Kimberton Waldorf School Philosophy
Kimberton Waldorf School offers a developmentally appropriate, experiential approach to education. We integrate the arts and academics for children from preschool through twelfth grade, seeking to inspire a lifelong love of learning in all students and to enable each to fully develop his or her unique capacities.
The teachers at Kimberton Waldorf School are dedicated to generating an inner enthusiasm for learning within every child. This eliminates the need for competitive testing, academic placement, and rewards to motivate learning and allows motivation to arise from within. It helps engender the capacity for joyful life-long learning. Our teachers know that the best way to give meaningful support to the child is to understand these phases fully and to provide “age-appropriate” content that nourishes healthy growth for the Waldorf student. Science, mathematics, music, dance and theater, history, writing, literature, legends, and myths, are not simply subjects to be read about and tested—they are experienced.
Waldorf Education
What is Waldorf Education?
Developed by Rudolf Steiner in 1919, Waldorf Education is based on a developmental approach that addresses the needs of the growing child and maturing adolescent. Waldorf teachers strive to transform education into an art that educates the whole child—the heart and the hands, as well as the head.
The Curriculum in a Waldorf school
The goal of Waldorf Education and the curriculum at Kimberton Waldorf School is to give our students the opportunities and training to become independent, creative thinkers who have the ability to put their ideas into action. An education that asks students to develop the capacities for collaboration and teamwork, creativity and imagination, critical thinking and problem solving is an education that prepares students for a future that none of us can predict. What we do know about the future is that it is requiring us to be flexible, adaptive, creative, and collaborative. At Kimberton Waldorf School, our emphasis is on giving our students a wide range of experiences in related and divergent fields through a multi-modality, interdisciplinary approach that encourages students to learn to think for themselves, work with others, and be creative, giving them the tools that they will need to navigate an unfolding future.
Preschool and Kindergarten
Preschool and Kindergarten children learn primarily through imitation and imagination. The goal of the kindergarten is to develop a sense of wonder in the young child and reverence for all living things. This creates an eagerness for the academics that follow in the grades. Preschool and Kindergarten activities include: storytelling, puppetry, creative play singing, eurythmy (movement), games and finger plays, painting, drawing and beeswax modeling, baking and cooking, nature walks, circle time for festival and seasonal celebrations, and more!
Elementary & Middle School
Elementary and middle-school children learn through the guidance of a class teacher who stays with the class for a number of years. The curriculum includes: english based on world literature, mythology, and legends; history that is chronological and inclusive of the world’s great civilizations; science that surveys geography, astronomy, meteorology, physical and life sciences; mathematics that develops competence in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry; foreign languages; physical education and sports; gardening; arts including music, painting, drawing, sculpture, drama, eurythmy; practical arts such as knitting, sewing and fiber arts, woodworking, metal-smithing, and more!
High School
The Waldorf high school is dedicated to helping students develop their full potential as scholars, artists, athletes, and community members. The course of study includes: a humanities curriculum that integrates history, literature, and knowledge of world cultures, a science curriculum that includes physics, biology, chemistry, geology, and a four-year college preparatory mathematics program, an arts and crafts program that includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and practical arts such as woodworking, blacksmithing, and fiber arts, a performing arts program offering orchestra, choir, eurythmy and drama, a foreign language program and study abroad, internships and practicums, a sports program, and more!
Why It Matters
The indicators of learning should not be confused with the end goals of education, and we need to not mistake test performance as a learning outcome. Emphasis on the breadth of skills and opportunities that we value in childhood and in adulthood provides a reminder that education needs to be designed to produce holistically developed learners who are well-equipped to navigate the challenges of life in the 21st century.
We develop analytical thinkers with imaginative minds capable of producing life-changing ideas. Our students build capacities and skills of creativity, resourcefulness, collaboration, perseverance, integrity, and ethical understanding. How we teach these matters.
Every aspect of Waldorf education is intentional and planned. Why we teach this way matters.
At each stage of child development, students are challenged, capacities are built, foundations are set, and opportunities are given. When we teach things matters.
True learning is a process of discovery that engages the whole human being. Instead of passively receiving information, Waldorf students are involved in a dynamic process of exploration and experience, both of the world and of themselves.
