Tag Archives: RI

Exploring the Waldorf High School

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Meadowbrook parent, Kristen Morelli is a part of the school’s High School Initiative, a group of dedicated community members exploring the feasibility of starting a Waldorf high school in Rhode Island.

Do you love the elementary and middle school education that your children are receiving
here at Meadowbrook? Do you have a plan for your child’s high school education? My
oldest child is in 3rd grade right now, and while it is impossible to predict with 100% accuracy where she will attend school in 6 years, I would like Meadowbrook Waldorf High School to be one of her options.
Like any important project, creating a new Waldorf high school is going to take time,
energy, resources, and creativity. Is it worth the trouble? The more I learn about Waldorf
education, particularly for adolescents, the more I appreciate its value. As part of my research, I am visiting various Waldorf high school websites. These sites offer a wealth of information, compiled beautifully. Over the next few months I will share links to some of my favorite Waldorf high school websites.
We will begin our tour on the other side of the country in Pasadena, CA. Why this school in particular? Firstly, it is a new high school formed from a Waldorf elementary school that has been in operation for 25 years (similar to MWS). Secondly, the Pasadena Waldorf High School campus is located at William Carey International University, a creative and inexpensive solution to the problem of where to put a high school. The new Meadowbrook High School also may not start out looking like a typical high school.
Finally, the Pasadena High School website had some interesting articles.  What Makes a Waldorf High School Different? is based on Douglas Gerwin’s five ‘ics’. Doug Gerwin is the founder of the Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program at the Center for Anthroposophy, NH. Equally relevant to the Meadowbrook community, Ten Advantages to Being Part of the Early Years of a Waldorf High School.

If you would like to learn more, join us at a meeting of the High School Initiative group. Dates for these are posted in the Lunchbox Express.

The Wisdom of Play Based Learning

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Betty Merner has been a faculty member of Meadowbrook Waldorf School for more than 22 years. She taught in public schools for 18 years before discovering Waldorf education. Following 15 years as a class teacher Betty became the school’s Resource Co-ordinator overseeing special services for students in need of extra support. Here she considers the results of a study into play based learning in light of her extensive experience of the Waldorf approach.

The HighScope Educational Research Foundation of Ypsilanti, MI recently published the results of its longitudinal study, the HighScope Preschool Comparison Study. HighScope followed the lives of 68 young people born into poverty from ages 3 and 4. These children were randomly assigned to one of three early childhood programs: the Direct Instruction model, where teachers followed a script to direct the learning of academic skills; a Play-Based model, where teachers responded to children’s self-initiated play in a loosely structured setting; and the Highscope model where teachers set-up the classroom and a daily routine within which children could create and do their own activities. The study followed these children until age 23 and looked at their success in a number of categories that affected their lives on a number of levels. Continue reading →