Castlemaine Steiner School supports and promotes the principles and practice of
Australian democracy, including a commitment to:

• elected government
• the rule of law
• equal rights for all before the law
• freedom of religion
• freedom of speech and association
• the values of openness and tolerance.
  

What is distinctive about a Steiner school?

It is a place where three qualities live that are not readily found or acknowledged within our society:

• a reverence for all that humanity has been through and experienced until now, together with a reverence for the being of the child;
• a love and enthusiasm for the potential within the being of each child;
• the belief that we are capable of achieving a renewed understanding of ourselves and the child, and that it is through this understanding that we can best help the child to unfold and develop their capacities in a balanced and harmonious way.

The Castlemaine Steiner School is a member of the Australian Association of Rudolf Steiner Schools and has regular contact with other Victorian and Australian Steiner Schools.

Steiner schools are non-denominational. The philosophical and spiritual basis that underpins this education is not taught to the children - rather it forms the source for the teacher's understanding of human development, of what is taught and how it is presented.

About Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner was born in 1861 in Kraljevic (then in Austria, now in Yugoslavia), the son of a minor railway official. From an early age, Steiner was aware that the reality of the spiritual world was as certain as that of the physical one. He devoted much of his life to deepening his knowledge of the spiritual world. He was educated at the Technical University in Vienna, where he specialised in mathematics and science.

His scientific ability was acknowledged when he was asked to edit Goethe's writings on nature. Steiner's doctoral dissertation, Truth and Knowledge, was his first substantial philosophical work, which he called a result of 'introspective observation' following the methods of 'Natural Science'. This line of thought and experience was expanded on in his book, The Philosophy of Freedom, published in 1894.

Rudolf Steiner believed that through his attachment to material things, man had largely lost the ability to participate in spiritual processes. He felt that it was possible to regain this spiritual perception by training the intellect to look beyond the physical realm. His whole way of working addressed many fundamental spiritual issues, such as the being of man, the nature and purpose of freedom, the meaning of evolution, the relation of man to nature, and life after death and before birth.

Steiner went on to publish more than 50 titles, and these form the body of knowledge which he named 'Anthroposophy', or Science of the Spirit. In 1912 he founded the Anthroposophical Society.

What is Waldorf / Steiner Education?

Rudolf Steiner established his first school in the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart (Germany) for the children of the workers. It was a free school. Steiner did not really want his name attached to the name of this education lest it appear sectarian. Hence the school became the Waldorf School. Over time, however, his name has crept into the names of many schools so that now one can find the education being referred to both as Steiner Education and Waldorf Education.

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