About Waldorf
Rudolf Steiner

Born in Austria, Rudolf Steiner was an international figure of his day who forged new directions for cultural and spiritual life. He was a scientist, educator, artist, and thinker of extraordinary dimension. He laid the foundations of Waldorf Education. His answers to the questions and concerns of his students led to movements of renewal in education, medicine, science, agriculture, religion, the arts, and human consciousness. His many books and extensive lecture courses was the basis for a new understanding of the human being, eventually called spiritual science or "Anthroposophy" (from the Greek Anthropos, "human" and Sophia, "wisdom.")

Rudolf Steiner characterized Anthroposophy as a path of knowledge that leads the spirit in the human being to the spirit in the world. He described how, by developing our human potential, we gradually become able to recognize the creative laws that are at work in living nature and in human and social life. In this way, Anthroposophy complements natural science and leads to insight into such profound and challenging issues as the nature of sentience, soul, the human spirit, and organic life. Anthroposophy fosters individual development and freedom while cultivating social responsibility and respect for others.

Waldorf Education

Parents can provide nothing of more lasting value than an education which develops their child's full human potential. Waldorf education emphasizes disciplined creativity, wonder, and reverence and respect for nature and for human existence. A comprehensive academic, artistic, and physical education program presented in a supportive, structured and non-competitve environment is meant to help a child who will be balanced in feeling, with initiative in action and clarity in thought. We aim to strenghten the child to meet not only the challenges of school, but those of life.

Waldorf is a hositic educational model designed to provide the right stimulus at the right time and allow each child's abilities to fully unfold. The early childhood, elementary and high school curriculum, working out of the philosophy and methods of its founder, recognized that as children pass through three distinct developmental stages, specific forces and capabilities are at work... and so children have very particular needs from the adults around them. In extremely brief terms, this approach could be described as follows:

•In the first seven or so years the child seeks to see that the world ia a place of goodness, and will learn primarliy by imitation and through activity. This is why Waldorf Early Childhood Programs emphasize creative play as a vital early foundation for creative thinking.

•In the next developmental phase (leading up to puberty) the child most naturally learns through beauty, from adults who merit being authorities. This is why storytelling and art are employed as teaching vehicles throughout the elementary curriculum.

•And then, entering into the third developmental stage and ready at last for true independent thinking, the teenager naturally begins a quest for truth. That is why high school subjects are taught by specialists in their respective fields of science, math, English, history and the arts.