What is Waldorf Education?

Well, if you’re here we can assume you know a little bit about Waldorf Education already. In a nutshell, Waldorf Education was created out of the teachings of philosopher, social reformer, architect, and scientist, Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th Century. Waldorf Education, a branch of Steiner’s philosophical system called Anthroposophy, is founded on an understanding of the whole human being, offering a developmentally appropriate and experiential teaching approach which engages thinking, feeling and willing. Maintaining rhythm is key. One finds rhythm in the Main Lesson, the block rotation, and in other daily/specialty activities throughout the day.

What is a Main Lesson anyway?

In the Waldorf method, the Main Lesson is the focal point of the day providing a lesson related to one subject. Typically, it is the first thing in the morning and its duration is about 2 hours. The main lesson begins with some type of opening will-activity; i.e. a verse, a song, movement, etc. Next the teacher has the children recall the material from the previous day before presenting the new lesson. Lastly, the students begin individual work, usually a drawing and/or a writing from the lesson.

What’s a “block rotation” ?

In the Waldorf curriculum subjects are taught in blocks, which last several weeks and rotate throughout the school year. The overarching subjects of the blocks offered are mathematics, language arts, science, history, and the arts. The form of the blocks will look different from grade to grade, aligning with the development of the child. For example, it is suggested that history in Grade 5 focus on Ancient Civilizations whereas in Grade 6, Roman Civilization and Early Medieval History are introduced. It is important to note that Rudolf Steiner gave this indication in his lecture, The Renewal of Education, “In a Waldorf school outer forms do not follow set patterns, so that it is quite possible for one teacher to teach his class of nine year olds well, while another, who takes a completely different line, may be an equally good teacher. In this way we plan the curriculum for each year in accordance with the nature of the growing child. As long as the teacher feels in harmony with the underlying principles and with the methods employed, he must be given freedom in his work instead of being tied to fixed standards…”