California – Thor
some guidelines on a generative approach
Some time ago, Florian Osswald at the Pedagogical Section asked me if I had any texts on curriculum development in different cultures. I did. But I decided to re-work what I had written after the Asia Waldorf Teacher conference and other places. Time is always in short supply and it has taken a while.
Chinese Story Book
I was finally prompted into real writing action by one of my students who is doing her master’s thesis on the development of a curriculum for Asia. She carried out a survey of people working in Asia and has written a really interesting thesis (not quite finished yet). She asked me, as did a number of the other students doing similar work, if there is any literature. There is very little that I am aware of and though I give presentations on the theme in my teaching seminars, I also have not really written anything down. So over the past weeks I have been re-thinking and re-working what my thoughts on the theme are.
India – Human Biology
Inviting dialogue
What I have written is only a start and it is hardly comprehensive, but it will serve as a start for dialogue with others. The only way to get people putting things down in writing and discussing the core issues, is to publish. There are so few outlets for articles in English on Waldorf themes that it is very difficult, and takes an eternity to get anything published, so I have taken to using the learning community partners
China – Health and Nutrition
website as a platform. At some point I will compile the most relevant of my articles in a book, but all that takes too long and finding a Waldorf related publisher is not easy, since books need to be funded up front.
China – Farming Block
Taking a generative approach
The text I have uploaded here takes a generative approach, which means instead of saying we do this and that, it says we try to apply the following principles and out of these we can develop specific curriculum content. Those of you who follow my blog will recognize some recurring themes – landscapes of learning, pedagogy as art, craft and science, learning stages and sociocultural approaches to learning. What is emerging is a more or less new approach to
California – Lathes
discussing Waldorf – though I am not at the point yet, where I can pull it all together. But the parts will be loaded bit by bit onto this website, in the hope that someone out there reads them and critiques them (or takes the ideas up and develops them further).
Greetings Martyn
Read the full article as pdf
Some guidelines for developing the Waldorf curriculum locally pdf
