A Spiritual Vision of the Child. Romanticism, Esotericism, and Steiner’s Educational Thought

This paper tries to delineate some of the relations between Romantic philosophy and Steiner’s views of child and human development. Philosophical Romanticism and its roots in ideas of the Western esoteric tradition are described. Similar conceptions are found also in Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy. Against this backdrop, more specific comparisons are made between the Romantic philosophy of childhood and Steiner’s views on the nature of the child and child development. One important aspect is the Romantic emphasis on metamorphosis, which is also present in Steiner’s view of child development, sometimes in counter-intuitive ways. All of this stands in sharp contrast to the fragmented, linear, and reductionist nature of most of present-day development theories. Classical long-span stage theories of development (Freud, Piaget a. o.) seem to have lost much of their import for educational practice, partly due to critique from post-structural educational perspectives. In these perspectives, the question of the nature of the child is seen as without essential value and therefore tends to disappear.