Thursday, July 12, 2007

Whats a Waldorf?


OK Cam, here it is, although I really dont know much about it. Waldorf, I think is like a whole education philosophy - not just a school. But there is one here in Calgary...we know the principal well, she is an old friend of Mark's from when he was a kid - her husband is an artist at the university...anyways Waldorf.


I knew about Waldorf first as a little girl. I had two friends named Ruth and Zoe. They were really fun to play with cuz they had multi colour crayons, dress up clothes of the century, tonnes of arts supplies and things like castles in their bedrooms. (they went to a waldorf school in NZ)


On Vancouver island I lived with Lee and kids in Glenora, and those kids, who, after being homeschooled, attended the Waldorf school there. They are always doing creative things. Their work books are beautiful, they are musical and have a love of nature...(probably cuz of their lifestyle too....) Through them I saw a little about Waldorf - how they teach to take time in things, the learn through application, not just academics, to make everything beautiful, crafts and imagination are very important.


It was developed by a man named Rudolf Steiner. They teach through stories, and art, not just text books. Anyways, thats a little about it, you have to look into it yourself...I am thinking about taking Marcel to the mom and tots at the Waldorf next January...


(then theres Montessori, which is sort of similar...dont really know about it aswell, but I like what I know! check this article for more info...)

3 comments:

Cameron D. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cameron D. said...

Thanks Angie!

Waldorf sounds a bit like the Reggio Emilia approach:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach

http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/index.htm

~Cam

The muddy mess of art and motherhood said...

I just started researching more into Montessori and found a fantastic article that summarized it all for me and answered all of my questions: http://www.montessori.org/sitefiles/Montessori_101_nonprintable.pdf

So now I'm interested in learning more about Waldorf too. Juliet just checked some books out from the library about it, so I'm going to follow on her heels reading them when she's done.