describes these stages as follows:

During the first developmental stage (under 7 years old), children primarily learn through empathy, imitating their environment, and Waldorf pre-schools and kindergartens therefore stimulate pupils' desire to engage with the world by offering a range of practical activities. The educator's task is to present worthwhile models of action. Children are also given daily opportunities for creative, imaginative play. The early years education seeks to imbue the child with a sense that the world is good.

In the second stage, between ages 7-14, children primarily learn through presentations and activities appealing to their feelings and imagination. Story-telling and artistic work are used to convey and depict academic content so students can connect more deeply with the subject matter. The educator's task is to present a role model children will naturally want to follow, gaining authority through fostering rapport. The elementary years education seeks to imbue children with a sense that the world is beautiful.

In the third developmental stage (14 and up), children primarily learn through their own thinking and judgment. They are asked to understand abstract material and are expected to have sufficient foundation and maturity to form conclusions using their own judgment. The secondary years education seeks to imbue children with a sense that the world is true.

Steiner also described sub-stages of these larger developmental steps.

The developmental approach used in the Waldorf schools is designed to awaken - and ideally balance - the "physical, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual" aspects of the developing person, developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytic component. A 2005 overview of research studies suggested that Waldorf schools successfully develop "creative, social and other capabilities important in the holistic growth of the person," but that more research is needed to confirm the generally small scale studies conducted to date.

1.3 Four temperaments

Steiner considered children's cognitive, emotional and behavioral development to be interlinked. When students in a Waldorf school are grouped, it is generally not by a singular focus on their academic abilities. Instead Steiner adapted the idea of the classic four temperaments - melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic and choleric - for pedagogical use in the elementary years. Steiner indicated that teaching should be differentiated to accommodate the different needs that these psychophysical types represent. For example, "cholerics are risk takers, phlegmatics take things calmly, melancholics are sensitive or introverted, and sanguines take things lightly or flippantly." Today Waldorf teachers may work with the notion of temperaments to differentiate their instruction. Seating arrangements and class activities may be planned taking into account the temperaments of the students but this is often not readily apparent to observers. Steiner also believed that teachers must consider their own temperament and be prepared to work with it positively in the classroom, that temperament is emergent in children, and that most people will reveal a combination of temperaments rather than a pure single type.

1.4 Assessment

The schools primarily assess students through reports on individual academic progress and personal development. The emphasis is on characterization through qualitative description. Pupils' progress is primarily evaluated through portfolio work in academic blocks and discussion of pupils in teacher conferences. Standardized tests are rare, with the exception of examinations necessary for college entry taken during the secondary school years. Letter grades are generally not given until students enter high school at 14-15 years. as the educational emphasis is on children's holistic development, not solely their academic progress. Pupils are not normally asked to repeat years of elementary or secondary education.

2. Waldorf educational practice

2.1 Pre-school and kindergarten: birth to age 6/7

The Waldorf approach to early childhood education is largely experiential and sensory-based. The emphasis is on providing worthwhile practical activities for children to imitate, allowing them to learn through example. The schedule is oriented around a well-ordered and harmonious daily routine that emphasizes rhythmic experience of the day, week, month, and seasons. Extensive time is given for guided free play in a classroom environment that is homelike, includes natural materials, and provides examples of productive work in which children can take part. Outdoor play periods are also generally included in the school day, providing children with experiences of nature, weather and the seasons of the year.

Oral language is developed with songs, poems, movement games and daily stories - typically a fairytale is recited by the teacher, often by heart. Aids to development via play generally consist of simple materials drawn from natural sources that can be transformed imaginatively to fit a wide variety of purposes. For example, Waldorf dolls are intentionally made simple in order to allow playing children to employ and strengthen their imagination and creativity. Steiner believed that engaging young children in abstract, intellectual activity too early would adversely affect their growth and development, which would also manifest itself later in life in the form of disease.

Pre-school and kindergarten programs generally include seasonal festivals drawn from a variety of traditions, with attention placed on the traditions brought forth from the community. Waldorf schools in the Western Hemisphere have traditionally celebrated Christian festivals.

Waldorf kindergarten and lower grades generally discourage pupils' use of electronic media such as television and computers. Educational scholars Philip and Glenys Woods say this is done "not from an anti-technology bias but because its use at a younger age is understood to be out of harmony with children's developmental needs."

2.2 Transition to formal academic learning

Waldorf pedagogical theory considers that during the first seven years of life, children learn best by being immersed in an environment they can learn from through unselfconscious imitation. In the second-seven-year period, the child is ready for formal learning. The transition has a number of markers, one of which is the loss of the baby teeth, which Steiner believed came about concurrently with a growing independence of character, temperament, habits, and memory. Formal instruction in reading, writing, and numeracy are thus not introduced until students enter the elementary school, when pupils are around seven years of age.

2.3 Reading and literacy

In preliteracy research, the topic of best teaching practice is controversial. Some scholars favor a developmental approach in which formal instruction on reading begins around the age of 6 or 7 and others who argue for literacy instruction to occur in pre-school and kindergarten classrooms, assuming that other activities are taking place as well.

In a discussion on academic kindergartens, professor of child development David Elkind has argued that since "there is no solid research demonstrating that early academic training is superior to (or worse than) the more traditional, hands-on model of early education" educators should defer to developmental approaches that provide young children with ample time and opportunity to explore the natural world on their own terms. Elkind names Rudolf Steiner as one of the "giants of early-childhood development" and describes activities for young children in a Waldorf school as "social," "holistic," and "collaborative," as well as reflecting the principle that "early education must start with the child, not with the subject matter to be taught." In response Grover Whitehurst, educational policy chair at the Brookings Institution, argues the opposite. In his view, the lack of solid research demonstrating the benefits of early academics merely reveals the urgent need for an evidence-based "science of early education." He laments that early education scholarship is "mired in philosophy, in broad theories of the nature of child development, and in practices that spring from appeals to authority," such as Elkind's praise for those "giants of early-childhood development" whose work reflects Jean Piaget's insights.

Sebastian Suggate has performed analysis of the PISA 2007 OECD data from 54 countries and found "no association between school entry age ... and reading achievement at age 15". He also cites a German study of 50 kindergartens that compared children who, at age 5, had spent a year either "academically focused", or "play-arts focused" -- in time the two groups became inseparable in reading skill. Suggate concludes that the effects of early reading are like "watering a garden before a rainstorm; the earlier watering is rendered undetectable by the rainstorm, the watering wastes precious water, and the watering detracts the gardener from other important preparatory groundwork."

In 2013, Waldorf kindergartens in the United Kingdom were granted an exemption from and modifications of a number of the government's Early Learning Goals, including the requirement that early childhood programs include a reading and writing curriculum. The exemption was granted on the basis that certain of these goals run counter to Waldorf early childhood education's established principles.

2.4 Elementary education: age 6/7 to 14

During the elementary school years (age 7-14), the approach emphasizes cultivating children's emotional life and imagination. The core curriculum, which includes language arts, history, mythology, general knowledge, geography, geology, algebra, geometry, mineralogy, biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and nutrition, "among others" is introduced imaginatively through stories and creative presentations. Academic instruction is integrated with a multi-disciplinary artistic curriculum that includes visual arts, drama, artistic movement (eurythmy), vocal and instrumental music, and crafts.

There is little reliance on standardized textbooks. The school day generally starts with a one-and-a-half to two-hour, cognitively-oriented academic lesson that focuses on a single theme over the course of about a month's time. This typically begins with an introduction that may include singing, instrumental music, and recitations of poetry, generally including a verse written by Steiner for the start of a school day.

Waldorf elementary education allows for individual variations in the pace of learning, based upon the expectation that a child will grasp a concept or achieve a skill when he or she is ready. Cooperation takes priority over competition. This approach also extends to physical education; competitive team sports are introduced in upper grades.

2.5 Class teacher

Waldorf schools follow a cohort instructional model. In the elementary years, each group of students has a core teacher for academic subjects who is meant to guide and stimulate pupils by exercising creative, loving authority, providing consistently supportive models of personal development both through personal example and through stories of "spiritual 'role models' from culture and history which may have an effect on the children's fantasy and imaginations through their symbolism and allegory."

The class teacher is normally expected to teach this group of children for several years - a practice known as "looping". Although the practice of "looping" has increased in both public and private schools, it is still considered an innovative approach to instructional design. Looping has both advantages in the long-term relationships thus established and disadvantages in the challenge to teachers, who face a new curriculum each year. Beginning from first grade, additional teachers teach subjects such as music, crafts, movement, and two foreign languages from complementary language families (in English-speaking countries often German and either Spanish or French), all of which are central to the curriculum throughout the elementary school years.While emphasizing the value of the class teacher as a personal mentor for students, especially in the early years, Ullrich documented problems with the continuation of the class teacher role into the middle school years (grades 7 and 8, ages 12-14). Noting that there is a danger of any authority figure limiting students enthusiasm for inquiry and assertion of autonomy, he emphasized the need for teachers to encourage independent thought and explanatory discussion in these years, and cited approvingly a number of schools where the class teacher accompanies the class for six years, after which specialist teachers play a significantly greater role.

2.6 Secondary education: age 14 and up

In most Waldorf schools, pupils enter secondary education when they are about fourteen years old. Secondary education is provided by specialist teachers for each subject. The education focuses much more strongly on academic subjects, though students normally continue to take courses in art, music, and crafts. The curriculum is structured to foster pupils' intellectual understanding, independent judgment, and ethical ideals such as social responsibility, aiming to meet the developing capacity for abstract thought and conceptual judgment.

The overarching goals are to provide young people the basis on which to develop into free, morally responsible and integrated individuals, with the aim of helping young people "go out into the world as free, independent and creative beings".

2.7 Spiral curriculum

Though most Waldorf schools are autonomous institutions not required to follow a prescribed curriculum, there are widely agreed upon guidelines for the Waldorf curriculum, supported by the schools' common principles.

The main academic subjects are introduced through up to two-hour morning lesson blocks that last for several weeks. These lesson blocks are horizontally integrated at each grade level in that the topic of the block will be infused into many of the activities of the classroom and vertically integrated in that each subject will be revisited over the course of the education with increasing complexity as students develop their skills, reasoning capacities and individual sense of self. This has been described as a spiral curriculum.

The Waldorf curriculum has always incorporated multiple intelligences.

Over the twelve-year curriculum, students learn a variety of fine and practical arts. Elementary students paint, draw, sculpt, knit, weave, and crochet. Older students build on these experiences and learn new skills such as pattern-making and sewing, wood and stone carving, metal work, book-binding, and doll or puppet making. Fine art instruction includes form drawing, sketching, sculpting, perspective drawing and other techniques. Younger students begin their instrumental music instruction with pentatonic flutes, lyres and diatonic recorders and advance to string instruments. An additional instrument (such as woodwind, brass or percussion) may be added in the adolescent years. Vocal music instruction begins with poetry and simple songs taught by the classroom teacher, advancing to formal choral music instruction as the student grows older.

There are a few subjects largely unique to the Waldorf schools. Foremost among these is eurythmy, a movement art usually accompanying spoken texts or music which includes elements of role play and dance and is designed to provide individuals and classes with a "sense of integration and harmony". Although found in other educational contexts, cooking, farming, and environmental and outdoor education have long been incorporated into the Waldorf curriculum. Other differences include: non-competitive games and free play in the younger years as opposed to athletics instruction; instruction in two foreign languages beginning after kindergarten; and a phenomenological approach to science whereby students observe and depict scientific concepts in their own words and drawings rather than encountering the ideas first through a textbook.

2.8 Spirituality

For Steiner, education was an activity which fosters the human being's connection to the divine and is thus inherently religious. However, as professor of educational philosophy Thomas Nielsen explains, "one of Steiner's primary aims with his new school at Stuttgart was to have a non-sectarian setting for children from all religious backgrounds." Steiner emphasized, for example, the value of literary and historical role models drawn from all traditions in developing children's fantasy and moral imaginations rather than sectarian religious instruction on ethical questions. Ullrich describes Steiner's view as follows: "The strongest impulses can come from religious tales because these may be envisioned through man's position within the world as a whole."

According to McDermott et al, Waldorf education is "infused with spirituality" throughout the curriculum, and can include a wide range of religious traditions without favoring any single tradition. Waldorf theories and practices are modified from their European and Christian roots to meet the historical and cultural traditions of the local community. Examples of such adaptation include the Waldorf schools in Israel and Japan, which celebrate festivals of their particular spiritual heritage, and classes in the Milwaukee Urban Waldorf school, which have adopted traditions with African American and Native American heritages. Such festivals, as well as assemblies generally, play an important role in Waldorf schools and are generally celebrated by showing students' work.

Religion classes are universally absent from American Waldorf schools. They are a mandatory offering in some German federal states, whereby in Waldorf schools each religious denomination provides its own teachers for the classes, and a non-denominational religion class is also offered. In the United Kingdom, public Waldorf schools are not categorized as "Faith schools".

Tom Stehlik places Waldorf education in a humanistic tradition, and contrasts it to "value-neutral" secular state schooling systems that he describes as lacking a philosophical basis. Iddo Oberski considers that, though first established within a Western, Christian society, Waldorf education is essentially non-denominational in character. In Freda Easton's view, Waldorf schools are "Christian based and theistically oriented", but "are opening in different cultural settings and can adapt to 'a truly pluralistic spirituality'".

2.9 Information technology

Waldorf schools view computer technology as being first useful to children in the early teen years, after they have mastered "fundamental, time-honoured ways of discovering information and learning, such as practical experiments and books". A number of prominent figures from the technology sector have chosen Waldorf education for their children for this reason, citing approvingly the increased engagement that arises through human contact with teachers and peers, while Ann Flynn, director of education technology for the National School Boards Association, questioned whether the schools are missing other opportunities to engage students through technology use.

In the United Kingdom, Waldorf schools are granted an exemption by the Department for Education (DfE) from the requirement to teach ICT as part of Foundation Stage education (ages 3-5). Education researchers John Siraj-Blatchford and David Whitebread wrote that "there is much to admire in Steiner education and, on balance, our view would be that it is to the credit of the [DfE] that Steiner schools have been recently exempted from the requirement to teach ICT..." In particular, they note that "what is hugely valuable in the Steiner position, of course, is the emphasis on the simplicity of resources and on encouraging children's use of their imagination." Less valuable is what they view as an ideological preference on the part of Waldorf educators for "natural, non-manufactured materials," a preference they find to be "a reaction against the dehumanizing aspects of nineteenth-century industrialization" rather than a "reasoned assessment of twenty-first century children's needs." Siraj-Blatchford and Whitebread's overall perspective emphasizes how the educational value of any new technology must be considered in terms of the opportunities and experiences afforded to children. For this reason, they argue that Waldorf educators' emphasis on simple resources and childrens' own imaginations is actually "not incompatible with the use of ICT." At the same time, they stress that what an educational technology is made out of ought to be irrelevant for evaluating its worth.

Conclusion

In conclusion I want to say, that Waldorf Education is based on a profound understanding of human development that addresses the needs of the growing child. Waldorf teachers strive to transform education into an art that educates the whole child--the heart and the hands, as well as the head.

In Waldorf school walls are usually painted in lively colors and are adorned with student artwork. Evidence of student activity is everywhere to be found and every desk holds a uniquely created main lesson book.

Another advantage is enthusiasm and commitment of the teachers you meet. These teachers are interested in the students as individuals. They are interested in the questions:

How do we establish within each child his or her own high level of academic excellence?

How do we call forth enthusiasm for learning and work, a healthy self-awareness, interest and concern for fellow human beings, and a respect for the world? How can we help pupils find meaning in their lives? Teachers in Waldorf schools are dedicated to generating an inner enthusiasm for learning within every child. They achieve this in a variety of ways. Even seemingly dry and academic subjects are presented in a pictorial and dynamic manner. This eliminates the need for competitive testing, academic placement, and behavioristic rewards to motivate learning. It allows motivation to arise from within and helps engender the capacity for joyful lifelong learning. The Waldorf curriculum is broad and comprehensive, structured to respond to the three developmental phases of childhood: from birth to approximately 6 or 7 years, from 7 to 14 years and from 14 to 18 years. Rudolf Steiner stressed to teachers that the best way to provide meaningful support for the child is to comprehend these phases fully and to bring "age appropriate" content to the children that nourishes healthy growth.

Literature

1. http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/02_W_Education/index.asp

2. http://www.ithaca.com/family_and_health/article_9b32bfb4-aea8-11e2-bfa0-001a4bcf887a.html

3. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/nyregion/30forest.html?_r=0

4. http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts%20in%20Education/The%20Center%20for%20Arts%20in%20the%20Basic%20Curriculum/oddleifson3.htm

5. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED400948

6. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED420605

7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_Education#Educational_theory

Размещено на Allbest.ru