Home Page  Education The Kildare Steiner School
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The Kildare Steiner School |
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Written by Mark Reid
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Tuesday, 30 November 2004 |
The development of free human beings who have purpose and direction to their lives
"Our highest endeavour must be to develop free human beings who are able
to impart purpose and direction to their lives" Rudolf Steiner
In 1988 a group of inspired parents and teachers founded the Dublin Rudolf
Steiner School on Templeogue Road, Rathgar. It moved shortly afterwards to Maxwell
Road, Rathmines where it remained for 8 years.
In 1996 it escaped city life
and ventured south to the grounds of the Camphill Community in Dunshane, near
Kilcullen, County Kildare. At the end of October of this year, it is moving
once again, to portacabins on its own site at Gormanstown between Kilcullen
and Dunlavin. There are, however, very grand plans to construct a purpose built
school, kindergarten and daycare centre.
Steiner or Waldorf education is based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf
Steiner (1861-1925). The first school was founded in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919.
It was called the Waldorf School (hence the name) after the Waldorf-Astoria
factory that sponsored it. Now in the 21st century it is the fastest growing
independent school movement with some 900 schools throughout the world.
What makes the Steiner school different from other ‘mainstream’
schools?
The whole child is educated, not just the intellect, in a balanced, gentle,
subtle way. It is an education of the head, the heart and the hands. Rudolf
Steiner spoke of the three distinct processes in a human being – thinking,
feeling and doing. In most modern education systems there is an emphasis on
thinking or intellectualism and this is seen as a priority from an early age.
There is also somewhat of a hierarchy with thinking or academia being the main
focus and feeling or artistic activity coming next with doing or physical activity
at the bottom. This is very obvious when you see streaming or ranking in our
schools with the ‘top’ class studying chemistry, physics, history,
higher mathematics; the ‘middle’ class taking art and painting and
the ‘bottom’ class doing woodwork and metalwork. Options to do all
of these subjects are rarely offered to all classes. In the recent past, there
was even a gender bias. Girls were often precluded from the more academic subjects
and boys didn’t get to do home economics. From the very beginning, in
Steiner schools girls and boys are treated as equals and co-educated. They both
will learn to cook, knit, build, do woodwork, music, painting and science.
Kate Maher, a past pupil of the Kildare Steiner School and its precursor, the
Dublin Rudolf Steiner School, who attended between 1989 and 1997, has fond memories
of her time there. "We did very interesting things like a building main
lesson and a farming main lesson when we travelled to Ballytobin". A deep
connection with nature is formed as a result of the Steiner school’s holistic
approach and reverence towards the earth. This approach has particular relevance
in a world where we have become disconnected to a large extent from the natural
rhythms of life around us. The farming main lesson, for example, follows through
on the processes involved in producing something tangible, and ultimately edible,
giving value to the work as well as the end product.
From Kindergarten right through primary school, only natural materials are used.
For example, in Kindergarten, shells, pinecones, conkers, fleece and natural
fibres are used to create play worlds for the children. In primary school they
will learn about farming, not purely academically but by physical involvement
in: ploughing, sowing, harvesting, milling wheat to make flour.
In a Steiner school, there is a strong emphasis on rhythm and oral based learning.
Whether this is the subject of mathematics, a foreign language, poetry or music,
the approach is often the same. Art, whether it is painting, clay modelling,
music, poetry or drama, plays an important part of the school curriculum. Kate
really enjoyed these activities - "We did a play every Christmas. I have
a really good memory which I put down to remembering all those lines."
When Kate made the transition from Steiner primary school to mainstream secondary
school, she had no problem adapting to a more linear approach to education –
she felt free to use her own approach in tackling subjects and in languages,
the oral background of Steiner education stood her in good stead. She did feel
that the distinction between boys and girls was more pronounced in the mainstream
school and also that the teacher pupil relationship was a lot more formal –
in the Steiner school the teacher has a very close relationship with the pupils
and is addressed by first name rather than title. Kate, now studying Fine Art
in college, did exceptionally well in her Leaving Cert and puts it down to the
firm foundation that was built in her primary education at the Steiner school.
The curriculum of the Steiner school includes all the standard subjects –
maths, spelling, geography, history, languages (including Irish) and others
such as botany and chemistry. However, the approach is again a holistic one.
Writing is taught in a pictorial fashion – letters are first introduced
as pictograms. For example, f is a fish, M is a mountain etc. The letters are
drawn by the children, and they are taught phonetically and introduced in stories.
The teaching of maths often incorporates games, where a rhythm of clapping or
jumping is counted out. Languages are taught informally through songs and rhymes.
The Kildare Steiner School is currently expanding with the recent move to a
new larger site in Gormanstown, Co. Kildare. It has secured planning permission
for the erection of a new primary school, kindergarten and day care facility.
The school at present receives no state funding whatsoever - all the running
costs, including teachers’ salaries are resourced entirely by parents’
contributions and fundraising. With the enormity of the project there is an
appeal for funding from interested parties. There are different fundraising
ventures at the moment. The most interesting one recently is the ‘Flour’
project which developed out of a main lesson in farming.
In the Spring of 2004 classes 3 and 4 spent several days clearing a field of
rocks and stones. Days later, with expert guidance and two draught horses, Bob
and Ben, they each took it in turn to plough the field with a traditional horse
drawn plough.
The field was later sown by hand with biodynamic wheat seed. The only fertiliser
used on the soil was farmyard manure. Over the next few months the children
watched the crop grow and grow on their way to their next project – building
an outdoor clay oven.
When the children came back to school in September they were awe struck at the
wonderful field of golden wheat. They next spent a day harvesting the wheat again
by traditional methods making sheaves and stooks to enable the crop to dry. The
wheat was then threshed and grain separated out. In early October they visited
Martry Mill on the river Blackwater near Kells in Co. Meath where the grain was
ground into flour on French burr stones. Parents and children then made bags with
calico and hand printed them with lino cuts. The 1 kilo bags of stone ground wheat
flour are now all ready and we have decided to sell them to raise much needed
funds for the school. Because it is such a unique product we are selling them
for ?20 per bag. Anyone interested please email
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or telephone Dorly at 045 401483.
We are also seeking donations and sponsorship for our school so that we can
develop it and the site into a beautiful natural environment for children.
For parents unsure about the current mainstream school system, Steiner education
offers a caring education with a vibrant community of children, teachers and parents.
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