5 Ways Waldorf Education Develops Emotionally Whole People

I am in a parent/baby class at the local community college. My oldest wears denim Osh-Kosh B’Gosh overalls over his extra large cloth diaper clad bottom. He is wearing shoes with soft soles, because the research shows that young children should wear slippers rather than sneakers for optimal foot development. 

I spot another boy just learning to crawl and also wearing slippers. I strike up a conversation with the mom who ends up being one of my closest friends, our boys best buddies in their early childhood days. We talk about the different parent-child class options in town. She mentions the Little Acorns parent-child program at the local Waldorf school. She says the two hours she spends there are the calmest of her entire week. I am intrigued, so I enroll in the Little Acorns class that starts in the winter quarter. 

First day of class 

I received the parent email about Little Acorns, asking me to bring full rain gear and outdoor shoes as well as soft indoor shoes. I show up to the first class in early January in western Oregon, a season of gloom and chills and rain, a bag full of rain gear for both me and my child in tow. 

Beautiful watercolor paintings, knitted wool animals and clay sculptures adorn the walls and display shelves in the hallway. There are benches and coat hooks and some children’s muddy, drying rain gear and boots assembled. 

I walk into the room designated “Little Acorns” and it smells like bread baking. The light is warm and muted and a comforting pastel. The classroom is minimalist in looks, with simple and relatively sparse wooden and colorful cloth toys. I feel my body relaxing in this nourishing environment. The calm of the space and the centered, grounded presence of the teacher infuses everything. 

As the children begin to play the peace remains, despite their increasing volume. But the children are not nearly as loud here as they are in other parent child classes I take, where words and computer drawn images cover the walls and plastic toys jam the shelves. It feels like the environment here, at Waldorf, brings out the authentic natural calm in all of us; as if the minimalist environment allows us to connect with our deeper selves. 

#1: Waldorf education in early childhood nourishes the senses allowing more of the right brain to fully develop 

When children are born, only the most primitive part of their brain that has to do with the senses is developed. The limbic, feeling part of the brain and the neocortex or thinking brain, respectively – only begin to develop after birth. More about the neuroscientific reasons for why Waldorf is good for the brain can be found here. 

The first 5-7 years of a child’s life, they live entirely in their senses and their emotions. If we push them to develop left brain functions of thinking, academics, etc too soon, we essentially cut off their sensory and feeling potential. Our brain is triune, with the senses, emotions, and thinking parts working best when all are fully developed. Modern education pushes many children into left brain thinking too soon, when they are still mostly living in their senses, and in some cases the sensory and feeling part of their brains may never catch up. 

For example, I am a summer birthday. I was 5 for barely a month before I started academic school. My fine motor skills weren’t fully developed, and I have never caught up. 

My children who have all been educated in the way of Waldorf are going to have better fine motor skills than me. My older two already do. Their handwriting is vastly better than mine. They are better at sewing than me. My youngest is 4 and is still living in the sensory and emotional realm. I have no doubt that by delaying his time to start academics until he is 6 ½ or 7, as Waldorf does, his fine motor skills will also fully develop.  

An early childhood Waldorf teacher is consistently aware of the sensory needs and experiences of the children in their care. They bake with their classes as one form of sensory learning. They have water pumps in their play yards the children adore, and we all know the sensory power of water. They have wheelbarrows and move mulch in their play yard gardens so children can experience “heavy work,” which is crucial for development of attention span. More information here about heavy work activities and why they are beneficial to children.  

By focusing on the development of the senses (practical or body piece of being human) and emotions (heart center of being human) in the early years, children raised or educated in Waldorf-esque ways have so called academic “soft skills” well in hand before stepping into the intellectual realm (thinking part of being human). 

#2: Waldorf teachers (and parents) emotionally coregulate with the children in their early years, which allows children to realize their own grounded center when they are older 

When someone is emotionally distressed, at any age but especially as a child, they need animal connection to recover from emotional distress. A young child in the throes of emotion cannot hear or process words which come from the thinking part of our brain, because they are purely in their sensory brain. 

When someone is emotionally distressed, they are in their reptile brain, which only identifies fear, threat, and pain. In order to move into their mammalian or feeling brain where they can feel empathy or comfort, they need touch from other animals that they feel safe with. The parasympathetic nervous system can also be activated by scents or sounds or other physical cues such as temperature variation that the person associates with times of remembered comfort. 

Once the parasympathetic nervous system has been activated by this touch or other physical cues that signify safety and the person is comforted, then the person can move into the thinking part of their brain and hear and process words and thus process the emotions. Children especially need help with this process as their brains are still developing. 

Waldorf teachers are keenly aware of the need for co-regulation with the children. Early childhood teachers work immensely on being a calm grounded center from which the children can navigate their world sure of a place of safety to come back to if they encounter uncomfortable unknowns. When a child is revved up with positive energy or besieged by emotion, whenever a child is dysregulated, the skilled Waldorf teacher uses calm humming or singing and/or soothing touch to help the child return to their own grounded center.  

Over time if a child’s emotional needs and need for co-regulation are met, they develop their own grounded center that they can come back to on their own, with minimal or no adult help. Emotional distress is a part of life and there will always be times when someone needs help turning from distress to comfort to problem solving, but by modeling and embodying self-regulation and co-regulation throughout the Waldorf curriculum, a Waldorf teacher passes on important skills for managing emotions that are crucial to adult existence. 

#3: Waldorf teachers practice mindfulness on their own and with their classes

One thing that is unique about Waldorf education is the incorporation of spirituality throughout the curriculum. The teachers have regular verses and songs they do, rituals, as a staff in meetings and that they lead with their classes. 

It is assumed that a Waldorf teacher will engage in spiritual practice because it is a necessary part of being human.These practices are not tied to a specific religion or entity, they are individual. Practices could include breath work, meditation and self-reflection. 

The teachers do this themselves and they also lead their classes through breathing exercises and times for quiet thought and introspection as well as facilitated grievance conversations with their class in meetings where children can bring concerns and they talk through them and reach resolution. 

All of these practices are documented to have strong positive effects on emotional well-being. Click on the here and here to read more about the power of mindfulness and the power of mindful communication. 

A Waldorf teacher engages in individual mindfulness, mindfulness with their class, and mindful communication about emotions. By consistently modeling these skills Waldorf teachers pass them on to their students who then carry them with them for their entire lives.  

#4: Waldorf teachers continue to educate heart, hands, and head as children grow

One problem with modern education is the single-dimensionality of it. Reading, writing and mathematics are heavily emphasized, often at the expense of other valuable skill growth. A Waldorf education is multi-dimensional. 

In most education settings, the focus is entirely on the head or academic aspect of being human. But humans have bodies they need to use and hearts and feelings they have to manage too. The holistic nature of a Waldorf education intentionally gives equal value to head, heart, and hands over the course of a Waldorf education. 

In the early years Waldorf education focuses on heart and hands development, but once children move into a developmental phase where the neocortex is prime for development between ages 7 and 9 or so, they are still whole people with hands and hearts that need education too. Waldorf education honors the triune nature of the human brain, allowing for maximum development of all aspects of the brain. 

It accomplishes this by having specialty teachers in handwork (knitting, sewing, etc), agriculture/gardening, strings/music, movement and games, and in most cases languages. These specialities are carefully cultivated to meet the needs of the whole child. 

#5: Waldorf provides a nourishing community for children to grow within

One cannot overstate the power of a supportive community to empower children to be their best selves. Waldorf schools provide that in spades. Partially because they are a self-selecting community of shared values, but also the intentional nature of communication and study within the community that the staff of a well-functioning Waldorf school clearly state and model. 

Waldorf schools have a rich festival and faire life, times when the community gathers to honor the changing of the seasons and other traditions within the community. These kinds of rituals have historically been important for humans to be able to connect and are not prioritized in modern society. 

In my Waldorf community, we take to heart that it takes a village to raise a child. Most of the children refer to their friends’ and classmates’ parents as “Mama ____” and “Papa ___,” regardless of family structure. If a friend has two moms, or two dads, they are still mamas and papas. It really makes the community feel like a large, supportive extended family. 

The Result

In the end, after years of these elements being part of children’s education and daily life, what you get is a class of middle schoolers who are kind to each other and really appreciate and value each other’s differences. You get a group of people who, because they stay together with each other and the same teacher for generally the grades 1-8 years, have learned to resolve conflict the right way and accept annoyances, oddities and quirks as just one part of the person they ultimately care for. 

What kind of world would we have if everyone came into adulthood with this acceptance of uniqueness and ability to resolve conflict in a compassionate way that honors the value of each person involved?