This article was published in New View Magazine, Summer 2019, Issue 92. The issue also includes an interview with authors Tamara and Sebastian Suggate.
The Suggates state that their book is “as much a defence of childhood as it is an advocacy of Steiner education”. This is important, as it indicates that it is the child who must be kept in focus at all times and not a system. Their aim is to deepen understanding as well as stimulate thought and they present Steiner-Waldorf not as a definitive solution but as a way forward, so long as it remains “open and self-critical”. Their multi-disciplinary approach to the material is helpful in that it demonstrates how many of Steiner’s methods and insights have become ‘evidenced’ by conventional science. Indeed, some principles that have long been part of Waldorf kindergartens, such as the value of creativity, aesthetics and movement, are now widely recognised and promoted by mainstream experts. (See, for instance, Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds: The Power of Being Creative). Others, such as the significance of imitation in early learning, are wholly under-appreciated, which is precisely why a book that makes them explicit is so welcome.
Maria Lyons
