The second home of the Dizon kids is already open. High up in the mountains where the air is fresh. Inside Timberland where it is safe and secure. The grounds are spacious and clean. Trees are sprawled all over. The classrooms are brand new, well studied and carefully constructed.
Excitement and happiness is what Waldorf has brought into my daughter's school life. I am sorry to say this but it was totally the opposite when she was in STC two years ago. Back then, my life was like GROUND HOG DAY, (the movie) where every morning it was torture for me to wake her up. To make her get dressed and eat breakfast. When I get home, she would still be doing her homework even if she had started on it hours before. To make this short and simple, she hated it. The academic pressure to memorize without reason was too much.
From Panjee Tapales' website she quotes from the Waldorf Parenting Handbook,
“Consider how Waldorf Education works. There is no early, forced intellectualisation; simple toys of natural materials are used to stimulate the child’s powers of fantasy and imagination. It is a balanced education of the whole child of thinking, feeling and willing. Teaching methods are based on the child’s natural stage of learning: imitation in the early years, a beloved trusted authority figure in the middle years, and the intellectual search for truth after puberty. There is a natural unity of art, science and moral/spiritual values in the curriculum material.
Waldorf education is in harmony with Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. The hours should be instructed by the ages and the ages explained by the hours.” This is just what the Waldorf school does: correlates the hours of the child’s life with the ages of mankind’s development. Just as the embryo, in utero, repeats man’s biological evolution, so the growing child retraces the evolution of man’s consciousness, his spiritual odyssey.”
Ms. Panjee Tapales said, "People have asked me what I would like my son to be and I always say the same thing. I would like him to grow up whole and balanced in thinking, feeling and willing, able to stay true and connected to his essence and all parts of his being. This seems like such a Herculean task but with the invaluable Waldorf education behind him, I know I am completely supported in my journey."
I couldn't agree more. Seriously, consider Waldorf. See you at the open house.
Photos courtesy of Ms. Leah E. Saldivar.
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