Waldorf News
The Gift of Learning
February 20, 2012
The Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship commissioned ITN to make this short film to look at some of the key features of a Steiner School including: - how Steiner Schools nurture spiritual development in keeping with the cultural setting of the school and without being tied to a particular faith; - the emphasis on "doing" to complement academic learning; - how the absence of testing in the younger years nurtures enthusiasm for learning; - the importance of quietness and contemplation as part of the school day. More »
It's Time to Talk About Angels: A Matter of the Heart
February 16, 2012
Angels are real and many children experience them. We’re moving into a time when closer contact with Angels is happening so it’s good to talk about them. Rudolf Steiner said that by the end of the 20th century, a new stream of children coming to Earth would have what he called ‘the fifth chamber of the heart’ in seed form. This new heart chamber is etheric in nature, not physical. It’s been present since the 1980s in children and before that in many adults. It’s that place in the heart where you know everything. And more and more children know everything. In particular, they know what you’re thinking and if what you say is true or not. Unless they become damaged, this faculty is there because they are using the heart, not the head, as their organ of cognition. This new etheric chamber in the heart contains an opening into the spiritual world. When this gateway opens, the Angels are there on the other side. More »
"Unplugged" on Purpose: The Waldorf School of Philadelphia
February 13, 2012
Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback Special and The Beatles informal studio jams documented in the 1970 film Let It Be were both precursors of the "Unplugged" concept. There were a series of highly-publicized "unplugged" performances in the late 1970s and early 1980s including appearances by Pete Townshend at The Secret Policeman's Ball and similar performances by Sting, Phil Collins and Bob Geldof in 1982. The first rock artist to perform in an "unplugged" mode on MTV was Jethro Tull, who, on November 17, 1987 as an acoustic trio (Ian Anderson, Dave Pegg, and Martin Barre), performed a portion of "Serenade to a Cuckoo" and "Skating Away (On the Thin Ice of the New Day)". Although "unplugged" entered our society at that time, it's hard to imagine 25 years ago being able to foresee "unplugged" being used to describe a Waldorf school. Nevertheless, time marches on and "unplugged" is a fairly apt way to describe a school with no computers, no batteries, nothing that beeps-- "Totally Unplugged" More »
Electric Youth: The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
February 6, 2012
Under Linn’s direction, the group has taken on some of the biggest and most powerful corporations in the world. It forced Kellogg to remove SpongeBob SquarePants and other cartoon characters from the packaging of foods that were light on nutritional value. It got Hasbro to shelve plans for a new line of dolls based on the sexpot pop act the Pussycat Dolls (“Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”) that made Bratz dolls look like fat prudes. (If you aren’t familiar with Bratz dolls, by the way, they’re the ones that make Barbie look like a fat prude.) And when Linn found out that a Needham company called BusRadio was airing advertisements on school buses, she organized a campaign that led to the demise of the business. More »
Working with the Angels
February 6, 2012
In the first three years of life, before the child is so engrossed in material life, it has a close relationship with the angels. At night, while asleep, the children meet their angels. They dream of them or have other experiences of them. As we grow up, the qualities of our childhood mature and develop in us and can evolve as imagination, inspiration and intuition. We too can relate to the angels. It generally happens in our sleep, for it is such a remarkable experience that we might be filled with fear if these contacts were to happen in our waking life. Hence, in the Bible, when Gabriel visits Mary, he begins by saying, "Fear not." More »
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