5 Reasons to Love Waldorf Schools
Why do we love Waldorf Schools? Let us count the ways!
We all know that Waldorf schools are developmentally appropriate, rigorous, creative, and relevant. We also know Waldorf schools help students reach their full potential by catering to head, heart and hands.
That’s why we chose Waldorf education, but why do we love it?
When we tell a friend to check out the Waldorf School of San Diego and discuss how our children are thriving, what do we really talk about? Here’s what you’ve told us:
1. Dedicated Teachers
We love our teachers, and they love our children. Waldorf School of San Diego teachers are empowered to teach. They are unfettered and plan lessons around what they know will educate and resonate with students. They are also encouraged to do inner work — on their personal meaning and purpose, work/life balance, and relationships both inside and outside the school community.
Add to that the fact that these amazing professionals are regularly supported to continue their professional training, and you can see why Waldorf teachers are SO exceptional!
2. Time Outside
The research is in! Move to learn, go outside in nature, and it will improve test scores, decrease stress, and increase wellbeing. But what we really LOVE is the pure joy being outside in nature brings to our students. Our on-campus learning environment has adapted to the times, but Waldorf has always incorporated nature as a core part of our curriculum and experience. Suddenly Waldorf students are “lucky” students who get to come home and tell their families about bugs they caught, games of tag, hikes on the outdoor school grounds, and time gardening.
We can talk about how it improves academics all day, but what it really improves is the daily lives of children. It makes school fun because children are given the time and space to be kids!
3. Time to Be a Kid
And it’s not just recess and outdoor education that keeps childhood intact for Waldorf students. Our program is designed intentionally around the developmental needs of students, meaning they have much less homework than traditional schools and more time after school to do what children were meant to do in childhood — play and spend quality time with their families!
Better still, Waldorf culture has deprioritized screen time. So that free time at home is also time spent in creative play and more time outdoors. Their friends don’t have phones, don’t wear the latest in media-inspired fashion, and everyone gets to stay in a place of preserved, unstructured innocence for just a bit longer.
In our memories, childhood often seems to go forever. It’s hard to remember this era of our lives, so rich in experience and nostalgia, only lasts about 12 years. We must be very protective of this time for our children!
4. Hands-On Creative Learning
If you have a choice between passive and active learning, between listening to a lecture about decorating a cake or going to a class and actually decorating a cake, which would you choose? Silly question, right? Learning, in everyday life, happens while we “do” — at home, work, and beyond. Why wouldn’t we teach our students this way?
Hands-on learning is about cultivating awareness and bringing lessons from the abstract to the concrete. Woodwork, knitting, drawing, painting, and play are just a few examples of how we do this at The Waldorf School of San Diego. Children learn best through these hands-on activities and experiences, not just because it makes what they’re learning relevant, but because it makes it FUN!
5. Caring, Engaged Community
We might not be perfect, but we genuinely care for one another, and we are unified in our mission to care for and educate our children. All of us come together for our students through volunteering, fundraising, festivals, celebrations, and all the kindness and giving we share with one another each day.
Our community is thriving and unique. We know because our alumni parents tell us it’s not the same after they leave. “We miss coming to school each day, …. because this will always be our community!”
Our school community is uniquely engaged in the everyday education of our children. What would we do without each other? As they say, it takes a village, and we here at The Waldorf School of San Diego County are a thriving and blessed village for your children and families.
