{"product_id":"the-essence-of-waldorf-education-9780880106467","title":"The Essence of Waldorf Education","description":"\"It is a simple but essential principle: education aims at the future, at a time that we as educators do not yet know and cannot foresee. The challenges that will confront the children in the future are not those of the past--of our past, of our life story and our horizon. Times change, so do the realities of life, and in our times they change quickly and dramatically. Education aims at the future and that puts us as educators in a difficult situation: this future is not--or is only to an extent--identical with our past, with our life experiences. My youth, your youth: they are not identical with the adolescent constitution and life reality toward which we currently have to direct our educational efforts. Yet educate we must, and educating means preparing for a future.\" -- \u003cb\u003ePeter Selg\u003c\/b\u003e (from the book)\u003cp\u003eSchools reflect the state of society. If society is materialistic, competitive, egoistic, technological, and without concern for human values and long-term thinking, our schools will tend to reflect those values. However, what if education were about something else? What if education were about the future? What if education were a about nurturing a new generation of human beings, integrated in body, soul, and spirit and able to think for themselves and have the capacity to love? Perhaps the world would change. The Waldorf school, initiated and guided in 1919 by Rudolf Steiner, was conceived with precisely such an end in view.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this passionate, inspiring, and moving book, Peter Selg, speaks from a deep knowledge of Anthroposophy and from his extensive experience as a child psychiatrist. He returns to the original impulses behind the first Waldorf school to show their continuing validity and how they still respond to what we need.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom this view, Waldorf education is future-oriented, based on a holistic worldview and cosmology that is humanistic, scientific, and spiritual, and develops through a curriculum and a teacher-student relationship based on love. Its focus is the miracle of the developing human being. Recognizing the equal importance of thinking, feeling, and willing, Waldorf education works through bodily movement and art, as well as through intellect and mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWaldorf Education is not a theory but a living reality, and Selg brings this reality to life before us through the biography of the first Waldorf school. Thus, we learn to see it in a new way--in its essence, as a healing model of what education might become if the primary relationship, the inner core of a school, is the free relationship between teacher and student.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Steiner wrote: \"It is our task as teachers and educators to stand in awe of the individuality of the student and offer our help so that it can follow the laws of its own development. We are merely called upon to remove any obstacles in body or soul that might hinder the individuality from realizing its potential freely.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA verse given at the dedication of a building at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart expresses the essence of Waldorf Education in poetic form: \u003c\/p\u003eMay there reign here spirit-strength in love; \u003cbr\u003eMay there work here spirit-light in goodness; \u003cbr\u003eBorn from certainty of heart, \u003cbr\u003eAnd from steadfastness of soul, \u003cbr\u003eSo that we may bring to young human beings\u003cbr\u003eBodily strength for work, \u003cbr\u003einwardness of soul, \u003cbr\u003eand clarity of spirit.\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Essence of Waldorf Education\u003c\/i\u003e is a translation from German of \u003ci\u003eDer geistige Kern der Waldorfschule\u003c\/i\u003e (Verlag Ita Wegman Institut, 2009).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSelg, Peter:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBorn 1963\u003c\/b\u003e, Stuttgart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e1986-1993\u003c\/b\u003e Study of human medicine at the University of Witten\/Herdecke, in Berlin and Zurich. Doctoral thesis: Attempt to systematize Rudolf Steiner's human physiological ideas. An analysis of the entire lecture and written work (Witten\/Herdecke 1995).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e1993-2000\u003c\/b\u003e Further training as a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. Senior physician in the psychiatric department for adolescents and young adults at the Herdecke Community Hospital.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2000-2002\u003c\/b\u003e Research associate at the Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology (Freiburg).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2002-2006\u003c\/b\u003e Head physician at the Ita Wegman Clinic Arlesheim (adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy); since 2006 establishment and management of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Anthroposophical Research\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSince 2007\u003c\/b\u003e professorship for medical anthropology and ethics at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Alfter near Bonn); teaching in the Studium fundamentale and in the accompanying studies in anthroposophic medicine at the University\/Witten-Herdecke\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSince 2020, \u003c\/b\u003eco-leader of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Section of the School of Spiritual Science (Goetheanum)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Steiner Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50675970736402,"sku":"9780880106467","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_767319ca-0638-4d67-83b6-36844cdc16a2.jpg?v=1733874654","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-essence-of-waldorf-education-9780880106467","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}