The Seven Core Principles of Waldorf Education is an exciting, recently published book. The principles were developed over the course of a few years by The Pedagogical Section Council (PSC) to establish the essential aspects that characterize Waldorf education. The …
Waldorf Education: The Gift Is Inside
Watch this video by Zane Bridgers, Waldorf School of Princeton Class of 2005. Those who describe Zane use words like hardworking, dedicated, and multi-talented. This video reveals a bit of that!
Crucial Creativity: The Case for Cultivating Divergent Thinking in Classrooms
IQ tests have been based in measuring convergent thinking—a person’s ability to apply one set of rules to arrive at a single, correct solution. Divergent thinkers, on the other hand, can generate many varied solutions to one question. Divergent thinkers…are …
Reframing Failure in the Classroom
“Those who take failure not as a first attempt to improve, but instead as a fixed reality, will avoid it at all costs – while those who see failure as a natural part of the learning process and the precursor …
Teaching Empathy: Essential for Students, Crucial for Humanity
The latest blog post from the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America reassures us that there are real-world, concrete advantages to developing empathy. Then it covers how to cultivate empathy in children, all of which are regular practice in Waldorf …
Stanford University Studies Waldorf Education
Stanford University conducted a multi-year, rigorous analysis of Waldorf education and found significantly higher positive student achievement outcomes on standardized state assessments by Waldorf students, greater engagement and significantly lower disciplinary action and truancy. These results held across the subsets of African American, …
The Educator as Artist
“Art teachers get to have fun. They teach through play, spread joy, and get their students’ creative juices flowing. While we may acknowledge, theoretically, that joy, creativity, and learning are related, the daily reality of teaching appears to leave less …
A Circle for Giving and Receiving Saves our Playground
By Megan Bassett, Funds Development Coordinator, Eugene Waldorf School I had the pleasure of representing Eugene Waldorf School in the very first Pacific Northwest Shared Gifting Circle hosted by RSF Social Finance. A pool of $50,000 was to be …
Experiential Education – Why Students Should Learn by Doing
Experiential learning is an active approach to a subject’s lesson; “active” meaning an approach to material which uses different senses, tactics, and manipulatives to stimulate multiple forms of intelligence, as defined by Harvard researcher and professor Howard Gardner. At its heart, …
Teach Children to Seek Significance Over Success
“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people …