The number of Waldorf schools in the Netherlands is growing rapidly. Over the past ten years, student enrolment has increased by more than 40 percent. Thijs Jan van Schie not only teaches at such a school, he has also conducted research on this type of education - not in the Netherlands, but in the Philippines.
Thijs Jan had been working at Marecollege in Leiden for some time when he started talking to an education advisor who regularly visited a Walforf school in the Philippines. 'I had not realized that Waldorf schools exist all over the world. After that conversation, my interest was immediately sparked.'
A holistic approach
Waldorf education is an approach based on the anthroposophical ideas of Rudolf Steiner. In 1919, he founded the first Waldorf school in Germany for the children of employees of the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Factory. This form of education focuses on the holistic and personal development of the child. It emphasises not only intellectual growth, but also creative, social, emotional, and practical skills.
Meaningful in a new context
Thijs Jan was particularly curious to see how this educational approach would take shape in a different context - in this case, a small rural village in the Philippines. 'I wanted to know what needed to be adapted to make the education meaningful there, and to what extent it would differ from the Waldorf education I knew in the Netherlands.'
Researcher in front of the classroom
Between 2017 and 2020, he therefore spent four extended periods in the province of Iloilo, on the island of Panay. There, he conducted fieldwork: carrying out participant observations and actively taking part in school life - sometimes teaching at the front of the classroom, sometimes observing from the back.
Creativity and friction
His research showed that adapting Waldorf education to the socio-cultural context of Iloilo involved both creativity and friction. 'In my research, for example, Filipino Waldorf pioneers struggled to integrate anthroposophical concepts into their own frames of reference, and they faced challenges in working with Eurocentric curricular guidelines in a postcolonial, culturally hybrid, and tropical setting.'
Feelings of alienation
He also observed emerging socio-economic tensions. 'Although the school is located in a rural community and aims-based on a social ideology-to offer children from the village new opportunities, it has become increasingly popular among children from the city, who arrive at school in expensive cars and have different lifestyles. This growing presence of urban students has led to feelings of alienation within the village and a gradual decline in the number of local village children attending the school.'
Culturally grounded and socially inclusive education
In his research, Thijs Jan argues for culturally grounded and socially inclusive forms of Waldorf education, in which the learning environment resonates with students' cultural backgrounds and local life, while maintaining the human-centred ideals of Waldorf pedagogy. His research offers concrete points of departure for both the school in the Philippines and schools in the Netherlands.
Thijs Jan explains: 'Take my own school in Leiden. It is located in a culturally diverse neighbourhood, but struggles to connect with a broadly cultural diverse community. It is always easy to point to others when discussing change, but I can also apply the insights from this research myself - especially now that I am part of the school leadership and have influence on policy and practice.'
Parenthood and research
His research was shaped not only by the children at the Waldorf school; his own family also played an important role. During his PhD trajectory, Thijs Jan became the father of two children. 'When I travelled to the Philippines for the first time, my wife was pregnant with our first child. I had hardly told anyone in the Netherlands yet, but I was so excited about becoming a father that I wanted to share the news with the whole world. At one point, I was sitting next to a pregnant woman. I couldn't resist telling her that my wife was pregnant too.'
He continues: 'We ended up having a lovely conversation about parenting and raising children. Moments like these made the fieldwork special. Being in a different setting and engaging in conversations with all kinds of people creates a new sense of familiarity on the other side of the world.'
Future in education
Although his doctoral research has now been completed, Thijs Jan is far from finished with his work in Waldorf education. 'I am very happy in my work in secondary education, and I intend to continue teaching. Being a teacher is a beautiful and dynamic profession. It is deeply meaningful to accompany young people during a part of their development and transition into adulthood and to be of significance to them along the way.'
