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The Waldorf school is an arts-based K-12 alternative school. Our local one, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, is located in Los Altos Hills. I wanted to learn about the Waldorf philosophy, so I asked an administrator, Lucy Wurtz.

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“It’s based on a developmental view of the human being, meaning that the needs of a person grow and change over time.”

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At the Waldorf schools, the children learn through art and music. The children do not use textbooks, but instead create their own, called lesson books. They take many classes in addition to the standard subjects including gardening, games, handwork, and eurhythmy.

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Games class is their version of PE, and eurhythmy is a movement form that can be compared to tai chi. In handwork, the students learn through the elementary years how to crochet, sew, knit, and embroider. Lucy Wurtz tells me that it is one of the students’ favorite classes.

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“A lot of the kids also really like handwork. It’s a pride that they have that they can create things of beauty even at a young age”

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At the Waldorf school, reading is not taught traditionally. They do not force reading into the children at a young age, but instead allow them to figure it out at their own pace. As Monica Laurent, the third grade teacher, said:

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“Of course a five, four year old can learn how to read. You can sit them there and teach them how to read, but they can do that and miss out on playing and all sorts of stuff that is still learning, but then once they get a little older they will not do much [playing] anymore because they’re past the age to do it.”

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From first through eighth grade, students in a class are paired with a teacher. This teacher stays with them through all eight years.

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“It’s beautiful to see how these children develop, they start out, they’re like six, seven, and now they’re like nine and ten, they’re so different but I remember how they used to be. It’s almost like becoming their second mother, but I know I’m not their mother.”

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Each classroom at Waldorf has a color associated with it. The color starts at light pink, and progresses through the rainbow. The colors are meant to negate some of the possibly detrimental tendencies of age groups.

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For example, Ms. Laurent’s third grade room is a bright yellow, which helps to bring interaction and motion into an age group that could otherwise become withdrawn and reserved. Gabrielle Westergren, mother of four Waldorf children, told me what she thinks of the Waldorf environment:

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“I think, aesthetically, it’s very relaxing... The atmosphere is really relaxing, it’s not overstimulating. If you go into a first grade classroom, for example, [the walls are not covered in] ABCDEFG and the way to Z, and then here’s our planetary system, and how to be a good neighbor and here’s the kids who have ten stars because they were good helpers on the playground. It’s [not] busy, busy, busy, busy.”

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The Waldorf school does not give grades to the students. They receive evaluations every month, at the end of each main block, about their school performance. Main blocks are periods of 3-4 weeks where the students learn in-depth about certain topics, such as clothing or astronomy.

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Concerning grading, Lucy Wurtz said “I have a kid in high school who says that he wishes they would just give grades, so he could stop and get an A, but they make him do essays seven times, so for a student who is a good writer, you end up with a very polished essay.”

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“The kids that come out of here, in high school, are extremely well-developed and they have the capacity to learn, they have a very rich appreciation and ability to perform in the arts, they have extremely high self-confidence and a really high sense of self.”

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“I wish that other kids could experience what our kids experience here.”