By Hans Gebert   Why do we teach mathematics? This question was recently posed in the columns of the Mathematical Gazette, which is the organ of the mathematics teachers in Great Britain. It is indeed a question that must be uppermost in the minds of all teachers, for what we teach and how we teach it can only be decided in the light of the reply to this question. In the article...

Author: Lisa Gromicko Date published: Unknown Contact details: Contact us tab available on Lifeways website Source: http://www.lifewaysnorthamerica.org/about/newsletters-and-articles/math-and-science-kindergarten-waldorf-early-childhood-settings   Steiner-based, early childhood settings abound with rich opportunities for the development of math and science concepts.  This...

Author: Jean Hamshaw Date published: Unknown Contact details: Contact tab available on Waldorf library site Source: http://www.waldorflibrary.org/articles/28-teaching-medieval-romances   In an era when all curriculum is being examined for its “relevance,” Waldorf school teachers must often explain why they include Parsifal and other medieval literature in the third...

By John Wulsin   Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s medieval epic, offers a portrait of the journey of through adolescence. The heart of the eleventh grade curriculum in a Waldorf School, it is often experienced as the heart in fact of the whole Waldorf Curriculum. Developmental Context We know that in the first seven years the young child, mostly head, devotes most of its...

Author: Francis Edmunds Contact details: Contact tab available on Waldorf library site Source: http://www.waldorflibrary.org/articles/1139-literature-with-the-upper-school     This article examines the need for epic literature in the life of the high school student. First of 2 parts. Orginally published in Child and Man, Vol.2, #1. The child of fourteen and fifteen has...

Author: Jesse Darrell Date published: Unknown Contact details: Contact tab available on Waldorf library site Published in Child and Man, Volume 17, #1, 1983 (UK) Source: http://www.waldorflibrary.org/articles/780–the-industrial-revolution   This article discusses the Industrial Revolution, a pivotal main lesson taught in the Eighth Grade. In the Eighth Class in Rudolf...

Date published: Friday, 01 December 1967 00:00 Author: Franklin G. Kane Contact details: Contact tab available on Waldorf library site Source: http://www.waldorflibrary.org/articles/36-geography-in-fourth-grade   Published in Education as an Art Vol.26, # 1 – Winter 1967 One of the great challenges and joys of being a class teacher in a Waldorf School is the response and...

By David Mitchell   The 15-year-old Ninth Graders stand before us. When we observe them, what is it that we notice? Quite fast we may see that they are filled with emotional energy. They don’t seem to think, but rather they ‘do’ things and then watch the results. They are passionate, irascible, and apt to be carried away by their own impulses; and, yet they...

by Graham Kennish (Reprinted from Steiner Education, Vol.22, No.1)   ‘Your body is a space capsule, your head the command module’ so begins the introduction to a 3-D moving pop-up picture book on the human body now available in the U.K. ‘When you reach puberty your hormones switch on’ announces a heading in the London Science Museum permanent exhibition...

Researchers found that for every hour per day spent watching specially developed baby DVDs and videos such as ‘Baby Einstein’ and ‘Brainy Baby’, children under 16 months understood an average of six to eight fewer words compared to children who did not watch them. – Aric Sigman Conventional wisdom holds that access to technology stimulates thinking, making it possible...