Why Waldorf? One Parent's Perspective

by Coleman Lyles, Santa Cruz Waldorf School parent

Any parent of a Waldorf student is challenged to delve deeper into the question 'what constitutes the goal of education?' In a sense this question is a uniquely modern one. Educators and social scientists agree that something has fundamentally changed in this century which demands a change in the way we understand and meet the needs of human beings, especially children.

The best thinkers have recognized that fundamental change to be the capacity of individuals to influence their own lives and the lives of others, for better or worse. A free, open, tolerant society embued with universal, spiritual values will consist of people who have been educated to be free, open, tolerant, principled individuals. The only question that remained to be answered was, what kind of education is that?

In the past, various schools of thought have emphasized a balance between science and humanities, others introduced the arts and a few extolled the virtues of manual labor, crafts and technical skill. Theories abounded about core curriculum, childhood development, language acquisition, classroom management, educational integration and in general, everything and anything that could lend itself to a doctoral thesis. And all tended to promote the idea of free human beings capable of independent thought and action.

If one sorts through the wreckage of the past century educational experimentation, one uncovers a few significant gems. One is that the most successful forms of education are those that are rooted in a conviction that the human being is a citizen of a spiritual as well as material world. Another is that at the heart of good education are good people who are dedicated to the art of teaching. And, finally, that good teaching is an essentially personal, human affair between teachers and pupils, not something that can be applied like a formula or institutionally organized.

The spirit of the Waldorf school movement is cosmopolitan in nature and can be recognized in many different guises throughout the world and in the course of time. In addition, it embodies the best of what can be extracted from a hundred years of educational inquiry. And, since in the final analysis I am a parent, it has done more for my two children than I could have ever hoped was possible in what is rapidly becoming an impossible world. Why Waldorf? Because it is contemporary, universal and it works.

Coleman Lyles is the father of Jessica Lyles, Class of 1999