Steiner held the strong belief
that schooling should 'stress the child's all-round development of body, soul,
and spirit' (Roopnarine & Johnson, 2005, p.338). The Steiner approach to
early childhood education incorporates certain community elements into its design.
For example the importance of the 'physical environments, age groupings, planned
activities, schedules, and social relationships are all vital components of a Steiner
learning environment' (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett & Farmer, 2012).
The Steiner educational model strives to enable healthy development to take place; through the implementation of effective pedagogies. Howard (as cited in Nicol & Taplin, 2012) quotes Steiner stating that:
Every education is self-education, and as teachers we can only provide the environment for children's self-education. We have to provide the most favourable conditions where, through our agency, children can educate themselves according to their own destinies. This is the attitude that teachers should have toward children, and such attitude can be developed only through an ever-growing awareness of this fact.
Finser (2012)
The above Youtube clip discusses Steiner education, providing an overview of the model in addition to some of the affects on students that the model evidently holds.