The continuation of the WaldorfToday article Three More Years is below.
To read the entire article, click here.
Three More Years:
Reflections on Rudolf Steiner’s Death Day
By Eugene Schwartz
Continued from the March 29, 2022
issue of WaldorfToday
In an oft-quoted interview on a 1955 broadcast of See It Now, the commentator Edward R Murrow asked Jonas Salk, developer of the first polio vaccine, “Who owns the patent on this vaccine?” to which Salk responded, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” Nearly four decades later, this question might have been posed again as the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America transmogrified the term “Waldorf Education,” and later “Rudolf Steiner Education,” into Service Marks.
Rudolf Steiner once said that institutions created by human beings have a lifespan that parallels the “biblical” human life span, i.e. seventy years. As an it approaches that threshold, the corporation, or not-for-profit, or association should engage in its own dismantling and share its resources and expertise with younger endeavors. Through such a “death and transmigration” the spiritual impulse underlying the older institution may be revitalized in a new and youthful body. As the 1990s approached and the worldwide Waldorf movement attained its seventieth year, the time had come for such a metamorphosis so that the Michaelic Sun-impulse carried by existing Waldorf schools might expand into more diverse directions. On the dual pretext that it was “protecting Rudolf Steiner” — particularly from the Internet attacks of the Waldorf Critics’ List — and that it was ensuring that “Waldorf” would never become generic term like “Kleenex,” AWSNA pulled down the shade and drew the light more tightly to itself.
As it happened, the 1990s were the decade during which the first charter schools cultivating Waldorf educational principles were being founded. It was also the time that the Internet not only extended the reach of Waldorf’s opponents, but also enhanced the resources and networking power of some of Waldorf’s most passionate adherents, among them countless American homeschoolers. At the very moment that the impulse of Waldorf education was ripe to cross the threshold of its transformation, the North American Waldorf movement was ready to adapt to new forms and directions and reach families from a broader sector of society.
How did AWSNA respond to this spiritual turning point? By contracting, excluding, and holding the Service Mark in a rigor mortis grip. For nearly thirty years, AWSNA’s apparatchiks sent reams of threatening letters to charter schools, public school districts, and even Facebook groups that were attempting to expand the scope of Rudolf Steiner’s educational impulses. The heroic efforts of Kim John Payne in his battle against bullying in Waldorf schools were strangely paralleled by AWSNA’s bullying of Waldorf schools. It is ironic to realize that Steiner was himself opposed to calling the original “Free School” in Stuttgart a “Waldorf School,” because he felt that the name would evoke images of billboards promoting cigarettes. In Steiner’s eyes, “Waldorf” already was a commodity; he might be amused to hear the sanctimonious tones with which AWSNA invokes its Name.
The Service Mark may indeed have served as a life support system in the Association’s dotage, giving it both power (to accept and reject school candidates) and glory (“We own the Service Mark!”). However, it does not seem to have had any helpful effect on declining enrollments in the independent Waldorf schools, nor on the diminishing number of new independent schools forming in North America. In those areas, at least, the torch has clearly been passed to the schools practicing Waldorf education in the public and homeschool spheres. There are other Association missteps that are beyond the scope of this article but which I explore in my lecture course Does Waldorf Still Matter. But there is one more destiny-laden error that relates directly to Rudolf Steiner’s death day.
As it crossed from the first hundred years of Waldorf education to the next hundred years, AWSNA posted on its web page a statement that signaled a recognition, however unconscious, that Rudolf Steiner’s direct help to the independent Waldorf school movement was ending. This statement was the denunciation of Rudolf Steiner’s “racist statements.” It was composed in a tone of such sophomoric certainty and moral superiority that it all but cried, “You’re fired!” to the spiritual beings who nurture Waldorf education. With this (later mysteriously retracted) sentence, the independent Waldorf school movement in the United States accelerated the severance from Rudolf Steiner’s life and work that will very likely come to a not-so grand culmination in 2025.
As I indicated earlier in this article, Steiner’s direct influence must ineluctably wane over the next three years, so this severance need not be regarded as a failure. What is a failure, however, is that that this portal of denunciation was established not out of spiritually-imbued understanding, but rather out of conformity to influences in many respects antithetical to Waldorf education. The AWSNA conference of June, 2021, in which Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner were rarely mentioned and the adjective “Waldorf” was mostly codified as “Eurocentric,” exemplified the spiritual impoverishment that is likely to hold sway in the near future.
Although there certainly was some sincere idealism and earnestness behind the denunciation, it also served as yet another distraction, masking the spiritual emptiness that underlies AWSNA and many of its member schools in the twenty-first century. Taking a stand for Social Justice is easy in today’s media climate— just plug in the terms and concepts and acronyms that others provide, and you are woke. Working out of Anthroposophy is far more demanding, calling for clear thinking, individual judgment, and the struggle to be — awake.
Indeed, every time AWSNA takes up a new social justice cause, it means more meetings and required workshops for faculty, and very likely a new staff position in the school: DEI Coordinator, BIPOC Rep, Cyber Civics Director, LGBTQ Liaison, and so on. And this is in addition to the plethora of staff already in place: Advancement, Development, Enrollment. The more that AWSNA schools strive to be centers of Social Justice, the more they look and act like bureaucracies. With such a top-heavy structure, and with so little attention going to the pedagogical concerns of teachers, parents, and even students, we must concur with Yeats’ phrase, “The center cannot hold.”
With all of this in mind, I would like to suggest how the Waldorf movement may appear when the current three-year grace period comes to a close.
The best step for the shrinking independent Waldorf and the thriving public Waldorf schools to take right now would be to connect with local homeschoolers — even disaffected former school parents — and offer low-cost classes and activities to their children. Such a program has been in operation at the Yuba River charter school for several years and is exemplary in its scope and organization, while the Moraine Farm independent Waldorf school offers a homeschoolers’ program that is imbued with arts and crafts. Such programs are not only of mutual benefit in the here-and-now but will also make for a much more graceful transfer of a school’s resources and accumulated wisdom when its own mission has come to an end. For the next three years, in preparation for the century to come, may the Waldorf school movement “be busy being born” and, no less earnestly, “busy dying.”
Share your comments on this article with Eugene Schwartz at: iwaldorf@icloud.com
To read the entire article, click here.
Reflections on Rudolf Steiner’s Death Day
By Eugene Schwartz
Continued from the March 29, 2022
issue of WaldorfToday
In an oft-quoted interview on a 1955 broadcast of See It Now, the commentator Edward R Murrow asked Jonas Salk, developer of the first polio vaccine, “Who owns the patent on this vaccine?” to which Salk responded, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” Nearly four decades later, this question might have been posed again as the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America transmogrified the term “Waldorf Education,” and later “Rudolf Steiner Education,” into Service Marks.
Rudolf Steiner once said that institutions created by human beings have a lifespan that parallels the “biblical” human life span, i.e. seventy years. As an it approaches that threshold, the corporation, or not-for-profit, or association should engage in its own dismantling and share its resources and expertise with younger endeavors. Through such a “death and transmigration” the spiritual impulse underlying the older institution may be revitalized in a new and youthful body. As the 1990s approached and the worldwide Waldorf movement attained its seventieth year, the time had come for such a metamorphosis so that the Michaelic Sun-impulse carried by existing Waldorf schools might expand into more diverse directions. On the dual pretext that it was “protecting Rudolf Steiner” — particularly from the Internet attacks of the Waldorf Critics’ List — and that it was ensuring that “Waldorf” would never become generic term like “Kleenex,” AWSNA pulled down the shade and drew the light more tightly to itself.
As it happened, the 1990s were the decade during which the first charter schools cultivating Waldorf educational principles were being founded. It was also the time that the Internet not only extended the reach of Waldorf’s opponents, but also enhanced the resources and networking power of some of Waldorf’s most passionate adherents, among them countless American homeschoolers. At the very moment that the impulse of Waldorf education was ripe to cross the threshold of its transformation, the North American Waldorf movement was ready to adapt to new forms and directions and reach families from a broader sector of society.
How did AWSNA respond to this spiritual turning point? By contracting, excluding, and holding the Service Mark in a rigor mortis grip. For nearly thirty years, AWSNA’s apparatchiks sent reams of threatening letters to charter schools, public school districts, and even Facebook groups that were attempting to expand the scope of Rudolf Steiner’s educational impulses. The heroic efforts of Kim John Payne in his battle against bullying in Waldorf schools were strangely paralleled by AWSNA’s bullying of Waldorf schools. It is ironic to realize that Steiner was himself opposed to calling the original “Free School” in Stuttgart a “Waldorf School,” because he felt that the name would evoke images of billboards promoting cigarettes. In Steiner’s eyes, “Waldorf” already was a commodity; he might be amused to hear the sanctimonious tones with which AWSNA invokes its Name.
The Service Mark may indeed have served as a life support system in the Association’s dotage, giving it both power (to accept and reject school candidates) and glory (“We own the Service Mark!”). However, it does not seem to have had any helpful effect on declining enrollments in the independent Waldorf schools, nor on the diminishing number of new independent schools forming in North America. In those areas, at least, the torch has clearly been passed to the schools practicing Waldorf education in the public and homeschool spheres. There are other Association missteps that are beyond the scope of this article but which I explore in my lecture course Does Waldorf Still Matter. But there is one more destiny-laden error that relates directly to Rudolf Steiner’s death day.
As it crossed from the first hundred years of Waldorf education to the next hundred years, AWSNA posted on its web page a statement that signaled a recognition, however unconscious, that Rudolf Steiner’s direct help to the independent Waldorf school movement was ending. This statement was the denunciation of Rudolf Steiner’s “racist statements.” It was composed in a tone of such sophomoric certainty and moral superiority that it all but cried, “You’re fired!” to the spiritual beings who nurture Waldorf education. With this (later mysteriously retracted) sentence, the independent Waldorf school movement in the United States accelerated the severance from Rudolf Steiner’s life and work that will very likely come to a not-so grand culmination in 2025.
As I indicated earlier in this article, Steiner’s direct influence must ineluctably wane over the next three years, so this severance need not be regarded as a failure. What is a failure, however, is that that this portal of denunciation was established not out of spiritually-imbued understanding, but rather out of conformity to influences in many respects antithetical to Waldorf education. The AWSNA conference of June, 2021, in which Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner were rarely mentioned and the adjective “Waldorf” was mostly codified as “Eurocentric,” exemplified the spiritual impoverishment that is likely to hold sway in the near future.
Although there certainly was some sincere idealism and earnestness behind the denunciation, it also served as yet another distraction, masking the spiritual emptiness that underlies AWSNA and many of its member schools in the twenty-first century. Taking a stand for Social Justice is easy in today’s media climate— just plug in the terms and concepts and acronyms that others provide, and you are woke. Working out of Anthroposophy is far more demanding, calling for clear thinking, individual judgment, and the struggle to be — awake.
Indeed, every time AWSNA takes up a new social justice cause, it means more meetings and required workshops for faculty, and very likely a new staff position in the school: DEI Coordinator, BIPOC Rep, Cyber Civics Director, LGBTQ Liaison, and so on. And this is in addition to the plethora of staff already in place: Advancement, Development, Enrollment. The more that AWSNA schools strive to be centers of Social Justice, the more they look and act like bureaucracies. With such a top-heavy structure, and with so little attention going to the pedagogical concerns of teachers, parents, and even students, we must concur with Yeats’ phrase, “The center cannot hold.”
With all of this in mind, I would like to suggest how the Waldorf movement may appear when the current three-year grace period comes to a close.
- The unsustainable corporate model of the AWSNA member independent schools will lead to the closing of smaller schools and the hollowing out of the larger “established” schools. Having constrained the role of their class teachers and elevated academics over Imagination, many schools will be Waldorf in Service Mark only. No longer supported by the living impulse of Anthroposophy, they will be “legacy schools,” basking in their achievements during the independent schools’ Golden Age of the 1970s and 1980s, but out of touch with the needs of the children of the twenty-first century. The most committed anthroposophists among the faculty will have mostly been fired or retired, and while one or two teachers in a school who have tried to make Steiner’s path their own will continue to do some good in their constrained setting, they will be a disappearing breed. Because their schools are no longer supported by the spiritual world, they cannot, in turn, support the spiritual striving of their teachers. And this, in turn, means that teachers who continue to work out of Anthroposophy are doing so out of a genuine impulse of freedom, not because it is on their job description. For the most part, however, the type of idealistic and spiritually striving young people who joyfully became independent Waldorf school teachers in the twentieth century will now be drawn to biodynamic farming, the Christian Community, or work in Camphill villages. 2025 will mark the long “beginning of the end” for AWSNA and its institutions.
- As of this writing, there are sixty public Waldorf schools serving over 15,000 children. By 2025 that number will nearly double, and by 2030 “Waldorf” will be perceived by academia and the media as a public school methodology and will have far greater impact in the United States than the AWSNA membership schools could ever attain. The degree of spiritual support that public Waldorf schools may receive will depend less on their teachers and more on the caliber and inner life of their administrators. The strongest and most cohesive public Waldorf schools are guided by administrators who recognize crucial role of Steiner’s methodology in the Waldorf classroom and respect the striving and initiative of teachers who find ways to bring it to life within the public-school setting. At the same time there are administrators who have little interest in, or even antipathy towards, the spiritual foundations of Waldorf methodology. Through their opposition they, too, will have a role to play in the expansion of Steiner’s educational impulse into the public sector. In the present three-year period, these schools stand at the “end of the beginning.” They are likely to attain their own Golden Age mid-century, and by the last third of the century, at age 70, will be ready to pass on their resources to their successors.
- And who are those successors? Although the pandemic lockdown that commenced in the spring of 2020 threw many Waldorf schools into a state of panic and shortsighted responses, there were two groups of Waldorf practitioners that weathered the storm with equanimity. The one group included the thousands of homeschoolers whose children were already at home, and the second group was composed of the online Waldorf classrooms that did not have to scramble to plug into glitchy Internet services like Zoom and Google Classroom because they were already adept at distance learning. The unfortunate confluence of AWSNA’s pressure on its member schools to eviscerate the Waldorf curriculum in the name of euro-cleansing and its sudden celebratory acceptance of computers and mobile devices as learning tools led many parents to search for alternatives. This, in turn, has contributed to the founding of “homeschool pods” and “micro schools” serving families who, for the most part, want their children to receive a “real” Waldorf education, rather than the simulacra being offered in all too many schools. So many experienced Waldorf teachers and committed Waldorf families have joined or even helped to found these centers that we can speak of a ”Waldorf Diaspora,” the sort of migration of peoples that very often marks a new spiritual/cultural tipping point. One need only look at the “Jobs Listings” in this newsletter to recognize how many such endeavors have begun, and how rapidly their enrollments have grown. For many of these first adapters, such community schools offer an opportunity to teach in the spirit of “applied Anthroposophy” described by Rudolf Steiner as the basis of Waldorf education. For others, it means the possibility of working more deeply and effectively with smaller classes and providing the individualized attention that children’s paths of incarnation necessitate. The flexibility and mobility that such smaller schools possess gives them the responsiveness so needed in our tempestuous times. It is likely that many such schools will be established on the grounds of biodynamic farms and vineyards, anthroposophical clinics, near Christian Community chapels, and in Camphill villages. That is to say, Rudolf Steiner’s eldest daughter will take up residence with her younger sisters, and her new home will become the community school. And it is no less possible that such schools could be founded in neighborhoods in America’s inner cities. The hand-wrenching and justifiable guilt to which Waldorf schools subject themselves concerning their mostly white populations would be easily overcome by moving their campuses to urban locations with populations of color. The micro school model provides such a possibility.
The best step for the shrinking independent Waldorf and the thriving public Waldorf schools to take right now would be to connect with local homeschoolers — even disaffected former school parents — and offer low-cost classes and activities to their children. Such a program has been in operation at the Yuba River charter school for several years and is exemplary in its scope and organization, while the Moraine Farm independent Waldorf school offers a homeschoolers’ program that is imbued with arts and crafts. Such programs are not only of mutual benefit in the here-and-now but will also make for a much more graceful transfer of a school’s resources and accumulated wisdom when its own mission has come to an end. For the next three years, in preparation for the century to come, may the Waldorf school movement “be busy being born” and, no less earnestly, “busy dying.”
Share your comments on this article with Eugene Schwartz at: iwaldorf@icloud.com
To read the entire article, click here.
Resources and References
Michaelmas Musings Article
In 2019, five months before the Covid-19 pandemic erupted, Eugene wrote about Waldorf's 100th anniversary for WaldorfToday. He explored the "Core Principles" as examples of fragmentation, rather than commonality, and foresaw the challenges facing Waldorf schools as their first century came to a close.
Waldorf 2.0 Article
In the wake of the pandemic, Eugene discussed AWSNA's sudden and unapologetic about-face when confronted with public health pressures to accept the Internet as a learning modality.
Does Waldorf Still Matter? An Online Course
In this ten-hour long lecture series, Eugene explores the cosmic and earthly missions of Waldorf education. What are the deeper reasons for the decline of the Waldorf movement, particularly in North America, in the 21st century?
1919: Discord and Destiny, An Online Course
In these recorded lectures Eugene describes the social, artistic, and political climate out of which the first Waldorf school arose. The 1917-1921 Influenza epidemic, attempts at government overthrow, and Germany's humiliating losses in the Great War brought chaos — and also the possibility of a new impulse in education.
Waldorf Education for All
This 2010 documentary marks the first time that Waldorf Charter schools appeared in a film.
In 2019, five months before the Covid-19 pandemic erupted, Eugene wrote about Waldorf's 100th anniversary for WaldorfToday. He explored the "Core Principles" as examples of fragmentation, rather than commonality, and foresaw the challenges facing Waldorf schools as their first century came to a close.
Waldorf 2.0 Article
In the wake of the pandemic, Eugene discussed AWSNA's sudden and unapologetic about-face when confronted with public health pressures to accept the Internet as a learning modality.
Does Waldorf Still Matter? An Online Course
In this ten-hour long lecture series, Eugene explores the cosmic and earthly missions of Waldorf education. What are the deeper reasons for the decline of the Waldorf movement, particularly in North America, in the 21st century?
1919: Discord and Destiny, An Online Course
In these recorded lectures Eugene describes the social, artistic, and political climate out of which the first Waldorf school arose. The 1917-1921 Influenza epidemic, attempts at government overthrow, and Germany's humiliating losses in the Great War brought chaos — and also the possibility of a new impulse in education.
Waldorf Education for All
This 2010 documentary marks the first time that Waldorf Charter schools appeared in a film.
The Rudolf Steiner Course
The 12 recorded lectures in this course constitute one of the most in-depth studies of Rudolf Steiner's life and work in the English language. Alone among Steiner's biographers, Eugene places the man and the Initiate in the context of his time and setting.
Considering Waldorf
Filmed in 2013, this controversial documentary explored Waldorf private, public, and homeschooling methods and gave "equal time" to Dan Dugan, an outspoken critic of Waldorf education.
Light in the Darkness
This video by Eugene Schwartz was the first — and, thus far, the only — attempt to understand the importance of computers and devices in the context of Waldorf education.
Gender and Identity, an Online Course
As issues of gender dysphoria loom larger over the Waldorf movement, expert advice is needed — but, Eugene argues, so is a deeper understanding of all that the Waldorf teacher already has available in the curriculum and the classroom to help every child understand their the mystery of their identity.
The Online Conferences for Grades 1-8
Whether your school is at its beginning or approaching its end or somewhere in between, the Online Conferences will give you the grades preparation you need to be the best teacher your children can have.
The 12 recorded lectures in this course constitute one of the most in-depth studies of Rudolf Steiner's life and work in the English language. Alone among Steiner's biographers, Eugene places the man and the Initiate in the context of his time and setting.
Considering Waldorf
Filmed in 2013, this controversial documentary explored Waldorf private, public, and homeschooling methods and gave "equal time" to Dan Dugan, an outspoken critic of Waldorf education.
Light in the Darkness
This video by Eugene Schwartz was the first — and, thus far, the only — attempt to understand the importance of computers and devices in the context of Waldorf education.
Gender and Identity, an Online Course
As issues of gender dysphoria loom larger over the Waldorf movement, expert advice is needed — but, Eugene argues, so is a deeper understanding of all that the Waldorf teacher already has available in the curriculum and the classroom to help every child understand their the mystery of their identity.
The Online Conferences for Grades 1-8
Whether your school is at its beginning or approaching its end or somewhere in between, the Online Conferences will give you the grades preparation you need to be the best teacher your children can have.