Steiner Waldorf education strives to awaken creativity, wonder, reverence and respect for nature and humanity. The Waldorf approach offers a holistic educational model designed to provide the right stimulus at the right time and allow each child's abilities to fully unfold. The Waldorf philosophy honors the aliveness and humanity of the whole child.

Steiner Waldorf Education is the world's largest independent, non-denomin-ational, K-12 school movement.

Religion per se is generally not taught in our programs, or in most Waldorf schools. At our programs, we do say blessings several times per day, and mention our gratitude to God for many things. Waldorf was founded on Christian principals, and embraces families of all faiths. Steiner believed that incorporating an awareness of the spiritual dimension into contemporary life is the remedy for the the disorder and suffering of the modern age.

PLEASE SEE OUR LINKS PAGE, especially www.waldorfanswers.org to learn more about Waldorf Education.

An Introduction to Waldorf Education

Don’t Rush the Young Child

Storytelling, songs, rhythmical games, handwork, painting, singing, and lots of free play with toys that lend themselves to many uses, help to develop both imaginative forces and social skills. A child lives with a constantly growing mastery of the physical world. In these early years, a young child’s thought has a pictorial and dreamy quality, quite unlike the thinking of an adult.  Formative forces are still working to mold the young body and brain.  At about age seven, these forces are freed to develop memory and intellect.  Prematurely awakening a child’s intellect by asking the child to focus on academics in what should be the imitative phase, means that full development of imaginative powers will be hampered. The child will become less truly himself.

The value of early academics has never been proven, but its harm has been clearly documented by such internationally recognized psychologists as David Elkind and educators such as A. C. Harwood.  No two children are alike in the way they learn.  Reading, like walking, speaking, and thinking, appears when the child is mature enough to integrate all the skills needed.  True, reading can be hurried, but there is a cost: emotionally, psychologically, and/or academically. 

A study by the Gesell Institute measured reading skills of children who began reading at age 3 to 5, against the skills of children who began reading much later, at age 6 to 8. The study found that by the third grade both groups of children had similar skill level, but the children who began reading later had a much greater interest in exploring reading.

Waiting until a child is in first grade before starting academic work has obvious advantages for an average or slow child who needs the time to gain maturity before beginning reading or math.  But what to do with the bright child who wants to start writing or reading at age three or four? Here is a chance to share their excitement and declare “You will be able to learn all about that when you get to first grade!”.  You need not sit down and give the children formal lessons at a young age, merely because they are interested in letters and numbers. There are many letter and number games for young children that can provide satisfaction.  Songs with rhymes counting can also be an endless source of delight to the young child.Tell a story or read from one book at a sitting, allowing the child to fully enter into the mood of each story.

Finally: to the classroom!

In brief, reading is taught first through writing, starting with an imaginative and artistic presentation of the letters using interesting stories and colorful chalkboard drawings, moving on to the copying of sentences, and ending with the copying of whole stories.  Letters are acted out with the whole body! Phonics and sight words are used as tools when needed and are not the be-all of education. The child is given a rich experience of language through the daily use of poetry, which trains the aesthetic sense, and stories, fables, and fairy tales, which present profound moral images.

Mathematics is taught first with fun games that involve the use of the child's whole body, beginning with division. Steiner wrote, "If we first awaken an awareness of the whole, then an awareness of the members of this whole - starting with the whole and then proceeding to its parts - the organism is made more alive."

Children naturally breathe with the daily rhythm of music, movement, verses, and rhymes, alternating with quiet concentration.

The Founding of Waldorf Education

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf Education, was a genius who lived in the early 20th century. He hoped that Waldorf schools would help to reawaken spiritual life, with the curriculum and pedagogy directed to countering the “hardening forces of materialism”. Steiner believed it was the epitome of materialism to approach education as the accumulation of bits of information.  Instead, he designed a school to focus on developing in children the faculties that enable us to understand and eventually know what we have experienced. Steiner's approach values the intuitive and spiritual side of each child.

Steiner described three distinct phases of development prior to age 21. In the first seven years of life the child sees the world as a place of goodness, and learns by imitation and through activity, as their developing will is exercised.

In the next developmental phase, (from roughly age seven, when the baby teeth are lost,) Steiner wrote that the child most naturally learns through beauty, from adults who merit being authorities. Feeling is central at this age and storytelling and art are employed as teaching vehicles throughout the elementary curriculum.

At puberty, the third developmental phase begins, and a child longs for truth . Now a child is ready for logic, reasoning and thinking, (as well as computers), and needs plenty of room to make their own decisions. Now begins a relationship with teachers who are professionals in their respective fields.

Please see the links page for lots more introductory articles.