Author of the Month
It’s quite a privilege to identify Karl König as our first of 2026 “Author of the Month”. Thanks to the leaders of the Karl König Institute, we were granted permission to publish Dr. König’s lectures on teaching Math and Language Arts. Of course, the depth of these lectures owes its richness to the good doctor’s lifetime of work with children in need of special care. His dedicated search for the most effective ways to enable people with disabilities to succeed led to observations and methods that are instructive to teachers everywhere. And are effective for all children!
Karl König was a special person in many ways. Born in Austria, Dr. König was a pediatrician who founded the Camphill Movement, an international undertaking of therapeutic intentional communities for those with special needs. After graduating from medical school, König was invited to join Dr. Ita Wegman in Arlesheim, Switzerland, to work with those in need of special care. He returned to Austria in 1936, where he established a successful medical practice until 1938, when he was forced to flee Vienna following Hitler’s invasion of Austria. Dr. Wegman recommend he travel to Aberdeen, Scotland, where friends resided who could help Dr. König continue his work. Dr. Wegman was recognized by König for his remarkable talent and vision in medical approaches. It was in Aberdeen where Dr. König established the first Camphill Village.
Dr. Dan McKanon of Harvard University described Camphill Villages as places where the culture adapts to the capacities of people with disabilities, rather than insisting that they conform to the standards of contemporary culture. Camphill Villages are life-sharing communities. Abled individuals, called “house-parents,” manage the homes of villagers who work in the Village accomplishing daily tasks; caring for their homes, cleaning, cooking and tending, and also work in farming (tending livestock, planting and harvesting vegetables and herbs, etc.) and in shops that produce goods for sale (candles, bookbinding, pottery, and other gift items). The communities share income. No one receives a salary. Each household receives a budgeted amount each month for managing their home.
This innovative and highly socially minded approach to caring for those with disabilities was named by Dr. McKanon as “the future,” providing a rewarding life for otherwise marginalized individuals, outside of more standard institutions. Investigating the mission of each individual and seeing each life as purposeful from birth informs the approach in Camphill Villages. Dr. König saw this approach as transformative for both those with disabilities and those who tended to them — transformative for all of society, really.
Camphill Villages now operate in countries around the globe as part of the Section for Inclusive Development, a division within the Anthroposophical Society, centered in Dornach, Switzerland. The program for Curative Education within the Anthroposophical Society supports the Camphill movement as part of its work on behalf of those with disabilities.
Karl König’s work was inspired by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher whose clairvoyant insights informed medicine, agriculture, the arts, education, religion, social reform, architecture, and more. His unique view of the human being, as one of body, soul, and spirit, or merely of body and soul, elevated the approach to curative support for individuals with disabilities to a new level of valuing all people as important to civilization and the future of humanity. König’s invention of Camphill Village opened new possibilities for a cultural approach to including people with disabilities in a productive way of life, filled with purpose and value for all involved in these communities.
Dr. König’s investigations into how to allow those with disabilities to participate in ordinary tasks of life led him to marvelous insights and inspirations in educating the young. These are useful to everyone who teaches or raises young people. Breaking ideas down to their essentials and introducing new ideas into the approaches to take in teaching math and language arts, for example, are remarkably helpful to teachers.
Dr. König’s interest in all living things, including animals and plants, led him to become an expert in zoology and human development. His playful understanding of the special characteristics of different animals informed his work in a remarkably colorful way, as one can see in the book on Arithmetic “with Zoological Considerations.”
Again, Waldorf Publications is grateful to the Karl König Institute in Hudson, New York, part of the Camphill Foundation in North America, for granting permission to publish two works of Karl König, capturing lecture materials Dr. König gave to those who were learning ways to teach children with disabilities how to read and to flourish in mathematics. Again, these books are useful for all children working to achieve expertise in these standard curriculum subjects. They are available this month at a remarkable discount to celebrate Dr. Karl König! What a fine way to usher in a New Year filled with the hope and insight we so urgently need in these tumultuous days!
