“With the digital world we learn a new language”: Goetheanum Adult Education Program to start in 2021

Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, 5 June 2020

“With the digital world we learn a new language”
Goetheanum Adult Education Program to start in 2021

The restrictions to learning caused by the Coronavirus make us aware of the basic conditions needed for the acquisition of skills. The Goetheanum Adult Education Program connects adult educators so they can share their experiences of teaching anthroposophy.

The Coronavirus measures have led the faculty of the Adult Education Program at the Goetheanum to ask about the conditions that apply to learning. “Our habits in connection with learning processes and the conditions for the acquisition of skills have been seriously called into question,” says Robin Schmidt, an adult educator and lecturer on the Goetheanum‘s study courses. According to Robin Schmidt we now experience acutely how important sensory-physical presence is for the members of a learning group. Edda Nehmiz, another faculty member, adds that “If the encounter does not take place in a space that has been prepared but via digital channels, more individual responsibility is needed in order to create a personal learning space, because the lecturer has no influence on this.”

Every medium has its own conditions. Digital spaces of communication tend to take us back to the sender-receiver model, because they limit the extent to which we perceive different sensory qualities simultaneously. According to Florian Osswald, an upper school teacher and lecturer on the Goetheanum Adult Education Program, “The social situation is central to learning – when we use the screen we mainly address the head.” He thinks that computers as a learning tool are discriminatory, because some families have little or no access. Apart from that, computers are not suited for people with autistic spectrum disorders, for instance, who depend on direct human contact. At the same time we see how relaxed and confident young people tend to be in their approach to technology. Edda Nehmiz says, “We are in the process of learning something like a new language with the digital world. For acquiring skills it is important to speak the language best suited to what we aim to achieve in a given situation.”

(2050 characters/SJ; translation by Margot M. Saar)

New dates ‹Teaching Anthroposophy Today› (in English)
1 Modelling ways to address development and karma, 19 to 22 May 2021
2 Modelling ways to address Goetheanism and Steiner’s perspective on Christ,
1 to 4 June 2022 

Web studium-goetheanum.org/gaep

Contact person Edda Nehmiz, study@goetheanum.org