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Author : Steiner Rudolf
Title : The renewal of education lectures delivered in Basel, Switzerland, april, 20-may 16, 1920
Year : 1920

Link download : Steiner_Rudolf_-_The_renewal_of_education.zip

Foreword. Eugene Schwartz In 1920, when these lectures were given, the Waldorf School in Stuttgart was barely eight months old, and the educational theories and methods developed by Rudolf Steiner were hardly known outside of Central Europe. Far more influential at that time—and still exerting a powerful effect on educational theories and methods to this day—were the educational philosophies of John Dewey and Maria Montessori. John Dewey’s work in education arose out of his original immersion in philosophy and psychology, and thus manifested a strong concern for the development of thinking in the child. In formulating educational criteria and aims, he drew heavily on the insights into learning offered by contemporary psychology as applied to children. He viewed thought and learning as a process of inquiry starting from doubt or uncertainty—the so-called “Problem Approach”—and spurred by the desire to resolve practical frictions or relieve strain and tension. For Dewey, the scientist’s mental attitudes and habits of thoughts represented the zenith of intellectual life, and the cognitive side of education should guide children toward this goal: “The native and unspoiled attitude of childhood, marked by ardent curiosity, fertile imagination, and love of experimental inquiry is near, very near, to the attitude of the scientific mind.” ...