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Articles

Articles in the Online Waldorf Library come from many sources. Quite a number are from the archives of journals and publications published over the past 50+ years. When possible we have noted the specific source although this is not always possible.

Included in the "article" search database are all articles in currently in print journals: Gateways, the Research Bulletin and the Waldorf Journal Project.

The Online Waldorf Library includes:
Education as an Art
, the first widely circulated journal about Waldorf education in the United States. It began in 1940 as the Bulletin of the Rudolf Steiner School Association. The purpose of the journal was to inform Americans about Rudolf Steiner's pedagogy. In 1969 the journal became known as Education as an Art: A Journal for the Waldorf Schools of North America.

To search for articles specifically from Education as an Art, please enter the journal name into the search box "with the exact phrase".

Lectures from the 2002 AWSNA National Teacher's Conference, to search for the 8 lectures presented, please enter AWSNA lecture in the search box and click "exact phrase"

Class 7 Nutrition

Download the article: Class 7 Nutrition

The Clashing Rocks were an early hazard in Jason's journey, and in presenting aspects of Physiology to Class VII it is all too easy, even for the teacher whose own education has not itself already been formed in the materialistic tradition, to be trapped in matter. The 'Particular thing' can halt the proper description of the living process of which it is only a part, and the movement of the spirit somehow quickly crystallizes in mechanical technique. Main-lesson books are at risk of becoming records of frozen events, and, for once, beautiful illustration serves less the desired mood than the glorification of intellectual knowledge.

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Climate Crisis and Waldorf Education

Download the article: Climate Crisis and Waldorf Education

This article was originally published in the JOURNAL for Waldorf/R. Steiner Education Vol. 11.1, May 2009

From the pictures given by Rudolf Steiner in Occult Science, enlivened and deepened in the lessons of the School of Spiritual Science, our concepts gradually expand of what a human being is and how we are connected on all levels of existence with the world around us. Our relationship with the animals changes, with the plants and all that the earth holds and represents. Sun, moon and planets, even the stars themselves, become part of what, as a human being, I conceive myself to be.

In Rudolf Steiner's Karmic Relationships lectures of 1924 we are given one example after another of the working of karma in human evolution and history. Time and space disappear in the unfolding growth and drama of the soul's journey. Not only are we shown how the thoughts, feelings and actions of one life become transformed in a subsequent one; even volcanoes reveal themselves as effects of human activity in the past.1 What is within inexorably reveals itself without and what is without continuously becomes the teacher of what is within.

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Compost, Soil Chemistry and Wholeness

Download the article: Compost, Soil, Chemistry and Wholeness

Originally published in Biodynamics, #220, 1998 -
This article delves into biodynamic farming and the different kind of thinking and seeing needed to understand it.

Elements. Nutrients and Healthy Farms
It is the dilemma of a modern analyst to be stretched between "parts" and "whole": between the mere "data" of a soil or compost test and the "meaningful" interpretation in view of the whole field or farm. Where do the data and parts stop being separate and become whole and relevant? Can we reach the whole farm by way of the isolated chemistry parts?

The word "analysis" comes from the Greek ana ="from above" and lyse= lysis "to separate". The analyst separates and distinguishes what was once whole. The data or parts of the laboratory chemist appear irrelevant to the untrained eye such that there is essentially no relation to any whole. Without knowing the context it would be very hard to take the data and say "oh - that's a soil", let alone say "oh, healthy soil!". Even if we can go the further distance, having experience, it is still possible that a lab report may suggest that a soil is infertile yet the grower feels good about it. Similarly, we can construct the forage ration analysis which indicates excellent feed, but the animals don't seem well.
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Computing Curriculum Suggestions for a Waldorf School Part 1 of 2

A Curriculum Study published by the Research Institute for Waldorf Education and AWSNA

Part 1 of this paper is aimed at teachers of students in schools to help foster a dialogue on the development of computing curricula.

The scope of this paper is 1. a summary view of the  educational needs of students, 2. the exposition of a computing curriculum developing method, 3. suggestions for candidate computing curriculum topics per grade, and 4. elaboration of some of these topics into lesson plans and supporting content.

To read the entire article please click this link