Research and Training
The Educational Section of the School for Spiritual Science today recognises the contribution of the different organisations and research projects for the investigation and development of the new educational direction and its fundamental principles, for Spiritual Science. Besides what the weekly teacher’s meetings do in the way of hands-on research in the schools, and the culture of conferences and enrichment programs which extended between the 50’s and 80’s both regionally and internationally, since the 80’s there is an increasing amount of research done at universities.
Besides dissertations, doctorates and research projects within the framework of academic research, there have arisen internal research centres or institutes for Waldorf Education, above all in the area of teacher training. An example of this is the Pedagogical Research Unit of the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen in Stuttgart and Kassel founded in 1984. A comprehensive and widespread literature on Waldorf Education has emerged from these centres.
Teacher education for the Waldorf schools took place right into the 50’s mainly in the form of teacher enrichment courses and conferences; since 1925 there were efforts, besides the Jena-Zwätzener attempt at an educational training circle, to found an independent educational seminar in Stuttgart. Immediately after the Second World War, I-year, full-time training courses begin (co-workers, amongst others: Erich Gabert, Sophie Porzeit), which lead in 1951 to an educational college carried by the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen.
Shortly after this, in 1951, a Teachers seminar is also founded at the Goetheanum in Dornach, in 1962, at Emerson College, the first training college in the English-speaking world. Keeping pace with the spread of Waldorf Education, there are 65 training centres that have been founded in 27 countries on the educational principles of Rudolf Steiner.