Reply to Do you know any graduates of Waldorf schools?

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "Do you know any graduates of Waldorf schools?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So much misinformation about Waldorf.  My child is in a local Waldorf school and doing great socially, emotionally, and academically.  We sort of stumbled on it while searching for an alternative to virtual school during the pandemic.  We love that the program incorporates nature, movement, music, and art into the curriculum.  This is really how young kids should learn, as opposed to being stuck at their desks all day doing worksheets, tapping on iPads and chromebooks, and taking standardized tests.  Our school has a lot of international families, as I think other countries embrace this type of education over the current American system (which, let’s admit, is a pretty broken model).[/quote]

Is your child allowed to use any color they want in their art? Are they allowed to choose subjects to paint?[/quote]

Yes!  They do a good bit of form drawing, used to teach math and geometry concepts, but have opportunities for free drawing and painting as well.[/quote]

As a developmental psychologist I think a lot of what Waldorf says about how children learn is arbitrary dogma.  Like their belief that kids need to do all that form drawing/handiwork to build deep understanding of math concepts.  But they spend insufficient time actually teaching and practicing math--and don't really demonstrate that this builds this deep understanding--just claim that it does.  It might do it a bit, but does it justify the number of hours they spend on it and thus the time they don't spend on other things. Likewise with reading--not in tune with what we know about learning to read (not just initially, but also the more advanced complex aspects of literacy as you grow up) for which there is considerable science.  There's a reason why all the Waldorf kids have to go for so much more math and reading tutoring outside of school in Europe if they want to go on to high school.  And they tend to have a lot less content knowledge because so much is imagination based.  There's a belief that it's somehow more "child-like and natural" but really it's reflects a lot of the German culture at the time of its founding.

I don't disagree with everything about Waldorf--I think the emphasis on experience of nature, movement and imagination is good for kids.  I think the emphasis of developing a relationship with the teacher is good.  They have strange and often damaging practices around peer relationships/conflict resolution IMO--and for a "progressive" approach there are a lot of arbitrary ways that kids have to do things led by their teacher year after year. Overall, I think the approach is fine for early childhood, but after 2nd grade I personally think it's missing out on a lot of important foundational learning.  Some schools likely blend with more contemporary and empirically supported approaches, but I'd want to know how and why they are rooted in Waldorf and what they have let go. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics