Waldorf history

Nana Göbel has published a detailed history of the Waldorf movement in three volumes.

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Nana Göbel has used the centenary as an opportunity to write down the history of Waldorf schools worldwide. Her book illustrates how everything that happens is linked to people: thousands of teachers and educators, school founders and inspirers. A karmic community emerges that, across three generations, resolved to bring to earth an education that is in tune with human nature.

The destinies of people and of the art of education are intimately interwoven: did you know that, in 1980, Portugal was about to introduce the Waldorf method in all its primary schools but that this was prevented by tragic accidents that occurred in the government two days after the decision was taken? Or how amazingly modern, from the social threefolding point of view, the school administration bill was that was passed on 11 September 1918 in Armenia? Who knew how fiercely and frequently the anthroposophical movement and the school movement have been attacked? For instance in France, where there was a massive attempt by secret services and the ministries in 1999 to corroborate the accusation of sectarianism of 1982 – much of this is still virulent in other European states. The further we go back in time the more determined and idealistic the colleagues in the Waldorf Schools seem to have been – unperturbed by social and economic upheavals.

We also find cross-references, for instance when we hear about Ernst Weissert in connection with an autonomous, self-administered teacher training in 1921 (Jena-Zwätzener Pädagogischer Arbeitskreis) and then again as a founder of the Friends of Rudolf Steiner Education in 1976.

It is almost unimaginable how one person alone has been able to carry out, and record, such extensive research into dates, names, facts, contexts and events – and worldwide at that!

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