10. {. 2010.
Various Relationships to the State
Teachers and parents belonging to the Waldorf movement in Sweden and Germany have often worked in Lithuania. The result has been several kindergartens and schools organized along the lines of Waldorf pedagogy.
The Vilnius school has twelve classes with about 220 children; graduates can attend university. The school was run by the state, but now it wants to change that; a large circle of parents and teachers have discussed a new constitution for the school. The social form of the Gröbenzell Rudolf Steiner School (Germany) seemed a good model.
The building the state left to the school looks like a ruin. The approximately 3 million litas (=1.5 million euros) hoped for from the EU will not be nearly enough for renovation, not to mention the fact that there is no auditorium or facility for sports. At the end of March a group from the school (and their architect) will visit Gröbenzell to discuss how to start construction on a new building.
Good Will from the Office of Education
Kaunas has a big Waldorf kindergarten and two Waldorf-orientated schools. The education commissioner and director of the Office of Education have visited Gröbenzell; they are doing their best to support Waldorf pedagogy in their state institutions, including courses on Waldorf pedagogy at the Academy for Continuing Teacher Education.
An independent Waldorf school unit has been established in the Martyno- Mazvydo School. The nine classes have only 150 students, and the ninth grade has only 6—despite a full state subsidy and a public presence by the parents. Teachers from Gröbenzell who serve as visiting faculty see a need to deepen the Waldorf pedagogy; the teachers in Kaunas find it hard to be responsive because of their outer circumstances and their limited independence.
Zuzana Mazeikaite, an experienced Waldorf teacher, works in another school; she is the chair of the Center for Waldorf Pedagogy in Lithuania.
Algirdas Alisauskas initiated the independent state Waldorf school in Kazlu Ruda; it has eight classes. He had studied at the Waldorf Teacher Training Seminar in Stuttgart (Germany), and he was able to establish a respectable school in his home city. He then became the head of the Gymnasium and the mayor of this county seat west of Kaunas, but he re- signed this office on November 25. He obtained a promise that the Waldorf school would receive substantial finan- cial support for renovating the building during the coming year.
Publishing Support
For almost two decades, Danute Ziliene, a former teacher, has published significant books—works by Rudolf Steiner and basic Waldorf literature—in Lithuanian and at favorable prices. Her current 300-page book, The Expansion of Waldorf Education in Lithuania, describes basics, aspects, and the present state of kindergartens and schools.
She also edits a small journal for Waldorf education. Soon her book Discover Yourself—Understand Others will appear. It will cover the anthroposophical view of the human being, social threefolding, and a proper relationship between institutions and the legal sphere. A press founded by her and friends will make the book available almost everywhere. | Karl- Dieter Bodack, Gröbenzell (Germany)
Anthroposophy Worldwide 2/10
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