Value Judgements
When someone makes a ‘value judgement’, they are really expressing their views on a subject, which have been influenced by their own experiences.
Discuss some different meanings and different value positions
Rudolph Steiner believed that education should be designed to meet the changing needs of a child as they develop both physically, mentally and emotionally.
Steiner saw a child as having 3 developmental stages:
Firstly, he believed that until the age of seven, the focus of children’s learning should be on drawing, playing, story telling, nature, natural things and all this should be done within the home environment. He also believed that you should not teach children under seven how to read and that writing should not be taught before reading. Furthermore, the child should have the same teachers for seven years and the child should only concentrate on one subject at a time. Moreover, the teacher should not teach set beliefs and encourage learning for its own sake and not just for exams.
The next stage of development, according to Steiner, is for 7to14 year olds. Steiner believed that it was important to concentrate on stimulating the environment with emphasis on natural materials, such as toys made of wood, dolls made of cloth or wooden furniture. He believed in giving children good food and lots of contact with nature, encouraging children to draw and paint and telling children fairy tales. He believed that there should be no pressure to read and write and that children shouldn’t be forced to learn before they were ready. He believed in a varied curriculum according to specific children and he treated each child as an individual in his own right.
Finally, you have the cognitive stage. This was aimed at children of 14+ and consisted of a routine with academic work in the mornings. The children would study one subject at a time. For example, they would study History for two to three weeks before going onto another subject, such as Geography.
Like Froebel, Steiner considered the child as a whole, thinking that each stage of learning was fostered by the interaction of the prior experience.
