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15 discussions with teachers of the Stuttgart Waldorf School, Aug. 21 - Sept. 6, 1919; 3 lectures on the curriculum, Sept. 6, 1919 (CW 295)"In spiritual science we divide the human being into 'I'-being, astral body, etheric body, and physical body. In an ideal human being, the harmony predestined by the cosmic plan would naturally predominate among these four human principles. But in reality, this is not so with any individual. Thus, it can be seen that the human being, when given over to the physical plane, is not yet really complete; education and teaching, however, should serve to make the human being complete. One of the four elements rules in each child, and education and teaching must harmonize these four principles." -- Rudolf SteinerFor two weeks, prior to the opening of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Rudolf Steiner intensively prepared the individuals he had chosen to become the first Waldorf teachers. At 9:00 a.m. each day, he gave the course now translated as Foundations of Human Experience; at 11:00 a.m., Practical Advice to Teachers; and then, after lunch, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., he held the informal "discussions" published in this book.The tone is spontaneous and relaxed. Steiner does not prescribe specific methods but introduces topics and situations, offering guidelines and allocating practical assignments that are taken up and discussed in the next session. The discussions are filled with insights and suggestions in many different areas of teaching--history, geography, botany, zoology, form drawing, mathematics, and more.Speech exercises are included. This edition also includes, for the first time in English, three important lectures on the curriculum, given the day just before the school opened.These fifteen discussions constitute an essential part of the basic training material for Waldorf teachers.Discussions with Teachers is a translation from German of Erziehungskunst. Seminarbesprechungen und Lehrplanvorträge (vol. 295 in the Bibliographical Survey, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1961).

In this book, given as a course on language to teachers in the first Waldorf School, Rudolf Steiner demonstrates how history and psychology combine to form different languages and how the language-forming power has dwindled, but how the inmost kernel of language -- the penetration of sense into sound -- can be accessed today. From the Foundations of Waldorf Education series.

In this fine introduction to Waldorf education, written out of a series of lectures given in 1924, Steiner provides one of the most comprehensive introductions to his pedagogical philosophy, psychology, and practice. Steiner begins by describing the union of science, art, religion and morality, which was the aim of all his work and underlies his concept of education. Against this background, many of the lectures describe a new developmental psychology. On this basis, having established how children's consciousness develops, Steiner discusses how different subjects should be presented so that individuals can grow and flourish inwardly. Only if the child absorbs the right subject in the right way at the right time can the inner freedom so necessary for life in the modern world become second nature.

5 lectures, Stuttgart, April 8-11, 1924 (CW 308)These talks were given during an educational conference in 1924. They are the last public lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in Germany. According to one member of his audience, "Seventeen hundred people listened to him; the prolonged applause from this great crowd at the end of every lecture was deeply moving, while at the end of the last lecture the applause became an ovation that seemed as if it would never end." This kind of adoration was the result not only of who Steiner was as an individual but of what he accomplished as well. People had already begun to realize the potential and the promise for the future that Waldorf education held out to the children of the world.The Essentials of Education, together with its companion book, The Roots of Education, present a remarkable synthesis of what Waldorf education is and what it can become. The Waldorf "experiment" had matured for five years since 1919, when Steiner helped to establish the first Waldorf school. He had guided that school from its beginning, observing very closely all that happened. As a result, he was able to distill and present the essentials of Waldorf education with elegance as well as with the urgency he felt for the coming times.German source: Die Methodik des Lehrens und die Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens (GA 308).

Formerly entitled The Study of Man this lecture course, newly translated for this series, contains some of the most remarkable and significant lectures ever given by Rudolf Steiner.With this seminar for teachers, given just before the opening of the first Waldorf school in September 1919, Rudolf Steiner miraculously succeeds in bringing together, clarifying, and synthesizing the insights of a lifetime's study into the reality of human nature. Unfortunately, however, because these lectures were given to teachers, they have suffered under the misconception that they are meant only for teachers. Of course, a functional understanding of their contents is necessary for any teacher desiring to teach in a way that encompasses the needs and essence of the whole child, but this understanding is also necessary for parents, counselors, and indeed anyone seeking to practice the injunction of the Delphic oracle, "Know thyself!"In addition, because in these lectures Steiner gives his most concise and detailed account of the nature of the human being, they are absolutely central to anyone seeking to understand anthroposophy and the anthroposophical view of the world. Anyone, therefore, who is willing to work through these lectures will discover in them a new, powerful, convincing and profoundly phenomenological "anthropology" or human psychology -- a view of the spiritual-physical foundations of the human being and human experience.On the other hand, for anyone wishing to study Waldorf education, this is the primary text. These are the lectures in which, for the first time, and with the full excitement of the new venture, Rudolf Steiner set forth the principles upon which the art of teaching could be renewed.

These lectures are an excellent, inspiring introduction to Waldorf education. With freshness, immediacy, and excitement, Steiner outlines the goals and intentions of the new Free Waldorf School and gives a talk to prospective parents. He explains the school's guiding principles and describes how parents must participate, with understanding and interest, in the awakening of their children's creative forces so that a healthier society can come about. Contents include "The Intent of the Waldorf School", "The Spirit of the Waldorf School", "Spiritual Science and Pedagogy", and an essay "The Pedagogical Objective of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart".

Rudolf Steiner's course on light, which includes explorations of color, sound, mass, electricity and magnetism, presages the dawn of a new world view in the natural sciences that will stand our notion of the physical world on its head.This "first course" in natural science, given to the teachers of the new Stuttgart Waldorf School as an inspiration for developing the physics curriculum, is based on Goethe's approach to the study of nature. Acknowledging that modern physicists had come to regard Goethe's ideas on physics as a "kind of nonsense", Steiner contrasts the traditional scientific approach, which treats phenomena as evidence of "natural laws", with Goethean science, which rejects the idea of an abstract law behind natural phenomena and instead seeks to be a "rational description of nature". Steiner then corrects the mechanistic reductionism practiced by scientific positivists, emphasizing instead the validity of human experience and pointing toward a revolution in scientific paradigms that would reclaim ground for the subject -- the human being -- in the study of nature.

Speaking to the teachers at the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Steiner asserts that the unfortunate presence of dishonesty and alienation in society today cannot be addressed without a completely renewed and holistic education. He states fact that successful teaching requires a living synthesis of the "spiritual gymnast," the "ensouled rhetorician," and the "intellectual professor." Of these, the formative effect of the rhetorician's cultivation of artistic speech is the most important. "It's impossible for true teaching to be boring," declares Steiner, and he offers several examples of how teachers can observe a natural phenomenon so intimately that its creative life can flow into the children through a teacher's own words in the classroom. He also describes, in spiritual scientific depth, how the actions of teachers directly affect the physiological chemistry of their students. From this perspective, education is really therapy, transformed to a higher level, and should be seen as closely related to the healing arts. Steiner also shows how the perception of hidden relationships between education and the processes of human development can kindle a heartfelt enthusiasm and a sense of responsibility in teachers for the far-reaching health effects that educational activities can produce.

Given during a conference on spiritual values in education and life attended by many prominent people of the time, Steiner's Oxford lectures present the principles of Waldorf education at the highest cultural level. "The Manchester Guardian reported: "Steiner's lectures...brought to us in a very vivid way an ideal of humanity in education. He spoke to us about teachers who, freely and unitedly, unrestricted by external prescription, develop their educational methods exclusively out of a thorough knowledge of human nature. He spoke to us about a kind of knowledge needed by the teacher, a knowledge of the being of man and the world, which is at the same time scientific and also penetrates into the most intimate inner life, which is intuitive and artistic." Long out of print, these lectures are among the best introductions to Waldorf education.

Translated from the German by Roland Everett and edited by Rhona Everett.

These lectures were given one month before the opening of the first Waldorf School in September 1919, in the context of Germany's postwar social ferment. Steiner points to negative tendencies present in modern social life such as inner drowsiness, mechanization, and animalization. A true social solution must not only consider economics and legal rights but also the third element of the free spiritual life. "The great problem of the future will be education", he announces, and goes on to explain how only a proper nurturing of imitation, reverence, and love in the three periods of child development can prepare adults who are ripe to live the three virtues of a healthy social order: cultural freedom, legal equality, and economic brotherhood. These ideas are then connected to Steiner's threefold pictures of the human soul, economics, higher knowledge, and "physiognomic pedagogy". This new translation also includes three lectures, "The Social Basis of Public Education" (in German, the Volkspadagogik lectures), available in English for the first time.

As early as 1884, while tutoring a boy with special needs, Steiner began a lifelong interest in applying spiritual knowledge to the practical aspects of life. Steiner originally published the essay at the core of this book in 1907. It represents his earliest ideas on education, in which he lays out the soul spiritual processes of human development, describing the need to understand how the being of a child develops through successive "births," beginning with the physical body's entry into earthly life, and culminating in the emergence of the I-being with adulthood.

14 lectures, Stuttgart, August 21-September 5, 1919 (CW 294) How do Waldorf teachers put their educational ideals into practice in the classroom? How does a teacher connect geography and art and language in a way that enlivens the souls of children? What does a child's respect for the teacher mean for later life? These are only a few practical aspects of this initial course for Waldorf teachers.During an intensive two weeks, Rudolf Steiner gave three simultaneous educational courses to those who would be the first teachers of the original Waldorf school. One course provided the foundational ideas behind Waldorf education (The Foundations of Human Experience); another provided a forum for questions and lively discussions on specific issues in the classroom (Discussions with Teachers). In this course, Steiner takes the middle-path by integrating theory and practice.Here, Steiner spoke of new ways to teach reading, writing, geography, geometry, language, and much more. His approach is tailored to the spiritual and physical needs of the children themselves, not to an arbitrary curriculum based solely on external results.At a time when public education is in a state of crisis, this book describes how children around the world are being guided into adulthood with a fuller sense of themselves and with a creative approach to life and the world around them.German source: Erziehungskunst. Methodisch-Didaktisches (GA 294).