Why do You Have to Take Your Shoes Off Here?

Image above: Students of Freie Waldorfschule Am Prenzlauer Berg in the Aziziye mosque in Varna.
Image bottom left: Breakfast in the courtyard of the Casablanca Hostel in Varna and the amphitheater in Plovdiv.
Image bottom right: Mosaic floor of the Bishop's Basilica in Plovdiv (early Christian).

«Do you actually pray five times a day, too?» «Yes, if I have the chance», Latif, a Waldorf student from Berlin, replies.Then he kneels down and recites a surah for us in Arabic. His fellow travelers—eleventh-grade students from the Freie Waldorfschule Am Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin—sit with him in a circle on the soft green carpet of the Aziziye Mosque in the Bulgarian port city of Varna. It’s raining outside, but inside it’s warm and cozy. Soft light streams in through the windows. The girls in the group have wrapped scarves around their heads to cover their hair. Everyone has taken off their shoes outside the mosque. «Why actually?», someone asks.Latif speaks with great solemnity, and the group listens respectfully as he tells us about his religion and asks many questions. Respect for the sacred space is the reason why we take off our shoes; it is meant to foster a sense of purity during prayer. A young man comes in, sees our group, and sits down with us in the circle. We make room for him. He belongs to the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and is happy to see the guests in the mosque. It feels a bit as if we were sitting together in a large living room. Outside, there is even a water dispenser, a coffee machine, and, as in every mosque, washrooms and restrooms that are open to everyone. In the evening, during our group feedback session, most people will describe the time spent in the mosque as the best part of the day.

The eleventh-grade class is on the road with Reisendlernen e.V. (learning while traveling). The project is supported by the Zukunft.Machen (shaping the future) quality initiative under the umbrella of the Bund der Freien Waldrofschulen (German Federation of Waldorf Schools). The goal is to take learning out of the classroom and into the real world. The content for these project trips is prepared in class at school and then brought to life and made tangible during the guided trip, in keeping with Waldorf educational principles. The goal is for students to explore connections holistically, without the division into individual subjects, to develop their own interests, and to acquire knowledge and skills through teamwork and interactions with local people. The specific target group for the trips is students in grades nine through twelve at Waldorf schools. Destinations include Germany and other European countries. The educational content focuses on ecology, geography, history, art, architecture, social studies, and language.

When plans go awry…

Our eleventh-grade class from Prenzlauer Berg traveled through Bulgaria, starting in Varna. On their way from the Black Sea, they visited an herb farm at the foot of the Balkan Mountains, spent three days in the city of Plovdiv, and finally flew back to Berlin from Sofia. We actually had a completely different plan for our rainy day in Varna. Starting at the imposing Cathedral of the Assumption, where Sascha gave an introduction to Orthodoxy and Artem practiced some Bulgarian phrases with us, the plan was to explore the city in small groups. Back home in the classroom, the students had chosen topics they wanted to explore further while abroad: the Romans in Bulgaria, the gold of the Thracians, the situation of the Roma, and Bulgaria’s accession to the EU. But the rain drove us into places of worship, so on that day, in addition to the Orthodox cathedral and the mosque, we also visited a Catholic and an Armenian church. When we first tried in vain to open the locked door, the Armenian priest came by and let us into the church. He offered us pastries, and we settled into the pews. «Why is there an Armenian church here in Varna?» «How does the Armenian Church differ from the Catholic or Orthodox Church?» Suddenly, we found ourselves in the middle of the priest's account of the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. «Different religions are the cause of many wars. Islam is a ticking time bomb in Europe.» These two quotes from the priest sparked an intense discussion, which was significantly enriched by our Syrian classmates of the Muslim faith and our visit to the mosque. We could sense a mix of shock, anger, and yet a certain degree of understanding toward the priest. This morning we learned: Respect for the sacred place is the reason why shoes are taken off in the mosque. It helped us to engage with the experience. Even now, respect continues to help us, even when we don’t agree.

Days, moments, and conversations like these cannot be planned in advance; rather, they happen when you travel without a rigid plan. The

Days, moments, and conversations like these cannot be planned in advance; rather, they happen when you travel without a rigid plan. The Reisendlernen project offers different opportunities for development and education because schooling does not take place in an artificial setting within a secluded classroom, but in the real world. Waldorf education is familiar with this through agricultural internships, field trips, social internships, and art excursions. The innovative aspect of the Reisendlernen project is that it does not involve pre-packaged field trips with a specific topic, but rather trips that are planned and carried out entirely in collaboration with the students. 

Points of view and daily life

«Any other rooms need water??» We got up late while discussing the previous day. We’re scattered across the beds in a four-bed room because, unfortunately, this hostel doesn’t have a common room. A group of three young women heads out to pick up three 5-liter containers of drinking water. You can’t just drink water straight from the tap here. «Who's going to help me organize breakfast tomorrow?» Without any prior planning, two students volunteered on the spot. The eleventh-grade class organized everything largely on their own, from the trip itself to booking hostels, buying groceries, and purchasing train tickets within the country. As a result, they traveled very frugally, and it almost became a challenge to travel as cheaply as possible while still ensuring everyone was comfortable.

This also included some tough decisions we had to make together. For example, a group of four teenagers made it clear that they didn’t want to fly but preferred to travel by bus. Listening to one another and being open to different perspectives is essential. When planning a trip together and traveling as a group, numerous such social processes take place. Parents also want to be involved and kept informed, at least to some extent, during these processes. «Did you get off to a good start?», Daniel asks in the group chat. The four bus travelers had already set off for the bus station at 6 a.m. «Yeah, we're on the bus, everything's great.»

The primary goal of this project is not the content itself in the form of accessible knowledge, but rather the processes that spark interest and encourage engagement with the content. Nevertheless, there are many ways in which the acquisition of skills is experienced firsthand. This is especially true when it comes to practical matters—for example, when an idea leads to a group discussion and ultimately to a successful booking, when a social issue within the group is resolved, or when meals are organized to everyone’s satisfaction. It also becomes clear when part of the group explores a topic and shares it with the rest through a self-guided tour on-site or by discussing it with them.

So far, we have conducted field trips with three classes, and two more trips are in the planning stages. This time we are heading to Bosnia, and once again the focus will be on the country’s history and ecology. The long-term goal is to extend this approach to other schools. Two traditional subjects—biology and history—can be covered through preparatory work at school.