• DOI:10.1177/016146818008100301
• Corpus ID: 141713434

An Introduction to Waldorf Education

@article{Barnes1980AnIT,
  title={An Introduction to Waldorf Education},
  author={Henry Barnes},
  journal={Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education},
  year={1980},
  volume={81},
  pages={1 - 9}
}

• H. Barnes
• Published 1 March 1980
• Education
• Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

As one of the most rapidly growing yet least known independent, nonsectarian school movements in the free world today, Rudolf Steiner or Waldorf education should be brought to the attention of all serious students of education. The movement is not new, having originated sixty years ago in Central Europe immediately after World War I. Nor is it a newcomer to the United States, where the first Rudolf Steiner School was established in 1928 in New York City. To most Americans, and especially to those familiar with the educational scene today, it is however surprising to learn that some fifty thousand children are being educated in nearly two hundred schools in eighteen or more countries of the noncommunist world and that there are presently sixteen schools that are members of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (fourteen in the United States and two in Canada) and at least an equal number that are either already underway or are preparing to start. In addition, there is a flourishing Waldorf school in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as schools in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and considerable interest in the educational philosophy and methods in Mexico. What stands behind these schools and what distinguishes their educational approach? This article will briefly outline the history of the Waldorf movement and seek to give an introduction to the philosophy and methods that underlie it.