Waldorf Education is Deeply Strange

Because Waldorf education is deeply strange, we need not make it superficially strange.

Strangeness can be good because it can shock us into awareness. Without strangeness, perhaps, we drowsily stay our courses, despite the imbalances, flaws, or contradictions they may hold. Deep strangeness shocks us deeply, provoking, perhaps, deep thought and real change. Superficial strangeness shocks us superficially, and we recoil, irritated and none the wiser for it.

For Waldorf education, deep strangeness arises from Rudolf Steiner’s request that we consider the questions of what it means to be a growing, developing human being and how those of us who choose to teach or who are called to teach can assist in the humanizing task we undertake. We are asked to take seriously ideas about angels, about existence beyond the bounds of this life, about human destiny, about human capacities that unfold across a lifetime, and about human consciousness. In a world that denies the value of questions of meaning beyond the personal, trivializes the humanities, and raises a caricature of science to the status of a new religion, these are deeply strange considerations.

For Waldorf education, superficial strangeness arises in prohibitions on black crayons, abuse of gnomes to teach profound world processes in mathematics, wool socks and Birkenstocks, pseudo-neo-German expressionist typefaces, meandering, watery paintings, book jackets, and name tags. The list goes on and on. One version of this list is now known as Steve’s pet peeves.

The superficial strangeness that we cast over the deep strangeness of our work is not just amusing, however, nor is it inconsequential. It replaces a deep, silent regard for the mysteries of existence, for example, with sectarian chatter about half-understood Christianity and an imported, alienating crypto-Protestant culture. Things like this create a shell around us. Because we are not clams, this is not useful to us or good for us. We may feel warm and safe inside, but then we shouldn’t wonder that we’re alone.

Hindus do not rub your face in reincarnation. Nuns do not need to fake reverence by moving and speaking really slowly. You can’t tell a true shaman by his dress. Those who have truly seen the light carry it quietly within.

If we live only what we know to be true, authentically, no matter how little this may seem, and trust that we can live in not-yet-knowing about many, many things, we can avoid joining a movement of superficial strangeness and begin to contend with the real strangeness, the real mysteries at the root of Waldorf education. These are mysteries that may bring health to our students, health to the world, and even health to us.

(These remarks were part of an address to the Class of 2012 of the Certificate Program in Waldorf Elementary Teacher Education at Sunbridge Institute, July 28, 2012.)