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“Our goal: to develop a pedagogy that teach to learn, to learn throughout life from life itself“
Rudolf Steiner
Welcome to the web site of the Association of Friends of the Steiner School, Milan, Italy.
Every Steiner or Waldorf school is the result of the free enterprise of a group of people that highly value the Steiner educational method and would like to enable the community as a whole to benefit from it. The school is run by a no-profit Cultural Association.
The Waldorf pedagogy was created in 1919 by the Austrian philosopher and scientist, Rudolf Steiner and was originally intended for the children of the workers of the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory, in Stuttgart. Today it is the teaching method used in a total of about 870 institutions in 80 countries spread over 5 continents, which operate either as schools or nursery schools, together totalling hundreds of thousands of pupils.
The first school in Italy was established in Milan in 1946, just after the end of the Second World War.
In 1979, the curriculum was extended to the entire period of compulsory schooling and later to secondary school. The school left the original site of number 23 via Francesco Sforza, in 1983 and has since then been located at its current site at number 45 via Clericetti, owned by the Milan Council.
The classes at present are as follows:
| number of pupils in the school year 2007-08 | |
|---|---|
| Nursery (three classes) | 64 |
| Primary school and secondary school (years I-VIII) | 205 |
| Scientific High School | 66 |
| total | 389 |
| Therapeutic Pedagogy Group | 5 |
Nursery
The first seven years. The garden of infancy.
The child is immersed in an atmosphere of serenity rich in stimuli in the form of image, fantasy and wonder.
Toys and games, fairy tales, contact with colour-music-movement, and above all, the warmth and support of the teachers create an environment which magnifies the maternal love which has surrounded the child since birth.
In the first seven years the child learns to walk, speak and think. He or she absorbs the gestures and feelings of the people that are around him or her, that hold him or her dear, and in this way learns about the moral qualities that will determine his or her developmental growth.
In this phase of life, the child is very receptive to external stimuli and is completely penetrated by them, some of which have a strong impact and can even affect physical development. The child must be protected from stimuli which are too intellectual in nature by surrounding him or her in a world that is “good”, full of imagination, imagery, play and wonder.
This is of ever increasing importance, given the nature of today's modern cities which provide a very poor environment for the period of infancy and are growing worse and worse: it is becoming more and more difficult for a child to fix in their mind those simple gestures in an adult which they can copy.
The environment in which these little ones move around in the school is laid out very carefully and has wooden furniture; toys are very simple so that the child can use them for anything they desire.
Primary school and Middle school
The second seven years. Primary school and grade 1 secondary school ( I-VIII Classes)
In the second seven year cycle, the child looks for a way to relate to the world around him or her, the people with whom he or she lives and his teacher, seeing these people as “loving authorities” Each class commences its journey with a class teacher who will be there for the entire eight year period, acting as a figure of reference, and other teachers that work alongside, specialising in the various subjects to be taught. In order to enhance learning, the curriculum is taught according to “epoque”: the main subjects are taught during the first two hours of the morning for a duration of two or three weeks as a way of making learning easier and facilitating the introduction of correlated subjects, such as drama, technical drawing and poetry. The aim is to instil the child or pupil with a sense of pleasure to learn and understand, a capacity for logic and a critical mind. Foreign languages, music and handicrafts (weaving, crochet, embroidery and woodwork) are subjects which remain part of the curriculum until high school. Mathematics, Italian, and geometry are combined with artistic and rhythmical studies. History, geography and science are initially taught with an imaginative connotation linked to fairy tales, legends, and the observation of Nature; later on, they are connected to the figures and the important events which aid the pupil in his or her personal development, both from a moral and idealistic point of view.
Rudolf Steiner Scientific High School – Practical High School – State Recognised Institute
The Rudolf Steiner Practical Scientific High School is a school which prepares young people for the scientific high school diploma (called “maturità”), utilising a method and teaching curriculum which contribute to the complete and harmonious development of one’s personality.
The focal point is therefore not just an acquisition of knowledge and competence on an intellectual and technical scale, but also the expansion of an all round creative ability and ductile intelligence. The integral development of personality, both as a central element for growth of the student and for his or her contact with society on an individual basis. The modern-day Italian society is evolving at a rapid pace, taking on forms which are ever increasingly complex- European and international-and which are particularly notable for their high grade of dynamic mobility. Obviously, a strong, mature person will find it easier to position him or herself in such a society.
The overall prospective is that the content of each subject is presented through the experience of the phenomena which the student is able to perceive. At a later stage, this base is studied more theoretically and later still, more conceptually.
The young student is involved in a process of formulation and identification of the phenomena to be studied, by arousing their curiosity and is encouraged to be decisive and active. This stimulus is also thanks to other subjects studied, which are especially found in this school, and which deal with art and handicraft. So, the educational process is not confined to the cognitive area, aided by intellect, but draws widely from the field of experience, something which attains special importance in today’s dispersive society. The method of this school can be summarised thus: learn by doing and feeling.
A particular position which has an underlying artistic element in an active sense: the young students are led along a pathway, surrounded by this world of science, and are encouraged to deepen the knowledge of a variety of arts and to try them out for themselves. This combination, for the teachers, has an intrinsic value, in that the components of science and art, in this way, “work on” the student from the inside, and enhance each other reciprocally. Art, other than being an enjoyable, recreational activity, enriches and refines the sensitivity of the young person and introduces him or her to the sphere of beauty. In addition, it is a moment for personal enthusiasm and an opportunity to stamp one’s personality on society, an occasion to pull out creative energy and to display it to the world, the experimentation “on paper” of the will of the student.
Therapeutic pedagogy
"Our just task as educators is to remove all obstacles.
All children of all ages bring something new to the world.
It is our task, as educators, to remove the physical and psychological barriers in their way, clear away the obstacles so that their spirit can be granted complete freedom in life"
Rudolf Steiner
In 2001, in the “Rudolf Steiner” School at No. 45, via Clericetti, Milan, a Therapeutic Pedagogy group was set up to aid two pupils who would otherwise be defined as “seriously handicapped”. Over the last few years, the group has grown to five children and, at the same time, the workforce has enlarged, now composed of teachers, expert therapists and a doctor.
The project for the year 2007-2008 involves five children from 9 to 10 years of age.
The children that are in the Therapeutic Pedagogy group are enrolled in their respective classes, according to age, and have a specific curriculum of study (PEI); the PEI for each child follows the general aims of the Steiner method as adapt for that specific age, but is structured on a completely different teaching basis in terms of modality and time scale.
The teaching approach for these children foresees an in depth emphasis of the study topic which is also experimented by the pupil and is specifically “therapeutic”.
This means that the teacher acts in a manner which is subtly different for each child, although he/she is part of a group lesson, aiming to harmonise through the teaching, the child’s sense of unilateralism: to do this, it is obviously necessary to consider the pupil not only from a pedagogical point of view but also from the medical and therapeutic angle.
The teaching therefore, stems from a concrete knowledge of the physical, physiological and emotional processes of the child. The Class Committee is able to guarantee such an approach thanks to its make up, which other than the teachers and experts, includes therapists and a doctor. The artistic activity, music, eurithmia, are therefore presented by the therapists in a group lesson, interspersed with periods and ways of teaching which are for a specific individual.
Where it is thought necessary, the Class Committee proposes specific therapeutic intervention to support the development process if this has run into difficulty, is behind schedule or has been interrupted.
Doctor Bruno Callegaro, the school doctor of the Lauterbad Institute and of the special school, Jean Paul School in Kassel (Germany), lecturer at the training seminar on Therapeutic Pedagogy “Heilpaedagogiches seminar” in Kassel, supervises the group's activities.
In addition, if the family agrees, contact with the child's medical specialists is maintained, in order to compare ideas and knowledge.
The primary objective of this pedagogical cycle is not, therefore, to “normalise”, but to guide each child along his or her growth pathway, in terms of a personal identity and expansion, following the study cycle of the Waldorf school, a continuous thread stretching from the first year of primary school to the final year (8th grade).
Summer School
This is naturally in summer, usually held from the second week of June to the second week of July; it is open to all children from 3 to12 years of age. It is organised on a weekly basis, from Monday to Friday, from 8.30 am to 4pm. Our summer school offers all of the artistic and recreative disciplines which you can find in the normal curriculum of a Steiner school. The activities are planned with a well defined routine and rhythm, structured so as to equally balance play time and manual and artistic work.