Philosopher/ Scientist Rudolf Steiner's Waldorf Education has been around for almost a century, but to many people it still appears avant garde.
Marjorie Spock, who first met Rudolf Steiner two years before his death in 1925, wrote this book to explain how Waldorf Education works for people who are not familiar with Anthroposophy, Steiner's spiritual science. Even those of us who are students of Steiner's work (or even were trained as a Waldorf teacher) can benefit from the warmly written, but concise description of this wholistic and artistic way of educating children.

The book starts with a chapter called "A new picture of the human being" in which she tells how Rudolf Steiner developed his unique view of the human being, and how this gave rise to a different way of educating children. In the following eight chapters she describes grade by grade, until eighth grade, how the children develop and need to be approached, what topics are taught and how. This is followed by a short description of the four temperaments how how a teacher works with them. The book end with an account of the inner self development the teacher constantly needs to pursue, and the close relationship between teacher and child. A Waldorf teacher ideally stays with their class from first through eighth grade.

(It may be good to know that the first Waldorf School was started at the request of Emil Molt, the owner of the Waldorf cigarette factory in Germany, to educate the children of the factory workers. He hoped that it would produce a next generation of well rounded workers. I wish companies would still think like that! Here in the USA Waldorf Education is often seen as elitist, because the schools tend to be expensive. In many European countries Waldorf Schools are heavily government subsidised, so that anyone who wants to can enroll their children in a Waldorf school.)
I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in wholistic innovative education.

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