A Streaming Online Course with Eugene Schwartz
Over Eight Hours of Pre-Recorded Lectures
Exploring the Renewal of the Waldorf Curriculum.
Listen to Them Any Time From February 23 - 25
Course Fee: $150
important questions about the viability of the hundred-year-old Waldorf curriculum in the face
of the growing challenges of the twenty-first century. In response to this call, a group of
leaders in the European Waldorf/Steiner School movement has been working on an
unprecedented effort to collectively reform the Waldorf Curriculum out of new insights,
particularly regarding diversity and inclusion, sexuality and gender, and the nature of
childhood itself.
Working out of the respected and influential Alanus University in Germany, the reform project
has brought together many of the finest minds in the Waldorf movement, who, in turn, have been
leading workshops, creating videos, and authoring working papers about the needs and tasks
of contemporary Waldorf education.
Although it is all presented as work in progress, its conclusions already appear to be in place.
The Waldorf Curriculum will be reformed, and although the 40,000 teachers at work in the
1,270 schools worldwide played a very small role in these deliberations, it will be their
responsibility to bring the newly reformed conceptual framework into reality. And it may be no
coincidence that the year 2025 also marks the one hundredth anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death.
With this in mind Eugene Schwartz has endeavored to present this serious overview of what the
reform group is presenting, entitled Waldorf in 3-D. To the best of his knowledge, this is the
first time such an analysis of the curricular reform work has been attempted. The juggernaut
of videos and articles is not going to subside until the new curriculum is a fait accompli, and so
it is very likely that Eugene’s course will also mark the last time anyone ventures to ask for
more deliberation and transparency.
Lecture One
Curriculum and Culture 1
Does the Waldorf Curriculum even exist? The inner realities of the Waldorf impulse, from its “embryonic” and “fetal” stages from 1906-12, its “gestation” existence during the Great War, to its “birth” in 1919. The classroom and the spiritual world. Anthroposophy and Waldorf.
Lecture Two
Curriculum and Culture 2
The path of the child and the path of the teacher: opposite, yet interwoven. Recapitulation and recollection.The mission of Waldorf education in the light of the Rudolf Steiner’s insights concerning the end of the twentieth century and the struggles of the twenty-first.
Lecture Three
Curriculum Renewal 1
A close reading of a comprehensive working paper by two leaders of the Alanus group will provide an excellent overview of their goals.
Is the curriculum an artistic masterpiece that may not be altered? A look at the ways in which graduate school-style inquiry and research have supplanted spiritual science as the lingua franca of our movement. The challenge of translating Steiner’s terminology into contemporary concepts. Arboretal or Rhizomic?
Lecture Four
Curriculum Renewal 2
A continuation of the close reading of the working paper. Steiner's ideal plan. Contextualizing the curriculum, Working principles and core values. Developmental stages, trajectories, and social inclusion. The curriculum is not a plan, but a series of suggestions. Colonial and Eurocentric assumptions; the need for updating. ARLOs and LDs. The Art of Teaching for Learning book and digital app. The international demands upon Waldorf education.
Lecture Five
Culmination and Curriculum
Decolonizing and dehierarchizing the Waldorf movement. And the third D: deSteinerizing Waldorf education. The Grand Culmination. The Waldorf Movement in search of a mission. AWSNA's pivotal decisions and their ramifications. Deepening or Distraction? The Great Paper Chase.
Lecture Six
Technique or Transformation
The likely effect that the 2025 curriculum will have on schools and school enrollments. Practical advice to those schools seeking to support genuine diversity, equity, and inclusion. And suggestions to teachers and families who believe that Waldorf schools should not be platforms for social justice issues at all.
