Frequently asked questions
click on a question below to view answer
Does Waldorf education prepare children for the "real" world and, if so, how does it do it?
Education in our materialistic, Western society focuses on the intellectual aspect of the human being and has chosen largely to ignore the several other parts that are essential to our well-being. These include our life of feeling (emotions, aesthetics, and social sensitivity), our willpower (the ability to get things done), and our moral nature (being clear about right and wrong). Without having these developed, we are incomplete – a fact that may become obvious in our later years, when a feeling of emptiness begins to set in. That is why in a Waldorf school, the practical and artistic subjects play as important a role as the full spectrum of traditional academic subjects that the school offers. The practical and artistic are essential in achieving a preparation for life in the “real” world.
Waldorf education recognizes and honours the full range of human potentialities. It addresses the whole child by striving to awaken and ennoble all the latent capacities. The children learn to read, write, and do math; they study history, geography, and the sciences. In addition, all children learn to sing, play a musical instrument, draw, paint, model clay, carve and work with wood, speak clearly and act in a play, think independently, and work harmoniously and respectfully with others. The development of these various capacities is interrelated. For example, both boys and girls learn to knit in grade one. Acquiring this basic and enjoyable human skill helps them develop a manual dexterity, which after puberty will be transformed into an ability to think clearly and to “knit” their thoughts into a coherent whole.
Preparation for life includes the development of the well-rounded person. Waldorf education has as its ideal a person who is knowledgeable about the world and human history and culture, who has many varied practical and artistic abilities, who feels a deep reverence for and communion with the natural world, and who can act with initiative and in freedom in the face of economic and political pressures.
There are many Waldorf graduates of all ages who embody this ideal and who are perhaps the best proof of the efficacy of the education.”
– From Five Frequently Asked Questions by Colin Price; originally printed in Renewal Magazine, Spring/Summer 2003
Are Waldorf schools art schools?
Why the focus on play during the early years of childhood?
“I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less slowly. Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table while a sweet voiced teacher suggest that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in flower pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.”
“It could be argued that active play is so central to child development that it should be included in the very definition of childhood.” – American Academy of Pediatrics
Why do Waldorf schools teach reading so late?
If reading is not pushed, a healthy child will pick it up quite quickly and easily. Some Waldorf parents become anxious if their child is slow to learn to read. Eventually these same parents are overjoyed at seeing their child pick up a book and not put it down and become from that moment a voracious reader. Each child has his or her own optimal time for “taking off.” Feelings of anxiety and inferiority may develop in a child who is not reading as well as her peers. Often this anxiety is picked up from parents concerned about the child’s progress. It is important that parents should deal with their own and their child’s apprehensions.”
– From Five Frequently Asked Questions by Colin Price; originally printed in Renewal Magazine, Spring/Summer 2003
Why does the teacher stay with one class for anything from one to eight years?
What happens if the teacher does not get along with a child?
– From Five Frequently Asked Questions by Colin Price; originally printed in Renewal Magazine, Spring/Summer 2003
How can a Waldorf class teacher teach all the subjects through the eight years of elementary schooling?
The class teacher is, however, responsible for the two-hour “main lesson” every morning and usually also for one or two lessons later in the day. In the main lesson, she brings all the main academic subjects to the children, including language arts, the sciences, history, and mathematics, as well as painting, music, clay modeling, and so on. The teacher does in fact deal with a wide range of subjects, and thus the question is a valid one.
A common misconception in our time is that education is merely the transfer of information. From the Waldorf point of view, true education also involves the awakening of capacities-the ability to think clearly and critically, to empathetically experience and understand phenomena in the world, to distinguish what is beautiful, good, and true. The class teacher walks a path of discovery with the children and guides them into an understanding of the world of meaning, rather than the world of cause and effect.
Waldorf class teachers work very hard to master the content of the various subjects that they teach. But the teacher’s ultimate success lies in his ability to work with those inner faculties that are still “in the bud,” so that they can grow, develop, and open up in a beautiful, balanced, and wholesome way. Through this approach to teaching, the children will be truly prepared for the real world. They are provided then with the tools to productively shape that world out of a free human spirit.”
– From Five Frequently Asked Questions by Colin Price; originally printed in Renewal Magazine, Spring/Summer 2003
What kind of training do Waldorf teachers have?
How is Waldorf education different from Montessori education?
- Read about it in the article titled: Montessori and Steiner: A Pattern of Reverse Symmetries, by Dee Joy Coulter in the folder About Waldorf Education, in our Resource Library.
Why are festivals celebrated?
Why no uniform?
Why no testing and exams until Class 7?
Above all things, replied the King, be sure that the rosebush roots receive enough water.
Much to the King’s great surprise, he returned some months later to a rose garden in which not one living plant remained.
My instructions could not have been simpler! he cried to the shamefaced steward, What have you done?
Exactly as you commanded, was the steward’s response. Every day we pulled up the rosebushes and examined their roots. If the roots were dry we watered them well and returned the plants to the soil.
As the King knew well, there are other ways to determine if the roots are receiving sufficient water! Wilting leaves, desiccated buds or withering flowers would all have been adequate indicators that water was needed. And, above all, using these indicators would eliminate the need to destroy the plant in order to understand it.
Educators active in the Waldorf school movement are convinced that most contemporary methods of assessment of children take the Pull Up The Roots approach. With the zeal of the steward, they undermine the very abilities that they seek to evaluate.
The Waldorf method of evaluation might be characterised as the Look At The Leaves approach. To facilitate this indirect and qualitative assessment method, a variety of assessment instruments and methods are used. Eschewing the graded quiz or the standardised test as the only objective methods, teachers work with a portfolio style approach that includes the child’s drawings, paintings, knitting, facility of movement, musical skills, oral expressiveness, etc. as factors that are no less important than the more easily determined powers of cognition and verbal memory.
As the above criteria must make clear, the Waldorf assessment method is time and labour intensive in nature. The final written, annual evaluations are only the final step in a process that goes on ceaselessly throughout the school year.” – Eugene Schwartz
Source: https://millennialchild.wordpress.com/article/discover-waldorf-education-assessing-110mw7eus832b-4/
That being said, it should be noted that in-depth, individual observational reports are issued by the class teacher at the end of each year in Primary School. In the Middle and High Schools, students complete tests to assess their comprehension and progress. Teachers from the Federation of Waldorf Schools in Southern Africa perform class assessments up to Class 7 at Michael Mount on an annual basis. Detailed academic reports are issued twice annually from Class 8 onwards. Matric students write the exams set by the Independent Examinations Board (IEB).
How does the school deal with children of different academic levels or inclinations?
Why is exposure to electronic media discouraged for the young child?
- Read the section titled The Media and Learning for the Young Child (pages 19 – 27) in the Excerpts from Sharifa Oppenheimer’s book Heaven on Earth.
.
Why are computers introduced at such a late stage?
Some food for thought from a June 2016 article in The Guardian, titled Could Steiner schools have a point on children, tablets and tech? (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jun/14/steiner-schools-children-tablets-tech )
A recent study published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that students barred from using laptops or digital devices in lectures and seminars did better in exams than those allowed to use computers and access the internet. And research last year from theLondon School of Economics found schools that banned pupils from carrying mobile phones showed a sustained improvement in exam results, with the biggest advances coming from struggling students.
A Cambridge University study found that spending an extra hour a day of TV, internet or gaming time in year 10 saw a fall in GCSE results equivalent to two grades overall. Its co-author, Esther van Sluijs, says reducing screen time could have important benefits and adds that “limiting the amount of time spent in front of screens and introducing children to a variety of activities is likely to have the most beneficial long-term impacts on a child’s health”.
Andreas Schleicher, head of education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said recently: “The reality is that technology is doing more harm than good in our schools today.” A report by the OECD in 2015 found that countries that had invested heavily in technology had shown no signs of improvement in reading, maths or science.
Older Waldorf students quickly master computer technology and many graduates have successful careers in the computer and IT industries, without being disadvantaged by their lack of exposure to technology in early childhood.
Are Waldorf schools religious?
What is eurythmy?
How do children fare when they transfer to or from Waldorf schools?
Those children who enter a Waldorf school in the middle grades often bring much information about the world. This contribution should be recognized and received with interest by the class. However, these children often have to unlearn some social habits, such as the tendency to experience learning as a competitive activity. They have to learn to approach the arts in a more objective way, not simply as a means for personal expression. In contrast, in their study of nature, history, and the world, they need to relate what they learn to their own life and being. The popular ideal of “objectivity” in learning is misguided when applied to elementary school children. At their stage of development, the subjective element is essential for healthy learning. Involvement in what is learned about the world makes the world truly meaningful to them.
Children who transfer out of a Waldorf school into a public school during the earlier grades probably have to upgrade their reading ability and to approach the science lessons differently. Science in a Waldorf school emphasizes the observation of natural phenomena rather than the formulation of abstract concepts and laws. On the other hand, the Waldorf transferees are usually well prepared for social studies, practical and artistic activities, and mathematics. Children moving during the middle grades should experience no problems. In fact, in most cases, transferring students of this age group find themselves ahead of their classmates. The departing Waldorf student is likely to take along into the new school a distinguishing individual strength, personal confidence, and love of learning.”
– From Five Frequently Asked Questions by Colin Price; originally printed in Renewal Magazine, Spring/Summer 2003
How do Waldorf students compare and fare at university and in the real world?
According to a 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study of European students, Waldorf pupils’ ability in science was “far above average” in the data set used.
A 2007 German study found that an above-average number of Waldorf students become teachers, doctors, engineers, scholars of the humanities, and scientists.
Sources: Fanny Jiménez, “Wissenschaftler loben Waldorfschulen” Die Welt, 27 September 2012; Østergaard, Edvin; Dahlin, Bo; Hugo, Aksel (1 September 2008). “Doing phenomenology in science education: a research review”. Studies in Science Education 44 (2): 93–121.
According to a 2005 study of North American Waldorf graduates:
- 94% attended college or university
- 47% chose humanities or arts as a major
- 42% chose sciences or math as a major
- 89% are highly satisfied in choice of occupation
- 91% are active in lifelong education
- 92% placed a high value on critical thinking
- 90% highly values tolerance of other viewpoints
Source: http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/WEGradResearchDM.pdf
Why is Michael Mount so expensive?
What is anthroposophy?
While anthroposophy forms the basis of the curriculum, the philosophy is not taught to students.
- The best way to understand Anthroposophy is to read Steiner’s own words in context for yourself. Go to Anthroposophy in the Resource Library.