ABSTRACT
In the public discourse on the character of Waldorf education, several prominent terms are in circulation that seem to fulfill an explanatory function. Quite a few people today connect expressions such as eurythmy, main lesson blocks, or learning without being graded with core themes of Waldorf education. Among these terms, people find also a more-or-less diffuse idea of the Rubicon, which parents discuss in internet chat rooms as a crisis occurring before puberty. This chapter attempts first a historical classification of the term, then it proceeds to identify it as a corollary of the developmental concepts in anthroposophy and spiritual science, as set forth by Rudolf Steiner after approximately the year 1907. This shall highlight the main aspects of the child's upheaval that the founder of anthroposophy connected with the Rubicon. In historic times, the Rubicon was a border river that separated the roman province of Gallia Cisalpina from the Italian mainland.
