Pedagogy

Motto for Pedagogy

Infuse yourself with imaginative power,
have the courage of truth,
sharpen your sense of spiritual responsibility.

Rudolf Steiner (Lit.:GA 269, p. 174)

Pedagogy (Greek: παιδαγωγία paidagogía "education, instruction"; derived from παῖς pais "boy, child" and ἄγειν ágein "to lead, to guide") is concerned with the theory and practice of human education. Today, its foundations are mainly scientifically researched and elaborated in educational science, which, however, in the sense of Waldorf education, must be expanded into a much more comprehensive art of education if it is to do justice to the whole human being. By its very nature, science can only grasp that which is universally valid. Art, on the other hand, arises from individual creative activity. The artistic attitude and ability are therefore particularly suited to grasping the individual nature of the child.

„If you want to educate people with abstract scientific content, they will not experience anything of your soul. He will only experience something of your soul if you confront him artistically, because in the artistic each one must be individual, in the artistic each one is a different one. The scientific ideal is precisely that everyone is like everyone else. It would be a beautiful story - as they say nowadays - if everyone taught a different science. That can't be, because science is reduced to that which is the same for all people. In art, however, each person is an individuality. Through the artistic, therefore, an individual relationship of the child to the stimulating and active human being can come about, and that is necessary. It is true that in this way one does not, as in the first years of childhood, have a total physical feeling of the other human being, but one does have a total feeling of the soul of the one who stands opposite one as a guide.

Education must have soul, but as a scientist one cannot have soul. One can only have soul through what one is artistically. One can have soul if one shapes science artistically by the way one presents it, but not by the content of science as it is conceived today. Science is not an individual matter. Therefore, it does not establish a relationship between the leader and the led at the age of compulsory schooling. All teaching must be permeated by art, by human individuality, and it is the individuality of the teacher and educator that is more important than any elaborate programme. It is this that must work in the school.“ (Lit.:GA 217, p. 160)

Good pedagogy requires a healthy, unbiased pedagogical instinct. Pedagogy cannot be pressed into abstract laws.

„A pedagogy and didactics that puts its rules into abstract laws is really something for the practical educator and teacher that gradually brings him into a life situation, as if he were constantly stepping on his own toes and wanting to walk; it deprives one of all impartiality. If one should always think: How should we actually educate? What rules do pedagogy and didactics prescribe? - then one loses one's impartiality, then one loses the justification of the instinctive. This is not the effect of pedagogy and didactics built on an anthroposophical basis; they are much more intimately involved in the whole of human life, and the elementary educational instincts are not undermined, but rather they are stimulated, enlivened, warmed up, strengthened. One does not lose one's impartiality, but one deepens it, one enlivens it. This is what anthroposophical pedagogy and didactics strive for in the teacher, in the educator.“ (Lit.:GA 303, p. 95f)

Literature

• Stefan Leber: Die Menschenkunde der Waldorfpädagogik: Anthropologische Grundlagen der Erziehung des Kindes und Jugendlichen, Verlag Freies Geistesleben 1993, ISBN 978-3772502613
• Wilfried Gabriel: Personale Pädagogik in der Informationsgesellschaft. Berufliche Bildung, Selbstbildung und Selbstorganisation in der Pädagogik Rudolf Steiners, Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften 1995, ISBN 978-3631479124
• Michaela Strauss, Wolfgang Schad (Hrsg.): Von der Zeichensprache des kleinen Kindes: Spuren der Menschwerdung - mit menschenkundlichen Anmerkungen von Wolfgang Schad, 6. Auflage, Verlag Freies Geistesleben 2007, ISBN 978-3772521348
• Ernst-Michael Kranich: Anthropologische Grundlagen der Waldorfpädagogik, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 978-3772517815
• Jost Schieren (Hg.): Handbuch Waldorfpädagogik und Erziehungswissenschaft, Beltz-Juventa, Weinheim - Basel 2016, ISBN 978-3-7799-3129-4
• Johannes Kiersch: Die Waldorfpädagogik: Eine Einführung in die Pädagogik Rudolf Steiners, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3772526848; eBook ASIN B018UD710A
• Johannes Kiersch: „Mit ganz andern Mitteln gemalt“ - Überlegungen zur hermeneutischen Erschließung der esoterischen Lehrerkurse Steiners, in: Research on Steiner Education Vol.1 No.2 2010 pdf
• Ernst-Christian Demisch (Hersg.), Christa Greshake-Ebding (Hrsg.), Johannes Kiersch (Hrsg.): Steiner neu lesen: Perspektiven für den Umgang mit Grundlagentexten der Waldorfpädagogik (Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge der Alanus Hochschule für Kunst und Gesellschaft, Band 12), Peter Lang GmbH 2014, ISBN 978-3631649695, eBook ASIN B076FCC8PN
• Horst Philipp Bauer (Hrsg.), Peter Schneider (Hrsg.): Waldorfpädagogik: Perspektiven eines wissenschaftlichen Dialoges (Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge der Alanus Hochschule für Kunst und Gesellschaft, Band 1), Peter Lang GmbH 2005, ISBN 978-3631546338
• Uwe Mingo: Leitfaden und Praxishandbuch zu Rudolf Steiners Pädagogik, Achamoth Vlg., Schönach/Bodensee 1998, ISBN 3-923302-08-8
• Frans Carlgren: Erziehung zur Freiheit. Die Pädagogik Rudolf Steiners, 11. Auflage, Verlag Freies Geistesleben 2016, ISBN 978-3772516191
• Henning Kullak-Ublick: Jedes Kind ein Könner: Fragen und Antworten zur Waldorfpädagogik, Verlag Freies Geistesleben 2017, ISBN 978-3772528736, eBook ASIN B073SDDWT9
• Gerhard Wehr: Der pädagogische Impuls Rudolf Steiners. Theorie und Praxis der Waldorfpädagogik, Fischer-TB, Frankfurt a.M. 1983, ISBN 3-596-25521-X
• Heinz Brodbeck (Hrsg.), Robert Thomas (Hrsg.): Steinerschulen heute: Ideen und Praxis der Waldorfpädagogik, Zbinden Verlag 2019, ISBN 978-3859894549
• Rudolf Steiner: Geistige Wirkenskräfte im Zusammenleben von alter und junger Generation. Pädagogischer Jugendkurs., GA 217 (1988), ISBN 3-7274-2170-3 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Ritualtexte für die Feiern des freien christlichen Religionsunterrichtes und das Spruchgut für Lehrer und Schüler der Waldorfschule, GA 269 (1997), ISBN 3-7274-2690-X English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Die gesunde Entwickelung des Menschenwesens. Eine Einführung in die anthroposophische Pädagogik und Didaktik., GA 303 (1978), ISBN 3-7274-3031-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.