| |
Course Components:
Curriculum studies are approached in two complementary ways. There is a
comprehensive study of child development in relation to a curriculum appropriate to
it, in all its physiological, psychological and spiritual manifestations. Then the
curriculum is surveyed as it develops from the elementary stages onwards, with the
emphasis on anthroposophical background, resource material, teaching methods and
classroom management.
Artistic activities are balanced with curriculum studies and have been evolved with
a view to furthering qualities and faculties that the unpredictability of the
classroom requires. If the teacher can develop an awareness of the needs of a
particular class as well as for each pupil in it, the teaching skills necessary for
the immediate situation, which any teacher may need in any classroom situation, will
be forthcoming and the education effective for the whole human being.
Waldorf teachers would be effective, he argued, not because of what they already
knew and had already achieved, but because of what they were becoming. This striving
to develop as a free and self-reliant individual, a warm enthusiasm for life-long
learning, and a determination to search for the hidden threads that weave separate
subjects and disciplines into a rich and vital tapestry. These are the qualities
that the Waldorf tradition seeks to call forth from within each person entrusted
with guiding a group of young people into the future.
The education experienced by an individual hoping to become a Waldorf teacher is
dramatically different from that in conventional teacher-training colleges. The
Waldorf candidate not only learns about child psychology, pedagogical methodology
and classroom management; he or she also develops new self-understanding through an
immersion in the arts and through the study of philosophy and development of human
consciousness. Thus the candidate sets out on a path of self-transformation which
will continue throughout the whole of his or her life.
|
