The 100th anniversary of the first Waldorf school has been celebrated this September in all Steiner/Waldorf schools worldwide.
The educational vision that Steiner suggested for the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart was a “copernican revolution” as he focused the attention of teachers not on cognition but on the needs of a child at all stages of development and on his whole complexity as growing human being.
The new school would in fact transform its role from a “notion-carer” to “pastoral carer” intended as carer of the child emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing. A learning process would become a blossoming process to “educate” (literally to “take out”) and nourish the child talents.
The challenges our children have to face in the future world -to which they belong- require clarity in focusing and prioritising issues, creativity in problem solving, attitude to team work and community building, tactful approach in social delivering of solutions, active participation to tackle the unexpected and the unknown.
The educational approach outlined by Rudolf Steiner a century ago can be considered to a certain degree a forerunner and can provide a fresh source of inspiration for teachers of every school and parents of every cultural, political and religious background.
Today we need the same radical innovative vision, courage and determination that led to the foundation of the first Waldorf school.