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Grade One ● ● ● Grade Two ● ● ● Grade Three ● ● ● Grade Four
Grade Five ● ● ● Grade Six ● ● ● Grade Seven ● ● ● Grade Eight

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The Waldorf Kindergarten
Waldorf education was born out of the worldview of its founder, Rudolf Steiner. This worldview, known as "anthroposophy," postulates that the education of the child accompanies and nurtures the process of "incarnation," allowing the child to interweave its spirit and soul with a physical body. The kindergarten years are a critical foundation for this process, hence the central role of the N/K teachers in the Waldorf school setting.

From Playing to Thinking
The emphasis on guided play -- and the de-emphasis on intellectual activity -- in the Waldorf kindergarten often leads to the misconception that the children aren't "learning" anything. This article explores the profound interrelationship of kindergarten play to scientific understanding in later years.

Guns and Doses: Should Young Children Play with Guns?
Parents often ask whether Waldorf kindergartners should be allowed to play with toy guns (or imaginary guns) in school or at home. A powerful article by Susan Johnson, M.D., exemplifies feelings commonly expressed in Waldorf schools -- and Eugene's commentary on her article provides a completely different perspective.

Freedom of Choice or Freedom from Choice?
In this comprehensive look at child-raising, we draw on the Waldorf philosophy of education and examine its ramifications in the home and classroom.

Beyond Cognition: Children and Television
Studies published in the July 2005 Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine conclude that television viewing tends to have an adverse effect on academic pursuits. In spite of this, many researchers are reluctant to voice condemnation of television viewing by children. By looking at the "mechanics" of the television set we may come to a better understanding of its impact on the child.

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Verses for the Primary Grades
In the Waldorf school recitation, games, and songs play a central role in strengthening the memory and providing a spatial and kinesthetic foundation for learning. This is a collection of verses that Eugene Schwartz wrote for his class as he shepherded them through the primary grades. They are used by Waldorf teachers throughout the world and may be freely downloaded.

Knitting and Intellectual Development
Knitting has recently become remarkably popular among college students and celebrities -- but it has been a pillar of the Waldorf school curriculum for ninety years. We examine the many ways in which knitting and other handwork activities stimulate intellectual development and instill a sense of achievement in the child.

Helping Your Child’s Teacher Communicate
Although Waldorf schools are unique in “honoring the oral tradition” as a viable means of transmitting knowledge, they are not immune to the “communication problems” that are rampant in virtually every institution in our time. What follows are some suggestions to ameliorate this problem, and to open up the conduits of conversation that must underlie every healthy parent/teacher relationship.

Guns and Doses: Should Young Children Play with Guns?
Parents often ask whether Waldorf kindergarteners should be allowed to play with toy guns (or imaginary guns) in school or at home. A powerful article by Susan Johnson, M.D., exemplifies feelings commonly expressed in Waldorf schools -- and Eugene's commentary on her article provides a completely different perspective.

The Teaching of History
For over ninety years, the Waldorf school approach to the teaching of history has been based on two principles. Throughout the tumultuous and mutable twentieth century, and now into the twenty-first, the Waldorf history curriculum has remained true to its focus on the myths, legends and biographies that underlie the development of "Western culture."

The Renewal of Education
In the year 1920, when these lectures were given, the Waldorf School in Stuttgart was barely eight months old, and the educational theories and methods developed by Rudolf Steiner were hardly known outside of Central Europe. Far more influential at that time – and still exerting a powerful effect on educational theories and methods to this day – were the educational philosophies of John Dewey and Maria Montessori. This introduction to a lecture series by Rudolf Steiner examines Waldorf education in its historical context.

Assessing without Testing
The Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind" and the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” have solidified the ranks of those who believe that high-stakes testing is the only way to advance education. We examine the innovative Waldorf approach to assessment in which learning outcomes are judged in myriad ways -- all of them child-friendly, and all of them effective.

The Cry for Myth
Stories, which offer some of the richest and multifarious ways of explaining phenomena, are underutilized in today's schools. We explore the way in which Waldorf education works with narrative content to meet the "cry for myth" that lives in today's child.

ADHD: A Challenge of Our Time
Though widely studied and broadly medicated, ADHD remains an enigmatic disorder. Using the remarkable picture of the child developed by Rudolf Steiner we explore the nature of thinking, feeling, and willing. What lives in the young person with ADHD may serve as a revelation of the needs of today's children.

Assuming Nothing
Near the end of the twentieth century, Judith Rich Harris’ book The Nurture Assumption (The Free Press, New York, 1998) appeared amidst great publicity and controversy, and then proceeded to all but disappear. Neither the controversy nor the rapid fade into obscurity should have been surprising. The argument arose because Judith Harris was questioning one of the most basic premises of modern child psychology: the seemingly incontrovertible fact that parental influence was the most important element in the life of the child.

High Stakes Testing
The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency may indeed bring much-needed change to many domains of public life, but it is unlikely that the emphasis on high-stakes testing will look any different under a Democratic administration. As this article indicates, both political parties have been enthusiastic supporters of the standardized testing that has characterized the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Do Waldorf schools present a viable alternative?

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The Rundbrief (Newsletter) of the German foundation Freunde der Erziehungskunst (“Friends of Waldorf Education”) asked Eugene Schwartz to write an article on the state of Waldorf high schools in the United States. To read his article in the English-language edition of the Rundbrief, click here and scroll down to page 21. The article is entitled “High School as the Secret Formula.”

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Talking About iGeneration
Although anthroposophists generally respond to the “media onslaught” of our time with horror and loathing, Eugene contends that there may be more to the media than meets the eye. In this overview of some of the antecedents of the computer and the Internet he points to some of the spiritual forces at work in the depths of the “iGeneration.”

Of Prophets and Profits
Otto Scharmer is one of the few contemporary thinkers who has been able to effectively bring the fruits of Rudolf Steiner's research into the world of business and non-governmental organizations. This article looks at his Theory U in the light of Steiner's investigations into the nature of the "past" and the "future."

Do The Festivals Have a Future?
As the Waldorf school movement continues to expand in North America, it is inevitable that there will be some dilution of its basic principles. With this in mind, it is not surprising that the passionate and comprehensive celebration of the Christian Festivals that characterized the Waldorf movement in its earlier years is fading.

The Web as Will and Idea
Several years ago the renowned anthroposophist Sergei Prokofieff wrote a remarkable article entitled "The Being of the Internet," in which he argued that the digital media are carriers of such darkness that they cannot be redeemed. Eugene Schwartz has written a response to this essay in which he contends that the use to which the media are put is of great import than the nature of the media themselves. Eugene's article, "The Web as Will and Idea," was recently published in News for Members and Friends, the newsletter of the Anthroposophical Society in America.

Blinking, Feeling, and Willing
Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, a popular study of the intuitive experience sheds interesting light on some of Rudolf Steiner's psychological insights. Gladwell's lively recounting of individuals who "acted first and thought later" can be of help to the sometimes moribund atmosphere of the Waldorf faculty meeting.