Education for Special Needs

12 lectures for physicians and special-needs teachers, Dornach, June 25-July 7, 1924 (CW 317) Essentially we do not really have the right to talk about normality or abnormality in a child's inner life, nor indeed in the inner life of human beings altogether.... One does not gain much from such labeling, and the first thing to happen should be that the physician or the teacher rejects such an assessment, and goes further than saying that something is clever or sensible according to the way people are habitually thinking (Rudolf Steiner).Speaking in 1924, when general attitudes to people with special needs were far from enlightened, Steiner gave this seminal lecture course to a small group of teachers and doctors as a basis for their future work. In the current cultural context, regressive ideas such as social Darwinism and eugenics were not only tolerated but popular (some 15 years after these lectures were delivered, the Nazis initiated their so-called euthanasia program). In...

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