Articles About Education

Links to information about learning and child development are listed below. For a wealth of information and further reading about Waldorf Education,SM please also visit the Why Waldorf Works website.

Soul Man by Douglas Brenner
New York Times Style Magazine, March 30, 2010

By age 12, I had a rote reply for grown-ups’ quizzical looks when they heard I went to a Waldorf school: “It’s based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner.” Blank stare. “He was an Austrian philosopher who believed in teaching the whole student — mind, body and soul.” Luckily no one ever asked me to elaborate… go to article

Tech Gets a Time-Out by Dan Fost

Why some Silicon Valley tech wizards are quietly raising their kids outside the lurid digital landscape that their own industry calls childhood, and opting for an anit-tech lifestyle both at home and in the education they choose for their children.

An Education for Our Time? by Christof Wiechert

This paper investigates whether the first years at the Stuttgart Waldorf School can be seen as prototypical for the development of schools and teachers in general. It tries to establish whether we can benefit today from the events that took place in the six years between 1919 and 1925, while the first school was led by Rudolf Steiner. Can we find something archetypal in these events that could give direction to the development of teachers and schools in the 21st century?

The Importance of The Arts in Education by Cheryl Van-Buskirk.
Philadelphia Bulletin, September 28, 2009

“The College Entrance Examination Board reports since 1993 their data shows that students who studied arts and music scored significantly higher than the national average on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Students who had participated in acting, play production, music performance and appreciation, drama appreciation, and art history scored an average of 31 to 50 points higher in the math and verbal sections. The Board also states that students with four years or more of arts study tend to score significantly higher on the SAT than those with less coursework in the arts…”

Learning, Arts, and the Brain, a study three years in the making, is the result of research by cognitive neuroscientists from seven leading universities across the United States. In the Dana Consortium study, released in March 2008, researchers grappled with a fundamental question: Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter?

Profile of Waldorf Graduates by Douglas Gerwin and David MItchell, Research Institute for Waldorf education. Get PDF. Go to website: waldorfresearchinstitute.org

Crisis in the Kindergarten: A New Report on the Disappearance of Play
New studies show play losing out to formal lessons and tests, even though multiple benefits of imaginative play are well documented…

Kindergarten Cram by Peggy Orenstein
New York Times Magazine, April 29, 2009
About a year ago, I made the circuit of kindergartens in my town. At each stop…I asked the same question: “What is your policy on homework?” And always…I was met with an eager nod. Oh, yes, each would explain: kindergartners are assigned homework every day. Bzzzzzzt. Wrong answer…

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills by Alix Spiegel
NPR.org, Morning Edition, February 21, 2008
Researchers Adele Diamond and Deborah Leong have good news: The best kind of play costs nothing and really only has one main requirement — imagination…

Taking Play Seriously by Robin Marantz Henig
New York Times Magazine, February 17, 2008
Play is as fundamental as any other aspect of life…

Teaching Our Children to Write, Read & Spell:
A Developmental Approach
by Susan R. Johnson MD, FAAP
There is a widely-held belief that if we just start teaching children to write, read, and spell in preschool, they will become better writers, readers, and spellers by the time they reach the first and second grades. This is, however, not true…

Schooling the Imagination by Todd Oppenheimer
The Atlantic Monthly
Waldorf schools have forged a unique blend of progressive and traditional teaching methods that seem to achieve impressive results…

Waldorf Approach Offers Hope in Schools
for Juvenile Offenders by Arline Monks
"It was a miracle," said Ruth Mikkelsen, principal…