We are going to enroll our Grandson into a private Waldorf school.?ÿ They have a farm, chickens, a cow, and a pig (at least one).?ÿ That was a big hit with him.?ÿ Two years of Kindergarten.
The kids play outside every day, rain or shine.
Both my kids go to the local Waldorf school here. They do surveying in 4th or 5th grade and again in high school.?ÿ
Fifth Grade (excerpt):
"Fifth grade studies the earth as an organism with the plant world expressing the life of each region. The child??s expanding view of the world is supported by the study of North American geography and the making of maps in two and three dimensions with a variety of materials."
High School Mathematics (excerpt):
"The Waldorf approach is experiential and interdisciplinary. Students spend considerable time on real world application of concepts presented in the classroom. In trigonometry, our students survey the campus; in biology, they evaluate the ecosystem of our streams; in architecture, they visit local neighborhoods to develop and plan redevelopment and build scale models of their proposals. In this experiential approach, students deepen their learning and fully engage with their studies."
We are going to enroll our Grandson into a private Waldorf school.?ÿ They have a farm, chickens, a cow, and a pig (at least one).
What, no model trains.....SIGH!
P.S.?ÿ Your grandson has a darned good grandfather.?ÿ
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We looked into Waldorf when my son was coming up on school age, but decided against it.?ÿ Major factors were cost (around $6k per year back then), the availability of good public schools, the restrictions on off-campus activities (no screens, no competitive sports were a couple that I remember), and the lack of reading instruction in the early grades.?ÿ The kids we know who went all the way through the Waldorf program did fine in high school and beyond, though.
The lack of reading instruction is what turned us off. Why delay the thing that opens up the world to them? It is required to independently learn. The majority of children love the process of learning to read.?ÿ
There are a lot of good things about their philosophy though.
My Mother insisted that I attend a second year of Kindergarten which was almost unheard of then. She didn't think I was ready for first grade yet. So the reading delay doesn't bother me too much.
The public school options aren't good, unfortunately.
We put a daughter through St. Michael's Episcopal but Maimeo (Grandma) doesn't think that school is a good fit for him.
our two girls both started pre-k at the neighborhood public elementary that is two blocks from our house.?ÿ i'll always remember the first few years of that fondly, as it?ÿwas?ÿreally a community, little tribe of our neighbors and kids we'd known since infancy; there was a very high rate of involvement from parents and the neighborhood.?ÿ shifting demographics brought a massive influx of new kids into the school, and one year it hit critical mass- all these new yuppie parents coalesced and decided the school test scores weren't high enough (which... don't get me started on single-metric school rankings).?ÿ they raised a big stink and got the principal "re-assigned" and brought in this handpicked "proven school reformer" (as though it was needed) who turned out to be- surprise, surprise- a cast iron battleaxe who, in extremely short order, murdered everything that made that school what it was.?ÿ assembly (read: organized brow beatings) every morning, 20 minutes of recess?ÿper day, "no talking" policy in the cafeteria: all stuff that any decent human being can see just ruins a kid's spirit.?ÿ?ÿ
so, we'd had enough (after a year of me doing loud and proud battle with both the ice queen and the PTA president), and put our girls in "hippie school."?ÿ it's a quasi-public charter school that was started, and has been mostly run by, a bunch of teachers that bailed on local public schools for the exact same reasons we did.?ÿ and we wanted exactly that- our kids to be kids.?ÿ it's waldorf-lite: 1 year per grade, but the kids keep the same class/teachers for two years.?ÿ chickens, gardens, hikes at least weekly.?ÿ lots of "required" volunteer effort by parents and fundraiser type stuff, since they are basically operating on shoestrings.
i was a bit leery- we thought it would do both our girls well, but for very different reasons: the older had some cognitive issues related to epilepsy and a brain bleed at birth, the younger is about as autodidactic as anyone you'll ever know.?ÿ but we wanted them 1. out from under the constant standardized test hammer, 2. outside a LOT, and 3. to have fun.?ÿ they don't get grades (though they do get periodic progress reports that are basically just equivocating report cards).?ÿ and look- to this day i still go crazy at trying to be involved with anything volunteer-or-logistical wise due to the fact that the whole ship is steered by a bunch of hippie women.?ÿ but, the older one did 5th-7th there, and left to get a year of public middle school before going to high school.?ÿ and it was nervouc again, as we weren't sure how she'd perform back in the cattle yard of public school.?ÿ but she's absolutely killing it- honor roll, starting on the soccer team, friends, extracurriculars, 10 times happier as i was at that age.?ÿ and our younger one is now queen of the roost, still at hippie school.?ÿ which- that is probably temporary (as all things in life are), but it's good to see her get it at least for as long as it lasts.?ÿ she's teaching some of her friends korean now.?ÿ (i have no idea why on korean, but she taught herself- in her bedroom, after homework, over the course of the last year.)
i know it's anecdotal, and i get that public education has to be normalized in order to funnel the numbers of kids through.?ÿ but i'm certainly glad there are other options out there.?ÿ we all learn differently and, hell, as surveyors i think our profession more than most exemplifies that there can be some smart people out there who don't succeed in the standard environment.
We won a lottery position for our oldest at a local public Waldorf charter, and I was thoroughly impressed at the open house.?ÿ I'm pretty leery of the hippie-dippie vibe, but I recognized that the Waldorf thing actually integrated fairly well with my Jeffersonian yeoman / Chestertonian distributist point of view.?ÿ It sure as hell isn't about making robots that are servants of the state.?ÿ We ended up pulling the plug before the year started for external reasons, but I was excited about it.?ÿ C.S. Lewis put it like this: "I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has ??the freeborn mind.?? But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that??s the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone??s schoolmaster and employer?"
We are in San Juan Unified and the kids live in Twin Rivers Unified.
Sacramento City SD has a public Waldorf (Alice Birney)
Folsom-Cordova SD has a public Waldorf (AM Winn)
There is a Waldorf charter in Orangevale under San Juan which goes by lottery but I don't know if they have to be in the District.
We *could* say they live with us, under penalty of perjury so not doing that unless we get them on the property. We could fit a tiny house but that's an RV so not allowed right now. The advantage is we could finance it. We can build an accessory dwelling unit under 600sf without needing a special use permit (up to 1200 with SUP).
the tuition is a bit more than a car payment so no new cars.
