The Foundations of Education According to Steiner: Critical Reflections on the Relationship between Anthroposophy and Education

Abstract

The present paper aims to address Waldorf education’s theoretical foundations, which largely intertwine with the anthroposophical conception of existence that Rudolf Steiner embraced. It examines such topics as (a) the four constituent parts of the human being and the role they play in relation to learning in the person’s development; (b) the distinct ways in which the subject learns during the three 7-year development periods; (c) the human organism’s three components: thinking, feeling, wanting and how the educator can favor their development; (d) possible teacher temperaments and their influence on teaching; (e) the need for teachers to self-educate to remedy adverse effects of an unwanted temperament; and (f) the child’s passage from a phase of natural religiosity to that of an artistic sense, which the teacher must take into account. The research paper ends with critical considerations of the role that Steiner attributed to school education.

Keywords

• Steiner's pedagogy
• Psychophysical development
• Epoch Instruction
• Temperaments
• Waldorf teacher