Waldorf education (also called Steiner education) is based upon the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, and his spiritual/religious philosophy anthroposophy. ^{[1] [2]} Waldorf education emphasizes an imaginative and holistic approach to education,^[3] with spiritual values central to the curriculum, ^[4] and training of teachers.^{[5] [6]}

Waldorf education is practised in close to 1000 ^[7] established independent private Waldorf schools located in about sixty different countries, in "Waldorf-method" government-funded schools, in homeschooling environments; and in special education.

Description

Waldorf education was founded in the early 20th Century out of the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, and has been developed through the research and work of Waldorf pedagogues since.^[8][9] Waldorf schools aim to "educate the whole child - head, heart, and hands" - to develop the intellect, emotional life, and practical abilities in harmonious balance.^[10] Their curriculum follows Steiner's pedagogical model of a child's holistic development, as expressions of the process of incarnation of an immortal soul and spirit in its gradual embodiment in the human body, its temporal earthly vehicle. Steiner believed that there are distinct seven-year human developmental stages, of which there are three during childhood, each having its own distinctive learning requirements:^[11]

• During early childhood, learning (language and skill acquisition) is largely experiential, imitative and sensory-based.^[12]
• In the elementary school years, learning naturally occurs through appealing to the imagination, especially through creative (especially artistic) activity.^[13]
• Finally, during adolescence, the capacity for abstract thought and conceptual judgement develops.^[14]

Thus, the Waldorf approach to early childhood education (through age 6/7) emphasizes learning through doing (imitation of practical activities)^[14]. The approach to the elementary years (ages 7-12 or 7-14) emphasizes learning through the imagination, "feeling intelligence" and artistic expression.^[15] The Waldorf approach to the middle (ages 12-14) and high school (ages 14-18) years emphasizes learning through intellectual understanding; "adolescents focus on ethics, social responsibility, and mastery of complex and rigorous subject matter".^[15] Waldorf education attempts to integrate practical, artistic, and intellectual approaches into the teaching of all subjects.^[10]

Pedagogy

Pre-school and kindergarten: birth to age 6 or 7

Waldorf schools emphasize that children in the early stages of life learn through imitation and example.^[16][17] Oral language development is addressed through circle games (songs, poems and games in movement), daily story time (normally recited from memory) and a range of other activities. ^[18] Substantial time is given for children to freely play; such an environment is considered to support the physical, emotional and intellectual growth of the child through assimilative learning.^[19]

Waldorf early childhood education emphasizes the importance of children experiencing the rhythms of the year and seasons, including seasonal festivals drawn from a variety of traditions. In Western cultures, these may include festivals at the winter solstice (Advent Spiral), Michaelmas and Martinmas.

Many Waldorf kindergartens and lower grades ask or require that children be sheltered from media and popular cultural influences, including television and recorded music .

Elementary education: age 6 or 7 to puberty

In Waldorf schools, elementary education generally begins when the child is nearing or already seven years of age. The elementary school curriculum includes two foreign languages - begun at age 6/7 - as well as a multidisciplined arts based curricula which includes drawing, drama, artistic movement and both vocal and instrumental music. ^[14]

The objective of Waldorf schools is to have a single teacher accompany a class throughout the elementary school years from Grade 1 through Grade 8;^[20] such continuity fosters learning.^[21][22] This teacher, usually referred to as the "main lesson" teacher, is responsible for teaching the principal academic lessons to a class. The main lesson teacher may also have responsibilities for some of the artistic and/or practical lessons; however, specialist teachers generally teach the latter. Academic instruction is integrated with the visual and plastic arts, music and movement. ^[23]

Throughout the elementary years, an imaginative approach is encouraged; ^[23] new material is introduced through stories and images, and the children create their own "textbooks", known as "main lesson books".^[24] The school day generally starts with a one-and-a-half to two hour "Main Lesson", that explores a single academic subject over the course of about a month's time^[20] and generally includes recitations of poetry, including a verse written by Steiner for the start of a school day,^[25].

Secondary education

In most Waldorf schools, pupils enter secondary education (9th grade/year nine) when they are about fourteen years old. The education is now wholly carried by specialist teachers. Though the education now focuses much more strongly on academic subjects,^[26] students normally continue to take courses in art, music, and crafts. The curriculum "focuses on helping the student develop a sense of competence, responsibility and purpose"^[27]; ethical principles and social responsibility are cultivated^[15]

While the elementary education focuses the child's experience on the teacher as an authority, pupils are now encouraged to begin a more independent development of "vital and creative" thinking.^[28]

Curriculum

Introduction of reading and writing

In Waldorf education the written language is first introduced at age six or seven; reading is introduced subsequently to writing.

Main lesson books

In both the elementary school and secondary school, most academic subjects are taught in "main lesson" blocks. For these blocks, each pupil writes and illustrates a "main lesson book", a self-created 'textbook' based upon the content learned. Over time, children are encouraged to explore their own creativity in their main lesson book.^[29]

Foreign languages

- Most Waldorf schools begin teaching two foreign languages from first grade/ class 1 (age six-seven) on. Foreign language instruction in the first years is purely oral; by the end of class 3, the written forms of the languages are introduced. ^{[citation needed]}

Art and crafts

• Painting is normally a weekly experience in the early years. Art instruction continues through the high school for all students.
• In the elementary years, drawing is practiced daily and handwork [knitting] is practiced several times weekly, with projects which may include cushions, socks and gloves. For pedagogical reasons, full-color figures are usually drawn, not outlines. A special discipline called Form Drawing, created by the early Waldorf pedagogue Hermann von Baravalle, focuses on linear forms and is based on his belief that the form-drawing exercise creates a balance between mind and body.
• Woodworking normally begins during 5th or 6th grade. Sculpting in clay is often introduced around the same time.
• In high school, the crafts curriculum includes woodworking, basketry, weaving and book-binding (not every school offers all of these). Art instruction continues.^[30]

Music

• The children sing daily with their class teacher. Generally, weekly singing lessons with a specialized music teacher begin at an early age and continue as choral instruction through to age 18. Music is also integrated into the teaching of subjects such as arithmetic, geography, history and science.^[31]

• Recorders, usually pentatonic, are introduced in first grade/ class 1, the familiar diatonic recorder in third grade / class 3, when the children also take up a string instrument: either violin, viola or cello. Waldorf pupils are generally required to take private music lessons when a class orchestra is formed, usually at age 10. By age 11, the children may switch to (or add) other orchestral instruments such as the woodwind or brass. Orchestral instruction continues through to 18, though in many schools it becomes elective at some point.^[32]

Eurythmy

A movement art created by Steiner, Eurythmy, is required in most Waldorf schools, generally from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The movement is usually performed to poetry or music, and aims to create a marriage of movement, the performer's inner experience and the spiritual content of the piece.

I speak in all humility when I say that within the Anthroposophical Movement there is a firm conviction that a spiritual impulse of this kind must now, at the present time, enter once more into human evolution. And this spiritual impulse must perforce, among its other means of expression, embody itself in a new form of art. It will increasingly be realised that this particular form of art has been given to the world in Eurythmy.

It is the task of Anthroposophy to bring a greater depth, a wider vision and a more living spirit into the other forms of art. But the art of Eurythmy could only grow up out of the soul of Anthroposophy; could only receive its inspiration through a purely Anthroposophical conception.

Rudolf Steiner, "Lecture on Eurythmy" ^[33]

Nature and science

From about age 9, formal nature studies begin. The curriculum includes blocks on farming (aged 10), Man and animal (aged 11), Plant and Earth (aged 12) and geology (aged 13). Children are taught that they are interdependently connected with nature and the environment around them, and that that as a result of that interdependence, how they treat nature and the environment is at least as important as how they treat themselves and each other.^[34]

At the secondary school level (fourteen years of age and up), Waldorf schools study the historical origins, cultural background, and philosophical roots and consequences of scientific discoveries. By the end of their secondary school education, students are expected to have a grasp of modern science equivalent to that achieved in other schools.

Standardized Testing

Waldorf pedagogues generally consider standardized tests problematic, especially in the elementary grades, considering with many mainstream pedagogues that they do not measure "initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiousity, effort, irony, judgment, commitment, nuance, good will, ethical reflection or a host of other valuable attributes."^[35]

An independent study compared the performance of pupils in German Waldorf schools with those of pupils in the state Gymnasia (selective high schools) on the rigorous German achievement test. The study found that Waldorf pupils passed at triple the rate of the state-school students.^[36]

Celebrations and Festivals

Most private Waldorf schools celebrate festivals.^[25] Festivals can be secular in character, combine elements of several religious traditions, as is frequently the case in multi-cultural settings, or represent the dominant local tradition, as is generally the case in parts of Europe (Christian festivals), Egypt (Islamic festivals), Israel (Jewish festivals, but see Intercultural links in socially polarized communities), and India and Thailand (Buddhist festivals).

Media influences

Waldorf schools often discourage early use of electronic media, especially television viewing for younger children.^[37]

Governance

There are coordinating bodies for Waldorf education at both the national (e.g. the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America and the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship in the UK and Ireland) and international level. These organizations certify the use of the registered names "Waldorf" and "Steiner school" and offer accreditations^{[citation needed]}, often in conjunction with regional independent school associations^[38], as well as some schools being accredited by governmental authorities^[39].

Within these restrictions, one of Waldorf education's central premises is that all schools should be self-governing and that teachers have a high degree of autonomy within their own classrooms.^[23] Most Waldorf schools do not have a person acting as principal or headmaster, but rather a group of teachers who decide on pedagogical issues. This group is often known as the college of teachers, which normally decide issues on the basis of consensus, and are usually open to all full-time teachers who have been with the school for a certain period. Accordingly, each school is unique in its approach and may act solely on the basis of the decisions of the college of teachers, with respect to setting policy or other actions pertaining to the school and its students. ^[25]

For more information about school organization and administration, see Waldorf schools' organization and administration.

Social mission

Wider social purpose

Besides seeking to foster creative development of the "whole child", Steiner also started the Waldorf movement in order to help fulfill a social purpose: that education, while remaining fully accessible and available to all regardless of economic background, should eventually cease to be controlled by the State, and should instead come to depend on the free choices of families and teachers freely developing a highly pluralistic and diverse range of schools and educational options.^[40]

Steiner held that where the State administered education, culture was crippled in its ability to impartially distinguish good from bad in state action and in economic life. Without the capacity to make impartial, independently-based critiques, i.e., critiques not controlled by the state and economic interests, society would proceed relatively blindly. He also held that educators whose methods and work were determined by the State often had their competencies and creativity greatly weakened through the lack of full self-responsibility and independence. ^{[40] [citation needed]}

Social health, he believed, required education to be a matter of freedom and pluralism.^[40] At the same time Steiner made compromises with the State's school regulations.^{[40][citation needed]}

Intercultural links in socially polarized communities

Waldorf schools have linked polarized communities in a variety of settings.

• Under the apartheid regime in South Africa, the Waldorf school was one of the few schools in which children of both races attended the same classes, and this despite the ensuing loss of state aid. The Waldorf training college in Cape Town, the Novalis Institute, was praised by UNESCO as "an organization of tremendous consequence in the conquest of apartheid".^[41][42]
• In Israel, when the Harduf Waldorf school attempted to include the local Arab community, the educational authorities threatened to withdraw funding; the school responded by beginning a joint project with that community to run parallel schools with rich contacts. A joint Arab-Jewish Waldorf kindergarten has also been founded in Hilf (near Haifa).^[43]
• In Brazil, a Waldorf teacher, Ute Craemer, founded a community service organization providing training and work, health care and Waldorf education in the Favelas (poverty-stricken areas of the city). ^[44]

Links to UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO, has chosen a number of Waldorf schools to be associated project schools, including at least seven UNESCO Waldorf schools in Germany, as well as schools in Africa and Asia. ^[45] UNESCO also sponsored an exhibit about the Waldorf schools ^[25] at the 44th Session of their International Conference on Education in Geneva. An exhibition catalog was published by UNESCO under the title Waldorf Education Exhibition Catalog On Occasion of the 4th Session of the International Conference on Education of UNESCO in Geneva. ^[46]

History

Waldorf education was developed by Rudolf Steiner as an attempt to establish a school system that would facilitate the inclusive, broadly based, balanced development of children. Though he had written a book on education, The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy, twelve years before, his first opportunity to open such a school came in 1919 in response to a request by Emil Molt, the owner and managing director of the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Company in Stuttgart, Germany. The name Waldorf thus comes from the factory which hosted the first school.

The school "defied the conventions of the time in being coeducational...open to children of any background (without entrance examination), comprehensive (from [first grade] through high school) and independent of external control."^[47] The teachers had primary control over the pedagogy of the school, with a minimum of interference from the state or from economic sources. For the first year the school was legally a company school and all teachers were listed as workers at Waldorf Astoria; by the second year the school had become an independent legal entity. The Stuttgart school grew rapidly, opening parallel classes, until political interference from the Nazi regime limited and ultimately closed the school:"Always a thorn in the side of the Nazis, the Waldorf school was harassed and plagued by constant injunctions. Soon the existence of the first grade was forbidden, in an attempt to throttle the school from below. When this proved too slow, the authorities closed down the school completely."^[48]

As of 2005, there were over 900 independent Waldorf schools worldwide, including over 150 in the United States, and 31 in the UK and Ireland; in addition, there are about 1,500 Waldorf kindergartens in the world. In the United States there are a growing number of Waldorf methods based charter school and public school movements.^[49] Waldorf in public schools] Conscious Choice magazine</ref>. In Europe, especially in Switzerland, there is much more integration of the Waldorf approach and government-funded education than in the USA or England. There is also a large homeschooling movement utilizing Waldorf pedagogy and methods. ^[50]

Teacher education

Waldorf education teaching programs are in operation throughout the world, both in specialized colleges and training centers and as courses in established universities. The course of study normally includes methodologies of teaching, academic training in specialized disciplines, artistic development, and familiarity with child development (especially as researched by Steiner and later Waldorf educators).^{[citation needed]} It also generally aims to develop an understanding of the inner, or spiritual, basis of teaching; of the human being as composed of spirit, soul and body; and that an individual human being reincarnates in a series of lives. The latter implies that children bring certain gifts and challenges with them from previous Earth experiences, and have chosen a future destiny to develop in this life — a destiny which can be supported through the environment of family and school. This spiritual background is intended to enhance teachers' professional, personal and inner development. It is not intended to flow into the actual content taught to children.

Rudolf Steiner's "spiritual science" or Anthroposophy are normally central courses at any Waldorf teaching college or training. For elementary educators, artistic work will include painting, blackboard drawing, sculpture, singing, recorder playing, speech and drama work and movement (eurythmy and/or gymnastics). Practica in schools vary in length and will include opportunities for observation and for trial teaching.

Much of the education of any Waldorf teacher happens after graduation from the teaching program, however, including through further seminars and conferences (such as those run by the national associations of Waldorf teachers), publications, and on-the-job training in the classroom.

Private schools (including Waldorf schools) in the United States are generally exempt from meeting State licencing standards^[51]. Most independent private schools request candidates with at least bachelor's degree in the subject they intend to teach.^[52]

Spiritual Foundations

Anthroposophy's role in Waldorf education

Both historically and philosophically, Waldorf education grows out of anthroposophy's view of child development, which stands as the basis for the education's theory of child development, methodology of teaching and curriculum. The extent of information schools provide to prospective parents about these particular topics varies widely.

Religious orientation

Independent Waldorf schools tend to celebrate festivals and otherwise incorporate content that draws on their community's cultural background. In clearly Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu cultures, the religious traditions of the surrounding culture are often woven into the school's life, and this is generally one of the most appreciated aspects of school life ^{[citation needed]}. Challenges may arise in multicultural settings.

One parent upon reading the course of study at a Waldorf teachers' college described the training program as a religious seminary based upon the first year of the training's emphasis on anthroposophy.^[53] (Cf. the college's course of study.)

Lucifer and Ahriman

Lucifer and his counterpart Ahriman figure in Anthroposophy as the two faces of evil, or the two opponents of the Christ being.^[54] Steiner described Lucifer as the light spirit that motivates creativity, Ahriman as the dark spirit that motivates practicality.^[54] To balance these two opposing forces, Christ comes to earth as a sun god. ^[55] According to The Waldorf Teacher's Survival Guide, "Most of that which contributes to our work as teachers, preparation work, artistic work, even meditative work, is under the guardianship of Lucifer. We can become great teachers under his supervision, for he is responsible for much that has blossomed in the unfolding of civilization and culture in the past." ^[56] Steiner described the incarnation of Lucifer, in the third millennium B.C., to which he attributed the wisdom of paganism and intellectual consciousness. Ahriman, is attributed with materialism, nationalism, and literalism, and is expected to incarnate in the present millinneum. ^[57]

Concerns of Racism in Waldorf Schools

Concerns have been raised that latent racism in anthroposophy persists today due to the unreserved adherence to the writings of Rudolf Steiner among some followers of anthroposophy:

"Given the origin of Waldorf in early-20th-century Germany and its present in a class-biased and color-racist America, Waldorf educators need to work incessantly to clean their approach of unsuspected biases. For instance, with regard to race, a naive version of the evolution of consciousness, a theory foundational to both Steiner's anthroposophy and Waldorf education, sometimes places one race below another in one or another dimension of development." ^[58]

The Anthroposophical Society in America, however, refutes this claim:

We explicitly reject any racial theory that may be construed to be part of Rudolf Steiner's writings. The Anthroposophical Society in America is an open, public society and it rejects any purported spiritual or scientific theory on the basis of which the alleged superiority of one race is justified at the expense of another race.^[59]

American urban school studies

In 1996, an independent report was published on an urban Waldorf school in Milwaukee, highlighting potential racism in both teachers and students: ^[58]

Many of the children seemed to have a distorted and negative picture of blackness, an internalized prejudice that runs deep ... Too often, we heard degrading terms such as "big-lipped," "nappy-headed," "big butt," and "black-faced bitch" both in the classroom and at play ... The staff and faculty at Urban Waldorf represented a wide gamut of opinions on race and the possible presence of racism at the school. Some were quick to point to what they thought were unquestionable cases of racism inherent in Waldorf philosophy and practice, and others were as quick to deny the possibility of racism at any level, in any practice.

Though the research noted that the school was attempting to combat racism:

They also understand that they must try. And so we found teacher study groups on African American culture (particularly on storytelling and folklore), and various individual projects on urban life ... the Urban Waldorf faculty has a commendable level of engagement with the difficulties of racism.

Swedish study

A Swedish study comparing several hundred Waldorf students (grade 9 and 12) to corresponding students in Swedish public schools reported that the majority of the pupils in both types of school repudiated Nazism and racism. However, the proportion of pupils who suggested anti-Nazi and anti-racist solutions, i.e. solutions that involved counteracting or stopping Nazism and racism was considerably greater among the Waldorf pupils (93%) than among pupils at municipal schools (72%). ^[60]

German media debate

A broadcast on German television on February 28, 2000, the "Report from Mainz" discussed Waldorf education's relationship to racism. According to the broadcast, experts see that with parts of the Waldorf curriculum "the children are being taught mythology as historical fact and that a development theory placing special emphasis on Aryans is pedagogically untenable." According to Klaus Prange, educational specialist at the University of Tübingen:

This construction serves to create a consciousness in the individual that all of history, as Steiner reads it, with all it peculiarities, is present in every human being. With a clear advantage to our belonging, or supposed belonging, one must say, to the Aryan race, which Waldorf continues to treat as something that really existed^[61]

South West Broadcasting (SWR) who aired the program, found itself in a court battle immediately following the broadcast. The Association of Free Waldorf Schools requested the opportunity to present several rebuttals and that SWR refrain from making the following statements:

• a) Racism and anti-Semitism are part of the pedagogy of Waldorf schools;
• b) An increasing number of Jewish parents are removing their children from Waldorf schools; and
• c) Anti-Semitic incidents take place at Waldorf schools, during which the following statements are made:

You are not allowed to be Jewish, it would be better if you stopped learning Hebrew. And generally: don't attend Jewish religion classes, the Holocaust was necessary in order to atone for negative karma, the sacrifices were necessary and thus the Holocaust is legitimized. (Citation: Spokesperson for "Initiative Kinder des Holocaust")

The Frankfurt court, on March 23, 2000, rejected a petition by the Association of Free Waldorf Schools to issue a temporary injunction against SWR on points a) and c) and found that the claims made in the program segment about Waldorf schools were, indeed, true. The court temporarily prohibited SWR from disseminating the statement contained in point b) however SWR planned to appeal this ruling because it possessed statements by representatives of Jewish organizations that it says prove the accuracy of the statement. ^[62]

Studies of Waldorf education

U.K. Comparison with state-run education

In 2005, in a UK government-funded study^[63] the independent authors of the study praised the schools' ability to develop students through closer human relationships rather than relying purely on tests, but reported that the state sector could provide guidance to Steiner schools in teacher training and classroom management skills.

Study of U.S. Waldorf schools

A 1995 survey of U.S. Waldorf schools found that students were aware that their school offers "a different kind of education, that stresses the arts as well as basic studies"; that they were positive about and unusually able to articulate these differences; and that they experienced the school as a "community of friends". Both students and faculty were divided about the advantages and disadvantages of having a single class teacher for eight years. Students also spoke of the opportunity to grow in many ways and develop many interests through the broad range of activities offered, to learn when they were ready to learn, to develop imagination, and to understand the world as well as oneself better than was possible through conventional schooling. Many students spoke of the kindness of their peers and of how they had "learned to think things through clearly for themselves, how not to jump to conclusions, how to remain positive in the face of problems and independent of pressure from other people to think as they do."

Improvements the students suggested included more after-school sports programs, more physical education classes, more preparation for standardized testing, a class in world politics and computer classes. Some students criticized the faculty for being "too set in their ways".

The author of the study reported an "overall congruence between the teachers' perceptions of the extent to which their aims are achieved and the students perceptions of what they are learning."^[64]

Dr. Richard R. Doornek, Educational Curriculum specialist with the Milwaukee Public Schools, reported in 1996 that since switching to Waldorf methods the school has shown an increase in parental involvement, a reduction in suspensions, improvements in standardized test scores for both reading and writing (counter to the district trend), while expenditures per pupil are below many regular district programs.^[65]

Notes and References

External links

Waldorf Resources

• The Online Waldorf Library
• Waldorf Research Institute

Further Discussion, Outside Views and Reviews of Waldorf Schools

• News articles since 2004

• "Schooling the Imagination" by Todd Oppenheimer (a winner of the National Magazine Award for public interest reporting). Atlantic Monthly, September 1999

• "Steiner schools 'could help all" by Branwen Jeffreys. BBC News Report on British government-funded study on Waldorf education in the UK, 5july 2005.

• Centre for Research in Education and Democracy study of Waldorf education in Britain

• "Waldorf Succeeds in Public Schools" by Claudia M. Lenart. Conscious Choice, August 2000.

• "Contrarian finding: Computers are a drag on learning" by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, The Christian Science Monitor, 6 December, 2004.

• "Waldorf Education. Looking into the educational system developed by Rudolf Steiner" by Diane and Robert Gilman. In Context: A Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture, Summer 1984.

• "The Wisdom of Waldorf: Education for the Future" by Rahima Baldwin Dancy, Mothering Magazine, March/April 2004.

• "What is a Waldorf School?" Peterson's Guide to Waldorf schools.

• "Schooled in spirituality" by Chrisanne Beckner. Sacramento News and Review, February 03, 2005.

• "Diplomats tour `eco-campuses,' laud progress" by Mo Yan-chih, Taipei Times, January 23rd, 2005.

• Research Monograph Review of Waldorf Science

• "Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)" by Robert Todd Carroll, editor of The Skeptics Dictionary.

Research journals

Steiner's educational philosophy is continually being developed further. Journals of note publishing such material include

• Erziehungskunst, the organ of the German Association of Waldorf Schools
• Paideia, the journal of the Steiner-Waldorf Schools Fellowship in Britain.
• Research Bulletin of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America

Associations of Waldorf Schools

• Association of Waldorf Schools of North America
• Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship of the UK and Ireland
• Southern African Federation of Waldorf Schools

Finding a Waldorf School

• A list of Waldorf Schools worldwide (in pdf form)
• A list of Waldorf Schools in the US
• A list of Waldorf Schools in Germany
• Starting a Waldorf School

Teacher training programs

• Antioch New England Graduate School
• Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, New Hampshire
• Emerson College in Forest Row, Sussex, England
• Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto, Canada
• Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California
• Sunbridge College in Chestnut Ridge, New York
• The University of Plymouth, England
• West Coast Institute for Studies in Anthroposophy, Vancouver, Canada
• Sound Circle Center for Art, Seattle, Washington

Homeschooling

• Waldorf World's guide to homeschooling

Special Education

• Camphill Communities Intentional communities of people with disabilities that recognize the potential, dignity, spiritual integrity, and contributions of each individual.

Bibliography

Works by Rudolf Steiner

• Education: An Introductory Reader (Christopher Clouder, ed.), Sophia Books (March 2004), ISBN 1-85584-118-5. Collection of relevant works by Steiner on education.
• The Education of the Child, and early Lectures on Education (Foundations of Waldorf Education, 25), ISBN 0-88010-414-7. Includes Steiner's first descriptions of child development, originally published as a small booklet.
• The Foundations of Human Experience, ISBN 0-88010-392-2; also known as The Study of Man these fundamental lectures on education were given to the teachers just before the opening of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart in 1919.

Note: all of Steiner's lectures on Waldorf education are available in PDF form at this research site

Works by other authors

• Aeppli, W., The Developing Child ISBN 0-88010-491-0

• Armon J: The Waldorf Curriculum as a Framework for Moral Education: One dimension of a fourfold system. Annual Meeting of American Educational Research Association (AERA), Chicago, 1997.

• Bärtges, C. and Lyons, N.: Educating as an Art, NY 2003 ISBN 0-88010-531-3

• Clouder, C. and Rawson, M., Waldorf Education ISBN 0-86315-396-8

• Cusick, L, Waldorf Parenting Handbook ISBN 0-916786-75-7

• Edmonds, Francis, An Introduction to Steiner Education ISBN 1-85584-172-X

• Gardner, John F., Education in Search of the Spirit: Essays on American Education ISBN 0-88010-439-2

• Gloeckler, Michaela: A Healing Education, Rudolf Steiner College Press, Fair Oaks, 1989

• Harwood, A. C.: The Recovery of Man in Childhood ISBN 0-913098-53-1

• Masters, Brien, Adventures in Steiner Education ISBN 1-85584-153-3

• Thomas William Nielsen, Rudolf Steiner's Pedagogy Of Imagination: A Case Study Of Holistic Education, Peter Lang Pub Inc 2004 ISBN 3039103423

• Nobel, Agnes, Educating through Art: The Steiner School Approach

• Petrash, Jack, (2002): Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out ISBN 0-87659-246-9

• Querido, René, Creativity in Education ISBN 0-930420-05-5

• Querido, René, The Esoteric Background of Waldorf Education

• Spock, Marjorie, Teaching as a Lively Art ISBN 0-88010-127-X

• Wilkinson, R. (1996): The Spiritual Basis of Steiner Education. London: Sophia Books ISBN 1-85584-065-0