In our increasingly fast-paced, tech-obsessed world, Seattle Waldorf School continues to see the value in developing uniquely human skills and capacities. There is no doubt that our children will learn how to use technology to their full advantage as adults. But when they are still young – developing and learning – there is a great benefit in the long run of supporting their innately human qualities like joy, curiosity, kindness, and wonder and this can only be done through human interactions.

At the heart of Waldorf education is the concept of human growth and development. The students in our care are not just beings to pour knowledge into. During their time at SWS, each student will grow and develop the skills to obtain knowledge through curiosity, creativity, and collaboration with others. Our teachers work from the concept that the child will one day be a teenager, and then a 20-something year old, and then a full-fledged adult. What will they need in their adult life? What challenges might this specific child have, and how can teachers gently guide, model, and support their unfolding into their highest potential?

We explored these concepts at our Fall Grade School Curriculum Night and Grade 8 Teacher, Ashley Umlauf talked about how “in a world that is rapidly changing and being influenced by technological advancements, our students will continue to focus on the skills of being human in order to best prepare them for whatever comes next.” Some of the tangible things that our students do include:

• Knitting, sewing, baking, building, drawing, painting;
• Moving their bodies outside in work and play;
• Using all of their senses, closely observing and experiencing the core subjects;
• Collaborating together in choir, orchestra, and class plays;
• Learning multiple languages;
• Experiencing the curriculum through hands-on experiences, overnight trips, and seasonal festivals

By doing these activities, they build:

• A capacity for deep thinking, which is rich in analysis, creativity, and connection-making 
• They develop strong “will forces” which can also be thought of as grit, resilience, and perseverance
• The ability to know themselves as authentic individuals, create meaningful and impactful social change, collaborate fully and with empathy for others 

Ashley concluded the keynote address with, “Perhaps the response to the increasing mechanization of the world, the increased Artificial Intelligence, the potential of an overshadowing of our human-ness, is to increase our humanity in all aspects. To become so exquisitely intentional in our approaches to education, to not fall back on what is easy, or quick, or takes less engagement, but instead to turn towards each other, as adults and teachers to use our own hearts, our deepened thinking, and our devoted attention to children. Here, we strive to model, and to ask students, to intentionally turn towards the cursive handwriting, to find the right finger to play the pure, beautiful cello note, to listen quietly while a teacher imparts a heartfelt story about coyote and raven, to patiently help a 1st grader carve a pumpkin, to observe and accurately draw a chestnut seed, to sing in unison with your class each morning, working towards melodious harmony, to move together in speed and skill with others your age and to bump up against them, to have courage to stand onstage and deliver a Shakespeare soliloquy, to grind pigment and practice the ancient art of Chinese calligraphy, and to do these things not as “extracurricular” activities, but as the necessary ones, the essential activities, the ones that keep us constantly remembering how to be “real.””