Upper-School Teaching at Steiner Waldorf Schools: Cognitive Challenges for The Embodied Self

Abstract

Summary. The processes at work in Steiner Waldorf (hereafter ‘Waldorf’) upper school teaching show specific characteristics. They address, for example, heterogeneous learning groups, structuring the learning process in a manner that engenders in the student communication with the world and with themselves. The didactic preparation of teaching material should not merely facilitate this but also consider the embodied self with its diverse life modes. This process shall be considered in the language of phenomenological anthropology. The dialectics of the centric and eccentric positions will be the subject of discussion as will be the significance of engaged and detached perspectives.
Part I of this article, in this issue, discusses not only the teaching processes but also their philosophical setting. Two concrete examples from the classroom illustrate how this then translates into the appropriate path in practical teaching. In the next issue, Part II of the article will examine classroom methodology. This will discuss how classroom practice can help students, as embodied persons, to relate to their need for intellectual positioning and thus develop a way of thinking that does not alienate them from themselves as persons but puts their embodied, personal existence into context.