About Waldorf Education
The aim of Waldorf Education, as stated by its founder Rudolf Steiner, is “to develop free human beings who are able, in themselves, to impart purpose and direction to their lives.” This can only be done through educating the whole child — head, heart, and hand — toward the three great ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness. These three ideals taken together set the standard of education at a Waldorf School. Steiner expresses them in the following way: “The need [is] for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility — these three forces are the very nerve of education.”
This goal of education, to develop a balance of intellectual achievement, spiritual growth, physical health and personal responsibility, is based on a profound understanding of the process of human development. Each subject is introduced to the child when he or she is most ready for it, and in a manner to which the child is naturally receptive at that stage.
Year by year, the content of the curriculum expands with the ever-growing powers of the child, nourishing the inner life successively through stories from fairy tales, legends, myths and history, and the outer life with the development of individual and social skills. Waldorf Education recognizes the uniqueness of the individual and the spiritual in life. It lays the foundation for a truly healthy adult attitude by developing the child’s sense of beauty, wonder, and interest in the world of nature and in all humanity.