Waldorf-inspired teaching derives from the educational research and insights of the Austrian educator and philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Steiner worked throughout his life toward a comprehensive knowledge of human nature and development, which he called the "wisdom of the human." Central to this view of the world is a belief that every person consists of a "body, soul, and spirit," and these all seek to reach full potential. . . To educate all three of these faculties, whether the subject is history or arithmetic, painting, singing or physics, the teaching is essentially an artistic process which must live. Students learn by encountering the world as experience.
For example, a student may encounter multiplication for the first time as motion. The group of first graders, moving in a circle and clapping and chanting will come down harder with one foot, say on the multiples of three: one, two, three – four, five, six – seven, eight, nine – and so on. The numbers soon become part of the body’s understanding. The whole being of the child is involved.Stories to educate
- Example of a whole-child approach, baking bread in a Waldorf kindergarten
- Rhythms of the Waldorf kindergarten