Pedagogy and Theory of Child Development
The structure of the education follows Steiner's theories of child development, which describe three major developmental stages of childhood, each having its own learning requirements, as well as a number of sub-stages. These stages are broadly similar to those described by Piaget.
- In early childhood learning is largely experiential, imitative and sensory-based. The education emphasizes learning through practical activities.
- During the elementary school years (age 7–14), learning is artistic and imaginative, and is guided and stimulated by the creative authority of teachers. In these years, the approach emphasizes developing children's emotional life and artistic expression across a wide variety of performing and visual arts.
- During adolescence (age 14-19), the emphasis is on developing intellectual understanding and ethical ideals such as social responsibility to meet the developing capacity for abstract thought and conceptual judgment
Waldorf education realizes an unusually and perhaps uniquely "complete articulation of an evolutionary developmental K-12 curriculum and creative teaching methodology." its underlying principles continue a pedagogical tradition initiated by Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Herder Its methodology encourages collaborative learning.
Read more about this topic: Waldorf Education
Famous quotes containing the words theory, child and/or development:
“No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.”
—André Gide (1869–1951)
“Early education can only promise to help make the third and fourth and fifth years of life good ones. It cannot insure without fail that any tomorrow will be successful. Nothing “fixes” a child for life, no matter what happens next. But exciting, pleasing early experiences are seldom sloughed off. They go with the child, on into first grade, on into the child’s long life ahead.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“John B. Watson, the most influential child-rearing expert [of the 1920s], warned that doting mothers could retard the development of children,... Demonstrations of affection were therefore limited. “If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning.””
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)