EDUC07024 2022 Steiner Education

have an understanding of the main theoretical underpinnings of Steiner Waldorf pedagogy

recognise of the role of imitation in early learning

 understand the role of play in early learning

demonstrate a number of key skills with particular reference to language and narrative

develop a number of key skills with particular reference to craft activities with young children

Students attend weekly one hour lectures and two hour practical tutorial classes in which students engage in experiential learning, seminar discussion practical activities designed to link theory to practice.

Assignments will include both practical and theoretical dimensions.

Skills demonstration project; project assignment

Repeat assessment to be determined at the exam board with the input of the lecturer

1.        The epistemological basis of Steiner’s pedagogy.

Students will be taught how Steiner derived his epistemology from the scientific writings of Goethe and how his theory of knowledge is a radical departure from contemporary natural scientific understandings of what can be regarded as knowledge. They will gain an understanding of how it provides the basis for the holistic aspects of Steinerian pedagogy.

2.        The consciousness of the young child

Students will learn how Steinerian pedagogy describes the developing consciousness of the child (and of the adult) as proceeding in seven year phases with qualitatively differentiated understandings of how we build meaning from phase to phase. Students will gain a detailed understanding of how the first seven years the world is primarily meaningful to the child in so far as the child can encounter it through their senses.

3.        The role of play in early learning

Students will learn how the events (including language) in play build capacities, including intellectual capacities, which become available to children in succeeding phases of development in other forms. Students will gain an appreciation of how play is an imitative activity in which multifarious, dynamic and unpredictable events develop imaginative and creative capacities in children.

4.        Spoken language as the basis for later learning

Students will learn to appreciate how spoken language is an important indicator of later academic attainment and how the use of language, learned through imitation, differentiates intellectual function. Students will learn to tell a story and to prepare a festive event by learning songs, poems and other material appropriate to the festive theme.

5.        Narrative forms-theory and practice

Students will learn the value of narrative and will gain an appreciation of the canon of appropriate childhood narratives from a number of cultural perspectives. 

6.        The role of imitation in early learning

Students will gain an understanding of how human interaction is the basis for early learning and how the central role of the adult as the actor meeting the self-activity of the child is the basis of the compelling imitative activity of the child.

7.        Craft activities with young children-theory and practice

Students will gain an appreciation of the pedagogical theory associated with development of the will in early childhood and will learn to undertake a range of craft activities appropriate to the child up to seven years of age.