Rudolf Steiner on Education: A Compendium

by Roy Wilkinson, Rudolf Steiner

Out of his extensive experience in the Waldorf movement as teacher and lecturer, Wilkinson gives a comprehensive survey of Steiner's educational thinking and work. Steiner's visits to Britain are described, including his meeting with Margaret Macmillan, a pioneer of the nursery school movement. This helpful overview can serve as an introduction to Waldorf education or as a useful source book.

Genres: Education

168 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1993

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Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Steiner's a weird guy. Dude thinks he can astral travel. He wrote some stuff about education which is 80% sensible and 20% that is batshit crazy such as: don't teach children to read until they are 10 and potatoes cause short term memory loss, oh, and eurythmy. The sensible stuff is great though - encouraging children to be children, imaginative play over technological reliance, and practical guides to when subjects should be introduced to children. I wish the state curriculum still included the Greek epics as recommended by Steiner.

More concerning to me is the wacky spirituality of Steiner. Anthroposophy tried to be an synthesis of the spiritual and the scientific (and an alternative to Blavatsky's Theosophy) but there is something unsettling about Steiner's contradictory mix: part Christianity, part Buddhist, part new age monism, and part nature worship/paganism. Interested to see how he tried to synthesise all these unresolvable ideologies into a cohesive whole so I will persevere and read a few more books by Steiner. Evola wrote a critique which should be interesting too. Fascinating stuff.

[Stuart Macalpine · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ideas Steiner promoted are clearly barking - really quite profoundly barking - but I have always found Steiner schools interesting. During reading this I realised it was published by my dear old friend Dan Large's family publisher in Stroud near Wynstones Steiner school, which I have visited and greatly enjoyed. So whilst this book has put me off reading anything more on Steiner, I still find his schools themselves appealing and fun, and will be visiting more in future.