Steiner Education and Social Issues

How Waldorf Schooling Addresses the Problems of Society

Brien Masters

Paperback

November 2007

9781855842007

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$24.00

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Is the philosophy by which we choose to educate our children responsible, at least partially, for the attitudes and general tone of our societies? A recent UNICEF report on wealthy countries ranked the United States and the United Kingdom at the bottom of a table that measures quality of life for young people across a wide range of headings, including poverty, health, drugs, friendships, and happiness. Experts observed that the nations that performed best in the survey have created “child-friendly” societies in which young people, for example, are not pressured to achieve academically until their teens.

By contrast, the cultures of the US and UK are geared toward economic success, with education as a means of sifting—through increasing testing—the high achievers who will produce the goods...

Brien Masters, an educationalist for more than 50 years, states that education has a central role to play “in bringing into human lives those qualities that can take us forward to a progressive future.” He proposes that Rudolf Steiner's educational approach, as practiced mainly in the Waldorf schools around the world, is well equipped to enable this.

In this book—through a series of short, engaging chapters and based on his broad personal experience of teaching and teacher training—Masters tackles a wide range of modern social issues, from drugs and nutrition to boredom, the influence of TV, and multiethnic societies.

Steiner Education and Social Issues is a wise and informative guide for parents, teachers, and anybody interested in the future development of our culture.

C O N T E N T S:

Introduction

1. Steiner: A Revolutionary in Education

The Teacher: A Fifth Component in Education Theory

2. Curtain Raiser: Multiple Intelligences
3. The Ego’s “Three Sheaths”
4. “Secrets of the world streaming through in a living way”
5. Extrapolating Standard Education Theory from Steiner Œuvre
6. Initial Teacher Training and Ongoing Teacher Education
7. Professional Meditative Practice
8. Taking Another Lick at the Maths Lollipop
9. A Milestone for the Ego
10. The Psychology and Physiology of the Septennial Phases of Childhood

Children and Teachers

11. “Rights of the Child”
12. “Mood of the Fifth” and the Pentatonic Scale
13. Burning the Midnight Oil
14. Benefits and Hazards
15. Waldorf Non-negotiables
16. Literacy: Mere Decoding or a Gateway to Literature?
17. Waldorf, the Arts, and Culture
18. The Instinct for Child-rearing and Pedagogical Instinct

Teacher-Pupil, Teacher-Colleague, Teacher-Parent Relationships

19. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
20. Dross and Gold in the Four Temperaments
21. The Oft-ignored Ingredient in School Readiness
22. Teacher-Pupil Pedagogical Relationships
23. Will Activity
24. Delegation and Collegiality
25. Educational Terrorism?

The Wider Vision (Weltmensch)

26. Individual and Collegial Group
27. What Happened to the European Conventions and Declarations to which the UK was Signatory?
28. Who You Meet Is What Counts
29. The Adaptability of the Waldorf Curriculum
30. Achieving Waldorf
31. The Sense-perceptible World and Its Counterpart

Epilogue: Education Is Lifesaving

Appendix: Press Letter on Toxic Childhood

Index

Brien Masters

Brien Masters, Ph.D., was qualified as both a state and a Waldorf teacher and taught everything from music to math to map reading. He taught around the world and acted as a consultant to government ministries. He wrote numerous articles and several publications for use in schools. His doctoral thesis is a critical appraisal of Waldorf praxis in the light of Rudolf Steiner’s original educational ideas. Brien Masters was director of the London Waldorf Teacher Training Seminar, as well as a seminar in Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands. He died in October 2013.