Lectures on Technique by Melanie Klein, Steiner John

Bringing the Steiner Waldorf Approach to your Early Years Setting is an excellent introduction to this philosophy. Janni Nicol clearly explains the history of Steiner Waldorf education, the role of play in learning and the key themes of rhythm, repetition and reverence with ideas for activities and resources. Practical examples throughout the book involving children of different ages in a wide variety of settings allow readers to see the connection between theory and practice.

This new edition has been fully updated to include:

• Clear comparisons between Steiner practice and the revised Early Years Foundations Stage (EYFS) requirements
• A section on the growth of international Steiner settings
• Information on celebrating festivals and outdoor environments

This convenient guide will help Early Years practitioners, students and parents to really understand what the Steiner Waldorf approach can bring to their practice and children.

"In our long human journey, individual and collective, the journey that science calls evolution, many indeed are the turning points. But they are not so much turning points in outer, material manifestation in the fossils of paleontology, for those fossils are only the shed garments worn by humans in an earlier age, vestments designed by providence to meet the need of a changing human consciousness moving through time. Where the real evolution occurs, for which the necessary outer garments are tailored over time, is in the realm of consciousness as it transitions from spirit to matter and back to spirit" (Edward Reaugh Smith, from the introduction).

Rudolf Steiner gave the six lectures in this volume between January 1911 and January 1912. Soon after Steiner's death in 1925, Marie Steiner--realizing the importance of those lectures for understanding the evolution of consciousness and the central role of the Christ event in that process--collected them under the title Turning Points in Spiritual History.

According to Rudolf Steiner, Earth is the crucible of cosmic evolution, and earthly evolution is accomplished through humanity. Further, there were five turning points--or critical, transformative moments--in the process leading to the culmination of the Christ's incarnation through the Mystery of Golgotha. Each of those five points is exemplified by an individual: Zarathustra, Hermes, Moses, Elijah, and the Buddha.

Each of these lectures deals in turn with one of these great beings. In them, Steiner provides us with astonishing views of esoteric history and shows the remarkable ways in which the spiritual world guided and nurtured the spiritual evolution in preparation for the Christ's appearance on Earth.

CONTENTS

Introduction by Edward Reaugh Smith

1. Zarathustra
2. Hermes
3. Buddha
4 Moses
5. Elijah
6. Christ: And the Twentieth Century

These lectures follow from those presented in Soul Economy. Given during a conference on spiritual values in education and life and attended by many prominent people of the time, Steiner's Oxford lectures present the principles of Waldorf education at the highest cultural level.

The Manchester Guardian reported: "Dr. Steiner's lectures...brought to us in a very vivid way an ideal of humanity in education. He spoke to us about teachers who, freely and unitedly, unrestricted by external prescription, develop their educational methods exclusively out of a thorough knowledge of human nature. He spoke to us about a kind of knowledge needed by the teacher, a knowledge of the being of man and the world, which is at the same time scientific and also penetrates into the most intimate inner life, which is intuitive and artistic."

These lectures form one of the best introductions to Waldorf education.

CONTENTS:

Introduction by Christopher Bamford

1. The Spiritual Ground of Education
2. The Perception of Soul and Spirit
3. The Spiritual Ground of Physical Education
4. The Art of Educating Young Children
5. The Art of Educating Older Boys and Girls
6. Teachers As Artists in Education
7. The Organization of the Waldorf School
8. Moral Teaching & Eurythmy in the Waldorf School
9. Teachers in the Waldorf School

German source: Die geistig-seelischen Grundkr fte der Erziehungskunst. Spirituelle Werte in Erziehung und sozialem Leben (GA 305).