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Angela DiGioia's picture

Why aren't all schools like Waldorf schools??

It seems that the Waldorf equation to success is passionate, well educated teachers + small classes filled with attentive students with access to resources outside of school= a well educated child and a successful adult who contributes to the advancement of society.  Knowing two different people who are products of a Waldorf-like school (and home schooling), this method does have great success and I'm unsure why it hasn't been adopted more widely since it's been around for a while.  Is it the expense of having small classes?  Is it finding passionate teachers?  Is it finding parents who will buy in to the Waldorf framework and continue their child's education at home by doing homework with them, reading, playing games, etc?   I'm obviously not quite sure of the reason but I would bet that aspects of this method could be adopted into more public schools to encourage more creative problem solving and thinking without extra cost.  Are school administrators unwilling to test new methods because they are so entrenched in old pedagogy?  A small scale test of change is very feasible but the Waldorf master minds would need to train teachers, parents, administrators, students, etc as to how their method works and why.  Maybe the Waldorf method works because it does take a village to raise a child and all of the children that attend these schools have access to those resources.  How can we encourage and instill this into public schools (and also many private schools)?  I'm not sure of the answer but it does seem like trying this method with one section of a grade and keeping the other section the same and comparing the children/parents'/teachers' opinions would be valuable in seeing whether this method could be adapted on a larger scale.

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