10
THE FORM AND ORGANIZATION OF A
WALDORF SCHOOL

A Rudolf Steiner or Waldorf School is co-educational throughout. It is not merely that boys and girls are taught together and that men and women share the work alike. The aim is so to educate through art that it may bring new life to science and so to educate through science that it may bring greater consciousness to art. True co-education consists in establishing the right relationship between these two, between feeling penetrated with thought and thought permeated with feeling, and for this it is most fitting to have the sexes grow up side by side. In the past, the ideal of the man was to be outstandingly male, the ideal of the woman to be completely female. In the individualized society of today this is no longer so. The male needs to acquire some of the qualities which in the female yield plasticity of soul, the female needs equally to gain those qualities which in the male lead to greater clarity and independence of thought. It has become a commonplace to talk of the equality of the sexes. This does not deny the reality of differences between the sexes but points rather to a society of the future which will rest more and more upon those intrinsic human qualities which reach beyond male and female. Signs of this are to be seen everywhere. The relationship between men and women in public life is very different from what it was fifty years ago. That this change can best be served by co-education only the diehard few of yesterday will care to question.

Waldorf Schools take children right through from the age of three or four to eighteen or nineteen, for childhood is viewed as a progressive whole, though with well-defined phases as described previously. So connected are the three great periods of childhood that to cut through them wilfully is like cutting into life itself. It is good for older children to recall their own earlier years in the younger children round them and good for the younger children to glimpse something of the years which lie ahead as they look towards the older children. One of the most interesting and impressive innovations in a Waldorf School is the monthly or termly children’s festival. Children throughout the school present examples to the rest of the school of work they have done in class, recitation in their mother tongue and in foreign languages, flute playing, singing, a play they have prepared, a scene out of the history lessons, a demonstration from the science class, a piece of eurythmy or some of their gymnastic exercises, and so on. It is at such a festival that the corporate unity of the school is experienced powerfully. As for the teachers, their continued association in work which covers the whole range of these years develops insights into childhood life and growth as nothing else can.

A Waldorf School takes its form from the fact that all three periods of childhood are included. The very little children, before they enter the school proper, form a self-contained community in themselves. Then comes the succession of eight classes, each with its own class teacher. These classes are referred to by the name of the class teacher and only rarely by number. Finally, there is the upper school with its circle of specialist teachers. The same plan holds good for the larger schools with their parallel classes.

There are no prefects with badges and no set appointments. The feeling of seniority comes from the changing relationship with the teachers and amongst the students themselves and particularly from the work in the classroom, the problems discussed, the tasks which are given and the demands made. The exercise of leadership is not overlooked, but instead of having a system with fixed appointments and hierarchies it is called upon as actual needs and situations arise. Since these are bound to vary, different children have opportunities given them to serve in different ways according to their gifts and capacities. In this way life is kept in continuous flow. As given demands arise, the capacity to meet them springs into place; there is no rigid pattern. Some question this until they see its greater virtue. They would prefer formal appointments, rules, rewards and punishments. This evades the problem of self-discipline; yet command over self, not command over others, is the first prerequisite of any free society. Genuine authority cannot be taught, it has to be engendered. Therefore, contrary to the methods of self-government practised in other schools, in a Waldorf School final authority rests solely with the adults, though consultative meetings between teachers and the older scholars have now become customary—indeed they are seen to be essential for the happy conduct of an upper school.

In a Waldorf School there is not the same need as elsewhere for a headteacher. The nursery class teacher represents the school to the parents of the children in her care. Each class teacher quite obviously takes prime responsibility for her class and is best suited to deal with the parents of her children. Each specialist teacher is similarly responsible for her department; they work things out together. Upper school parents may consult whom they will, though, for routine purposes, it has been found useful for each upper school class to have one teacher as a class adviser or counsellor. All the teachers with their different spheres of responsibility meet together as a body, and it is this collective body which has the final direction of the school. The body of teachers, often referred to as college of teachers (really the colleagueship of teachers), appoints its own chairman, executive, and whatever other functionaries may be needed. Such appointments are more in the nature of delegations taking account of the special gifts and capacities which the one or other may have to serve the whole. The personnel engaged changes from time to time. This method of delegation makes for continuity in the work and yet for greater freedom for the teachers. A teacher will undertake the task that it seems best for her to undertake at a given time. At another time she may be able to serve best in another way. On the other hand, the character of the school need never depend on any one individual or group of individuals; the essential character will be maintained by the directing body of teachers even if, in course of time, the individuals comprising that body should totally change.

The teacher body carries all ultimate responsibility for the school but it generally has an advisory body of governors or trustees and administrative office staff.

Finally it should be added that Waldorf Schools are independent entities, each responsible for itself and its own maintenance. There is friendly cooperation between schools but no central organization to rule over them. The only ruling principle is the work which is common to them all, the uniting factor being the study of the child in the light of Rudolf Steiner’s deep wisdom as has been briefly outlined in these pages.