CHAPTER 4

Learning Theory
 INTRODUCTION
Peter Loebell

Waldorf school students have significantly more intense and frequent feelings of joy in learning and an
interest in classroom instruction than pupils at public schools (Liebenwein, Barz, Randoll 2012, p. 59).
Apparently, Waldorf teachers are more successful in bringing the students to identify with what they
are learning. At least some of them have the impression that the way of learning is more quintessential
and intense at their schools.
The survey presupposes that researchers, subjects, and recipients of the study understand what learning
means. But learning has become a “wholesale word” that we use in everyday conversation as well as
in scientific discourse, in national economics as much as in politics (Faulstich 2013). That leaves many
unanswered questions:

• What do students learn? Is it the school’s curriculum content or rather elements of a “secret program
of study”?
• How do they learn? Are they engaged in a regurgitation of facts that they do not understand and in
producing correct solutions, or are they actively acquiring new insights and competencies? Is new
content comprehended with ease or as a result of stressful work?
• Who or what functions as their teacher? Do they acquire new knowledge from teachers or peers?
Are there special experiential adversities that trigger a learning process?
• What facilitates their learning? Which of their own activities (listening, reading, writing, prac-
ticing, presenting, tutoring their peers, etc.) come into play?
• When, why, and to what purpose do learning happen? In what kind of biographic situation and
through what type of meaningful experience do they acquire content?

Answering the question “What is learning?,” we notice first that the verb to learn always requires an
object. But aside from the actual content to be learned (e.g., a dictated text), there is also a kind of
indirect objective that indicates the overarching aim of the learning activity (e.g., understanding cer-
tain rules of orthography). These indirect objectives can be differentiated depending on their effects:
Are they changing the way a learner acts, are they expanding knowledge, or do they aim at eliciting an
understanding of connections?
According to Heinrich Roth, we can distinguish the following processes:

1. A type of learning mainly aiming at competencies, generating automatic capability for motoric
and mental skills.
2. Learning aimed primarily at problem-solving (thinking, understanding, arriving at insights).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003187431-19 205

3. Learning with the main goal of memorizing knowledge and keeping it available.
4. Learning predominantly focusing on processes (learning to learn, to work, to research, to look up
things, etc.).
5. Learning mainly directed at later transfer to other areas, i.e., increasing capabilities and powers
(learning Latin in order to have an easier time learning Romance languages).
6. Learning with the main goal of forming mindsets, values, and attitudes.
7. Learning chiefly concerned with developing a deeper interest in a subject area (differentiating
between needs and interests).
8. Learning aimed foremost at a change in behavior (Roth 1969, p. 202).

As we compare these learning goals, we conclude that they appear in no way of equal weight nor are
they exclusive of each other. We could consider some of these aims as interim or partial goals. For
example, the active work of learning new content can, at the same, time target the overarching goal
of practicing certain thinking capabilities (Kluwe 1979, p. 80). Furthermore, the acquisition of new
mental skills can also serve to learn how to work more economically. We can think of a variety of ways
for how we can create hierarchical orders of the goals listed above, even though the learner may not
always be fully aware of them. The learner will often pursue just short-term or midrange goals, which
later may be recognized to constitute parts of a comprehensive process. Nevertheless, the subject will
assume that his efforts were successful if one of the goals listed by Roth is reached.
If we consider Roth’s “learning goals” as being pursued by an autonomously acting subject, we can
detect a qualitative leap in this list. The first five objectives describe the expansion of future capabilities
for action, while the subject does not have to face any problem of their own personality’s peculiarities,
preferences, and tendencies. These first five learning goals could even be put under the umbrella of the
maxim that they serve to satisfy the subject’s own spontaneously felt needs.
Beyond these possibilities, we can think of learning goals that aim to transform the learners’ own
dispositions and convictions; this fact expresses the specifically human quality of learning.
Here the differentiation becomes fuzzy between the terms learning and [the German] Bildung [which
indicates a simultaneous formative education of both mind and character]. The concepts of Bildung and
learning share a stronger emphasis on the individual learners’ own active participation in learning and
acquisition processes than the related terms educating and teaching (Wulf, Zirfas 2014). Bildung aims even
more strongly at the normative quality of change, that is, at “an ideal of the human being that provides
an orientation for education, learning and teaching and for the process of forming the mind and char-
acter of a person” (Wulf, Zirfas 2014, p. 18). Any person who wants to change the structure of his/her
own identity based on insight counts on the continuity of a power of individuality that is not plainly
apparent at first. Because when I intend to transform my own mindset, I know that I also change the
very basis of my current decision. Only a human being who acts freely has this opportunity: to change
oneself (identity) in order to find oneself (individuality).
The ideas about learning obviously change as we age (Marton, Booth 2014, p. 80ff.). There are
different concepts of learning due to the developmental process, but there are also individual differences.
Two main categories emerged in a survey of students who answered questions about their concept of
learning. One type of student has a narrow understanding of learning as something “that is closely
connected to a task: They describe learning with a focus on the accumulation of building blocks of
knowledge and information from a text, and, if applicable, its memorization for later use” (Marton,
Booth 2014, p. 63). On the other hand, there are other students who experience learning as a way to
arrive at meaning through accomplishing tasks: “They see things in a new light, they refer to their
own, earlier experiences and to their environment; they see learning as something that changes them
in a certain way” (ibid.). So, what are students talking about when they answer questions about their
learning processes?
Pedagogic psychology and learning-teaching research have intensely pursued this line of questioning
since the end of the 19th century. Various theories of teaching and learning offer different approaches

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 Introduction

to understanding human learning. This article aims at exploring how far such theories can offer the-
oretical clarification for the distinctive features of Waldorf education. Rudolf Steiner expounded his
understanding of human learning mainly in his numerous lectures. We will examine where and in what
way Steiner’s thoughts on this matter offer some connectivity for contemporary educational science.
First, Wolfgang Nieke’s article offers a detailed overview of the various scientific positions that
developed over the last hundred years. He presents the original models of learning psychology that are
indebted to the ideal of natural science and were largely integrated without critical assessment into aca-
demic teacher-training courses. He then juxtaposes these models with new definitions of the concept
of learning offered by modern educational science. In the context of educational science, Nieke writes:
“Learning is deemed the basis for qualification, competency, education and Bildung [mind/character
formation].” Against this backdrop, Nieke mentions five different approaches, each one referring to
a different aspect of learning: phenomenological body experience (Meyer-Drawe), intentionality in
connection with the body as the foundation for learning (Faulstich), the special structural relationship
between learning and Bildung (Marotzki, Nohl), pedagogic theories of learning (Göhlich, Zirfas), and
the transformative concept of learning (Koller).
Nieke also lists various reasons for learning (motivation, interest, relevance), points to the differences
in types of learning, and mentions the cultural/scientific perspective on learning, illustrated by the
example of resistance to learning and the factor of equal opportunity. He goes on to contemplate the
relationship between learning and teaching and contrasts it with learning that springs from a ground
of freedom, as well as learning processes that happen through group work or in antagonism to groups,
before he describes an “educated [gebildet referring to the concept of Bildung] state of being” as the result
of learning. After that section, Nieke discusses whether we should understand learning as content-
independent (in the sense of learning psychology) or category-specific (in the sense of the educational
sciences). He characterizes experience, experiment, and exploration as the three basic forms of learning
and outlines a theory of emergent learning as presented by Faulstich building on Wygotski’s work. In
closing, Nieke points to three results of learning processes as the pedagogical consequence of his line of
thought: Learning requires meaning, learning generates meaning, and learning is also the foundation
of health and constitutes individuality.
The next article by Peter Loebell presents different approaches to human learning and contrasts
them with the pedagogic concepts of Waldorf education, referencing Steiner’s Study of Man with spe-
cial consideration of his relevant legacy of lectures. In the introductory outline of various approaches
to understanding the 20th-century concepts of learning, we already find references to Waldorf educa-
tion, which spread in that same timeframe parallel to the development of the educational [Bildungs-]
sciences. Loebell’s article mentions the contributions of neurobiology, of learning through exploration,
associative learning, and constructionist learning theories as well as first approaches to action theory
in contrast to behavioral research. One section deals with the subject-oriented scientific foundation of
learning by Klaus Holzkamp. Loebell goes on to introduce the concept of human individuality—in
contrast to the concept of the human being as a subject—as the theoretical foundation of Waldorf
education.
The next section explains some aspects of human learning that are important for understanding
Waldorf education: the concept of “formative powers,” learning through thinking, feeling, and willing,
the significance of rhythms for learning, imitation, embodied cognition, heterogeneity, and individu-
alization, as well as the importance of the teacher. The article closes with a summary and an outlook
toward current and future areas of development for Waldorf education.
In the next article, Jost Schieren develops the epistemological foundations of Waldorf education’s
concept of learning. He presents a brief sketch of the historic development of the concept of learning,
followed by a quick outline of Steiner’s epistemology with a complementary addition by the philoso-
pher, Herbert Witzenmann. After that, Schieren adds further depth to his deliberations by discussing
Steiner’s juxtaposition of “imagination” and “will,” which constitute an essential basis for understanding
Waldorf education, and he points to the establishment of agricultural/horticultural internships at

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Waldorf schools. This line of thought leads to the unfolding of a differentiated understanding of truth
that, in turn, leads to participation in the world through the relationships with phenomena and the
world. He emphasizes the significance of memory and forgetting in learning and discusses the process of
transformation using the example of the [German] fairy tale “Mother Holle.” In his summary, Schieren
reiterates once again some core aspects of learning such as transformation, forgetting, abilities, wholistic
orientation, truth, and meaningfulness.

References
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critical-pragmatistic theory of learning] Bielefeld: transcript.
Kluwe, Rainer H. (1979): Wissen und Denken. Modelle, empirische Befunde und Perspektiven für den Unterricht.
[Knowing and thinking. Models, empirical findings, and perspectives for classroom teaching] Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Liebenwein, Sylva/Barz, Heiner/Randoll, Dirk (2012): Bildungserfahrungen an Waldorfschulen. Empirische
Studie zu Schulqualität und Lernerfahrungen. [Educational experiences at Waldorf schools. Empirical study on
school quality and learning experiences] Wiesbaden: VS Springer.
Marton, Ference/Booth, Shirley (2014): Lernen und Verstehen. [Learning and understanding] Berlin: Logos.
Roth, Heinrich (1969): Pädagogische Psychologie des Lehrens und Lernens. [Pedagogic psychology of teaching and
learning] 11th edition, Hannover: Schroedel.
Wulf, Christoph/Zirfas, Jörg (Eds.) (2014): Handbuch Pädagogische Anthropologie. [Handbook of pedagogic anthro-
pology] Wiesbaden: VS Springer.

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