A lifetime love of learning

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

Saul Bellow, Author, Nobel Laureate


"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


"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


"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


"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 - Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University


Waldorf education addresses the child as no other education does. Learning, whether in chemistry, mathematics, history or geography, is imbued with life and so with joy, which is the only true basis for later study. The textures and colors of nature, the accomplishments and struggles of humankind fill the Waldorf students' imaginations and the pages of their beautiful books . Education grows into a union with life that serves them for decades.

By the time they reach us at the college and university level, these students are grounded broadly and deeply and have a remarkable enthusiasm for learning. Such students possess the eye of the discoverer, and the compassionate heart of the reformer which, when joined to a task, can change the planet.

Arthur Zajonc, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Physics, Amherst College


I believe that Waldorf education possesses unique educational features that have considerable potential for improving public education in America. Waldorf schools provide a program that not only fosters conventional forms of academic achievement, but also puts a premium on the development of imagination and the refinement of the sensibilities.

Elliot Eisner, Ph.D., Professor of Education and Art, Stanford University;
Past President, American Educational Research Association;
Author, Curriculum and Cognition: Educating Artistic Vision


Ideal for the child and society in the best of times, Rudolf Steiner's brilliant process of education is critically needed and profoundly relevant now at this time of childhood crisis and educational breakdown. Waldorf education nurtures the intellectual, psychological and spiritual unfolding of the child. The concerned parent and teacher will find a multitude of problems clearly addressed in this practical, artistic approach.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, Author, Magical Child and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg; Evolution's End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence


Many teachers have discovered that music can also be a powerful means of integrating other aspects of the curriculum. By tapping into the experiential and expressive aspects of music, teachers can add a distinctive dimension to instruction in other subjects. This insight has been used to develop interesting and productive pedagogical models like the Waldorf schools in Europe and the United States. In the Waldorf schools, for example, the goal is the education of the whole human being by paying attention to the needs of the human spirit. The arts particularly, are used as part of a theory of human development that helps children find nonverbal modes of expression and understanding.

from Growing Up Complete: The Imperative for Music Education,
The Report of the National Commission on Music Education, March 1991


Programs such as Montessori and the Waldorf Schools offer small classes, individualized instruction, and flexible, child-centered curricula which can accommodate the child and do not demand that the child do all of the accommodating . . . Rudolf Steiner was troubled by the overly academic emphasis of schools; he felt that the aesthetic side of children was being overlooked and that this should be developed along with the intellectual powers. Waldorf schools emphasize creativity in all aspects of children's work. The same teacher may stay with the same group of children for as many as eight grades. In so doing the teacher has to grow and learn with the children.

from Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk
David Elkind, Ph.D., Professor of Child Study, Tufts University
Author, The Hurried Child, All Grown Up and No Place to Go;
Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk


American schools are having a crisis in values. Half the children fail according to standard measures and the other half wonder why they are learning what they do. As is appropriate to life in a democracy, there are a handful of alternatives. Among the alternatives, the Waldorf school represents a chance for every child to grow and learn according to the most natural rhythms of life. For the early school child, this means a non-competitive, non-combative environment in which the wonders of science and literature fill the day without causing anxiety and confusion. For the older child, it offers a curriculum that addresses the question of why they are learning. I have sent two of my children to Waldorf schools and they have been wonderfully well served.

Raymond McDermott, Ph.D., Professor of Education and Anthropology, Stanford University


Because my professional life focuses largely on preparing people for teacher education programs, I am particularly aware of how our work compares with that of Waldorf teacher training programs. I have been fascinated to observe how many of the educational theories and goals espoused by my colleagues in teacher education directly correlate with long-established tenets of Waldorf teacher training . . . For the past ten years my teaching responsibilities have compelled me to inform myself not just about what would-be teachers need to learn, but also about how and what children themselves need to learn. All of my instructionally-related research into childhood has pointed toward the superiority of Waldorf education over all other current educational methods.

Jane W. Hipolito, Ph.D.,
Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of Liberal Studies,
California State University, Fullerton


"If you've had the experience of binding a book, knitting a sock, playing a recorder, then you feel that you can build a rocket ship-or learn a software program you've never touched. It's not bravado, just a quiet confidence. There is nothing you can't do. Why couldn't you? Why couldn't anybody?"

Peter Nitze, Waldorf and Harvard graduate, and Director of an aerospace company


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

Willy Brandt, Nobel Prize Winner, Former Chancellor of West Germany


"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 experience deserves the informed consideration of those genuinely concerned with education and the development of human wholeness."

Douglas Sloan, Ph.D Professor Columbia University Teachers College


"The Waldorf School I have observed celebrates the uniqueness of each child, blends a rich curriculum in creative ways and sensitively evaluates student progress along the full range of human talent. Waldorf students are encouraged to live with self assurance, a reverence for life and a sense of service."

Ernest Boyer, Chairman Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching


"The importance of storytelling, of the natural rhythms of daily life, of the evolutionary changes in the child, of art as the necessary underpinning of learning, and of the aesthetic environment as a whole-all basic to Waldorf education for the past 70 years-are being "discovered" and verified by researchers unconnected to the Waldorf movement."

Paul Bayers, Professor Columbia Teachers' College


"In linking their curriculum and schooling toward children's developmental stages, Waldorf schools seem to have a unique sense of what children are ready for. [They] promote creativity and critical thinking in an inter-disciplinary fashion…exactly the direction public education needs to move."

Jack Miller, Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto


From careful observations of the child, Waldorf education arrived at the same conclusion (Gesell Institute) and applies the same principles to development of curricula for children's education: pushing skills before children are biologically ready sets them up to fail.

Sidney M. Baker, M.D. Executive Director - Gesell Institute of Human Development

 "I think that the best scientist is the best and most creative thinker and the task of education is first of all to educate human beings who then become scientists."
- Rudolf Steiner

"There can be no analytical thinking without imagination."
- Jane Healy

"If had a child of school age, I would
send him to one of the
Waldorf schools."
- Saul Bellow, Author, Nobel Laureate

When I examine myself and my
method of thought, I come to the conclusion that fantasy has meant
more to me than my talent for
absorbing knowledge."
- Albert Einstein

The advent of the Waldorf schools
was in my opinion the greatest contribution to world peace and understanding of the century."
- Willy Brandt, Nobel Prize Winner, Former Chancellor of West Germany