Healthy childhood and youth

Young children are highly sensitive and develop their personality through interactions with and impressions absorbed from their environment. Because children and adolescents spend much of their time in educational settings, the spatial, conceptual and social make-up of these places will affect their health right into adulthood. A healthy learning environment is therefore crucial.

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Book: The dignity of the young child

"Children learn from other people and they learn in the space they are given for processing the impressions they are exposed to," say Michaela Glöckler, a paediatrician, and Claudia Grah-Wittich, a social worker, who are both editors of the book The Dignity of the Child. What children are able to absorb and process in the very early years forms the basis for their future maturation.

Education and self-education

Children do not always grow up in an ideal environment. They may be exposed to sensory over-stimulation, which they are unable to process; cognitive skills may be expected of them that they may at best be able to imitate but certainly not yet penetrate; or they may live in a challenging social environment that they are unable to cope with.

Inspired by Waldorf Education and the ideas of Emmi Pikler, and supported by medical, psychological and pedagogical research results, the experienced authors provide insights into how to support children between birth and the change of teeth. Topics covered range from embryonic development and care-giving to the tasks of family life, education and therapy. Primary care-givers are particularly important because it is from them that young children learn first of all. If the dignity of the young child is to be safeguarded, not only the children need to be educated but the educators, too, because children are 'nurtured' by the dignity that emanates from the adults around them.

Petition: Right to screen-free childcare

The European Alliance of Initiatives for Applied Anthroposophy (Eliant) advocates cultural diversity and choice in Europe. Its petition for an age-appropriate use of digital technology - For a Right to Screen-free Day Care Centres, Kindergartens and Primary Schools - will run until the end of the year. In view of the Corona-induced pressure to organize life and work digitally, particularly in education, it is Eliant's central concern to advocate an age-appropriate use of digital technologies.

As early as 2016/2017 the Association of Waldorf Kindergartens in Germany launched a petition, supported by the neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer, for screen-free daycare centres and kindergartens. Now Eliant is circulating the Europe-wide petition For a Right to Screen-free Daycare Centres, Kindergartens and Primary Schools. "Kindergartens in Sweden have lost the right to be screen-free in August 2020," says Michaela Glöckler from Eliant, pointing to the urgency of the situation. She feels encouraged by the speech given in Brussels in 2017 by Martine Reichert, the then EU Commission's Director General for Education. Reichert encouraged the Congress members to stand up for alternatives in education.

Initiated by Eliant, the book Growing Up Healthy in a World of Digital Media has therefore been translated by members of the Alliance for Humane Education, so far into ten languages (including Arabic, English and Korean). "The broader the support, the more political weight this initiative will have, which is why it aims for 100,000 signatures by the end of 2020," Michaela Glöckler explains. Once the petition runs out, Eliant will continue to advocate a citizens' movement for humane education.

Book: Places of healthy development

Our weakness is our strength. We respond sensitively to the impressions streaming in from our surroundings. We are exposed to them, but due to our 'impressionability' we are also able to develop the most diverse faculties - unlike animals whose faculties are highly specialized, in accordance with their functions.

Michaela Glöckler, an experienced paediatrician, school doctor and international consultant is alarmed by the increase of physical and mental disorders in children and adolescents. She therefore advocates that educational settings must be health-promoting, "because a healthy maturation is the best precondition for a creative life later on."

Based on her experience in Waldorf Schools and as an anthroposophic paediatrician, Michaela Glöckler says that health goes back to various factors. These range from architectural aspects of educational settings through curricula and teaching methods to administrative structures and the food served in the school kitchen. They are all expressions of the attitudes adults have towards children. Do they promote development rather than demand achievements?

"It is important that we create an environment that inspires activity and self-efficacy rather than give instructions, that we provide real-world experiences before introducing digital teaching, and that we meet all the needs children and adolescents have, which, in my view, include science, art and spirituality," Michaela Glöckler summarizes further aspects of a healthy learning environment.

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