Global Waldorf
Articles
Philippines: The All-Play but No-TV and -Computers School
The Gamot Cogon School was initially intended to serve the elementary education needs of children from farm families in the community, but its novel approach has attracted parents from the city who feel that they have found the “right” place for their children. Read more Sunday Inquirer June 5, 2010
Australian Studies of Steiner Waldorf Education
A major quantitative and qualitative study of senior secondary students in the three largest Steiner schools in Australia was undertaken by Jennifer Gidley in the mid-nineties. It investigated the Steiner-educated students’ views and visions of the future, replicating a major study with a large cross-section of mainstream and other private school students undertaken a few years prior.
The findings as summarized below contrasted markedly in some areas with the research from mainstream students at the time. Read more Excalibor's Weblog June 3, 2010
Teacher from U.K. Rudolf Steiner School to help disadvantaged students in Sierra Leone
A kind-hearted and adventurous teacher from a Kings Langley school is to relocate to West Africa to teach disadvantaged students and train fellow educators based there. Read more Watford Observer May 26, 2010
Lessons in the Wild - the Green School in Bali
Opened in 2008, the Green School in Bali is an international school with a difference. “Learning by doing” is its motto. The school teaches traditional subjects, but its approach and Green Studies curriculum set it apart. This curriculum is a progression of nature studies, from ecology to environment and sustainability. It deals with topics like permaculture, animal husbandry, and bamboo design technology. Students may alternate between a sit-down math class and learning how to make a solar cooker. Pre-school kids might tend to the goats before class or learn about seeds, soil, light and water. The school is based on Waldorf Education principles, which emphasize holistic, spiritual, and social aspects of education, while nurturing a child’s imagination. Read more The Star Online April 24, 2010
Soul Man
Rudolf Steiner: Alchemy of the Everyday,a traveling exhibition organized by the Vitra Design Museum in collaboration with the Kunstmuseums of Wolfsburg and Stuttgart, opens on May 13 in Wolfsburg, Germany. It will be Steiner’s first major retrospective ever staged outside the anthroposophic community.
Read more by Douglas Brenner New York Times Style Magazine March 30, 2010
Computers in Schools Could Do More Harm than Good
One of the things that makes human beings so distinct, and so brilliant, is that our brains are constantly being rewired – a phenomenon known as "plasticity" which means that we can react to and learn from our surroundings. But, as a neuroscientist, there is a question that worries me: given that the brain adapts according to its environment, and the learning environment for our children has been changing in dramatic and unprecedented ways, could that have an unprecedented impact on their development in ways that might be adverse? That certainly seems to be the message from research reported yesterday, which suggested that students are losing the ability to study properly. Read more The Telegraph February 12, 2010
Research Finds No Advantage In Learning To Read From Age Five
A University of Otago researcher has uncovered for the first time quantitative evidence that teaching children to read from age five is not likely to make that child any more successful at reading than a child who learns reading later, from age seven. Read the article here. Voxy News December 21, 2009
Conference focuses on early years
Early years education was the focus of a recent international teacher conference held at Ringwood Waldorf School. More than 100 teachers from Australia and Brazil attended the conference to discuss learning for the under sixes through play. Read more Salisbury Journal November 9, 2009
Interview with Steiner educator in the Times Education Supplement
What three words sum up The Acorn School in the UK? "Child-centred, excellence, and holistic." Graeme Whiting is interviewed by the Times Education Supplement. Read more TES Connect November 6, 2009
Taikura Rudolf Steiner School is Joint Winner of the Hawke’s Bay Environmental Awards
The judges were impressed by the commitment of the students to environmental care and community action. Read more Scoop Independent News November 2, 2009
Archbishop of Canterbury attacks 'oppressive' education system
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has launched an extraordinary attack on the “oppressive” system of state education in England. In a speech, he said that an “obsession” with repeatedly testing and assessing children undermined their personal, spiritual and emotional development. Read more The Telegraph October 21, 2009
Two Schools - One Purpose
In the city of Shefaram, located between Haifa and Nazareth, Arabic children practice their spring theater production. In Hebrew. At a nearby school on Kibbutz Harduf, Jewish children also practice their spring play, in Arabic. Eventually, the Arabic students will perform for their Jewish friends, and the Jewish students will perform for their Arabic friends. The effort is one of many elements that is building a “friendship bridge” between students at two Waldorf schools — one Arabic, one Jewish — in northwest Israel. Read more J Weekly October 8, 2009
Lessons in Life at the Forest School
Thousands of pupils in Denmark learn tree climbing not times tables. But this carefree life for the under-7s is under threat.
It’s a chilly, breezy afternoon in Klampenborg, an affluent suburb just north of Copenhagen. Two dozen children are playing in woodland that lies off the busy main road that leads into the city. Some are clustered around a teacher playing his guitar, others are running in and out of the oak trees in some made-up game. Empty lunch boxes are stacked by a tree and mats are strewn across the grass, evidence of a recent picnic, although it is not quite picnic weather. The children are well wrapped up in fleeces, jumpers and wellies. It looks as if it is an afternoon outing for the local children, a break from the classroom and a chance for a little fresh air. But something quite different is going on here. The wood is the classroom for these children who are pupils at the Klampenborg Skovbo, a forest school. From 8am to 4pm, five days a week, the 25 or so children come to school here, rain, hail or shine. Read more ... The Times October 6, 2009
10,000 Sign Petition to Scrap Assessment Tests in UK
More than 10,000 people have signed a petition urging the government to scrap Sats tests in primary schools. Teachers have mounted a campaign to end the tests and are threatening to boycott next year's unless the government promises to end them. They say the focus on testing, and the league tables the results feed into, have narrowed the curriculum and forced teachers to teach to the test, undermining children's learning. "Abolish Sats," says author Michael Rosen. 'They're utterly useless and they drive children, teachers and parents nuts.' Read more Guardian.co.uk September 18, 2009
The Classroom of the Future
Several months ago, Architecture for Humanity put designers all around the world to the test in their 2009 Open Architecture Challenge for the Classroom of the Future. The mission? Address the unique issues that schools everywhere are facing in order to provide innovative, cost-effective and sustainable learning spaces for students. Over 400 entries were submitted. The Founders’ Award was given to the Corporación Educativa y Social Waldorf (Waldorf Educational and Social Corporation) in Bogota, Columbia. Designed by Arquitectura Justa, the space is unwalled with a central terrace to act as an open-air classroom. The building itself is infused with natural daylight and constructed from natural materials with a strong focus on sustainable design.
Read more and see photos Inhabitat September 9, 2009
Nature-inspired schools
A school of learning that has dance, foot massages, drawing and music in its main curriculum, instead of any textbook learning. Sounds too good to be true? Over 150 students in the city are getting themselves trained (or evolved, as the trainers put it) under this non-conventional method, called the Waldorf System of Education. Immensely popular abroad with more than 900 schools, India has official Waldorf schools only in Mumbai and Hyderabad. Now a school is opening in Chennai.
Read more Express Buzz August 9, 2009
Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited: China, Japan, and the United States
This fascinating look at early childhood education in three different cultures, and how that education has changed over the past twenty years, is reviewed here. College professor Joseph Tobin provides new insights into the impact of globalization and sweeping social transformation on preschool education in his new book, “Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited: China, Japan, and the United States.” Published in July 2009 by The University of Chicago Press, the book adds a historical dimension to Tobin’s earlier research published in the original “Preschool in Three Cultures,” which was heralded as a landmark study in education in 1989 largely due to his ingenious method for exploring how preschoolers were taught in China, Japan and the United States.
Read more Arizona State University August 5, 2009
Chechen dance group perform at school
Acrobatics, sword-throwing and musical mantras were displayed at King's Langley Rudolf Steiner School by ‘Daimohk’, a 33-strong dance group from Chechnya. Before taking to the stage, the performers - aged between eight and 18 - held a workshop with the school’s students so they could learn some traditional moves. Read more Watford Observer July 22, 2009
Choosing a preschool to match your child's temperament
As a child’s first teacher, parents are in a unique position to understand their child's mood and energy. Many in the field of early education say it's important for parents to take this into consideration when choosing the right preschool for their child. Read more Tehran Times July 1, 2009
Children run for Great Ormond Street
Pupils from a Kings Langley school put on their running shoes to raise money for a children’s charity. A group of 25 boys and girls from Rudolf Steiner School raised £1,418 in a 1km sponsored run for the Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital. Read more Watford Observer June 30, 2009
Five things you didn't know about Stanislas Wawrinka
The Times June 29, 2009
Artist unmasks a different view
Aberdeen's Belmont Picturehouse is providing the venue for an exhibition by a young north-east artist whose portraits are often faceless, yet revealing. Artist Chloe Gough attended the Rudolf Steiner Waldorf School in Aberdeen. Read more The Press and Journal June 26, 2009
Extension to Waldorf School designed by Morten Schmidt
Schmidt Hammer Lassen architects has unveiled their new addition to The Rudolf Steiner School in Aarhus, Denmark. The innovative new building, which reflects an interdisciplinary approach to education, has been designed by the practice's partner Morten Schmidt, a former student of the school. Read more and view photographs Archinnovations.com June 3, 2009
A Framework that doesn't Fit
A recent article in The Guardian discusses how the government’s new ‘nappy’ curriculum will impact Waldorf schools in the U.K. Read more The Guardian May 9, 2009
Open-air gallery in Germany
A recent article in the London Financial Times Travel section describes the Villa Waldfrieden, home to the sculptor Tony Cragg, as "a remarkable structure built by Kurt Herberts in the late 1940s, a flowing and organic building whose strong sculptural presence was inspired by the ideas of the ethical individualist Rudolf Steiner." Read more London Financial Times May 9, 2009
David Johnson: Obituary
The obituary in The Guardian, U.K., for David Johnson, describes him as a prolific musicologist, composer, and expert on Scottish heritage. David Johnson attended the Rudolf Steiner School, Edinburgh. He started composing early, and two movements from a work for recorder consort were written when he was 14, and published by Robert Salkeld's Modern Music for Recorders
edition. He took up both the cello and recorder, and became proficient on both. Read more The Guardian May 8, 2009
CHILDREN and the 'wet on wet' watercolour painting technique
A recent article published in the Bangkok Post relates the importance of painting in the lives of young children, and quotes Khru Mos, art therapist and author of Our Children are Colouring the World, who says that parents should pay more attention to their child's process of creating art, which will allow them to see the unfolding of what he terms the child's Self-inner Development Read more Bangkok Post May 7, 2009
Students and playwright team up for The Temple
Top playwright Peter Oswald is teaming up with students at Stourbridge’s Glasshouse Arts Centre to take an original powerful drama featuring masks and puppetry on the road around the UK. Inspired by the Temple legend by Rudolf Steiner, the darkly humorous play explores themes of power and vulnerability and centres on wise King Solomon who has a vision of a temple
which could house God on earth, if only he could build it. Read more Stourbridge News May 5, 2009
School's Not Out Yet after 70 years for the First Pupils
The Spylaw Road School is this year celebrating its 70th anniversary, and former pupils have come back to the school to share memories and talk to youngsters. Surprisingly, not a lot has changed since the first went through the school gates all those years ago. Rudolf Steiner - which has more than 1000 schools across the world - has its own curriculum, which has remained relatively unchanged over the years. Read more News.Scotsman.com May 4, 2009
Good News from Namibia: School Focuses on Practical Training
The Waldorf School Windhoek (WSW) – established in 2000 – is creating a school and centre for vocational training. In addition to the excellent academic education – that already includes much practical training in accordance with the international Waldorf concept – learners of the WSW will, as of 2010, be exposed to craft and agricultural training over and above their normal school education. Read more New Era March 3, 2009
News from Egypt:
A crisis intervention team sent to Gaza by the international Waldorf organization, The Friends of Waldorf Education, to help traumatized children has been forced to leave the territory again on the urgent advice of the UN and the German foreign office. Read more February 2009
Gently Ranting for the Sake of Children
by Diane Hofkins The Guardian, September 16 2008
Waldorf Education in Russia
Renewal Magazine Spring/Summer 2008 PDF
Beyond Their Wildest Dreams
by Avis MacIntyre Hermanus Times August 14, 2008
Dutch Storyteller Engages Listeners' Imaginations
by Keiko Watanabe Daily Yomiuri Online July 29, 2008
Olympics for Peace
by Ariel Rubinsky Haaretz.com March, 2008
An event for children in seven Waldorf schools in Israel.
UK study says children starting school too early
by Andrew Hough Reuters February 8, 2008
Global Waldorf: A universal promise of social renewal
From the founding of the first Waldorf school in Germany in 1919, the intention for Waldorf Education has always been that it should be a worldwide force for social renewal. Emil Molt, the director of a German cigarette factory and a student of Rudolf Steiner, approached Steiner seeking a new kind of education for the children of his factory workers-one that would serve as an antidote to the despair gripping Central Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Steiner responded by opening a school, six months later, for those children. Read More...
Global Waldorf: Waldorf in China
By Harry Wong and Tammy Hughes with Ronald E. Koetzsch
Recently, Renewal received two reports on Waldorf Education in China. One was from Tammy Hughes, an American Waldorf teacher who has taught in the United States and New Zealand and who currently is living and teaching in China. The other was from Harry Wong,one of the founders of the Chengdu Waldorf School, the first Waldorf school in China. The following article is a conflation of those two reports. Since today one human being out of five lives in China and that nation has become a major economic, political, and cultural force in the world,what is happening there in education is of immense importance. Read More...
New Under-5s National Curriculum May 'Make Children Go Backwards'
by Alexandra Frean The Times UK February 16, 2008
Leading experts on pre-school education are mobilising in London today against the new national curriculum for under-5s, which they warn risks “making children go backwards” in their development.
Steve Biddulph, the Australian educational psychologist and author, is among a series of high-profile speakers at a conference questioning the basis of the new statutory Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. The Framework prescribes 72 early-learning goals for the under5s, ranging from the bland (“continue to be interested, excited and motivated to learn”) to the ambitious (“understand what is right, wrong and why”) and from the sweeping (“begin to know about their own cultures and beliefs and those of other people”) to the highly detailed (“use their phonetic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words”).
Friends of Waldorf Education
Friends of Waldorf Education (Freunde der Erziehungskunst Rudolf Steiners e.V.) support initiatives for a free education world-wide. We have actively promoted Waldorf Education and freedom within the education system since 1971.
We support Waldorf kindergartens, Waldorf schools, other educational initiatives, curative education and social therapeutic institutions as well social work projects.
Important facts about Friends of Waldorf Education in brief
- Each year we pass on over 3 million Euros in donations to over 200 projects.
- We pass on 100% of the donations and finance our co-workers and administrative costs out of members’ contributions and specific donations.
- You can find a list of all the projects we supported last year here.
- Projects co-financed by the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit with around 350.000 Euro per year.
- Individual sponsorships (around 300 sponsorships for 30 schools).
- Many voluntary services for 500 young people per year.
- Free newsletter twice a year.
- Large online-database with reports from projects world-wide.
- Many other services, e.g. proposals for class projects, job market.
- Many links regarding the world-wide Waldorf movement.
- Excellent overview about Waldorf world-wide in our publication (2001).
- Around 1,000 members (including individuals, Waldorf Schools and other institutions).
- Contact with around 400 institutions world-wide.
- World-wide there are around 950 Waldorf schools, 2,000 kindergartens, 600 curative education centres.
