Waldorf and Catholicism

As we approach the little ones third birthday in September I find myself thinking deeply about what her education may look like, how we are going to enable her to grow in this world.

It’s never been a question since discovering Waldorf Education that this was a path we would carve for the little one and in her not quite three years she is already thriving. Through my own experience as a mother to a 13 and a 10 year old I can testify that Steiner’s observation of the child and their development is spot on in many ways. I find the Waldorf way, a way which is a ‘living education’ a beautiful way of introducing children to the world, an education that respects the child and their needs, that falls in line with their development rather than the other way around.

As a Catholic mother, there are many parts of Steiner’s anthroposophical view (his own spiritual science) I disagree with, some I embrace - I’ll go into these in a detailed blog post this week. But largely I feel that the Catholic education system as a whole could learn a lot from his approach to educating the whole child in love and reverence in a very human and applied way.

There are of course parts of Waldorf Education which don’t fit the ‘Catholic home’ and that’s fine. As home educators we can adapt and adjust how we incorporate the beauty of Waldorf Education into our daily lives, just as educators have done worldwide to make Waldorf more Secular and embracing to other cultures and those with differing beliefs..just as other home educators from a variety of backgrounds do in these squares.

I really look forward to sharing a couple more in depth posts off the back of this post this week. Exploring how we are planning our year from September (no formal learning, all play based but we still like to plan) and how Catholicism and Waldorf Education can beautifully sit in harmony in the home to make one beautiful and magical education