Steiner’s pedagogy and the use of fairy tales as a tool for growth



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The Steinerian is also called “Waldorf pedagogy”: it is a pedagogical direction born in 1919 by the German Rudolf Steiner, who was the founder of a pedagogical trend that is still adopted today by about a thousand schools around the world (thirty only in Italy ).

Waldorf education

That steinerian it is also called “Waldorf pedagogy”: it is a pedagogical discourse born in 1919 by the German Rudolf Steiner, who was the founder of a pedagogical trend that is still adopted by about a thousand schools around the world in Italy).

Anthroposophy

Steiner’s approach was largely based on the concept of anthroposophy (in ancient Greek ‘wisdom of the human being’), or a kind of esoteric discipline whose purpose is to reconcile elements of the physical world with the spiritual / immaterial.

It was precisely for this concept that Steiner’s theory received much criticism: some of them saw in this model references to the world of sects, with a National Socialist flavor.

However, Waldorf education was actually intended to teach all the various religions and the most disparate traditions of man, in stark contrast to the Nazi climate that was prevailing in Germany and throughout Europe.

The 3 Steiner cycles

According to Steiner, whose theory addressed human education, from early childhood to eighteen, the individual goes through 3 fundamental cycles:

1- The first seven years (0-7 years), in which children learn mainly by imitating the world. For this reason, in this period, learning should focus heavily on images (as symbolic icons of a reality to be imitated), to stimulate the ability to representation some kids.

2- The second cycle (primary and secondary school period). It is in this cycle above all that great importance is given to fairy tales, especially those of popular tradition: they help to develop the child’s imagination and understanding of their emotions, but they also represent a simulation of reality and, therefore, a place where the child can identify with the characters and overcome with them the obstacles that they may encounter in your own life journey.

3- The third cycle (which corresponds to the period ofsecondary education). According to Steiner, in all stages (but especially in this one), we must aim a lot to develop artistic skills of the student, as well as practices (gardening, cooking, etc.), because they develop skills eye-manual and better prepare for the career path. In addition, they represent a way of developing intelligence and sensitivity for nature: what today is called “citizenship skills“According to the 2012 European Guidelines.

Evolutionary anthropology

For Steiner, this division into cycles would serve as a “vademecum” for teachers who, in training places, should trigger a process of evolutionary anthropology in students.

It is a path of gradual insertion of the student into the learning environment, which also takes into account the needs (and differences) between various cycles, as well as differences in culture, religion and habits that may arise in the classroom. That is why Steiner was a great promoter of what is now called tell stories (storytelling): not only that of fairy tales, but in general of stories, since they face a reality different from ours but that unites all who, at that moment, are listening. In fact, at that precise moment, all the students are the same, because they identify with the protagonist and live his adventures, absorbing his values and the life motivations defendant.

The importance of history

The fairy tale is, therefore, a tool to improve the process of evolutionary anthropology, which in itself would already occur naturally, according to Steiner. In fact, since the time of the Russian linguist Plug, is seen as a universal simulacrum of life, and a metaphor for it, with which it essentially shares a fixed sequence scheme, which recall the birth, growth and death of man (initial equilibrium, rupture and complications, adventures of the hero, restoration of equilibrium). These Proppian schematizations have been carried out to this day and have been taken up by well-known authors (eg. Vogler, with his book “The Hero’s Journey”), as well as by psychologists and anthropologists such as McClelland, who affirms the importance of storytelling for transfer of values. At the base of Steiner’s education, therefore, is the use of an anthropological phenomenon – which is the fable, or myth, or history in general – in which even the psychoanalysis of Freud.

Therefore, it is an educational tool suitable for any age and useful for going out unconscious content in the audience of learners, who in this way can really evolve in an anthropological sense: because it can only be done by being a probe of the soul.



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