The Cupertino Courier

Cover Story

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Alexa Bolanos tries to move her body through a hula hoop, passed to her by classmate Melisa Nolan, right, without using her hands. Students and teachers at Waldorf School's newest high school spent part of the first day of class playing 'icebreaker' games.

Private Lessons

Waldorf School of the Peninsula opens a high school in Cupertino

By Crystal Lu

Ten teenagers stand in a circle, singing "Happy Birthday," while teacher Mark-Daniel Schmid accompanies them on the piano. This is the beginning of the first music class at the newest--and smallest--high school in Cupertino.

Four boys and six girls comprise the entire student body of the Waldorf School of the Peninsula High School, which opened Sept. 4 in a former office building on McClellan Road, across the street from De Anza College. The school is so new that the students arrived before the furniture.

The Waldorf School of the Peninsula was established in 1984 with a preschool, kindergarten and grades 1-4. It evolved into a preschool-through-eigth-grade school before moving to a permanent site in Los Altos in 1995.

"I went to the first Waldorf School, which was founded in Germany in 1919, decades before I went. It is still there today," says Schmid. "The wonderful school time I had there made me want to become an educator."

Schmid, a German immigrant with a doctorate, left an associate professor's position with Mansfield University in Pennsylvania to teach Waldorf students in the Bay Area. He said his decision was based on his strong belief in Waldorf education, which is now practiced in more than 950 Waldorf schools and 1,400 independent Waldorf kindergartens in approximately 60 countries around the world.

Waldorf schools originated from the spiritual-scientific research of the Austrian scientist and thinker Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). According to Steiner's philosophy, a human being is "a threefold existence of spirit, soul and body" whose capacities unfold in three developmental stages: early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence.

The first Waldorf School was affiliated with the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany. Steiner was asked by the factory owner to establish a school for the children of the factory's employees. He agreed under four conditions: 1) that the school be open to all children; 2) that it be coeducational; 3) that it be a unified 12-year school; and 4) that the teachers have primary control of the school. The independent Waldorf School, Die Freie Waldorfschule, opened its doors on Sept. 7, 1919.

Waldorf education now makes up one of the world's largest independent educational systems. It aims to match its curriculum with the developmental stages of the students.

The faculty at Waldorf High have begun developing the students' critical thinking skills by exposing them to "subjects of extremes." For example, students will study the opposition of heat and cold in physics, the expansion and contraction of gases in chemistry, tragedy and comedy in literature, and revolutions in history.

During their study this fall of the American Revolution, the students will take a field trip to Boston "for them to get a sense of living history," said Lucy Wurtz, development director of the Waldorf School of the Peninsula. "Our curriculum is vibrant and alive."

Currently, there are nine freshman and one sophomore at the Waldorf high school. Officials expect to have ninth- through 12th-grade students within the next four years.

Melisa Norlan, 16, is the lone sophomore at the school. She went to the Waldorf School of the Peninsula from third to eighth grade. There was no Waldorf High School nearby when she finished eighth grade last year, so she went to Lincoln High School for a year.

"There were too many kids, and it was testing, testing, testing all the time," says Melisa about her public school experience.

Now attending classes with ninth-graders at Waldorf High, Melisa has to do extra work on her own to be at a 10th-grade level.

"I can handle the extra work," says Melisa. "I'm happy to be here."

In contrast at Adrian Miner prefers a bigger school "for the opportunity to learn about different people." When he finished eighth grade at the International School of the Peninsula in Palo Alto, he initially wanted to go to Los Altos High School. It was mostly his parents' decision for him to enter Waldorf High School because they were impressed with his younger brother's positive experience at the Waldorf School of the Peninsula.

"My younger brother used to go to the International School with me, but he was very unhappy with the strict teachers," says Adrian, "My parents let him transfer, and he really enjoys Waldorf. So my parents want me to have a Waldorf experience, too."

Comparing the two schools, Adrian says that Waldorf teachers are more willing to let students voice their opinions.

During orientation, when students raised objections to a school rule that forbids going out during lunch hour, Mary Jane Di Piero, high school coordinator of the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, advised them to write a petition for the school to consider.

Di Piero is responsible for the administration of the new high school, but she doesn't have the title of principal. Waldorf schools generally don't have principals in order to let teachers take charge. Di Piero is also an English teacher at the high school.

English is a second language to Moritz Buettelmann, who went to a Waldorf school in Germany and moved here a month ago for his father's job relocation. Moritz is confident that he can keep up with the English-speaking class.

"The small class is helpful," says Moritz. "More teacher attention."

Laila Waheed, who has been a Waldorf student since kindergarten, describes Waldorf education as personalized teaching. She adds that Waldorf teachers discourage students from watching TV and encourage them to participate in activities through which they build confidence by trying new opportunities.

Laila also says, "Compared with my public school friends, I think we are more conscious of what we are doing."

The Research Institute for Waldorf Education, which was founded in 1996, spent two years conducting a survey of North American Waldorf graduates from the classes of 1943 through 2004. Based on a sample of approximately 550 participants, the survey found 94 percent of them went to college and 88 percent attended graduate school.

For more information about the new Waldorf High School, visit www.waldorfpeninsula.org.