International Forum update 2024
The International Forum for Steiner/Waldorf Education, sometimes referred to as The Hague Circle is the international conference of the Waldorf education movement. The forum meets twice a year for a multi -day meeting in one of the participating countries and at the Goetheanum.
Made up of a circle of some 50 colleagues who represent the school movement in the 60 countries and 6 continents where Waldorf education continues to grow, the forum is also supported by leaders from the pedagogical section of the Goetheanum, representatives of the Freunde der Erzeiehungskunst Rudolf Steiner, IASWECE- the International Association of Waldorf Early Childhood Education, ECSWE the European Council for Waldorf Education, INASTE and the Alliance for Childhood.
Founded to promote and protect the quality of Steiner/Waldorf education and identity world-wide, the International Forum, as the name suggests, delivers support via the vehicle of international cooperation. At an administrative level its key tasks are to oversee the management and membership of institutions wishing to use the Steiner / Waldorf trademark and supervise the Waldorf World List -a register of the schools, kindergartens, seminars and training institutions which have been approved as Waldorf establishments. Both these tasks recognize and acknowledge the very real interdependence -both practically and reputationally -of our movement.
The International Forum also focuses its efforts on quality development of our movement. Acknowledging that each country has its own specific challenges and opportunities to develop and express the Waldorf impulse, the Forum consciously collates and shares the experiences of its member countries as both inspiration and proof that Waldorf education as an example of applied Anthroposophy is ever changing and renewing.
The unique experience of New Zealand with most of our Waldorf schools partially funded via the state integrated school network and the possibility in some cases to operate via donation and therefore providing a Waldorf education not just to parents who can afford it but to children of parents who truly choose it, is considered in this category and is of huge interest to the circle.
As does the situation whereby we find ourselves needing to proactively engage with the Crown via the Ministry of Education, to seek variations and exemptions to governmental directives and initiatives fly in the face of our special character. The successful relationship that has been forged in New Zealand both internally - between our schools - and outwards - with the Ministry of Education- are viewed with equal fascination and are frequently referenced at the Forum table with updates sought.
Research into common and disparate experiences of forum members is a regular agenda item which benefit all. Ongoing discussion and sharing illustrate the fact that Waldorf pedagogy is not legitimated via a set of practices but is expressed via a set of principles which are authentically enacted in diverse innovative and creative ways depending on cultural context.
Such discussions often invite or uncover historical snippets which challenge those members early on their Waldorf journey, but which undoubtedly reinforce the necessity of renewal. An example that recently came to light is the fact that the Stuttgart Waldorf School widely held to be the alma mater of our movement was not an expression of Steiner’s ideal vision as was once thought. As it turns out, it was pragmatically based on what might be described as the “lower Austrian model’ which was simply something that was relatable and wanted, at the time of the founding. The fact that many aspects of this school came to be understood as essential pillars of the Waldorf educational concept is unsettling to the say the least.
Practices such as Main lesson, the class teacher period and the need for foreign languages - including precisely which foreign languages might be appropriate- have subsequently had new light shone on them. We noted recently for example that in Steiner’s work in England in 1922,1923, and 1924, – generally understood as the second phase of development of Waldorf pedagogy as we know it - he made no mention of the concept of the ‘class teacher’ but focused instead on the concept of incarnation and the developing child.
All of which leads to the growing understanding that Waldorf pedagogy in the 21st century is not going to be the single entity it has been in the past. With developing schools responding to challenges experienced in the diverse contexts of South America, Africa, China and Southeast Asia it becomes clearly apparent that what is growing is not just a widening and deepening of the pedagogy of the original school in Stuttgart but new pedagogies in and of themselves. Here I refer to the growing Waldorf crisis pedagogy and Waldorf environmental pedagogy - two streams which while diverging in some ways from the old, continue to hold firmly to the social contract which lies at the heart of Steiner Education.
Rudolf Steiner himself predicted this renewal when he gave the Curative Course in Dornach in 1924. He is on record back then saying that in 100 years’ time all schools would need to become therapeutic, that more and more children would present in need of special care. As I describe the work of the international forum, exactly a century later, I reflect on my colleagues’ accounts of the state of childhood post- covid, of the wellbeing, deprivations and delays of the little ones approaching our schools and I am comforted that the pedagogical developments we see emerging demonstrate that we are well on task as a movement.
I am comforted that we are continuing to meet children where they are, that we are continuing to deliver an education for freedom, an education for the future and not the past. And I am reassured that the international forum, as the body charged with ensuring the integrity of those developments and the preservation of what is essential to our movement and vision, is doing an important job.
Mary Tait- Jamieson - SEANZ Board Member