A Waldorf Education

To the Editor:

As a parent of three Housatonic Valley Waldorf School students, I am very concerned that readers of The Newtown Bee were given a rather incomplete picture of what occurs therein (“Waldorf School Offers Education In An Unconventional Style,” March 17, 2006).

Waldorf education is based on a classical education model in which the whole student is developed though an interdisciplinary approach to learning which engages the child on a deep, lasting level. With a clear focus on academic excellence through an arts-based curriculum, the Waldorf model is designed to guide children through a series of experientially and community oriented discoveries, which deepen their understanding of themselves and the world wherein they are to explore. While there are no traditional grades per se, each student is periodically accessed based on a portfolio of his or her work and how that work evolves over time.

It is inaccurate to suggest that the Waldorf school doesn’t subscribe to formal academic standards; taking the liberty to speak for the school’s parents — a third of whom are Newtown residents — I chose this school because of the amazing outcomes its graduates demonstrate: fluency in two foreign languages, deep storehouses of memorized poetry and mathematical principles, facility in multiple musical instruments, and rigorous athletic exposure.

Having spent my entire life in education — as a student, a professor, and currently a university administrator — I conclude that I’m giving my children the type of education I wish I had had, one that instills confidence and is grounded in strong critical thinking and ethical humanism. Visitors to the all-school assembly last Saturday would have witnessed a stage full of confident children presenting challenging work in a cooperative environment. Whether it is the first grade reciting T.S. Eliot’s “The Song of the Jellicles,” the sixth/seventh grade’s German language skit “Mathematician Gauss,” or the fifth grade’s recitation of The Gettysburg Address, our Waldorf students are thriving and being prepared to enter a world where what you know means less than how well you can learn.

 To see what and how our students learn, please visit our website, www.waldorfct.org or contact the school at 364-1113 for a list of open house and outreach events.

Aaron Perkus, PhD.

3 Hunting Ridge Road, Newtown                              March 28, 2006