Testimonials from around the world about Steiner’s education
Katie talks about her children’s experience while attending Kildare Steiner School.
“The beauty of the Waldorf school is that it is designed entirely to keep children intact until they are ready to move out into the world as whole individuals.”
Joseph Chilton Pearce, Author: “The Magical Child”, “The Crack in the Cosmic Egg”.
“If I had a child of school age, I would send him to one of the Waldorf Schools.”
Saul Bellow (1915-2005), 1976 Nobel Literature Laureate.
“The advent of the Waldorf Schools was in my opinion the greatest contribution to world peace and understanding of the century.”
Willy Brandt, former Chancellor of West Germany. Former Waldorf parent, 1971 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
“Being personally acquainted with a number of Waldorf students, I can say that they come closer to realizing their own potential than practically anyone I know.”
Joseph Weizenbaum, Professor (now emeritus), MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), author of “Computer Power and Human Reason”.
“We love Waldorf kids. We reject some students with 1600s on their SATs and accept others based on other factors, like the creative ability Waldorf students demonstrate.”
Donna Badrig, Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions for Columbia University USA.
“Waldorf education enables young people to be in love with the world as the world should be loved.” Marjorie Spock, Author: “Teaching as a lively art”.
“Waldorf Education… has been extraordinarily successful for my son. In three years, the remarkable, dedicated faculty has directed his attitude and energies toward academic achievement and civic responsibility… The school draws out the best of qualities in young people… In summary this system works!”
Gilbert H. Grosvenor (1875-1966), President & Chairman, National Geographic Society, former Waldorf parent.
“I have the grand total of fourteen cousins who are all Steiner educated. They range in age from 21 to 38. Before choosing a school for our own children my husband and I questioned them to find out how it had been for them. We were overwhelmed, not only by what they said but also by who they were and what they had become. We were left in no doubt, based on our experience of these fourteen cousins and their varied testimonies: we want this education for our children.”
Becky Morrow. Biodynamic and Organic retailer and mother of three.
“My daughter’s experience at the Waldorf school has been both exciting and mind opening. I hope that more people can make Waldorf education available to their children.”
Russell Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut, NASA Astronaut Technical Advisor, California Energy Commission, former Waldorf parent.
“What I like about the Waldorf School is, quite simply, its graduates…They are interesting people. They can converse intelligently on almost any issue, because they have been taught to examine. They can be enormously sympathetic to almost anyone’s plight because they have been taught to tolerate. They can gracefully dance or score a goal because they have been taught to move. They can circulate among the various groups on campus and engage in a variety of activities because they have been taught to harmonize.”
James Shipman History Department, Marin Academy, San Raphael, California.
“The students that come to us from the local Steiner school are better prepared than the ones who come from the local state schools.”
Steven Jones. Principal, King Edward VI Community College, Devon.
“Waldorf School graduates see behind the facts that often must be repeated or explained on examination. They are keenly interested in the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the cell’s ultrastructure, but they know that Chemistry, Biology and Physics can’t tell them much about the nature of love… I feel certain that all Waldorf School graduates believe in the orderliness of our universe, and they believe the human mind can discern this order and appreciate its beauty.”
Dr. W. Warren B. Eickelberg Professor of Biology, Director, Premedical Curriculum, Adelphi University, Garden City, New York.
“Those in the public school reform movement have some important things to learn from what Waldorf educators have been doing for many years. It is an enormously impressive effort toward quality education, and schools would be advised to familiarize themselves with the basic assumptions that under gird the Waldorf movement.”
Ernest L Boyer (1928-1995), Former President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
“No other educational system in the world gives such a central role to the arts as the Waldorf school movement. Even mathematics is presented in an artistic fashion and related via dance, movement or drawing, to the child as a whole. Anything that can be done to further these revolutionary educational ideas will be of the greatest importance.”
Konrad Oberhuber (1925-2007), world leading expert on Raphael, former Director of the Museum of Art Albertina in Vienna, former Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University, then at International Christian University, Mitaka, Tokyo.
“Based on a comprehensive, integrated understanding of the human being, a detailed account of child development, and with a curriculum and teaching practice that seeks unity of intellectual, emotional and ethical development at every point, Waldorf education deserves the attention of all concerned with education and the human future.”
Douglas Sloan, Ph D, Professor [Emeritus] of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
“Waldorf education has been an important model of holistic education for almost a century. It is one of the very few forms of education that acknowledges the soul-life of children and nurtures that life. It is truly an education for the whole child and will continue to be an important model of education as we move into the 21st century.”
Jack Miller, Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education the University of Toronto.
“The importance of storytelling, of the natural rhythms of daily life, of the evolutionary changes in the child, of art as the necessary underpinning of learning, and of the aesthetic environment as a whole – all basic to Waldorf education for the past 70 years – are being “discovered” and verified by researchers unconnected to the Waldorf movement.”
Paul Bayers, Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.
“I think the Steiner school is a place where a child can learn real self sufficiency, and an ability and encouragement to think for themselves. I wish I had gone to a Steiner school.”
Tilda Swinton, actress and parent.
“There is no task of greater importance than to give our children the very best preparation for the demands of an ominous future, a preparation that aims at the methodical cultivation of their spiritual and their moral gifts. As long as the exemplary work of the Waldorf School Movement continues to spread its influence as it has done over the past decades, we can all look forward with hope. I am sure that Rudolf Steiner’s work for children must be considered a central contribution to the twentieth century and I feel it deserves the support of all freedom-loving thinking people.”
Bruno Walter (1876-1962), composer and conductor.