School Life

Early Childhood (Age 3-6)

Kindergarten – Awakening the Will

The goal of the Waldorf kindergarten (Palaruan) is to develop a sense of wonder in the young child and a reverence for all living things. This creates an eagerness for the academics that follow in the grades. Kindergarten is intended to be a home-like experience so that the young child feels secure and comfortable in his first step away from the family home.

Kindergartners are phenomenal imitators. Therefore, the teacher must be a role model worthy of their imitation. The teacher also provides the rhythm, ritual and reverence that live within the Waldorf kindergarten.

Active play (indoor and outdoor) is a key component of the Waldorf early childhood program, which helps your toddler in his/her development: emotionally, mentally and actively while they learn.

The rhythm of each morning provides a balance between individual free and imaginative play and organized group activity. Activities include household tasks such as baking, sweeping, and planting; artistic activities such as beeswax modeling, drawing and watercolor painting; and linguistic activities such as listening to classical folk tales, watching puppet shows, and role-playing.

Every day there is a “circle time” with singing and movement, and the day concludes with the telling of a traditional story.

Grade School: Paaralan

Nourishing The Heart and Soul

Art plays a significant role in the Waldorf Elementary Levels. The teaching of subjects (science, math, history, etc.) are enlivened through artistic activities (drawing, making music, painting) that help your child become emotionally engaged in his/her learning process.

Rudolf Steiner maintained that in student-teacher interactions, “that which passes from soul to soul” is far more important than any kind of intellectually contrived instruction on the mere passing on of information.

The child experiences the grade school curriculum not as intellectual concepts or a compendium of facts that must be memorized and whose successful recall becomes the weightiest measure of his education. Rather, the curriculum is delivered in a way that is related to the child’s appreciation of himself and the world at that stage of his development. Thus, even the most conceptual and abstract subjects like arithmetic and geometry become alive to the child.

The arts, particularly music and painting as well as bodily movement, are a constant presence in the days of the Waldorf grade school student: he continues to work with his hands – to plant a garden, care for animals, work with wood, cloth and clay. From these, the child comes to appreciate the beauty of the world around him. Out of this appreciation, an intuitive understanding of his place within it arises.

The Waldorf curriculum is designed as a unit. The first two hours of each day is the Main Lesson, which incorporates the more intellectual activities of writing, reading and arithmetic. Subjects are introduced and developed in a sequence that mirrors the inner development of the growing child. Over the years, the curriculum emerges as a whole, as material from one year is referenced in the following year, and the disciplines are woven together. The curriculum also follows mankind’s development from the Dreamtime and Fairy Tales through to epic Bible stories in Grade 3, the Ancient Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman epochs in Grades 5 and 6, and to the Renaissance in Grade 7.

The class teacher ideally stays with the class for all the elementary years, and so comes to understand each child’s talents and weaknesses, temperament and interests. The teacher’s mastery of each subject grows as they creatively enhance the extensive curriculum to meet the needs of the children.

Upper School: Kawayan

Freeing the Mind

In high school, Waldorf students are engaged actively, emotionally and thoughtfully as they were in their earlier education. However, during this third phase of education, the emphasis moves decidedly toward thinking, which is developed through the subjects that are taught and through the habits that are cultivated.

By the time of puberty, Waldorf Upper School students have a foundation for broad knowledge to support and enrich their maturing intellectual thinking life. Specialist teachers guide them through a challenging and rigorous curriculum with a balance of the arts, humanities and sciences.

The main lessons, whether in science, English, math or art, arise out of a “theme” for each year. All lessons relate to this theme, resulting in a curriculum that is both holistic and organic with cross-references through many disciplines. This enables students to stand secure within a balanced, overall picture, and able to develop with confidence to the next stage.

The teachers guide the students towards developing independent judgement and encouraging the examination of problems from many points of view. As they begin their quest for truth, these adolescents understand the difference between thinking about an issue and merely memorizing the “right answer” for a test. Emphasis is given on the development of clear thinking and moral responsibility.

Rudolf Steiner believes that the experience of truth, beauty and goodness is an essential part of what children should receive in school. This is also how we can best describe what Waldorf students encounter through the K – 12 curriculum.

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