Waldorf philosophy

Educating, done well, is an art. The word “educate” comes from the latin words “educare”, meaning “to nourish or bring up”,  and “educere” meaning “to lead forth or draw out.” In contrast, the word “teach”, from Old English roots, means “to show, point out or demonstrate.” One word implies a gesture of evoking from within towards the outside world. The other implies a gesture of externally pressing into, from the outside world, with no indication of internal activity.

At City of Fountains, we embrace the challenging task of providing a true education, and we provide it through a curriculum inspired by the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. In the wake of World War I, renowned scientist and philosopher, Rudolf Steiner was asked to create a new school for the children of factory workers at the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany. The pedagogy that he founded there was to become the world-wide movement we know today as Waldorf Education.

Steiner recognized the increasingly, strictly material-based perspective from which the human being was being seen and studied. He recognized the severe shortcomings this view would supply children with upon entering adulthood and successfully making their way in the modern world. His curriculum was constructed with a view of the human being that is both physical and spiritual. A view that takes into consideration both reincarnation and a destined path.

He lectured to the first Waldorf school faculty the workings of the human being in this view, and the complexity of the incarnating path that children take throughout childhood. He gave them a curriculum that considered the arising of the soul qualities of thinking, feeling and willing that when nurtured appropriately, in turn give rise to a productive and purposeful adulthood. He outlined the phases of development in childhood, and how an education is to be shaped to meet children on an intimate level through every passing phase.

The Waldorf curriculum that he provided is an educational experience rich in independent critical and creative thinking, community awareness and responsibility, cultural awareness, the arts, movement, purposeful work and foreign language. It employs methods very different from the traditional schools of America.

Today, there are approximately 150 Waldorf schools, 250 early childhood centers, and many more that are inspired by Waldorf education. Worldwide there are over 1,000 schools. City of Fountains School consists of pioneers answering a call to the quickly growing interest of families here in the Midwest.