teaching staff
Jules Brinkmann, kindergarten teacher and educationalist. Works on topics revolving around the young child based on anthropolgy.
The meaning of playing with regard to the entire life of a person is a very dear topic to me. Playing is increasingly at risk in its true nature. The approach of learning by playing is far from that. However, the playful discovery of that which culture means to people is development of culture. That is where there is a task and that is where the human being desires to be introduced to the adult who creates culture in an environment with children. This takes courage, and it is exactly the development of this courage which forms an essential part in the training of our students.
Bruno Callegaro, physician; lecturer in medicine, Therapeutic Pedagogy, the principles of health, and anthropology in the different training programmes we offer. He also co-heads the Technical College for Therapeutic Pedagogy. School physician at the Jean Paul school for assisted learning in Kassel. Co-director of the Therapeutic Pedagogy training in Oriago, Italy.
Hilmar Kuhle, educationalist and musician, works on anthropological questions, educational theory and practice, and music.
“A short attempt at two essential concerns of my work at the Rudolf Steiner Institute:
Singing and playing music as much as possible! Always staying in motion, training to listen, searching for harmonious forms of working together with others as teacher, colleague and as a human being.”
Thomas Mauer, director of Waldhof (gardening farm): Agriculture - seeds - education
The Rudolf Steiner Institute Kassel is the supporting organization of the Waldhof.
Bernhard Rüffert, degree in art education, art therapy and fine arts with a focus on sculpture.
"The will and the joy to use your own hands, to express yourself with the most different materials and tools is a desire of children and adults alike. The need to create is especially important in our times, where many activities are carried out by pushing a button! I enjoy passing on my experience in teaching art to the students for their professional and personal development."
Judit Simandi, managing director and tutor of the course A2 (Sozialassistenz second year of training)
I would like to answer the question of who I am and what defines me with the words of the Hungarian author Sándor Márai:
“Sometimes one has to answer, in unforeseeable and decisively fateful moments in life: one has to answer, to everything.
Who am I? What do I intend? Who do I want to be against, who do I want to be for in life? Why? With which abilities, equipment, means, with which spiritual tools? And most importantly: What is the goal? … And, answer, to everything: How far have I gotten? Do I have still enough power to sacrifice, to act selflessly, or do I only want preserve and save the remains? That is the moment in life, when one has to answer. When an answer is expected - the silence is intense, dramatic. But then you experience, become more aware of the fact that those questions are not answered with words but can only be answered with life.”
Markus Stettner-Ruff, educator; houseman; head of home economics in a facility for homeless men, teacher for German as a foreign language; director of the sociocultural center “Bilderhaus”; trained as a teacher for senior classes in Waldorf schools in the subjects German, history, art; managing director and teacher at the Schwäbisch Hall Waldorf School for 12 years.
“… Man only plays when he is a human being in the fullest sense of the word, and he is only human when he plays.“ F. Schiller „In The Aesthetic Education of Man… “ I want to inspire excitement in students for the high art of this adult play as well as for the art of the social sculpture. Together we want to practice these two skills as they are both required for educational work with children and youths and their key field of development: free play. We also practice the other two fields of work of a Waldorf teacher: research and self-administration.
Birgit-Marie Stoewer, Waldorf educator and curative educator/teacher
She began teaching here in August 2011 bringing a lot of experience in early childhood education, kindergarten, Freizeitpädagogik (leisure education), nature and emergency pedagogy in Germany and abroad. In recent years she has focused on the children from 0 to 3 years old and their parents.
“It's particularly important to me to develop awareness and respect for life: the miracle of early childhood development and the uniqueness of every person, what is special about animals and life in nature in general, in order to be able to take responsibility for our future and our planet.”
Almuth Strehlow, educator, training in artistic therapy and psychomotorics
Master of Education - for adults and school management
“It is of vital importance to me to continously work on the basics of early childhood education from an anthroposophical point of view, in a way that the art of education is experienced by each individual child.”
Albert Vinzens, Dr. phil., psychologist and social scientist , author and Beuys researcher.
teaches educational, literary and biographical ideas and topics in various ways: “The history of major thinkers and musicians originally brought me from Switzerland to Germany. Studying them, above all Nietzsche, has inspired high respect for the 'human enigma' in me. Pondering this enigma is my field of work. I do that in encounters with my four children, the students at the Rudolf Steiner Institute, with everybody.”
Johannes Wolter, curative teacher/educator, teacher at schools for children with special needs and Waldorf teacher, studies in arts and crafts. Guest lecturer at other training centres. Teaches home and curative pedagogy, play, crafts, plastic anatomy, teaching methods for children in school, communication and counseling. Organises projects for school children. Member of the board of directors of the Technical College for Therapeutic Pedagogy.
“The art of education has to become more and more an art of encounters and curative relationships in these times of a desertification of the 'Continent Childhood'. I have been teaching students in the various forms of training programmes which have been developed at the Rudolf Steiner Institute since 1984”