The Waldorf Education List

What is the Waldorf List?

The Waldorf education e-mail discussion list is a forum for parents, teachers, and other interested people to discuss Waldorf education by exchanging electronic mail messages over the Internet. Just in case you aren't familiar with some of the terms in that sentence, here's what they mean:

  • Waldorf education is an international educational movement involving over 600 schools, both publicly and privately funded, plus many other teachers and parents who are inspired by the Waldorf schools. All Waldorf schools are governed entirely independent of one another; What unites them is a common regard for the educational philosophy of the original Waldorf school, which was founded in Germany in 1919 by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. You can find out more about Waldorf education and the philosophy behind it (anthroposophy) from the Rudolf Steiner College pages at http://www.steinercollege.org/, at http://www.bobnancy.com/, and at http://www.waldorfworld.net

  • E-mail, or electronic mail is the most common way for people to send messages to each other using computers connected to the international network-of-networks called the Internet. You will need an e-mail address where you can receive (and send) electronic mail if you want to participate in the Waldorf education e-mail discussion list. (You cannot participate through the World-Wide Web, even though that is part of the Internet, too.)

  • An e-mail discussion list works like this: You first "subscribe" to the list (instructions for subscribing are here), which adds your e-mail address to our list of participants. Then you will start getting several messages a day from other subscribers. Any subscriber (including you) can type a message and send it to a special e-mail address called the "list address", and the computer at that address will automatically forward the message to every other subscriber (currently about 600 people). The effect is that all 600 of us can "hear" each other speak, as if we were all in the same room having a discussion. Obviously, if all 600 people said something even once a day, there would be far too much mail for anyone to read! Generally, you will want to just read other's messages most of the time, and respond with your own comments whenever you have something you'd like to contribute. Some people "post" more messages than others, but generally it all works out to about a dozen messages per day in your mailbox. (You can receive these all in one daily "digest" message if you prefer. See here .)

The Waldorf e-mail list was started in May, 1994 by a parent (David "Lefty" Schlesinger) who couldn't find a mailing list about Waldorf education and so decided to create one. It is currently hosted by ICORS , and managed by Arthur Fink, Nancy Parsons, Bob Schultz and Risë Smyth-Freed who have all been active in Waldorf Education for many years.