What People Are Saying

If I had a child of school age, I would send him to one of the Waldorf Schools.

Saul Bellow

Nobel Laureate

Waldorf students are encouraged to live with self-assurance, a reverence for life and a sense of service.

Ernest Boyer

President, Carnegie Institute for the Advancement of Teaching,
Former U.S. Commissioner of Education

Being personally acquainted with a number of Waldorf students, I can say that they come closer to realizing their own potentials than practically anyone I know.

Joseph Weizenbaum

Ph.D., Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Author, Computer Power and Human Reason

The implications of Gesell's and Steiner's observations are clear to educators. Pushing skills before children are biologically ready sets them up to fail.... Springing as it did from careful observations of the child, it's not surprising that Waldorf education arrived at the same conclusion [as the Gesell Institute, and applies the same principles to development of curricula for children's education.

Sidney MacDonald Baker, MD

Executive Director, Gesell Institute of
Human Development, New Haven, Connecticut

As a scientist involved in research into the physics of perception, I am impressed both with the Waldorf curriculum content, which includes "right-hemispheric" learning activities to complement the analytical or "left-hemispheric" side, and with the style of the curriculum, which promotes direct involvement, creativity, and attention to detail. This holistic, well-grounded, and in-depth approach is what is required to meet the challenges of a stressful, fast-moving technological age, while keeping one's will and sense of purpose alive and whole.

Harold Puthoff, PhD

Senior Researcher at SRI International;
internationally known scientist; Author of
numerous papers and books on quantum
electronics and paranormal phenomena

This notion, that imagination is the heart of learning, animates the entire arc of Waldorf teaching.

Todd Oppenheimer

"Schooling the Imagination"
Atlantic Monthly, September 1999

I think that it is not exaggerated to say that no other educational system in the world gives such a central role to the arts as the Waldorf School Movement. There is not a subject taught that does not have an artistic aspect. Even mathematics is presented in an artistic fashion and related via dance, movement or drawing to the child as a whole. Steiner's system of education is built on the premise that art is an integral part of human endeavors. He gives it back its true role. Anything that can be done to further his revolutionary educational ideals will be of the greatest importance.

Konrad Oberhuber

Curator of Drawings, Fogg Art Museum,
Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard Unversity

The advent of the Waldorf Schools was in my opinion the greatest contribution to world peace and understanding of the century.

Willy Brandt

former Chancellor West Germany
former Waldorf parent
1971 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

There were three major studies done recently that dealt with the disappearance of childhood in America. If there is any one thing that the Waldorf system does, it nurtures, protects, and develops the intelligence of the true child.

Joseph Chilton Pearce

Author, The Magical Child

I first heard of Waldorf education about five years ago, after having carried out extensive study of the neurological aspects of cognition, movement, and maturation. I was delighted to discover such a neurologically sound curriculum. I heartily support efforts to spread the awareness of Waldorf education and hope that it will spawn not only an increase in Waldorf Schools but an infusion of at least some of the ideas into the mainstream where they are so sorely needed. In Colorado I am working with several districts to incorporate various Waldorf strategies into the teaching of reading and mathematics. The ideas are very well received and very much needed.

Dee Jay Coulter, EdD

Instructor, University of Northern Colorado,
Outreach, Educational Consultant

As a psychiatrist with a special interest in developmental issues as well as a parent of two daughters educated at the New York City Rudolf Steiner School from nursery and second grade through high school, I have been fascinated by how deftly the approach taken by Waldorf educators dovetails with levels of development in childhood. It seems to be that my daughters, the elder about to graduate from medical school. The younger in her first year at law school, have benefited not only intellectually, but also socially and in terms of cultural and athletic interests as well from the breadth and depth of the curriculum their teachers have presented to them.

Iona Ginsburg, MD

Asst. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University;
Member, Board of Directors of the New York Society for Adolescent Psychiatry;
Past President of the Metropolitan Mental Health Association

Waldorf education remains to become better known to Americans. Other independent educational movements, much less thoroughgoing in their attempts to integrate at every level of education art, science, and an appreciation of the fully human, have curiously been given much more attention. At a time of searching and reappraisal in American education, the Waldorf Movement with its unique understanding of the education of the child and its years of teaching practice and institutional experience deserves the informed consideration of those genuinely concerned with education and the development of human wholeness.

Douglas Sloan, PhD

Professor, Columbia University Teachers College;
Editor, Teachers College Record

There is no task of greater importance than to give our children the very best preparation for the demands of an ominous future, a preparation that aims at the methodical cultivation of their spiritual and their moral gifts. As long as the exemplary work of the Waldorf School Movement continues to spread its influence as it has done over the past decades, we can all look forward with hope. I am sure that Rudolf Steiner's work for children must be considered a central contribution to the twentieth century and I feel it deserves the support of all freedom-loving thinking people.

Bruno Walter

Composer and Conductor