The first Waldorf School in Stuttgart was opened in 1919 as an educational institution for the children of the workers at the Waldorf Astoria factory who wanted to be guided by Rudolf Steiner’s popular educational ideas and visions of a fundamentally new school education (Steiner, 1919/2019, p. 29). Rudolf Steiner’s lectures, which began directly with the founding of the first Waldorf school, attest to his desire to make possible and implement a general education for all children. In an essay about the pedagogical basis of the Waldorf School he emphasizes that “principles” are assumed “based on the demands of the present” (Steiner, 1919, p. 9). “The children are to be taught to be people and for a life that meets the requirements to which every person, regardless of which of the conventional classes of society they come from, can apply themself. What the practice of contemporary life demands of people, it must be reflected in the facilities of this school” (ibid.). The basic idea was to found a school for the needs of the time and under the given social conditions. These principles have to be reconceptualized for every Waldorf school, in every place, in every environment, for every social community, culture and language, in accordance with the given conditions.

In the Waldorf School, the coeducation of girls and boys in age-appropriate class communities, which was not common at the beginning of the 20th century, was introduced from the very beginning. Documents and field reports from the founding period of the Waldorf school show that all children, regardless of aptitudes or impairments, were to remain at the school and that the teachers were expected to make the appropriate effort (Steiner, 1919/2019). Thus, Steiner advocated that teachers should “[n]ot so much have the idea that the children must achieve this or that, but ask themselves, what can the children achieve according to their psychological makeup? Work entirely from within the children! One can only get into the habit of this, respectively, if one has a genuine real endeavor to get to know the child in its different variations. Every child is interesting” (Steiner, 1920–1924/2019, Vol. 1, p. 156). The ideas of Waldorf school education, already put into practice from 1919, basically fulfill the four constitutive dimensions of inclusion: recognition, participation, anti-discrimination and educational justice (Moser and Egger, 2017, 26 ff.).

Explicitly, in the conferences recorded by the teachers at the first Waldorf school (Steiner, 1920–1924/2019), there is a wealth of reflections on challenges and difficulties in everyday educational life, for which Rudolf Steiner recommended relevant or, in today’s understanding, inclusive solutions. For him, it was not an option to expel students from school, but rather to understand the particular situation of each child and to adjust educational action accordingly. Even though the term professional attitude was not part of the language used at that time, Steiner repeatedly points out the corresponding necessary self-development of every teacher in the conferences. A teacher should not let themself go and overcome the “pedantic” manner and the “philistine”—today we would say: one’s own obstacles and presuppositions—through the work of the “higher self” (Steiner, 1923/2019, Vol. 3, p. 22, p. 55).

Only a few months after the opening of the Waldorf School, the teaching staff established a curative class on his instructions. This decision can certainly be understood as an expression of “general educational intentions” (Frielingsdorf et al., 2013, p. 61), which give the Waldorf School’s “school experiment” an “integrative character” (ibid., p. 65). For the time of the first lesson between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m., parallel to the regular lessons, about ten children from grades 1 to 6 were taught across grades by Karl Schubert, an upper school teacher whom Steiner, incidentally, considered the most capable of dealing with the individual needs of these pupils* (Steiner, 1920–1924/2019, vol. 2, p. 37). The children were thus individually supported in a small group during a certain period of the day. The rest of the day, however, they learned integrated into their class communities (Frielingsdorf et al., 2013, p. 65). Thus, in the history of Waldorf education, a deciphering of inclusion and the associated potential precursor developments of current inclusive educational understandings can be found, which are controversial (e.g., Feuser, 2021), but at the same time show the conceptual openness and possibilities at Waldorf schools.

Barth (2008) and Maschke (2009, 2018) have written their respective dissertation papers on the topic of integration and inclusion and both come to a clear conclusion: if Waldorf schools remember their origins and create appropriate frameworks for this purpose, they have very good prerequisites to be exceptional integration schools—in today’s understanding, inclusion schools (Barth, 2008). Wiehl (2015) shows in her dissertation that the elementary methods recommended by Rudolf Steiner are to be aligned with the respective developmental needs and tasks and that there is consequently an anthropologically based learning and teaching instead of a performance or result oriented methodology. Rawson (2021) sees Steiner’s educational anthropology as grounding “generative principles” such as soul economy, block teaching, spirited instructional design. The scientific works mentioned are examples of how differentiated Waldorf education implements ideal-typical and at the same time individual approaches to educational action.

Following this and based on the educational work of Rudolf Steiner and the standards of integrative and inclusive teaching, the strengths and weaknesses of Waldorf education for an inclusive organizational concept and the implementation of inclusive teaching will be elaborated.

For decades, Waldorf schools have handed down content and methods that have proven themselves in practice. Guiding principle are often the ideas and dogmas passed on from teacher to teacher, either personally or today via websites. However, they cannot be the basis for a scientific work about the inclusive potential of Waldorf education. One can examine Steiner’s educational work and how he worked with the teaching staff in the conferences (Steiner, 1920–1924/2019); what he actually said to the teachers, about their teaching, about the students or even about requirements to do justice to all children. Of course, it must be examined whether Steiner’s ideas can be considered inclusive. Precisely because the term inclusion did not yet exist, we must come to an understanding about its meaning in principle and especially in Waldorf education. Since inclusion is a young field of work in Waldorf schools and work is done with very different knowledge of inclusive education and inclusive possibilities for action, there are few current findings about it. To this extent, in the following we take up seven specifically Waldorf educational themes as principles that can be used to demonstrate the intentions of inclusive Waldorf education for an inclusive school as a place for development and the unfolding of potential.

Waldorf education is frequently subject to critical examination (e.g., Barz and Randoll, 2007; Idel, 2007; Ullrich, 2015), and in doing so, crucial aspects for the implementation of inclusive Waldorf education become evident. Waldorf schools are not truly schools for everyone: In many countries around the world, they are privately funded schools, accessible only to families who can afford to pay school fees. In Germany, Waldorf schools predominantly cater to children from affluent or well-off backgrounds, often referred to as the “educated bourgeoisie” (Brater et al., 2007, pp. 243 f.). They have been and continue to be established in neighborhoods that do not explicitly reflect the diversity of society (Brater et al., 2007, pp. 244 f.). In Germany, Waldorf schools are required to be open to all children. Nevertheless, children with migration backgrounds and experiences, as well as those affected by illness and disability, are on average underrepresented at general Waldorf schools, primarily because their parents have no knowledge of this school form. However, there are Waldorf schools worldwide that are explicitly established for children from economically disadvantaged or socially precarious backgrounds and are supported by the “Friends of Waldorf Education” (www.freunde-waldorf.de/en/; Göbel, 2019b). Behind this stands the idea of operating a Waldorf school for people in their respective environments if they wish to, regardless of their social status, religion, and culture.

Our focus here is primarily on German Waldorf schools. They too strive to create an inclusive environment and welcome all students, regardless of their social or cultural background (Adam and Schmelzer, 2019). With a holistic approach to education that goes beyond purely academic achievements and emphasizes the development of artistic, craft, and practical skills, which are firmly embedded in the curriculum, equal value is placed on nurturing the creative and emotional competencies of students. Children and adolescents are offered diverse developmental opportunities. This approach makes it possible to meet the societal challenge of individual support and integration of children from diverse social and cultural backgrounds (Schmelzer, 2019). However, the financial barrier remains, and there should be both an educational and political interest in engaging with the questions and topics of an alternative education outside the mainstream.

In Germany, there are still relatively few children with a migration background in Waldorf schools: Children and young people with migration backgrounds and from economically disadvantaged social backgrounds are underrepresented (Koolmann et al., 2018, pp. 57 ff.). The reason for this is not Waldorf education itself; rather, in the past, schools have made little effort to actively engage with children from families with limited educational backgrounds and a migrant background. Instead, they have silently accepted the fact that there are hardly any children with migration backgrounds in their student body, thereby risking imparting a perception of cultural homogeneity to the children that does not align with the reality of our diverse society (Brater et al., 2007, pp. 244 f.).

In particular, Feuser (2021) vehemently contradicts the idea that Waldorf education has an inclusive core. He asserts, “Even though it can be demonstrated that Steiner intended to create a general education for all children with the Waldorf school, practiced coeducation, and admitted children of various religious and social backgrounds, as well as those labeled as disabled, regardless of their financial status” (p. 384), the claim that the Waldorf school is an inclusive school is exaggerated. Feuser grounds this in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as the concept of inclusion contains a “societal, political, and legal dimension, which the Waldorf school, despite working in a subject-oriented manner through its educational concept and school organization, fundamentally cannot meet to this day” (Feuser 2021, p. 385). Feuser attributes this to a developmental concept of anthroposophy that thinks in stages and does not work according to today’s developmental theories (ibid.). However, he acknowledges the Waldorf school for maintaining a structure beyond performance measurement, thus demonstrating possibilities for inclusive implementation (ibid.).

At this very point, we address the criticism and, based on the work with perception vignettes, develop a methodology relevant to school and education from the Waldorf educational perspective on children and adolescents. This endeavor indeed refers to Georg Feuser’s critical perspective on inclusion in Waldorf schools and the handling of disabilities. He understands disability as a “process of societal and socio-cultural as well as normative construction and attribution practices […] as a result of which a person is actively hindered in their life activities, the realization of their educational needs, and thus in their personal development” (Feuser 2021, p. 386 f.). Disability should be regarded as a “competence of a person […] in view of the individual and social conditions of their personal development […] and classified behaviors should not be considered as defective, deficient, deviant, abnormal, or pathological. They are expressions of the specific human way of appropriating themselves to people and the world and, consequently, developmentally logical” (ibid.). With these explanations, Feuser observes that despite his critical stance, it is the conditions that “through learning as a central function of self-organization and self-preservation, connect people with people and the world, and enable, support, endanger, or make their (survival) possible as an instinct-bound, minimally determined, and open system.” In this sense, the processes are educationally organizable and shapeable. We have developed the perception vignettes precisely for this interface of cultivating a professional attitude as well as educational action in (the inclusive Waldorf) school.

When we take a closer look at these statements regarding Waldorf schools, we can in turn identify foundational principles for recognizing the initial state of children to implement an inclusion-sensitive education at these schools:

The transition from the family home to kindergarten and then to school can be shaped through the collaboration of parents, educators, and teachers, so that there are no disruptions for the children (Schilter, 2023). Many Waldorf kindergartens and schools have already developed concepts in the past for how the institutions can support each other, especially by accompanying children in their individual development and exchanging ideas. Observation of child development is crucial, especially at this young age. Even though non-standardized observation manuals are used by kindergartens and schools to conduct assessments of the developmental level at the beginning of school age (around 6 to 7 years in Germany), this provides a professionally important baseline for teachers to develop the teaching environment accordingly. Especially in the primary school classes, a curriculum oriented towards the sensory and motor development of children should take precedence, according to the children’s development (Wiehl and Auer, 2019; Auer and Wiehl, 2021). Additional physical activities, such as those based on the work of Elfriede Hengstenberg, provide an inclusive physical education in school (Barth, 2021; Barth and Stein, 2021). In many Waldorf schools an individual child-environment analysis, the so-called “second-grade examination” according to McAllen (2020), is conducted. Understanding the individual starting points of child development and learning is crucial for a personalized teaching concept. Knowledge of how children access learning and develop is crucial for teachers to adapt their teaching preparation and choice of methods to individual children and the class community. The team of teachers, therapists, school doctors or school physicians, who ideally keep a close eye on the children in the first years, determines additional assistance. A format for individualized support is the so-called “extra lesson” according to Audrey McAllen, which has seen various international adaptations in recent years. With the concept of the “extra lesson,” Audrey McAllen provided a way to understand early motor and neurological development and support children in their learning process with this approach (McAllen 2020, p. 9). It becomes evident that so-called diagnostic actions are always part of the educational day-to-day routine in the school context.

Diagnosis, understood in its original sense—diagnosis (diagnósis)—generally refers to a differentiating judgment and derives from the Greek word diá-gignóskein—to thoroughly recognize something. Since every person possesses a universe of characteristics, the claim to fully understand a personality is an excessive demand. Recognizing this is an important premise of inclusive education because only in this way can the future of learners remain open to diverse development possibilities (Zimpel, 2017, p. 41ff.).

In an inclusive sense, we could describe diagnostics as a “service” for all children: an instrument used to search for suitable educational offerings and presentations, along with adaptations of the setting for each individual child (Gebauer and Simon, 2012), “linked to a critical examination of institutions and concepts for their ‘inclusion capability’” (Simon and Simon, 2013). This would be a crucial step because “experience shows that children and adolescents living and growing up under the conditions of (determining) diagnoses are often underestimated in their development possibilities. Competencies are frequently not recognized or acknowledged, or only insufficiently so. This not only leads to confusion but also to stress for those involved, which, in turn, negatively impacts the development of children and adolescents” (Ziemen, 2013, p. 23). Therefore, we need rules for the use of diagnostic categories in the inclusive field. Diagnostic findings must be perceived as provisional and revisable working hypotheses, as they always have limited applicability and only pertain to selected aspects of an individual. Teachers or the entire multi-professional team of an institution are obliged to combine their general background knowledge with their individual understanding of children and adolescents to avoid, or at least reduce, the “threat of stereotypes” through non-labeling open diagnostic models. In general, diagnostic perspectives should be oriented towards the individual within their ecosystemic environment, and the focus should be on intervention possibilities within the setting (Prengel, 2017, p. 23).

In the context of Waldorf education, diagnostics are individual-focused (Steiner, 1919/2021, 1920–1924/2019), and therapeutic diagnostics are offered to all students (Steiner, 1924/1995). The information gained about individual children or adolescents is considered a general foundation for educational planning and reflection as well as openness. They are designed from a multi-perspective standpoint as a co-constructive and dialogical process (Steiner, 1920–1924/2019; Barth, 2008; Gäch, 2008, 2013; Knoch, 2014; Wiechert, 2017) and require an appreciative attitude as a prerequisite (Göschel, 2008, 2014; Henke and Ruhrmann, 2017; Wiechert, 2017).

In general, the multi-professional team at the Waldorf school maintains regular communication with parents. Particularly following the respective series of examinations (second grade and possibly fourth and/or sixth grade examinations), a parent-teacher conference is scheduled. Parents can also be involved in pedacogical child conferences and be invited to annual development discussions to engage in a dialogue about learning processes and developmental assessments.

Teachers use team meetings, class conferences, and student conferences as opportunities to discuss individual children and the entire class, and to take appropriately modified measures. Cooperation and mutual consultation are the pillars parental involvement and cooperative work in interdisciplinary teams within Waldorf education. Networking with in-school and out-of-school support systems is the basis for the diverse resources that children need for their development. Ideally, support, assistance, and help emerge when a school doctor works within the team, and the possibilities for supporting children are diverse. These may include activities such as physical education, art, crafts, Hengstenberg work, eurythmy, music therapy, speech formation, social education intervention, and interest-based after-school groups.

“Human perception is not a solitary relationship of a subject to its world. It always contains the potential presence and possible perspectives of others” (Fuchs, 2020, p. 160). Perceiving as the starting point for developing an educational attitude has become an important topic for us in terms of Waldorf educational professionalization. How do students learn or retain a sense of wonder? How can they also allow for moments of perplexity without hastily categorizing? The appreciative gaze within education must be learned in order to allow for the existence of secrets and mysteries that are not always solvable or guessable: “And yet it is precisely what one wants to grasp in a person, their secret. One would like to get hold of what always remains elusive. And this for two reasons: firstly, precisely because, by its very nature, it is not graspable, and secondly, because it is the core inseparable from a person’s development, their inner drive. Everything secret is becoming. Secret remains what conceals itself” (Dufourmantelle, 2021, p. 27).

In recent years, we have worked with perception vignettes in various courses and initiated projects and experiments. Perception vignettes and the reflective approach associated with them have become the foundation of our training, especially for developing a critical diagnostic and reflective capacity in students of (curative) education. “What a person sees depends not only on what they are looking at but also on what their visual-conceptual experience has taught them to see” (Kuhn, 2020, p 125). In other words, I only see what I know, have contemplated, or reflected upon. In this regard, we aim to introduce the writing of perception vignettes and the three-phase reflection process.

Writing perception vignettes is rarely accomplished in situ, primarily because it would alter the situation and interaction with a person. It is not the “participatory observation” applied in ethnographic social research (Brinkmann, 2015, p. 531). Within educational phenomenology, insights are gained through “observational participation” or “participatory experience” (ibid.). Typically, only notes are taken at the scene, or the scene is mentally retained for later recall. This process follows a course that corresponds to the four phases of creativity, as per the methodological framework provided by Wallas (1926/2014):

The crucial aspect is that a remembered event is described as accurately as possible. Then, in its written form, it is perceived, read, much like the original phenomenon, and subsequently reflected upon inquisitively.

In our seminar work with students or participants in professional development, we have transitioned to reflecting on existing perception vignettes in three phases. Reflection is considered an aspect of action and execution for attitude (Christof et al., 2020, p. 55) and is seen as a key to professionalization (Kahlau, 2023, p. 51). The exploration of the topic of reflection reveals that there is no unanimous understanding of it and, above all, it is not clear how the transfer of theoretical knowledge into practical action can be achieved in such a way that the intended connections of knowledge profoundly inspire professional attitudes and lead to creative action (Barth and Wiehl, 2023, p. 177ff.). The three-phase reflection process we have developed, also referred to as a reflection spiral, essentially encompasses three levels of insight: initially, it involves uncovering or raising awareness of the content or statement in a perception vignette through spontaneous reflection; in a second, discipline-specific reflection, connections and references to anthropological, developmental, and other knowledge are established. Finally, in a third phase, one becomes conscious of their own attitudes and modes of action. This primarily attitude-sensitive and action-oriented reflection is intended to lead to the formation of concepts for an expanded, complex understanding of the individual(s) (Wiehl and Barth, 2021, p. 200). The development of an attitude can result from the use of phenomenological approaches and co-engagement in the context of further education and training for educators; it “can (and should) lead to increased mindfulness towards oneself and the recipients of educational action” (Brinkmann et al., 2017, p. 9).

Students first read the perception vignette and write an initial spontaneous reflection on what is revealed to them in this text and how they read, interpret, or empathetically understand the situation. Subsequently, they discuss it with each other. A situation like catching a fly might be read as an example of a child’s inattentive behavior, even though they are intensely focused on an activity other than math. Students consider the impact such lapses in attention to instruction and the concentration on extracurricular activities might have on them.

In the second phase of the reflection process, students are presented with various academic texts offering diverse perspectives and knowledge transfer. In this case, the selection covers a wide range, including attention deficits and their effects, medical knowledge on the subject, challenging behavior in the classroom, and a philosophical text on attention. Students read these different texts and subsequently write another reflection related to the perception vignette. In an ensuing discussion phase, they openly present their different, sometimes new perspectives and engage in exchange.

In the third reflection phase, students deliberate this new perspective on the situation, which may either entail a change or confirmation of their initial interpretation. This phase encourages self-reflection and self-development in their (curative) educational professionalization. The focus here is on evaluating their own three-fold reflection process.

The striking aspect of this methodology is that it helps recognize and understand the uniqueness of an individual and appreciates the observed moments. Shared experiences and collaborative learning foster a professional, inclusive, and prejudice-conscious attitude development. Through the collective conversation, ideas for educational actions and support options emerge. The reflections of the students in this third and final phase often convey touching realizations: “If from the beginning, we saw distinctiveness as an asset, and if every institution was designed, built, and conceptualized in such a way that each child always had the opportunity for a variety of working, moving, and leisure options, fewer emotions would be pent up, and fewer boundaries would be imposed. As a result, a balanced overall situation would prevail.” Students also describe the new perspectives that are revealed through the academic texts. Their view is inverted, broadened, and they perceive not only the one student catching a fly or the individual teacher, but also the environment, the world around them. The reflections reveal numerous possibilities and reasons for unusual or conspicuous behaviors, but the complete truth is impossible to fathom. We always see only a partial aspect, but that can reveal something essential: the child inattentive during math class actually possesses a remarkable level of attentiveness and a nimble responsiveness, allowing them to catch a fly without harming it.

Working with perception vignettes is perceived by students as a highly rewarding and generous tool for sensitizing themselves to educational experiences by putting themselves in the shoes of the observed. Students reflect that each person employs different mechanisms to interact with what is presented in a perception vignette. What’s intriguing is that young individuals find very diverse solutions to educational issues and, in conversations about their reflections, they notice how differently they see, interpret, and react. For instance, one student expresses, “My perception has changed through this process. I became aware that every child learns differently and must be addressed and stimulated differently. The world is rarely as it first appears. I was reminded not to judge too hastily and to consider as many dimensions as possible.” (Barth and Wiehl, 2023, p. 230).

What students learn in their work with and through perception vignettes is an increased sensitivity to the singular and distinctive. They are encouraged to think in a layered and multi-perspective manner, and they realize that effective and development-supporting education always requires fundamental insights into the individuals: “The theory of professional action teaches us that we should alternate multiple perspectives if we want to understand children” (Prengel, 2003, p. 36). Regarding diagnostics, questions arise as to whether categorizations of children’s behaviors are always necessary, or if it’s also about initially connecting knowledge, wanting to understand and recognize the children, and whether these texts serve to “retrace the learning experiences of children as protocols of shared experience” (Peterlini, 2018, no page). Because they can “be a way to perceive phenomena of inclusion and exclusion and reflect on their multiplicity in terms of didactic, educational, and normative consequences. Precisely because everyone is different, observing and listening to how this diversity manifests itself with the instrument of the vignette is a way to reflect on educational action in relation to an inclusive school not with a predetermined goal, but with an open-ended approach.” (ibid.)