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What Others Are Saying About the 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
Curator of Drawings, Fogg Art Museum,
Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard Unversity
If I had a child of school age, I would send him to one of the Waldorf Schools.
Saul Bellow
Nobel Laureate
I first heard of Waldorf education about five years ago, after having carried out extensive study of the neurological aspects of cognition, movement, and maturation. I was delighted to discover such a neurologically sound curriculum. I heartily support efforts to spread the awareness of Waldorf education and hope that it will spawn not only an increase in Waldorf Schools but an infusion of at least some of the ideas into the mainstream where they are so sorely needed. In Colorado I am working with several districts to incorporate various Waldorf strategies into the teaching of reading and mathematics. The ideas are very well received and very much needed.
Dee Jay Coulter, EdD
Instructor, University of Northern Colorado,
Outreach, Educational Consultant
As a psychiatrist with a special interest in developmental issues as well as a parent of two daughters educated at the New York City Rudolf Steiner School from nursery and second grade through high school, I have been fascinated by how deftly the approach taken by Waldorf educators dovetails with levels of development in childhood. It seems to be that my daughters, the elder about to graduate from medical school. The younger in her first year at law school, have benefited not only intellectually, but also socially and in terms of cultural and athletic interests as well from the breadth and depth of the curriculum their teachers have presented to them.
Iona Ginsburg, MD
Asst. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University; Member, Board of Directors of the New York Society for Adolescent Psychiatry; Past President of the Metropolitan Mental Health Association
Waldorf education remains to become better known to Americans. Other independent educational movements, much less thoroughgoing in their attempts to integrate at every level of education art, science, and an appreciation of the fully human, have curiously been given much more attention. 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 institutional experience deserves the informed consideration of those genuinely concerned with education and the development of human wholeness.
Douglas Sloan, PhD
Professor, Columbia University Teachers College;
Editor, TeachersCollege Record
There is no task of greater importance than to give our children the very best preparation for the demands of an ominous future, a preparation that aims at the methodical cultivation of their spiritual and their moral gifts. As long as the exemplary work of the Waldorf School Movement continues to spread its influence as it has done over the past decades, we can all look forward with hope. I am sure that Rudolf Steiner's work for children must be considered a central contribution to the twentieth century and I feel it deserves the support of all freedom-loving thinking people.
Bruno Walter
Composer and Conductor
The implications of Gesell's and Steiner's observations are clear to educators. Pushing skills before children are biologically ready sets them up to fail.... Springing as it did from careful observations of the child, it's not surprising that Waldorf education arrived at the same conclusion [as the Gesell Institute, and applies the same principles to development of curricula for children's education.
Sidney MacDonald Baker, MD
Executive Director, Gesell Institute of
Human Development, New Haven, Connecticut
As a scientist involved in research into the physics of perception, I am impressed both with the Waldorf curriculum content, which includes "right-hemispheric" learning activities to complement the analytical or "left-hemispheric" side, and with the style of the curriculum, which promotes direct involvement, creativity, and attention to detail. This holistic, well-grounded, and in-depth approach is what is required to meet the challenges of a stressful, fast-moving technological age, while keeping one's will and sense of purpose alive and whole.
Harold Puthoff, PhD
Senior Researcher at SRI International; internationally known scientist;
Author of numerous papers and books on quantum electronics