By balancing social, intellectual, emotional, and ecological needs, we provide stress-free yet rigorous learning. We have fostered an approach based on respect and responsibility, and all our students are given room to grow and flourish naturally. Our highest endeavor is to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction in their lives.” Rudolf Steiner. Learning in our school relates to the child’s chronological, intellectual, cognitive, and social development through the three early phases of life.
Our preschool creates a wonderfully nurturing environment. That philosophy continues into primary school, where the emphasis is on relationship building. The Class teacher conducts the main lessons and is assisted by specialists in some subjects.
Children start to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic from Class One in an artistic stress-free manner. Steiner believed the young child was not ready for intense academic work. More recent studies indicate that premature intellectual activity hinders children from reaching their full potential. Their brains have to adapt to work because part of the brain is best suited for it.
Computers are introduced in High School, and there is no use of television within the curriculum. Families are discouraged from using computers, playing video games, or watching television at home. A healthy body of evidence links attention, learning, and behavioral problems in children to screen-based entertainment.
The curriculum respectfully deals with all the major religious and cultural traditions. We celebrate the season changes with festivals designed to appreciate the universal aspects of human experience rather than something narrowly defined by one of the faiths.
We should not ask, ‘What does a person need to know or be able to do to fit into the existing social order?’ Instead, we should ask, ‘What lives in each person and what can be developed in him or her?’ Only then will it be possible to direct the new qualities of each emerging generation into society. Society will then become what young people, as whole human beings, make out of the existing social conditions. The next generation should not just be made to become what the present society wants it to become.
