Neil Boland

Auckland University of Technology | AUT · School of Education

This article seeks to identify trends in Steiner Waldorf education through the lens of Clarence Beeby's work on educational myths. Beeby calls myths a form of communication between contemporaries or between generations, ways of conceptualizing education that can be understood quickly yet are flexible enough to accommodate a range of interpretations...

In this article, I explore (not) belonging from the standpoint of an esotericist working within the academy. By esotericist, I mean someone who works with notions of spirituality in Foucault’s sense of the ‘search, practice and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the t...

The New Zealand Certificates of Steiner Education (CSE) are secondary qualifications at levels 1, 2 and 3, recognized by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. They give access to tertiary education in New Zealand and beyond. The impulse for new qualifications grew from a wish to have important aspects of the taught Steiner curriculum recognized...

Over the last century, Waldorf schools have become established around the world. They are united in pedagogical approach, but distributed in different geographies, cultures and contexts. This article critiques the arborescent model of a single, original, authentic and historical Waldorf curriculum that has often been 'transplanted' as an 'exotic' i...

This report is of the first three years of the Mentoring the Mentors program run by Steiner Education Australia. Key themes from the data are presented and discussed. These include the complex and contested nature of mentoring within Steiner settings, and the tensions contained in the continuum of tradition–innovation within Steiner education. Thes...

This report examines how the Covid-19 pandemic was experienced in Waldorf early childhood settings in Germany. It looks at reported changes to practice, what has been learned or become clearer from the pandemic experience, and current challenges. (In German)

Dieses Buch beschreibt die Ergebnisse einer Studie über die Auswirkungen der Covid-19-Pandemie auf Steiner- Waldorfkindertageseinrichtungen in 40 Ländern. Es stützt sich auf die Antworten von mehr als 1000 Teilnehmer:innen und lässt die Stimmen von Erzieher:innen, Assistent:innen, Verwaltungsmitarbeiter:innen und Erzieherausbilder:innen zu Wort kom...

Recommendations for the education of Steiner teachers worldwide, compiled by the International Teacher Education Project. The aims of this project are: to ensure there is sufficient consistent and high-quality teacher education to support the need of Steiner educational initiatives for well-trained and well-supported teachers, to develop guideline...

A review of challenges facing Waldorf education in the twenty-first century. Waldorf education can be thought of as an ideal: an education that nurtures the individual to meet their potential, an education towards freedom, an education which meets the needs of the time. However, education (Waldorf or otherwise) is always specific: it is enacted in...

Dies ist eine Zusammenfassung eines Berichts, der versucht, die Reaktionen auf die Pandemie und ihre Folgen in den Einrichtungen der Waldorfpädagogik zu dokumentieren.

This article considers the importance in schools of teaching and learning te reo Māori, the Indigenous language of Aotearoa New Zealand. It explores the vital role language plays in working to deconstruct colonial binaries of Māori–Pākehā in Aotearoa and their attendant, unequal power structures, allowing contemporary New Zealanders to explore spac...

Summary report of the effects and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on Steiner Waldorf early childhood settings

This book details the results of a study of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Steiner Waldorf early childhood settings in 40 countries. Drawing on the responses of over 1000 participants, it allows the voices of kindergarten educators, assistants, administrators and teacher educators to be heard as they describe how they have been affected by...

This report is of a six-month research programme with experienced mentor teachers in Australian Steiner schools as they explore aspects of mentorship in a collegial setting. Findings include the importance of support from leadership, the frequency of being asked to take on conflicting roles, creating safe spaces, the desirability of a national ment...

Steiner Waldorf education has undergone many developments since it was first introduced in Stuttgart in 1919. Some of these have been the result of pedagogical experience, others in response to outer requirements, while others have been a response to changed and changing circumstances. Numerous articles have been published outlining changes Waldorf...

Report of a year's project mentoring experienced teachers in mentoring roles. Participants were from around Australia. Commissioned by Steiner Education Australia

Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives, 10(1), 48-62. This article contains an interview between the author and Florian Osswald, one of the co-leaders of the Steiner education movement worldwide, held at the end of the four-day Asian Steiner Teacher Educators' Conference in Yuchi, Taiwan in February, 2020. It focuses on the work...

Infantologies II is a continuation of a series of articles that began with the quartet: Infantologies, Infanticides, Infantasies, Infantilizations. 'Infantologies II: Songs of the Cradle' is devoted to fairy stories, nursery rhymes and the poetics of early childhood. Each author engages with these themes through different questions and contexts, co...

This article considers three current approaches to education for social justice: culturally responsive pedagogy, critical pedagogy and decolonisation. It is informed by the work of Gloria Ladson-Billings, Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux and Linda Tuhiwai Smith among others. It questions the degree to which Steiner education engages with and is informed...

This chapter is a record of an exploratory investigation into the esoteric, cosmic and supersensory in an academic context using first-person research as the methodology. Its point of departure is a statement by Rudolf Steiner regarding the nature of the musical interval of the fifth, lying at the boundary of the human and the cosmic. It documents...

This report details teacher responses and experiences to Covid-19 restrictions in Steiner Early Childhood Settings in Australia

A comparative report of responses to Covid-19 in Steiner early childhood setting in Australia and New Zealand

This report details teacher responses and experiences to Covid-19 restrictions in Steiner Early Childhood Settings in New Zealand

在追隨一條破舊的，信賴傳統的道路上，華德福教育在世界各地迅速而顯著地傳播。這當然是在很久以前就開始的，但最近幾年的進步真是極不平凡。這種現象主要發生於亞洲，尤其是在中國。Martyn Rawson於數年前即確認過，這件事強調了一個更深遠的趨勢。他說： 有超過60個以上的國家提供華德福教育，而在亞洲，尤以主要的新興發展區域的增長更為迅速。在華德福教育成為全球化的過程中，它已在歐洲從其起源地擴散，而今它才幾乎剛開始中肯地反思這個從不同文化和不同環境中傳入的理念擴張的意義（2010年，頁2）。 當華德福教育走出中歐時，其發展情況如何？

A response regarding the purposes of education in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Article from waldorf-researches.org which focuses on Waldorf education as an education for social justice. It explores how Rudolf Steiner phrased this a century ago and then considers how it can be approached in a twenty-first century context. It appears here in English, Spanish and German.

This article investigates and documents inner processes which underlie and support my professional life-a living-eduational-theory based on what I term 'lived spirituality'. Influenced strongly by the work of Rudolf Steiner, this living-educational-theory is grounded in personal experience tracked through time and the personal knowledge gained over...

The article is taken from a keynote to the conference of Steiner Education Aotearoa New Zealand, held in April 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand

Transcript of a keynote given to the Western Australian Steiner Schools Conferfence

This short article takes stock of Waldorf education and assesses the development of the approach taken over the last hundred years. It is part of a large publication published by the International Network of Academic Steiner Teacher Education (INASTE), based in Vienna. The article looks as issues of ‘centre’ and periphery and how that has influenc...

This article documents a communal process investigating aspects of place and belonging in Waldorf education. It records the unfinished journey of a community of teachers in Jocelyn's school in Honolulu, Hawai'i, and explores questions, tensions, and contradictions that surfaced during a two-year process. The values we bring to the research revolve...

In this study, I present five pieces I composed which explore Rudolf Steiner's indications on music for young children. I assess the potential of Steiner's comments on the suitability of the interval of the fifth to guide the composition of music for young children. The five short pieces are representative of stages on the compositional journey I h...

Text of four keynote lectures given to the conference of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, Washington DC, June 2018

This article documents an exploratory, values-based process involving culture, society and contemporaneity in Steiner Waldorf education. I do this by using my own developing values as a lens through which I assess and critique Steiner educational practice. Through the growing awareness and articulation of my own values, I look at notions of represe...

This article tells of an unfinished journey we took with a group of teachers in Honolulu as we investigate and navigate notions of place and belonging. We explain how we are developing and transforming relationships with our values-embodied expressions of aloha and anthroposophy-and how we are challenging previously held ideas. The journey is being...

Neil Boland suggests that we scrutinize time, place and community. Does everyone experience a sense of belonging within the school? Which communities are represented in school? Does the curriculum reflect every community or only the European middle class? In his third and final article Neil encourages us to look closely: How diverse is the school c...

As Waldorf education approaches its centenary, does it still have anything to offer?

This article looks at the degree to which the 'traditional' Steiner Waldorf curriculum responds to the question of place as it is implemented outside Europe.

Steiner early childhood centres and schools span the globe and are attended by thousands of children in contexts and settings far removed from that of the first school in Southern Germany. This article attempts to assess how the education has spread into new locations and cultures, and the degree to which it has, or has not, adapted to different ge...

This chapter gives an overview of the history of education in New Zealand and the need for social and emotional education in the country’s schools today. It interrogates the increasing value being placed on standards and STEM subjects, profiling three case studies of programmes and initiatives in place which promote a social and emotional approach...

Al igual que ocurre en muchos otros países, Nueva Zelanda está actualmente concediendo una creciente importancia al impulso de las asignaturas relacionadas con las áreas de ciencias, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), y se esfuerza por mantener su calificación en el informe PISA, con resul...

Book review of OECD report "Skills for social progress: The power of social and emotional skills", published March 2015.

4 STEINERSKOLEN STEINERSKOLEN 5 VI BEFINDER OS I EN KLØFT MELLEM NUTID OG FREMTID Verden forandrer sig hurtigere og hurtigere, den bliver mere uigennemskuelig og samtidig forbundet på kryds og tvaers. Hvordan, dette vil påvirke uddannelsessystemet de kommende årtier, er en forskningsdisciplin, der får større og større opmaerksomhed 1. Menneskeheden...

The rise of the PISA standards has taken the educational world by storm, with intense media attention and debate every time they are published. Over the past two decades, they have been gaining an increasing role in shaping educational systems and policies across the world, gaining a ‘canonical status’ among member countries, and becoming a global...

Montessori and Steiner educators speak on children in contemporary Aotearoa 2014 in New Zealand, historically a land of abundance and synonymous with a welfare state, allows 25% of children to live in poverty. The associated education, health, and social challenges are a cause for concern. The child is invisible and systematically undermined, as po...