Austrian polymath (1861–1925) who founded Waldorf education and formulated anthroposophy, the spiritual-philosophical framework the pedagogy draws on. The first Waldorf school (the Freie Waldorfschule Uhlandshöhe) opened in Stuttgart on 7 September 1919, with Steiner as its pedagogical leader, at the invitation of Emil Molt of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory, as a school for the children of Molt’s workers.
Steiner’s developmental scheme organises Waldorf schooling: imitation and play in early childhood; imagination and story in the middle years; independent judgment in adolescence. The scheme is a claim, not settled science, and critics have argued that it can treat all children of an age as essentially alike. Serious Waldorf schools hold the method and its practical fruits while remaining candid that the underlying philosophy is a philosophy.
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This page is part of the Valley of Grace High School Decision Tool Glossary.