Waldorf Education founder, Rudolf Steiner, formed the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919. Today there are over 1,100 Waldorf schools and almost 2,000 Waldorf kindergartens in 80 countries around the globe.
In celebration of Waldorf education’s centennial, Susquehanna Waldorf School joins other schools worldwide engaging in social and environmental impact projects. The higher aim is to regionally and internationally create a vital interconnectedness essential in today’s world.
Two of the projects that SWS has participated in over the past year are: The Worldwide Postcard Exchange and the Greenbee Wildlife Web. SWS students joined Waldorf students from around the world in a global postcard exchange initiative to both broaden the perspective of students and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Waldorf® education. Students in every Waldorf school around the world are sending a postcard to every other Waldorf school. Each postcard is individually designed by a young person, telling or showing something of his or her country, school of self. All the postcards received at SWS are rotated through a world map display, showing where each card originated. The visual representation allows students to see where these connections are- near and far.
As part of Waldorf’s ongoing mission to create a more sustainable future, schools across the globe are taking action to support pollinators (honey bees, butterflies, moths and more) as part of the Greenbee Wildlife Web. At SWS, students, parents and faculty came together to plant several pollinator plants and shrubs around the campus over the summer. SWS representative Michelle Wann states, “SWS students in the third grade will care for the plants as part of their farming and gardening curriculum, as well as the fifth graders, who are studying Botany”. The school says this project supports Waldorf’s ‘three-fold mission to protect and preserve the honeybee and all pollinators, create a more sustainable future for our planet’s ecology, and teach our children to be good stewards of the earth’.
All the campaigns aim to stimulate dialogue around human values in education and support initiatives that revitalize society and our relationship with each other and our earth. An introduction video to Waldorf education and its centennial celebration can be found here: Waldorf 100: Learn to Change the World
