The Story

Stations of Education

When Father’s job as an engineer took his young family from Austria to Canada, I was enrolled in the kindergarten of a convent because it lay on his way to work. Aged four I learnt my first word of English – garbage – and my Canadian accent made Mother laugh.

Playing on a heap of snow with the little girl next door, I marvelled at the fact that though we did not speak the same language, we were imagining the same story, licking icing sugar from the roof of the witch’s hut as Hansel and Gretel.

Kindergarten taught me Basic English and how oppressive institutionalised education can be.

Father had to drop me off very early, but before eight o’clock no toys were to be touched. A kindly nun who broke this rule to pass the time with me was severely reprimanded, and I was given a big broom to sweep the hallway, for sweeping was allowed at this early hour. I remember pushing that broom up and down a gloomy corridor with a long row of doors on either side, anxious and unhappy.

Two nuns were in charge: Sister Julia, young and lovely, and grumpy Sister Carmelita. One day this old nun sat me on her knees. “Now, dear,” she said in an attempt at cheerful kindness, “whom do you like better: Me, or Sister Julia?” My honest reply had her push me away, grumbling unknown words and leaving me bewildered.

In my group there was Susan, a boisterous little rebel who did whatever she liked, cheerfully unfazed by rules, reprimands and punishments. I admired her greatly. Whenever Mother Superior was sent for, she would poke her head out of her distant office to call along the corridor, “Is it for Susan?”

My experience of formal education did not improve on our return to Austria.

I was enrolled in a kindergarten in Wiener Neustadt – the very town where Rudolf Steiner had been a student. Tante Adele was a dour woman, and the children endlessly replayed episodes of ‘Flipper’ and ‘Lassie’. We did not have television because my parents were against it, so I sat on the sidelines and watched. After the first repetition I could have joined in, but by then I already found it boring.

And so the role of outsider and observer settled on me like an invisible mantle.

One day my parents called me to watch TV at a neighbour’s house. Everyone gathered there to witness the Moon Landing, and they thought that I might not forgive them for missing such a historic moment. But they needn’t have worried. I did not grasp the event’s importance, longed to return to playing in the sunny fields and wondered why anyone would want to be on the moon.

It was time to join the local village school. If Kindergarten had been an unhappy experience, Class 1 was worse.

The first school day began with a formal assembly in church, but I was delivered to the classroom when it had finished. My parents had meanwhile left organised religion, and it made our family suspect in this catholic countryside.

The school’s religion teacher was also the husband of my class teacher. I did not understand why she was so unfriendly towards me and treated me so harshly, assuming that she must really dislike me. She probably did.

Memories of my time at this primary school are few and bleak. I remained an outsider, afraid of spending break in the playground and terrified of teachers who seemed out to humiliate me.

The best moment was always the final bell, for it released me to meet my only friend, a girl from Class 2. Slowly we made our way home across the fields, picking little snails from the hedgerow and watching, enchanted, as they wobbled across our palms, waving their tiny tentacles.

A couple of months into Class 1, Frau Kratzer did a dictation of maths problems. When reaching the end of a page, one had to count a certain number of squares from the top edge of the new page because these had to be left blank as a margin. Getting flustered in the process, I missed the next steps of her dictation, did not dare draw attention to my problem and could not complete the task.

The teacher, not seeing fit to enquire what had gone wrong, returned my book with the lowest mark. I hid my tears. Like everyone, I strove to gain the top mark – the only one that seemed worth getting – and now I saw that these marks were also a way to shame and punish those who failed for whatever reason.

In those days children did not complain about teachers to their parents. It just wasn’t done. Shy, well-behaved and oppressed by the vista of many miserable school years ahead, I turned pale, silent and depressed. This change in their formerly bright and joyful child naturally worried my parents.

A friend told them of the Waldorf School in Vienna, they visited and were thrilled: No Church influence, no marks or tests, a no-TV policy … It was right up their street! Unfortunately Vienna, being too far from Father’s workplace, was not an option, and neither was home education.

But a seed had been planted. School did not have to be ‘like this’.

Then Frau Kratzer caught me whispering something to the girl beside me. She shouted and sent me to the infamous ‘donkey bench’ at the back of the classroom. The pedagogical purpose of this bench was: to announce that anyone who had to sit there was as stupid as a donkey.

This shameful punishment had me sobbing quietly for the rest of the lesson, despite discreet efforts to cheer me up by the boy who was that bench’s habitual resident. Older than the class because he had to repeat the year, he seemed to bear this blemish on his academic record with equanimity. I am ashamed to say that I ignored his kindness because he was the other outsider, and I feared that any interaction would add to my troubles.

I don’t know how my parents got to hear of this incident. Maybe the teacher called home. It was the final straw and they took me out of school. That was illegal, but Mother began to show an attitude I knew from Susan.

Fortuitously, Father was offered another job opportunity abroad and we moved to Switzerland. Now a Waldorf School was within reach – up to forty minutes by car each way, but still!

We were interviewed and shown around the premises. Kindergarten made my eyes well up. The glow of love and care that radiated from this sunlit room with its sweet scent of beeswax, rainbow-coloured cloths, wooden blocks in big crates, shells and pebbles in little baskets … How different it was from the nuns and their gloomy corridor!

I felt a surge of envy for the children who could enjoy this lovely setting and regretted that I was not one of them. Even so, my first weeks at this Waldorf School were like a sunrise that warmed my chilled, unhappy soul.

Class 2, close to forty children in tightly packed rows, began the day listening to their teacher as he played his violin. A tall man with a big voice and natural authority, he needed no punishments to achieve discipline.

The first words I learnt of the Swiss language were Faischter schlüüsse – ‘Close the windows’. But although I did not understand Swiss German yet, I felt understood at school for the first time, because Herr Homberger perceived what no other teacher had noticed before.

When he called on individual pupils in turn to clap and stamp a multiplication table up and down the classroom’s aisle, the shy new girl was so nervous that she couldn’t utter a sound. She had learnt to expect shaming and punishment for being unable to carry out a task in the expected manner, but this teacher just walked beside her and did the counting out loud while she timidly stamped and clapped. And when a Susan-like girl called out, “But she isn’t saying anything!” Herr Homberger replied, “Yes, but inside she is saying it all quite clearly.”

It threw a new light on education as I was struck by two things: Firstly, at this school it mattered what went on inside me; and secondly, girls like Susan could express themselves freely and were not sent to Mother Superior or the donkey bench for calling out.

It seemed too good to be true, but it was real! Mother and Father were thrilled that their daughter would have liked to attend this school even on Sundays – just because she loved it so much, and even though the daily drive made her carsick.

The Seventies were a golden decade for Waldorf Schools. Many parents, dissatisfied with the school system, were looking for alternatives, so our Zurich school had several kindergartens and a double stream of large classes. Waiting lists grew so long that a new school was founded in another part of the city.

Most teachers studied Rudolf Steiner’s works, parents attended study groups on Anthroposophy, and there were still a few people around who had met Dr Steiner in person and heard his late lectures in their youth. By Class 4 we had shaken hands with five of these octogenarians, just before they passed away, because all of them were still marginally involved with the school they had helped to carry from its beginning in 1927.

To us pupils, Steiner was just a name the adults liked to talk about, like Bach, Mozart, Goethe or Shakespeare. Our school bore his name and his portrait was in the entrance hall, but we did not learn who he was and why he was important. I experienced anthroposophist members of our school community as kind and upright people and identified them as people who said grace before a meal, disliked right angles, opposed the use of plastic, preferred clothes and toys of natural materials, and pioneered organic food.

The school’s Advent Fair created a splendid buzz each year. Crowds from far beyond our community thronged the stalls in classrooms and hallways as they purchased lovely things, enjoyed the catering and attended the performance of a class play. Voluntary parental efforts in preparation throughout the year culminated in this fabulous weekend that generated vast sums – up to CHF 400,000 – in vital funds; much-needed because the Swiss government does not support independent schools.

But the Swiss Department of Education, though just as suspicious and unsupportive of Waldorf Education as its British counterpart, did not interfere much. It insisted on a formal oral exam in Class 4, but that was not at all stressful. Men in suits sat at the back of the room and took notes while we raised a hand, answered our teacher’s questions and enjoyed showing what we had learnt.

Upon reaching Class 10, the golden glow of gratitude and appreciation had faded. With a teenager’s critical attitude, I assumed that the grass must be much greener elsewhere and clamoured to leave. Mother and Father remained firm. “You may leave this school, but not Waldorf Education.”

Herr Homberger told us of a Waldorf School in England he knew well, we visited and were thrilled. The fees were considerable, but I would gain the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English – and that, Mother explained, would permit me to teach the language. I dismissed the unappealing notion of becoming a teacher out of hand but looked forward to attending school abroad.

It proved a wise parental decision – another reason for gratitude – because I loved the liberty of this boarding school. Also, looking after myself within the boundaries of a secure framework far from home eliminated friction between Mother and teenage me.

Resuming the role of outsider and observer, I studied my English peers with amazement. The first new word I learnt was gorgeous – shrieked repeatedly as the girls unpacked suitcases and showed off new items of clothing – which made me wonder how the British had acquired their reputation for dignified reserve. These girls were so loud, so demonstrative, hysterical even … It was quite a culture shock.

I did not fit in but quickly fell in love with the Georgian mansion in its parklike grounds, with English culture and humour, the language and its literature. I even liked the food … and I did learn English really well, obtained that precious Cambridge Certificate at seventeen, and ever since felt equally at home in my first three languages.

Happy hours in the Art Room of Ted Roberts set me on the path to studying Visual Arts in Zurich. At the age of twenty-one I borrowed Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom from my parents’ bookshelf because I found the title so appealing.

“Let me know if you understand anything,” Mother said. I devoured the book and understood mainly this: “Das ist er!” 

This is he: The voice of reason, rock-solid ground among shifting sands of opinion, a powerful mind of light-filled clarity, a way of thinking utterly compelling in its unimpeachable logic, and a unique ability to enter into any other person’s way of thinking – their Weltanschauung – and summarise its merits and errors with empathy.

It made me feel about Steiner as Hamlet did about Horatio: “Give me that man / That is not passion’s slave / And I will wear him in my heart’s core …”

Starting with Volume 1, I began to work my way through Steiner’s books, and with a group of new friends – none of them Waldorf alumni – had lively discussions of their content. At times such discussions continued until the night sky turned light, and we needed neither alcohol nor drugs to fuel soaring flights of enthusiasm.

Every now and again, in this circle or at Art College, or years later at my workplace, I would contribute something to a conversation that had everyone staring. “How come you know that?” I was asked by astonished peers or older persons. “Well, we learnt it at school … Didn’t you?”

No, they replied, they did not; and I should count myself privileged to have received an education that imparted such wide-ranging general knowledge.

My new friends introduced me to Berthold Wulf, a Christian Community priest who held inspiring public lectures titled ‘An Introduction to Anthroposophy’. His intensely engaging, wise and humorous way of talking about Steiner’s life and works, about spiritual science and epistemology, about Weltanschauungen and religions, about history, literature, philosophy and medicine (among much else) drew appreciative and loyal crowds.

He trained and enriched our minds, and for six years I was able to attend these weekly lectures that gave me a higher education and an understanding of what Anthroposophy really is.

We learnt that true, actual Anthroposophists are modern-day initiates in training: a vanishingly small number of people who can muster the resolve and mental stamina needed to follow the path outlined by Rudolf Steiner, carrying out the required simple exercises diligently for years, without certainty of success, until the spirit world opens up to their inner vision. In Berthold Wulf we were privileged to know one of them. And he wrote great poetry too.

Meanwhile I had graduated as a graphic designer and was working without enthusiasm in the bizarre and stressful world of advertising. A brief marriage ended in divorce and the life of a single working mother.

Ten years on, now a parent at my old school, I took advantage of their Open Week, observed lessons across the board and thought, “I love this! I want to be one of those teachers! Their work is so much more meaningful than mine.”

It was also much less well-paid, but that did not weigh on my mind as I enrolled for teacher training.

In its second year, envisioning myself as an enthusiastic English teacher for young adults – thank you, Mother – I attended a summer course for TEFL teachers at Emerson College. This course was a lot of fun, and its lively approach to teaching sparked a keen desire to return to England. But could I, as a foreigner, teach English here?

“Our schools are always looking for German teachers,” I was told. “Just apply!”

Six months later I had moved to a small Waldorf School in the UK and was finding my way into teaching German. This had never been my plan, but I enjoyed teaching the songs, poems and verses I loved as a child. The pupils, initially less than enthusiastic about learning German, appreciated my artistic approach to language teaching. And when one of them told me, “I like the German language, it has a nice sound,” I knew I was doing a good job.

With my first professional training in mind, I was asked to take on Art for the Upper School as well, and so I built a cycle of lesson plans for Classes 1 to 10, finding that teaching can only truly be learnt in the classroom.

I never imagined myself as a class teacher, totally in awe of that huge commitment. But after three years of competent, creative and reliable subject teaching, I was asked to cover Classes 1 to 3 in brief succession, their teachers needing to be absent for a week and various reasons.

Unexpectedly I found the experience delightful, knew instinctively what to do and how to do it, and the children enjoyed it too. I could see that I was well qualified for the task. And class teaching was fun!

It gave me the confidence to apply for Class 1 at a larger school, and there I found ‘my children’ waiting for me. I had taught many classes and developed a sense for their unique character, but with this group there was a special connection from the start. That first year, various members of staff would ask, “How’s your class?” just to see my face light up as I told them.

We shared seven years of work and learning, and now I experienced the curriculum from the other side, with frequent epiphanies: “So that’s why we did this … and in this way.” It made so much sense.

But an unending round of tireless work produced the worrying signs of several early-stage burnout symptoms. Unwilling to sacrifice physical and mental health, I took a sabbatical after Class 7 and went travelling to recharge my energy by looking at the world with new eyes.

A road trip around Britain and a cruise around the world restored balance and wellbeing. And by charting this exhilarating freedom in two travel journals, I also discovered my love of writing.

Did my modest salary stretch to a world cruise, you ask? Certainly not! But the untouched nest egg of my early divorce settlement did – proving that even our most painful experiences may in time show their silver lining.

A brief return to teaching made me see that after such conscious enjoyment of glorious freedom I could no longer bow to routine and re-tread familiar paths.

A new challenge was needed, so I self-published my travel journals on Amazon. That was fun, allowed me to relive my journeys and honed my writer’s voice. Having been a graphic designer came in handy too – proving that nothing we learn is ever in vain.

After a few unexpected twists and turns of fate, I was able to retire early – thank you, Mother – to divide my time between gardening and writing.

My path had prepared me very well for the artistic and creative side of Waldorf Education, and now I enjoyed writing A WALDORF DIARY to help those who struggle with this essential aspect.

The strands of my story, my interests and experience come together in its chapters, and it is my sincere hope and wish that they may help to carry the authentic Waldorf Spirit into the future.

Comments are welcome, so don’t hesitate to share experiences, questions and feedback below.

This guide assists class teachers and home educators with editable daily lesson plans, presentation notes, mentoring comments and examples of work. Its chapters are currently being formatted for digital publication and released in turn. To be notified of such releases, subscribe here:

Check the progress of publication at the schedule, read testimonials and download your free chapter. For prices and details of available chapters, visit the shop page:

Follow A WALDORF DIARY‘s Facebook page for exclusive updates.