Assessments of the Results of Person’s Educational-Cognitive Activity and General Development in Waldorf School

Abstract

The relevance of the study is caused by the need to consider the achievements of world pedagogy and to analyse Waldorf experience objectively in order to use it in the New Ukrainian School, which will help to improve schoolchildren’s assessment, develop person’s learning motivation, form his self-confidence and prevent didactic fears and stresses.
 The aim of the study has been determined in the article. The aim is to clarify the specifics of assessment of person’s learning results and general development in Waldorf school. The general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, comparison, systematization, classification and generalization) have been used to conduct this study.
 It has been found that Waldorf school has not used a grade assessment system since its inception. The main forms of schoolchildren’s qualitative assessment in Waldorf school are the following: constant informing of parents about the success and progress in children’s development at the basic level of education (grades 1-8); oral feedback by all teachers at the senior level of education (grades 9-12); written feedback – a detailed description of every child at the end of each school year (during the 12-year learning process); final exams.
 The recording of schoolchildren’s academic achievements is carried out on the basis of a system of certain criteria, and each school develops it independently. At the same time, all schools have one feature in common: they use the criteria that characterize person’s emotional, volitional and cognitive spheres (memory, fantasy, imagination).
 The process of assessment in Waldorf school involves shifting the emphasis from control and schoolchildren’s evaluation to self-control and self-assessment. It also promotes schoolchildren’s interest in learning, forms their internal motivation for cognitive activity, takes away children’s didactic fears and stresses and stimulates their personal intellectual activity, awareness and correlation of own activities with the activities of the environment.
 The authors emphasize on the expediency of using Waldorf school experience in schoolchildren’s assessment for the practical solution of the problem of assessment in the New Ukrainian School.