Twenty-five years ago, on 20 November 1989, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by the United Nations. Olivia Girard, from the international Waldorf organisation Friends of Waldorf Education explains its importance and how it relates to Waldorf education.

BERLIN (NNA) – The Convention on the Rights of the Child introduced a revolution in children’s rights. For the first time in history, children were treated as subjects instead of objects. Just like adults, they have rights and are also entitled to assert them.

The CRC has meanwhile been signed and ratified by 194 countries – most recently including Ethiopia and South Sudan. In the US, however, it still does not apply. International experts worked for decades on framing the CRC: it takes account of the importance of traditional and cultural values for the protection and harmonious development of children.  

Signatories undertake to adapt their national legislation to the CRC. This means that these states must ensure that children, without discrimination, benefit from special protection measures and assistance such as access to education and health care. The goal is the development of their personalities, abilities and talents to the fullest potential. The CRC says that children have the right to grow up in an environment of happiness, love and understanding and to participate in society.

A new vision of children

What is new about this is that children are seen neither as the property of their parents nor as the helpless objects of charity. Children are considered to be full human beings and the subject of their own rights – individuals and members of a family and a community. At an international level a gradual change in thinking is taking place also in the field of international aid programmes from a needs based approach to a rights based approach.

The CRC has revolutionised our understanding of childhood. It extends far beyond the legal level and has profoundly influenced and changed the social standing of children. It is also an expression of a spirit of our time which works towards a relationship between children and adults on an equal footing.

Children want to be taken seriously, they are involved in shaping the world in which we live and a reciprocal relationship arises in which they influence society which in turn has an influence on them. It is true that currently the childhood of the majority of children is still far removed from the ideal as it is formulated in the CRC. Nevertheless, the Convention has set in train a process of rethinking which is beginning to have an effect.

The three Ps

The 44 articles of the CRC can be summarised in the famous three Ps: provision, protection and participation. The core principles of the Convention include, among other things, the “best interest” principle – a right which overrides everything else and which takes priority and has to be taken into account in all decisions affecting the child. Then there is the right to life and to survive and the promotion of the child’s social, spiritual and moral well-being and physical and mental health – his or her full potential. The Convention also demands respect for the perspective of children; they have the right to express themselves freely in all matters concerning them and in doing so must be heard and taken seriously.

The CRC poses complex questions about the way we deal with children and how we educate them so that they are seen as individuals and not treated as incomplete or inferior human beings (due to their status as minors), leading to discrimination.

Waldorf education and the CRC

The principles of Waldorf education fundamentally coincide with the core principles of the Convention. In the General Comments to Article 29, “The Aims of Education”, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child declares that the aims of education to which all states have committed themselves are based on the human dignity innate in every child and his or her equal and inalienable rights.

These aims take into account the specific developmental needs and the developing abilities of the child (cf. UN CRC General Comment No.1, 2001, p. 2–3). The General Comments also highlight a holistic approach to education which ensures that the educational opportunities made available reflect an appropriate balance between promoting the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional aspects of education. The overall objective of education should be to maximize the child’s ability and opportunity to participate fully and responsibly in a free society. Schools should foster a humane atmosphere (cf. UN CRC General Comment No.1, 2001, p. 5).

A form of teaching that is focused primarily on accumulation of knowledge, prompting competition and leading to an excessive burden of work on children and which is determined by economic interests thus represents a serious breach of children’s rights as set out in the CRC. The Waldorf movement could make an important contribution to the 25-year-old CRC in this respect by giving greater visibility at a political level to its almost 100 years of experience and strengthening the national and international organisations which represent children’s interests.

Because it is only the concerted action by all actors, persons and institutions who are directly or indirectly involved with children which can make it happen that all children can experience a good and high quality childhood so that they can fully realise their tasks in the world.

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Sources: UNICEF, www.unicef.org/crc/index_30229.html [8.7.2014], United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 2001, General Comment No. 1, p. 2. daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G01/412/53/PDF/G0141253.pdf?OpenElement [17.7.2014]

Item: 141214-03EN Date: 14 December 2014  

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