The Uniqueness of Waldorf Education, by Astrid Schmitt-Stegmann

What is necessary today and education in a time where social tensions are increasing and where war hunger and violence as well as criminality and corruption scandals occupy the Daily News cast?

Rudolf Steiner the founder of Waldorf education was convinced that social problems can only be solved with the help of a pedagogy that educates the whole human being and education that strives towards the truly human: respect of the other person's autonomy loving interest in them and honesty in our approach to them. To achieve this however will only be possible when teachers and parents acquire a detailed understanding of the developing human being of the child and his specific needs of a specific developmental stages.

That is what this book addresses and I wish it will have many appreciative readers among parents teachers and students who seek an education that devotes itself to the deeper strength and challenges of the individual child with "heart and healing".

  -- Michaela Glocker, MD

Astrid Schmitt-Stegmann, MA, has been a Waldorf educator for more than 30 years. She was a class teacher both in Germany and the US, taught also in kindergarten and High School, and was a foreign language teacher in the Waldorf schools of both countries. She is active in the Teacher Education programs throughout the world and directs the Teacher Education programs at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California. She mentors schools, lectures internationally, and give workshops.