WALDORF EDUCATION IN A SOCIETY WHERE ROTE LEARNING

AND ENDLESS TESTING IS THE NORM

Imagine the challenges of establishing and attracting students into a Steiner-Waldorf school in a society that for generations has known no other educational methodology other than that of ROTE learning, hours of homework where students are required to memorise not just a passage from a text book, but rather the entire chapter by heart, merely to be able to regurgitated on a regular basis for the endless testing regime, but where actually understanding the content of the learnt passage is irrelevant!! An educational methodology where learning has no relationship at all with imaginative thinking and or applied thought, so crucial for the advancement of a society, not least that of Nepal of which I am writing.

Steiner-Waldorf and S-W Inspired schools have a constant challenge in convincing parents and educationalists that the Steiner-Waldorf methodology does have positive outcomes; that ROTE learning is archaic; that 3 year olds do not need homework; that excessive testing is superfluous; that academic learning need not be rushed; that students are not disadvantaged; that excellence is achievable; that students can graduate high school with distinction, and perhaps most importantly: That the education offered is done so as a genuine social gesture with fees being flexible or even non-existent, dependent upon social and economic ability to make such financial contributions. And to crown it all: That children delight in going to school and love their teachers!!

Snack-time at Tashi

The Tashi Waldorf School in Kathmandu, Nepal is one such school, struggling to truly meet the developmental needs of each and every child.

Recently. widely respected Pushpa Basnet (CNN Hero of the Year 2012), a strong supporter of Steiner-Waldorf education, enrolled the four youngest children from her Butterfly Home into the Tashi kindergarten

2.

After the first week, one of her little girls was in tears because she could not go to kindergarten on Sunday, seeing that the school was closed. Something that she refused to believe until a call from her teacher confirmed the fact to her!!! Love of school and teacher!!

At the end of the last school year, the Class Four graduated from Tashi as there are, as yet, no further classes beyond the 4th. Being well aware of the vast differences in teaching methodologies between Tashi and the schools which the pupils were now attending, I enquired as to how they were managing in their new environments. Were they behind with factual knowledge and thus falling short in the new compulsory testing regimes?

The reply gives strong support to Steiner-Waldorf education when one hears that all schools reported that the Tashi pupils were ahead of their peers and brought with them an enquiring mind which was of great benefit to their respective classes.

Again, another strong recommendation for Steiner-Waldorf education and not least the skills of the Tashi teachers in particular. None of these students had been text book taught or examined at anytime in the formative years as students at Tashi.

What is interesting is that many of these Tashi graduated students love to return to Tashi when their own school has a free day, so that they can act as helpers in the younger classes!!

At age 16, Nepali students are required to sit the SLC (School Leaving Certificate), exams which are loosely equivalent to the UK GCSE. A small cohort of ex-Tashi students sat the exam this year. Having had the (presumed) disadvantage of a Steiner-Waldorf education from Kindergarten to the end of Class 4, how had they fared in this rigorous facts based exam 6 years on? To the delight of their previous Tashi teachers, two of the students (both girls) gained Distinction, which signified that their score in the tests was above 80%.

Obviously, their primary years spent in the nurturing Steiner-Waldorf environment, was no disadvantage, to the contrary in fact!

What is important now for Steiner-Waldorf education in Nepal, is for such information to get-out to enquiring parents (the purpose of this article!), which in turn will hopefully help to dispel the myth that Steiner-Waldorf education in no preparation for the real world!!

Looking back on my own graduated classes. I only recently realized that from my smallest class of 15 students, three have achieved doctorates in different disciplines, ie: medical; music-psychology; computer engineering! And that without any testing throughout their primary school years!!

Author: Eric K. Fairman 28 June, 2015. Kathmandu, Nepal