Helena Selsfors
NORENSE funding: Totally 170000 SEK

Background and motivation
The project aims to contribute to the debate about teachers’ profession and practice. In Waldorf schools the teacher is seen as a domain of knowledge, the one who mediates teaching through lecturing and story-telling. This practice differ from methods used in municipal schools where the teacher’s role often described as a facilitator for learning. The debate about the teachers’ role in education is on-going in many European countries.
The interest for this area awoke while working with my Master Thesis, where I interviewed young people about significant teachers. The participants strong emphasis on the teacher’s explicit and obvious role as a transmitter of knowledge awoke questions. Is there an unspoken, un-theorized “proven experience” about a balanced teacher-mediated education in Waldorfschools that might contribute to the debate?
The purpose of my study is to highlight the specific teacher-mediated teaching in waldorf schools, looking both at advantages and disadvantages, and to investigate if and how this could be theorized and connected to contemporary pedagogic research.

Research questions
How do waldorf teachers understand and interpret their own role and identity during teacher-mediated education? How could a conceptual framework be created to describe a modern teacher-mediated education where there is a balance between the teacher in focus – inhale – and the pupils in process – exhale?
 
Sources, methods and theoretical perspectives
The design of my project will be two-folded, initially I will use a phenomenological approach – investigating the participating waldorf teachers lived experience in the teacher-mediated knowledge situation. In step two, the findings from the phenomenological investigation will be looked upon through a theoretical and an epistemological lens. I will be using a conceptual framework constructed from contemporary pedagogical research in order to connect traditional waldorf pedagogy practice to established philosophies and perspectives on education. I will conduct semi-structured interviews with experienced waldorf teachers and do passive and active observations during morning lesson.

In June 2024 Helena Selsfors presented her dissertation Rhythmical and Balanced Education – a Matter of Trust and Boundaries – a Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study about Pedagogic Practice in Swedish Waldorf schools. It can be downloaded here.