OUR MISSION AND OBJECTIVES

Mission

Our age calls for new impulses in education that are clear-eyed about the crises and opportunities of our time. We have a deep commitment to educating Waldorf teachers for the 21st century. Our expectation is that individuals will cultivate a rich personal relationship with the foundations of Waldorf education while thoughtfully exploring and iterating its future. Our Institute is intended for individuals interested in teaching in independent Waldorf schools, or who have an interest in learning more about Waldorf education and Anthroposophy.

We believe that Waldorf education, at its heart, is not a series of curricular texts and algorithmic recipes, but rather an approach that puts the developmental needs of the whole child—body, soul, and spirit—but also race, ethnicity, gender expression, learning differences, among others—at the center of our inquiry and love. We recognize that Anthroposophy, the philosophy underpinning Waldorf education, has given, and continues to give, teachers an inestimable gift of a means of deeply understanding the human being and the world, but such an understanding is by no means complete. We are therefore committed to developing more subtle interpretive vocabularies, practices, and ways of knowing, not found in anthroposophy yet, to meet and nurture the extraordinary diversity of human expression today.

OBJECTIVES 

We offer three main areas of study: Waldorf education as currently understood, Anthroposophy and its worldview and path of self-transformation, and finally, what our developing insight and intuition might make of Waldorf education in the future. Equally important to these three main areas of focus are the various arts and movement classes that our program offers. Students will explore the educational and transformative geniuses of eurythmy, yoga, dance, Spatial Dynamics, gardening, painting, drawing, poetry, and woodworking, among others.

Participants will be steeped in the Anthroposophical approach to human development and will learn to apply this to the curriculum.  Students will do field work observing students and faculty in their classrooms,  experiencing the full breadth of a Waldorf classroom’s daily and weekly routines.  They will also observe faculty meetings and committee meetings to understand the Waldorf school governance structure.  In addition, they will complete two practicums in a Waldorf school.  Graduates will receive a certificate that makes them eligible to teach in an independent Waldorf school for Grades 1-12 depending on the student’s area of concentration.