Waldorf education is a pedagogy based upon the educational philosophy of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Learning is interdisciplinary, integrating practical, artistic, and conceptual elements.[1] The Waldorf approach emphasizes the role of the imagination,[2][3][4] developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytic component.[5][6] The overarching goals of this educational approach are to provide young people the basis on which to develop into free, moral[7][8] and integrated individuals,[2][9][10] and to help every child fulfill his or her unique destiny, the existence of which anthroposophy posits.[11][12] Schools and teachers are given considerable freedom to define curricula within collegial structures.[13]
The first Waldorf school was founded in 1919 to serve the children of employees at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart. As of 2009 there were 994 independent Waldorf schools located in sixty countries throughout the world;[14] as of 2001 there were 1400 kindergartens, 120 institutions for special education, and 68 social and teacher training institutions world-wide.[15] There are also Waldorf-based public and Charter schools, homeschooling environments,[2] and Waldorf ideas are being taken up, often less in whole than in part, by an expanding number of American public and private schools today.[16][17]
The educational approach is known in some countries as Steiner or Steiner-Waldorf education.
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Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:53:36 GM
assistant of Cowichan Valley projects, such as Sunrise . Waldorf. School and Island Oak and OUR Ecovillage. Article Source: waldorf. -. education. -951802.html.
