LeadTogether: The Practice of Collaboration

At the heart of Waldorf Education is an imagination of a better world through human beings’ conscious collaboration with one another, the natural world and the spirit. Its founder, Rudolf Steiner, looked into the future and saw that, in order to combat an age of growing materialism and self centeredness, a new approach to education was needed – one that took into consideration the spiritual nature of the human being and the cosmos – one that considered the interdependence of the natural world and the spirit.

Now almost one hundred years later, we have made a good start. Waldorf Education is known and practiced in thousands of independent institutions throughout the world – schools connected by a commitment to this imagination.

In all of these schools and early childhood centers worldwide, groups of individuals continue to wrestle with the unique social dynamics of their organizations, trying to understand and incorporate the social impulses embedded in the  first school, as they strive to be practical, sustainable and creative organisms in their communities and cultures.

Throughout his life, Rudolf Steiner did everything he could to offer insights, tools and examples of a conscious working together. From the very beginning, he imagined Waldorf schools as social organisms where individuals would learn how to collaborate and lead together.

Collaboration in a faculty, in a board and in an administration is essential to the long-term success of Waldorf Education. Collaboration between schools and colleagues is equally as essential if we are to develop the kinds of relationships needed to keep our Waldorf schools vital.

This site is an attempt to gather the wisdom that has been gained during the last century and begin a new dialog about our tasks, one that we hope will help support a deepened understanding and practice of how to LeadTogether. -MS