Educating Children with Complex Destinies: Locating Steiner’s Paradigm and the Lauenstein Prototype in the Contested Space Between Humanistic Social Pedagogy and Eugenic Child Psychiatry in 1920s Europe
Publication information:
Abstract
In 1924, Rudolf Steiner gave his course on supportive (curative) education to a group of young people engaged in the anthroposophical youth movement, who established an educational home for children with developmental disabilities in Jena (Germany). Based on a hermeneutic review of primary sources and secondary literature, this presentation examines how Steiners paradigmatic orientation towards the established profession of “Heilpädagogik” and the practice prototype established at the Lauenstein Institute are located in the contested space between an existing humanistic and progressive social-pedagogic conception of the field, as exemplified by Heinrich Marianus Deinhardt (1821-1880) and Johannes Trüper (1855-1921), and the eugenic medical-psychiatric attempts to appropriate the “Heilpädagogik” term gaining ascendancy at the time. The findings are also discussed in terms of their relevance for anthroposophically oriented supportive and inclusive education practices today.
Presenter Biography
Jan Goeschel is Head of the Section for Inclusive Social Development at the Goetheanum – School of Spiritual Science (Dornach, Switzerland). He is also the founding President of the Camphill Academy, the professional education and research organization of the Camphill movement in North America. Jan holds an MA (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh, an MA in Educational Leadership with instructional certification in special education from Immaculata University and a PhD in Supportive Education and Rehabilitation Sciences from the University of Cologne. He is also certified in Waldorf education, anthroposophically oriented approaches to supportive education and Spacial Dynamics (a somatic movement modality). His professional experience includes classroom teaching, school leadership, inclusive community building, organizational development and professional education and training internationally.