Survey of Public Waldorf Schools

 

 

We want more Waldorf schools in the public network!

Research project

This research has already been carried out and published. ACCESS HERE!!

This project was crowdfunded in a campaign completed on 03/18/2019, which you can access at the link below.

https://www.catarse.me/escolaswaldorfpublicas

Waldorf Pedagogy turns 100 in 2019, and we know how much it enriches education and transforms the lives of children and families.

But today, many families who would like to have their children attend a Waldorf school cannot afford it. In Brazil there are already some Waldorf schools in the public network, which do a beautiful job, but they are still few. We need more schools like these.

To encourage and guide new initiatives, we are visiting existing initiatives and conducting research on each one, to find out how they were created and the path followed by each of these public Waldorf schools.

Rudolf Steiner himself created the Waldorf Pedagogy to be a pedagogy for the PEOPLE, and it is the mission of the Ruth Salles Institute to contribute to this ideal being realized. That is the purpose of this project!

We are researching how pioneer public Waldorf schools were created, obstacles faced, legal constitution, format of agreements, pedagogical autonomy, how teachers are trained and hired, everything that went right and what went wrong, and how they coexist with changes in management in municipalities. We are also raising the demands that these schools have.

We have already carried out more than 50 interviews with teachers, managers, parents, supporters, members of sponsoring associations and representatives of education departments. This material will be systematized, edited and published on our website, including many video testimonials.

We believe that this research can help these schools and will also guide other initiatives and municipalities to establish more public Waldorf schools for Brazilian children.

Deadline for publication of the Report: August 2019.

Note: We originally intended to publish the report in June, but due to the increase in the number of schools in the project it took a little more time.

 

Schools that were surveyed

There are two types of public Waldorf schools in Brazil:

1) The schools associated associations, which were created by an association, which usually owns the physical structure of the school, and which establishes an agreement with the local city hall. Through this agreement, the city government provides maintenance for the staff, food and basic materials inherent to any and all municipal public schools. Affiliated schools surveyed:

Vale de Luz Community School – Nova Friburgo RJ – visited on 4/15/2019
Cecília Meireles Municipal School – Nova Friburgo RJ – visited on 4/16/2019
Araucaria Municipal School – Camanducaia MG – visited on 12/16/2017 and 12/15/2018
Murundu School - Palmeiras BA - interviews with teachers in training in Aracaju on 04/19/2019 and with the manager in São Paulo on 06/7/2019.
Anael School – Várzea da Roça BA – interviews with teachers in training in Aracaju on 04/19/2019 and with administrators to be carried out over the internet.
Escola Casa da Mata – Mata de São João BA – internet interviews in June/2019

2) The schools public of origin, which were created from the initiative of the local government, in the interest of a group of teachers and parents, or of public managers themselves, with the support or not of an association. Researched schools:

EMEI Dr. José Calumby Filho – Aracaju SE – visited on 04/22/2019
EMEF José Souza de Jesus – Aracaju SE – visited on 04/23 and 24/2019
CREI Flor de Araçá – Conde PB – visited on 04/25/2019
EMEB Manoel Aníbal Marcondes – Jundiaí SP – visited on 06/17/2019
CEI 316 Norte – Brasília DF – visited on 04/29/2019 (Note: this is not yet officially a Waldorf school, but it has 11 teachers working with this pedagogy, 5 of them graduated and 6 in training)

 

A little about these schools

Cecília Meireles School – Nova Friburgo RJ

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Founded on August 1, 1988 by Associação Pedagógica Nascente, it became a public school in 2004. The school has classes from kindergarten II to eighth grade, one each, with 3 preschool classes. It currently has 253 students.

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Waldorf Vale de Luz School – Nova Friburgo RJ

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Founded on March 4, 1991 by the Children's Association of Vale de Luz, it became a public school on October 30, 1996. Today, it serves Maternal III, Pre I and II (3 to 5 years) of Early Childhood Education and 1st to 5th year of Elementary School (6 to 12 years old). All 120 students at the school study full-time, from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm, for a total of nine hours a day.

https://www.facebook.com/ECMdoValedeLuz/

The creation of these two public Waldorf schools in Nova Friburgo RJ also motivated the creation of a Waldorf Teacher Training Center in the municipality.

https://www.facebook.com/seminariowaldorffriburgo/

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Calumby Municipal School – Aracaju SE

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Founded in 2015, with the support of Instituto Social Micael, the school currently has 286 students in kindergarten and day care.

EMEF José Souza de Jesus – Aracaju SE

So that the children of Escola Municipal Calumby could continue following the Waldorf pedagogy, EMEF José Souza de Jesus was inaugurated in 2018, with classes from 1st to 5th grade, with 443 students.

For these 2 schools, teachers are prepared by the Waldorf Teacher Training Center of Instituto Social Micael.

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Centro de Educação Infantil 316 Norte – Movimento Txai – Brasília DF

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The Txai movement was created in 2012 at the initiative of a group of teachers with public service examinations from the Federal District Department of Education, who attended training in Waldorf Pedagogy, also counting on a support nucleus formed by other teachers, friends and interested parties. These teachers work together at Centro de Educação Infantil 316 Norte, with classrooms inspired by Waldorf Pedagogy, which serves 100 children.

The movement has already promoted introductory courses to Waldorf pedagogy for public school teachers, through the Escola de Aperfeiçoamento de Professor do DF, and has a project to establish a Waldorf public school in Brasília, which is currently being processed by the Education Department of the Federal District, already having been approved with regard to pedagogy.

https://www.facebook.com/movimentoTxai/

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Araucaria Municipal School

The Araucária Municipal School, located in the rural area of the municipality of Camanducaia MG, was founded in 1974, has the support of the Bom Jardim Association and currently serves 160 students from Kindergarten to the 9th year of elementary school. The current teaching staff is made up of 14 teachers, all with a background in Waldorf Pedagogy, of which 9 are from the community.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”83″ gal_title=”Araucária School”]

https://www.facebook.com/escolawaldorfaraucaria/

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EMEB Manoel Aníbal Marcondes

Better known as Quintal do Aníbal, this daycare has been working with Waldorf Pedagogy for about 10 years, in the municipality of Jundiaí SP. Serves 150 children.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”76″ gal_title=”Creche Quintal do Aníbal”]

https://www.facebook.com/emebmmarcondesjundiai.sp.gov.br/

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Murundu School

Located in the municipality of Palmeiras BA, this kindergarten school was created by the Murundu Community Association, and has an agreement with the local city hall.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”77″ gal_title=”Murundu School 2″]

http://associacaomurundu.com.br/

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Casa da Mata School

Located in the district of Imbassaí, municipality of Mata de São João BA, it was created in 2010 by the Educational Association of Imbassaí, and has an agreement with the local city hall.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”78″ gal_title=”Escola Casa da Mata”]

https://www.facebook.com/casadamataimbassai/

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Anael School

Located in the municipality of Várzea da Roça BA, it was created by the Waldorf Várzea da Roça Pedagogical Association in 2009, it serves up to the 5th year of elementary school, and is in agreement with the municipal government.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”79″ gal_title=”Escola Anael”]

https://www.facebook.com/anael.anael.96

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CREI Flor de Araçá

Kindergarten school created in 2018 by the municipality of Conde PB.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”81″ gal_title=”Flor de Araçá”]

 

 

Other initiatives, which were not successful, will also be included in this project, in order to expand knowledge on the subject.

Coordination

This project was coordinated by Rubens Salles, who coordinated the Dom da Palavra project for 5 years, a series of seminars for teachers of kindergarten and elementary school in the public network of 5 municipalities in the State of São Paulo, teaching some elements of Waldorf Pedagogy. The work was systematized in a master's thesis, which is available on here.

 

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