Self-education Based on the World

During all internships, students can touch with their hands, then feel with their hearts, and finally understand with their heads what surrounds them and how the world is connected. In Waldorf education, no one area is given priority – the cognitive, manual and artistic subjects are on an equal footing. The internships begin with trades and crafts. In ninth grade, students ideally complete an internship in agriculture, forestry or in a small business, possibly a family business. They should get to know, participate in and understand work processes. It is important that they gain original experience – and not just read or hear about it. In a phase of life in which some young people are emotionally shaken by puberty, the agricultural internship can ground them and give them solid ground under their feet.

In tenth grade, this is followed by an internship in a more complex company and/or the field measurement internship, one of the many unique features of Waldorf education. In an industrial internship, the highly complex interrelationships of work organization can be learned. In this phase, students need accuracy, patience and, in the case of the field measurement internship, the ability to work in a team in order to achieve good results. Tenth graders, for whom the world can seem contradictory and unconnected, can learn that they can create orientation themselves.

In eleventh grade, when morality and the charitable side of human nature are discussed in German lessons (redemption through compassion, Parzival's question «Oheim, what are you missing?»), the students can learn about humanity and their own social skills during the three-week encounter.

The aim of Waldorf education is for children to connect with real life. This is why experiential learning is so important here. During their internship, they are confronted with situations that they would not otherwise experience. They should be brought to the realization that «it depends on me that something happens here». This is why the internships ideally last three weeks, because hardly anyone succeeds in just watching for three weeks – the pressure to get involved and make a contribution is therefore guaranteed.

It is not only important that the students understand the processes during the internship, they should also be able to judge the internship. The older they get, the more differentiated the reflection can be with which they look back on their experiences. All internships also serve to provide orientation - and help to answer the questions of how students can find their place in the world and how they can actively shape their future. In all school years of the upper school from year nine onwards, the classroom door opens and lessons become world-oriented.

The internships can also inspire teachers to create teaching units. After the agricultural internship, for example, the food situation in the world or the sustainable use of soil and plants can be discussed. Ideally, the internship should not only be followed by a report evening for the parents, but also by a follow-up discussion with the entire class.

All internships are valuable experiences that can be recorded in the students' final portfolio. In this way, future employers can get to know and assess the personality of students better than simply based on report card grades.

By the way: Some Waldorf schools even offer two internships of three weeks each for the upper school years. The internships are the same three weeks for all classes, which ensures that there are enough teachers to supervise the interns, the parents and the companies. In ninth grade it is agriculture/forestry and a smaller company, in tenth grade a medium-sized company and the field measurement internship, in eleventh grade an ecology and a social internship. And in twelfth grade, the art trip and rehearsals for the class play take place during the two times three weeks.