Interview with Christopher Clouder, one of the most beloved and authorized educators to talk about Waldorf pedagogy

Interview with Christopher Clouder, one of the most beloved and authorized educators to talk about Waldorf pedagogy, which houses 2, 000 primary, secondary and high school education schools and 1, 900 education Children in more than 90 countries.

-The Waldorf pedagogical system is still revolutionary today. -Yes, although it was initiated by an Austrian philosopher in the early twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner.

-What is it based on?
- The fundamental idea is that education must respect and support the child's physiological, psychic and spiritual development. Good emotional development is the guarantee for good intellectual development.
First phase, from 0 to 7 years. In this phase children are physically related to the world, learning comes through play. But the basic thing at this age is that they feel protected and secure. All children come with talents, and when they know that the adults around them respect those talents, they can make them flourish.

-And the most academic learning?
-Later, because the important thing at these ages is that children are children. There is a lot of time to be an adult and too little to be a child. Look at the development of the brain: children learn through movement. A child sitting in a chair is something strange to the learning process.

- Do not teach them to read or write?
-Do not. Through the game they are given the language skills so that in the next stage they quickly learn to read and write. They have many experiences of listening and speaking. The fundamental thing is that they perceive that learning is a joyful experience, so they move on to the second stage eager to learn.

-What defines the stage from 7 to 14?
- The important thing in this period is not so much what they learn as the relationship they have with what they learn. Because what one learns, he forgets it over time, but does not forget what he has felt about what he has learned. It is the stage of feelings. According to the latest neurological research we think through our feelings.

-What is important in puberty?
-Now yes, the intellect, because it is now when they approach the subjects in a more analytical way. But during all stages artistic activities are essential and central; and in our schools they live without the pressure of the exams.

- And then they adapt to the demands of the university?
-We do not compete, but the grades they obtain and the adaptation to the university of children educated with this system are clearly above average, and they have remarkable social skills of tolerance and creativity as evidenced by studies in Austria, Sweden and Germany .

-Why do you think it's like that?
-Because they have acquired a sense of self-worth through artistic work and have learned to love study. It is very important that children have challenges in education, but education is integral and not everything can be examined, for example the child's empathy.

- Each time there are more children with attention deficit and hyperactive, why?
-They are problems that correspond to our time. We turn children into consumers. And consumption, by definition, is never satisfied, there is always something better, and children are very vulnerable to that.
Children have a lot of stress and from very young. Too many obligations. The tension of measuring oneself with others and that they endure for a suspense is a drama in their life.

-You change exams for attention.
-Yes, a teacher follows a student in the main subjects for many years, he does not need to examine him to know his level. Another point of stress is modern, useful and beneficial technology in general. But to children, exposed hours and hours in front of screens, that limits them with respect to the world.

-Why?
-The world becomes entertainment; They expect things to change quickly because that is what they see continuously on television, computers and video games.

-What is the most important thing we can give parents?
-To be a father today is difficult, because the extension of the traditional family has been lost and with it the diversity of models. And they have also lost contact with nature, which is very nutritious for them. My advice would be for parents to be aware that their children need nature and time, because the word they hear most is "hurry up."

-Time for them and time with them?
-Yes, they need time to develop their imagination, to get bored and to dream. Would you ask me for advice?
-Yes.
- Einstein said that if you want your son to be wise, tell him stories; and if you want him to be wiser yet, tell him more stories. Tell the children stories every day, stories and more fairy tales.

-In puberty, how to treat them?
-The discovery of love beyond the family is a decisive moment that the school curriculum must deal with giving clues, offering quality literary texts with which they can think and identify.

-The usual, good teachers.
-We need good educators, that is: teachers and parents, schools must be centers of relationship and exchange.

Interview with Christopher Clouder, one of the most beloved and authorized educators to talk about Waldorf pedagogy