Waldorf Education in China
02.02.2024 - Prof. Dr. Jost Schieren from Alanus University on a lecture tour in China.
Prof. Dr. Jost Schieren from Alanus University on a lecture tour in China.
The Waldorf movement has long since arrived in China as well and has grown enormously there over the past ten years. There are now more than 60 Waldorf schools and 150 Waldorf kindergartens. To gain an impression of this development, Jost Schieren, Professor of Waldorf Education and Dean of the Department of Educational Sciences at Alanus University, traveled to China for two weeks in January 2024. Together with the renowned Waldorf expert Christof Wiechert, recently appointed Senior Research Fellow at Alanus University, he visited numerous Waldorf schools there, such as Hairong Waldorf School in Guangzhou, Lezhi Waldorf School and Nanshan Waldorf School in Beijing, as well as Waldorf School in Chengdu, the first Waldorf school in China, which was founded twenty years ago.
As part of the “8th Leadership Conference” in Chengdu, which was held again for the first time since the pandemic, Jost Schieren discussed questions of teacher training and opportunities for cooperation with Alanus University with the managing directors of all Waldorf schools in China. Collaboration with the Chinese Waldorf movement had been prepared through the translation into Chinese of numerous articles from the academic journal “RoSE Research on Steiner Education”, of which Jost Schieren is co-editor, and videos from the lecture series of the “ICW International Campus Waldorf.”
Jost Schieren then took part locally in a major “High School Teacher Conference” with more than 200 participants. Other colleagues from Alanus University also traveled there, such as Dr. Jürgen Peters. The focus of this conference is a one-week high school teacher training program covering the following topics: mathematics in upper school (Dr. Jürgen Peters), biology in upper school (Dr. Benjamin Bembe), and foundations of Waldorf education (Prof. Dr. Jost Schieren and Christof Wiechert).
At the end of the trip, the first cooperation agreement could be finalized: on January 31, 2024, Jost Schieren and Zewu Li from the Chinese Waldorf Teacher Federation sealed with a handshake their future cooperation with Alanus University on matters of teacher training. “My encounters with colleagues in the Chinese Waldorf movement were deeply impressive. I met people who are at once pragmatic and hands-on, creatively solution-oriented, and committed with deep educational conviction to shaping the future of Waldorf education in China. I am very much looking forward to working together in the areas of degree study for Waldorf graduates at Alanus University and joint teacher training initiatives,” Jost Schieren concludes.
Contact for press inquiries:
+49 (0)2222 9321-1944
presse@alanus.edu
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