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