Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 116

Continuing my commentary on the 36th paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

Steiner called for an education based on a comprehensive understanding of the changes in development of the human being through childhood. This concept of "developmentally appropriate" education is hardly unique to Steiner. Steiner had additional perspectives on the development of the human being, and this allowed him to designate developmental stages and the appropriate pedagogical responses decades before mainstream educational theorists came to similar conclusions. Indeed, not all of the subtle developmental stages have yet shown up in non-Waldorf research (since Waldorf is so far ahead of developments in what is called "progressive" education, people in Waldorf circles often wonder when some researcher will "discover" yet another thing that has been done in Waldorf for the last 80 years). This is not to imply a contradiction between Waldorf and non-Waldorf child development theories. I will discuss Steiner's theory of child development tomorrow.