Sleep on It

Sleep, its physical reality and spiritual character, lives at the heart of Waldorf education and deeply informs the practice of Waldorf teachers. Recent research is catching up to their longstanding emphasis on the vital importance of sleep to learning in a child’s life—indeed, in anyone’s life. This collection of essays, based on a study by members of the Pedagogical Section Council of the School for Spiritual Science (PSC), explores the impact sleep—or lack of it—has on child development and learning. Each PSC member researched a different aspect of this joint study. A brief essay on this topic by Florian Osswald, former co-leader of the Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum, is included as well.