The Temperaments and the Arts

The Temperaments and the Arts: Their Relation and Function in Waldorf Pedagogy

Magda Lissau provides in this powerhouse of a book, a guide to comprehending and applying the human qualities rising from the temperaments in education, the arts, child development and understanding human interactions. Using color, music, painting, drawing, movement and drama, she illuminates the depth that is possible from an understanding of the temperaments. This book provides ample help for teachers and parents to support a child’s growth and flourishing through the use of the arts in the light of the temperaments.

About the Author

Magda Lissau was born in Vienna, Austria, to parents who knew Rudolf Steiner. She had intended to study chemistry at the University of Vienna, but instead trained at the Camphill Schools in Scotland. She emigrated to South Africa in 1961, where she taught at a Camphill institution in Johannesburg. In 1964 she joined Michael Mount Waldorf School as a class teacher. While on sabbatical in 1975, she visited Waldorf teacher development institutes in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, and England, and on to North America, where she remained for three months at the Waldorf Institute in Detroit – now Sunbridge Institute. She decided at this point to immigrate to the United States. She first taught and consulted with teachers in Washington, DC, and Baltimore, and then moved to Chicago in 1981. She was active there until her death, both teaching and administering at the Arcturus Rudolf Steiner Education program, a Waldorf teacher education institute.