Waldorf education recognizes and honors the full range of human potentials. It addresses the whole child by striving to awaken and enable all the latent capacities. The children learn to read, write, and do math; they study history, geography, and the sciences. In addition, all children learn to sing, play a musical instrument, draw, paint, model clay, carve and work with wood, speak clearly and act in a play, think independently, and work harmoniously and respectfully with others. The development of these various capacities is interrelated. For example, all children learn to knit in grade one. Acquiring this basic and enjoyable human skill helps them develop a manual dexterity, which after puberty will be transformed into an ability to think clearly and to 'knit' together their thoughts into a coherent whole.

Preparation for life includes the development of the well-rounded person. Waldorf Education has as its ideal a person who is knowledgeable about the world and human history and culture, who has many varied practical and artistic abilities, who feels a deep reverence for and communion with the natural world, and who can act with initiative and in freedom in the face of economic and political pressures.

There is evidence that normal, healthy children who learn to read relatively late are not disadvantaged by this, but rather are able quickly to catch up with, and may overtake, children who have learned to real early. Additionally, they are much less likely to develop the 'tiredness toward reading' that many children taught to read at a very early age experience later on. Instead there is a lively interest in reading and learning that continues into adulthood. Some children will, out of themselves, want to learn to read at an early age. This interest can and should be met, as long as it comes in fact from the child. Early imposed formal instruction can create a challenge in later years, when enthusiasm toward reading and learning may begin to falter.

If reading is not pushed, a child will pick it up quite quickly and easily. Some Waldorf parents become anxious if their child is slow to learn to read. Eventually these same parents are overjoyed at seeing their child pick up a book and not put it down and become from that moment a voracious reader. Each child has his or her own optimal time for 'taking off.' Feelings of anxiety and inferiority may develop in a child who is not reading as well as her peers. Often this anxiety is picked up from parents concerned about the child's progress. It is important that parents should deal with their own and their child's apprehensions. Human growth and development do not occur in a linear fashion, nor can they be measured. What lives, grows, and has its being in human life can only be grasped with that same human faculty that can grasp the invisible metamorphic laws of living nature.

Find more information and links to articles and studies that support this here.

Children who transfer to a Waldorf school are usually up to grade in reading, math, and basic academic skills. However, they usually have much to learn in bodily coordination skills, posture, artistic and social activities, cursive handwriting, and listening skills. Listening well is particularly important since most of the curricular content is presented orally in the classroom by the teacher. The human relationship between the child and the teacher is the basis for healthy learning, for the acquiring of understanding and knowledge rather than just information. Children who are used to learning from computers and other electronic media will have to adjust.

Those children who enter a Waldorf school in the middle grades often bring much information about the world. This contribution should be recognized and received with interest by the class. However, these children often have to unlearn some social habits, such as the tendency to experience learning as a competitive activity. They have to learn to approach the arts in a more objective way, not simply as a means for personal expression. In contrast, in their study of nature, history, and the world, they need to relate what they learn to their own life and being. The popular idea of 'objectivity' in learning is misguided when applied to elementary school children. At their stage of development, the subjective element is essential for healthy learning. Involvement in what is learned about the world makes the world truly meaningful to them.

As a school that participates in the Milwaukee Parental School Choice program, we are required to report on how our students’ perform on the Wisconsin Forward Exam. It is important to note that the curriculum taught at Tamarack Waldorf School does not focus on testing. We work hard to inspire a love of learning in our student body and believe that standardized testing is not an accurate assessment or reflection of our students’ wisdom, knowledge, mental flexibility or ability to learn.  

In a Waldorf school, students are encouraged to experience their subjects, rather than being taught to a test. As such, many of our families make the decision to opt out of state testing – resulting in a limited snapshot of our student body as a whole. While most of our students are not testing, we are happy to show that the school is exceeding state expectations especially in the areas of academic growth and post-secondary readiness.