By Tenaya Morkner-Brown, SacWaldorf Alum '14

Growing up attending a Waldorf school, I heard every day from my father how fortunate I was to have a curriculum that emphasized music, art, gardening, and movement as strongly as subjects such as math and science. I often responded to this daily reminder with a reluctant sigh and reassurance that I knew how lucky I was - but it was not until I left the Waldorf bubble that I was able to honestly reflect on the true value of my education.

Arriving at college, I was intimidated by peers who seemed to have AP credits and high SAT scores that allowed them to test out of introductory classes. I became anxious that my skills would not translate to a ‘real’ academic setting.

One of the guiding principles of Waldorf education is that a child should be educated through ‘head, heart, and hands.’ While I understood the importance of this mantra, I feared that perhaps I spent too much time knitting and not enough time taking rigorous tests or listening to boring lectures.

However, I quickly realized that I was much better equipped than my classmates to take on the academic rigor and critical thinking that college classes require.

While sewing a leather messenger bag or casting a silver ring may seem divorced from use to anyone other than an aspiring craftsman, I attribute my academic success to those very skills. Arduous hours spent designing a pattern and punching holes in hard leather taught me the importance of building a strong foundation of research before delving into an argument in academic papers.

Creating molds and melting silver into elegant forms taught me how to look beyond the shiny exterior - to wonder at how something is made, and investigate ways to improve it.

While these skills informed my academic success, that is not to say I did not also learn from old-fashioned math and English classes that we are of course required to take. (In fact, I wrote more essays in one year of high school than any of my peers were required to in all of high school!)

I highlight these experiences only because they are the classes that can often be viewed by outsiders as superfluous and irrelevant to success in the ‘Real World.’

Still, I did not fully understand how special my educational journey as a Waldorf Lifer truly was until senior year of college. I took a class called School and Society in which we learned about federal legislation that shapes public school curriculum such as and .

These policies attempt to create accountability by requiring standards to be met through testing in order for schools to acquire federal funding. I thought about how quickly a child’s curiosity and eagerness to learn could be snuffed out by such rigid understandings of intelligence.

I wondered how different my life could have turned out if I had not had such a nurturing and supportive environment in which my unique skills were coaxed and celebrated.

As I move forward into adulthood, I have no doubt that I will have many more instances throughout life to gain a deeper understanding and newfound respect for the education that Waldorf provides.