Articles

by Walter Johannes Stein

Published in the Journal, Present Age (England), in 1938, from the archives of the Rudolf Steiner Library, Ghent, NY
Download the article:Babylonean Gods and Heroes

IN CHAPTER V. OF HIS BOOK on Babylonian Life and History, Sir Wallis Budge makes the remark that the Babylonian story of the flood as told in the Gilgamish epic has nothing to do with the mythical hero Gilgamish. It is therefore difficult to see why this story has been included in the epic.

Compiled by David Mitchell, Douglas Gerwin, and Michael D’Aleo
Download the article:  Bibliography for Middle School Science

Resource books are important, however, there are many poor science preparatory books on the market, including some written by anthroposophists. The brief list of titles below was complied jointly by David Mitchell, Douglas Gerwin, and Michael D’Aleo. We recommend that as many as possible of the following books be available in your school’s faculty library:

by Alfred Schreiber

(translated by Gladys Hahn and Clara von Woedke)
Published in Education as an Art, Vol. 23, #1 & 2,Winter/Spring, 1963
Download the article: Bidding and Forbidding

Discipline is a worry to all parents and teachers; questions and conversations circle round and round the problem, which is becoming more and more urgent in today's education. Here in abridged form is Alfred Schreiber's attempt to solve it, from his 'Briefe über die religiosc Erziehung lvi Elternhaus" (Letters concerning religious instruction in the home).

A mother asked Rudolf Steiner, "At what age should one expect a child to obey?" This was his response: "Obey what is said to him in words - 'Do this, do that'? Not before the seventh year. If a child does not learn to obey by imitating, which is the right way up to his seventh year, if he simply obeys orders that are thrown at him, he will become a sneak and a hypocrite for the rest of his life."

by William Bryant
Published in Education as an Art Vol. 29, #1 – Fall/Winter 1970-71
Download the article: Biography in Education

We are all individuals. Occasionally we fiercely defend our individual rights and freedom as a unique entity -a centric being which we call "I." Often we feel imprisoned within the physical vessel we call a body - sometimes striving to protect itself from other bodies with a will and independence of their own. We can easily sense the meaning of Schweitzer's 'reverence for life.'

'I am the life that wills to live in the midst of other life which wills to live.' Yet as we set great store by our independence, so do all men possess a deep desire to transcend the personal and unite with the lives of other beings around us. We bear the polarities of independence and social need and desire. We are caught in, or suspended within, a dynamic tension between our self and our fellows about us. The personal and the self transcendent are a rack we are hung upon by the very nature of our humanity. There is a deep desire in man to know and to love his fellows, in spite of his weakness, and the frailties of his companions. Here lie the real roots of our need for biography. We can glimpse for a moment or two the correspondences between men. We can measure and reaffirm the nature of our humanity - that we belong with all other men to mankind.

by Letitia Costain

Published in Kindling, Issue 8, Autumn 2005 (UK)
Download the article: Bread Making in Parent-Child Groups

Bread making is one of the most satisfying activities to do in Parent and Child groups,
not only for the child but for the parents and carers.
It is one of the most basic ancient and comforting tasks that humans have created
through many transformations of ways of making it, owing to the fact that changes in
human consciousness bring about dietary change. To read more about this very
interesting journey Rudolf Hauschka’s book on Nutrition is very revealing about all
aspects of diet.

by Betty Staley

Originally published in Waldorf Journal Project # 13, Educating the Will
Download the article: Bringing the Will into Thinking in Adolescence

As we teachers work with adolescents, we experience the changes they go through in relation to their thinking, feeling, and willing. With the freeing of the astral body, new possibilities occur which change the relationship between the adolescent and the world. It is as if the young person is thrown into the world without a sense of direction. Yet the world of the early 21st century is very different from the one we teachers entered during our own adolescence.

Our generation experienced the dropping of the atom bomb. From that time on, no generation in humanity would live in security; but there would always be the possibility that the earth could be destroyed. All the images from science fiction about the destruction of the planet could really come true. The movie The Last Day confronted our generation with the terrible things that could happen if there is nuclear war.

Today’s generation is living with just as much insecurity, but in a different way. There is not so much the fear that an enemy could use a bomb to destroy the earth, but that we ourselves, we human beings are destroying the earth through our life style, through our greed for energy, for material goods, and for comfort. We have not only affected the extinguishing of species, but we are responsible for changing climate and geography. This is the condition that our young people face today.

Such a condition has several different influences on an adolescent’s will forces. Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is the movie of our students’ generation. Because it is being shown all over the world, adolescents in many countries are united in their awareness of this dire situation. What kind of influence does this have on their will forces?

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