Shut Down? Overwhelm? Or True Learning?

By Ann Swain, keynote speaker February 14-16, 2026 Online International Waldorf Teaching Conference

With each new generation of children and teachers, the hope for more and immediately effective tools to help the wide range of children’s needs increases.

Whether there is, in fact, an increase in special educational needs, whether we’re just identifying sooner and more robustly really is no longer a question that warrants any more than passing consideration.  What does demand our attention is how can we support each other in our professional development to widen, broaden and at the same time, hone, our ability to see the children in front of us, understand the mighty task they present, speak the language they are speaking and help them to be interested to speak ours 

Steiner has repeatedly shared the importance of the age in which we join together in this work to educate ourselves and the children who step forward to, in turn, educate us.  We join in the work at the age of Michael when the human powers of thinking and cognition begin to have the possibility of being lifted out of physical/brain thinking to thinking, imbued with clarity and will.  But we stand also in an era when forces seem to be threatening the power of human will - undermining a sense of agency and relevance in holding a picture of the long view that youngsters of the past apparently held.

One can easily be lured into a sense of helplessness and despair.  Yet we come together as Waldorf educators because we share a glimpse of a hopeful future – the young are stepping forward with a different attitude to learning that can be positive, energetic, grace-endowed yet one that challenges us to our very core.

By coming together to deepen our understanding of the child halfway from infancy to adulthood – we can develop a new way of seeing what presents as pathology in our classrooms and without dismissing or normalising, (even glamourising) what we observe – can reframe how we might prepare our lessons using the fruits of our contemplative pedagogical practice, recognising the Michaelic power of the individual’s needs, proclivities and gifts, to allow each and every member of the class and school community to contribute positively and harmoniously. 

We may often imagine “Artistic Education” as a visual presentation of art.  Music is also art and often more collaborative and, in my perception, honours co-creation between individual and  community.  This metaphor can inform how we create conditions that take into account what will have to be in place in order that each can join and contribute.

Hopefully the days of “blanket” teaching are behind – because certainly our children are crying out and demanding that we see them in their individuality.  Yet we must recognise that  to teach 28 or 30 as separate individuals brings fragmentation and amplification of ego-centricity. How then can we meet the individual, honour the community and maintain centredness ourselves as teachers?

By exploring and rediscovering tools handed to us by Steiner as well as considering the efficacy of other models, we may begin to discover that simple instruments become capable of magnificent and elegant potential, where a shared commitment to awaken thinking and willing in equal measure, through vigorous warmth of enthusiasm and love,  we can reexamine what’s Waldorf about Waldorf and set aside some of the less helpful myths and step confidently into the educational discussions.

During the WHE online conference February 14-16, 2026 our workshop will revisit recurring principles of Steiner Waldorf pedagogy through the particular lens of those struggling to find their way into their physical bodies and life on earth.  Exploring the conference theme Beauty, Rhythm and Balance, in reverse from Balance (the vestibular system finding oneself between levity and gravity and settled in space), Rhythm (finding self in time) and then being freed to transcend to a deep comprehension of Beauty and the connectedness made possible therein we support all children in their individual paths without disadvantaging  our own wellspring of resilience and love of our teaching profession.  

Steiner, as one of the many specific tasks given, stated that our task is to help the children learn to find the right rhythm between sleeping and waking. Many children have yet to find fluency in that right rhythm and struggle to move between too much vigilance or too much lethargy and frequently mismatch the degree of either for the activity at hand. The  result can express as either overwhelm or shut-down.  Both can be misunderstood as misbehaviour and met with sanctions or punishments where a better grasp of the language of stress, theirs and ours, may  provide a far better starting point for a productive and respectful dialogue and opportunity for growth.

Ann Swain began her professional life as a music therapist in the US before travelling to Emerson College, UK to undertake the Waldorf teacher training course there.  After 5 years as a class teacher in London, the riddles posed by those atypical learners and learning in general began to occupy her more and more.  Following a “remedial” teacher training, she worked for 17 years as a Special Needs Teacher at Michael Hall in Sussex,  UK branching out to other Steiner schools in the UK and offering Special Needs content on adult teacher training courses. https://modernteacher.org/every-child

Her passion is to better understand “what’s Waldorf about Waldorf”  and how a child of today, regardless of their learning style and needs, can be supported to thrive in our schools.

To learn more from Ann and hear her full presentation "Shut Down, Overwhelm, or True Learning?", join us February 14-16 for our Online International Conference for All Subject Teachers! Ann Swain will be one of several outstanding keynote speakers for this event.

Learn More - February Online Conference