I have called the object of my study here “Waldorf education”, but history shows that even that term, well accepted today, came into being only gradually. A. C. Harwood’s title and index do not contain the word “Waldorf,” he does not use the phrase “Waldorf education” at all, and he refers only infrequently to “Waldorf schools”, and then only as representing or modeling the “educational work” or “philosophy” of Rudolf Steiner. I enclose the term philosophy in scare quotes because of my conviction that Steiner’s work does not constitute primarily a philosophy, but a methodology. Steiner deals with epistemological and ontological questions, for example, (see especially Philosophy of Freedom 1970) but his primary concern is the attainment of knowledge, not that knowledge itself, and a description of being, not a theory of it.
John Gardner does not examine this point explicitly, but he does refer primarily to Steiner’s “educational method.” He refers to Waldorf schools and Waldorf education only in the central essay of the book, “The Experience of Knowledge,” the single essay in which he is at pains to view Waldorf schools as models for the implementations of Steiner’s method. The connotation here, different from the present as we shall see, is that Steiner’s method is not synonymous with the existence of education or schools that call themselves “Waldorf.” In the “Foreword to the Second Edition” (1996), Gardner himself employs the word “Waldorf” in quotation marks. “I believe strongly in the excellence and soundness of the new insights that stand behind the ‘Waldorf’ impulse in education; but I am less than enthusiastic about accepting the name generally used to designate this impulse, for it gives no clue as to what the new beginning actually intends or involves,” he continues (12-13). Gardner would likely have agreed that any teacher and any school could, with good will, employ the model we have come to know as Waldorf education. (Cf. Emmet, B. (undated) From Farm to School: The Founding of the High Mowing School).
M. C. Richards objectifies Waldorf education far more than these first two authors do. She refers to “Rudolf Steiner Education,” “Waldorf Education,” and “Waldorf schooling” interchangeably. Her tacit assumption, one that she represents in her generation, is that Waldorf education, the curriculum, principles and practices of Waldorf schools, based on the work of Rudolf Steiner, have a kind of concrete reality that is missing from considerations of earlier authors. The subtle irony here is that her commitment to “become undivisive in our science, our emotions, our creativity—to live in the paradox of separateness and connection…” (156) is initially undermined by her acceptance of the objective existence of something called Waldorf education.
By 1999, Eugene Schwartz’ index contains the following entries: Waldorf approach, Waldorf education, Waldorf high school, Waldorf kindergarten, Waldorf kindergarten playground, Waldorf main lesson, Waldorf method, Waldorf nursery teachers, Waldorf Room [sic], Waldorf school pupils, Waldorf schools, and Waldorf teachers. The process of objectification, clearly, does not end with the creation of one object, but threatens to continue indefinitely. Continued ad absurdam, the process would produce a “separate but equal” parallel “Waldorf” universe. Schwartz, of course, is not responsible for this onslaught of terminology; his vocabulary is simply the one available to him, and the points he examines concern other aspects of education (see below).
The objectification of Waldorf education is not an inherently reprehensible process. It eases discussion of important issues in education and creates a core around which communities of teachers, students, parents and others may form. Although I raise the issue here, I have also relied on the term throughout this work. On the other hand, carried too far, objectification threatens to dichotomize an idea that, at least initially, opposed such a split. Discussion of Waldorf education, once created as an object, then poses itself “against” other forms of education, forms that must themselves be objectified even to be allowed into the discussion. Further, communities gathered around such an unquestioned, objectified idea may become insular. This process traces the rise of a fundamentalism to which Waldorf communities are certainly not immune. In a small way, the separation of “Waldorf” ideas about teaching and learning from more conventional or accepted ideas mirrors, for example, the separation of Protestantism from Catholicism in the 16th century.
I have traced this process of objectification briefly with reference to a few books, but these are simply symptomatic of a wider process. The creation of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), also exemplifies this process. The Association began with informal conferences of about a dozen Waldorf schools in the mid-1960s and continued through a formal incorporation around 1980. (I have been unable to ascertain the exact year of the founding of AWSNA.) Since then, the Association has trademarked the name “Waldorf” as it applies to education in the United States, categorized schools by affiliation status, decided that public schools cannot be Waldorf schools, and, most recently, become an accrediting body for Waldorf schools. This gradual institutionalization, necessary or helpful as it may have been to those involved, also charts the development of an exclusive educational precipitate, “Waldorf schools.”
As Waldorf education became more established in the United States, its promise as a model for education generally was compromised, in part, by its objectification. By coming to reside, or to be seen to reside, in specific schools only, it forsook its status as a way to discuss how teachers teach and children learn, and became much more than that; an exclusive culture and institution. This process may be traced through the books that I will now examine in more detail.
Before I proceed to the books themselves, however, I should point out three things. First, although the Steiner School in New York City opened in 1928, I am unaware of any book-length considered descriptive works in English on Waldorf education—separate from translations of Steiner’s works—before Edmund’s of 1947 and Harwood’s of 1958. This may reflect two characteristics of early practice: A thorough engagement with Steiner’s work itself, especially including the translation of German material into English, and an active struggle in the few small schools and classrooms to survive from day to day and year to year, a struggle that left little time or energy for book-length reflections.
Second, especially because each of the books I will examine is born of experience, not, for example, of theorizing, agenda-setting, or policy-making, each book represents a culmination of life in a school or of thinking about education. For example, John Gardner’s book was published in 1975, the year he retired after twenty-five years as Faculty Chair of the Waldorf School of Garden City. It is not a state-of-the-art examination, but a reflection of roughly the years 1950-1975. This point may seem obvious, but it points to the value of the books I will examine as historical artifacts. Each is a “summing up” of years prior to publication.
Third, although each successive author almost definitely knew of those preceding him or her, the later of these works contain few references to the others’ books (M. C. Richards refers readers to Harwood’s book once, and Eugene Schwartz acknowledges a couple of contributions from John Gardner, but they seem to refer to personal conversations and not to published work). This is odd given the very few works that aim at any sort of general description of Waldorf education, but may be understandable given the changing needs for a general work. Rather than sources or influences (or opportunities for rebuttal), previous works may simply be so much ink under the printing press, so to speak.
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