Waldorf Parent's Survival Guide

When it comes to the education of your child, no school is perfect. All schools have their strengths and weaknesses, including your Waldorf school. This "Survival Guide" is designed to help Waldorf families get the most out of their Waldorf experience.

IMPORTANT: This "survival guide" does not imply deficiencies in Waldorf education. On the contrary, it is intended to help parents provide their Waldorf children with an even richer education.

Promote Open Dialog About Waldorf!

OpenWaldorf.com is the only resource on the Internet for open discussion among Waldorf parents! By promoting OpenWaldorf.com at your school, you can help grow this valuable community resource for new and prospective Waldorf parents.

(20KB) - Download a PDF of the OpenWaldorf flier, and distribute it at your school! Click here!

You can help promote OpenWaldorf on the Internet by talking about it in other Waldorf communities such as the SJU Waldorf education list.

Teach Your Kids About Rudolf Steiner

If your child was at a school run by Catholics, you would want them to understand their experience as fully as possible. At Waldorf, your school is run by Anthroposophists. You can help your kids make sense of their experience at Waldorf using OpenWaldorf's Steiner For Kids page.

Start a "New Parents Steiner Reading Group"

Starting a "new parents reading group" is a great way to read Steiner and get to know other parents at the same time. But Steiner published hundreds of books and journals about a myriad of subjects. It's quite easy to get lost in the world of Rudolf Steiner. How do you choose what to read?

With regards to Waldorf Education, the most relevant books by Steiner are the books used in Waldorf Teacher Training. These are the books that your teacher read while going through teacher training, and they represent the foundation of Waldorf education. Not only that, but many of these titles are available for FREE online, so the trouble of finding and paying for a book doesn't have to be an issue.

OpenWaldorf.com suggests that new parents reading groups perform a survey of the Teacher Training texts that are freely available online. You can assign a different title to each parent, and they can each select a chapter or two from their title to share with the group. By working together, your group can cover more ground than you would individually, and enjoy lively discussion while doing so!

You can find the list of Teacher's Training texts in our Reading Room.

Support Waldorf's Curriculum at Home

Studies show that the more involved a parent is with their child's education, the better that child will do in school. There are many ways to encourage your child in their Waldorf education. Also, everyone knows that there are only so many hours in a day. With so much time spent knitting, painting, practicing eurythmy, and playing games there will always be things that you want your child to learn that they won't get at Waldorf. There are many ways to supplement Waldorf curriculum to compensate for things they don't learn at Waldorf.

Reinforce Waldorf Curriculum

There are many ways of reinforcing the Waldorf curriculum at home.

• All Waldorf students study at least two foreign languages. Amazon offers foreign language books and tapes for kids so your child can practice her pronounciation and vocabulary at home.
  • For German: Learn in Your Car for Kids: German
  • For Spanish: Rock 'N Learn Spanish
• In fourth grade, all Waldorf students study Norse mythology. You can help your younger child get a jumpstart on this subject with a fantastic book from Amazon called Favorite Norse Myths.
• Grimm's Fairy Tales were a favorite of Steiner's. Make sure you get The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales. (Most other "Grimm's" books are incomplete.)
• The Myths and Legends page is a great online resource of myths.
• Waldorf prides itself on its rich art curriculum. You can reinforce this emphasis on the arts by getting involved at your local children's art museum. Typically these museums have wonderful art classes for children of all ages.
• Waldorf students study the myth of Parsifal in high school. You can prepare your young child for this study with a fantastic Parsifal audio tape or CD for children 7 and up created by the master storyteller Odds Bodkin.

Supplement Waldorf Curriculum

• Young children are typically not given black crayons at Waldorf. This makes it difficult for children to draw multi-racial people. If you'd like your Waldorf student to be able to use the color black in artwork, you can buy your child a box of black crayons from Dick Blick Art Supplies. You'll need a whole box for projects like crayon etching.
• Waldorf Science curriculum is faithful to Rudolf Steiner's science from the previous turn-of-the-century. To make sure your Waldorf child is learning the latest science, you can use this list of Hands-on Science Centers Worldwide to find an interactive science museum near you.
• Younger Waldorf students don't participate in competitive sports. The YMCA offers a wide variety of sports to help your child build physical strength, agility, and coordination, as well as develop teamwork, confidence and self-esteem. It's especially important for young girls to learn sports so they can "stand up" to the boys as they get older.
• If your child likes eurythmy, chances are, they'll like different types of dance also. You can print pages from Dance-Kids.org to teach your child about dance. You can also find dance classes in your Yellow Pages. Your child might enjoy jazz, ethnic, and urban dance as a change-of-pace from eurythmy.

Young Waldorf children don't learn how to draw faces. If your child enjoys to draw, you might want to supplement their Waldorf art curriculum with a great book for children 4-8 called 1 2 3 Draw Cartoon Faces: A Step-By-Step Guide (1 2 3 Draw).

Start a Diversity Program at Your School

If you feel that some races are underrepresented at your Waldorf school, you can make a difference by starting a Diversity Program. By educating Waldorf students, and reaching out to minorities in your community, you can help create a student body composed of all races. A good diversity program should include the following things:

• A mission statement that declares an active approach to racial equality. "No discrimination" is not enough. Racial tolerance must taught and practiced
• A concious effort to hire non-white teachers as positive role-models for children
• A commitment to develop new curriculum that focuses on racial equality
• Equal celebration of ethnic festivals
• Create a program for recruiting minority students
• A schlolarship fund for minority students