Gender and Identity: The Dilemma of the Divided Soul

THREE LECTURES AND THREE SLIDE SHOWS BY EUGENE SCHWARTZ

Although often overshadowed by DEI, gender dysphoria is an issue that will only gain in importance over the next years. Faced with conflicting advice from experts and, in some states, challenging legal restrictions as well, Waldorf teachers can feel paralyzed when faced with a student’s uncertainties and self-doubt.

Eugene Schwartz contends that the Waldorf curriculum and its principles of child development, although formulated a century ago, were ahead of their time. They can help provide what we need to meet today’s problems, including gender dysphoria.

However, neither the Waldorf curriculum nor Steiner’s developmental overview can solve any problem by themselves. They call upon us as Waldorf educators to deepen our relationship to all that Waldorf methodology and its progenitor anthroposophy can give. It is our hope that these three lectures and three student work slideshows, which draw upon some of Rudolf Steiner’s most essential research, will inspire teachers, parents, and caretakers to understand the interplay of gender and identity in the child’s life.

If you are one of the thousands of teachers who has participated in any of Eugene Schwartz’s online conferences or courses, you already know the combination of insight and practicality, as well as the depth and breadth that he brings to every aspect of Waldorf education. Learn more about Eugene Schwartz.

LECTURES

• Lecture 1
  Gender and Identity: Reincarnation and Karma

• Lecture 2
  Gender and Identity: The Fourfold Human Being

• Lecture 3
  Gender and Identity: The Task of the Teacher

SLIDESHOWS

The viewer is urged to experience every one of these images — regardless of the subject, or the content of the drawing — as a child’s self-portrait. As Eugene Schwartz remarks in his lectures, every image is a depiction of the child’s experience of his or her progress as a being of soul and spirit who is incarnating into a physical body. This student work helps us to recognize just how slowly a healthy child incarnates. The deliberate and gentle descent into physicality supported by the Waldorf curriculum is a powerful and effective counterbalance to the confusion and dysphoria exacerbated by our tumultuous times.

• Slideshow 1
  Children’s Art Work: N/K to Grade 5

• Slideshow 2
  Children’s Art Work: Grades 6 and 7

• Slideshow 3
  Children’s Art Work: Grades 7 and 8