Intentionally Raising Good Humans
Every spring, parents, extended family, faculty, and friends gather on the Portland Waldorf School campus for high school graduation. It is a moving moment to celebrate our graduating seniors and wish them well as they prepare to take their next step in life. As parents and teachers, we are proud of our graduates’ many accomplishments—but we are even prouder of the people they have become.
“…students learn to value not just skills and achievements, but qualities like honesty, integrity, kindness, and compassion.”
At our school, students learn to value not just skills and achievements, but qualities like honesty, integrity, kindness, and compassion.
Can Character and Values Be Taught?
Character education—through which qualities like integrity, responsibility, and ethical behavior are explicitly taught—was once considered an essential aspect of schooling. Over the past century, however, these skills were largely sidelined in favor of clear, quantifiable achievements. Cognitive abilities and conventional "book smarts” became the main focus in schools.
“Schools that teach character education report higher academic performance, improved attendance, reduced violence, fewer disciplinary issues, reduction in substance abuse, and less vandalism,” writes teacher and best-selling author Jessica Lahey in the article “The Benefits of Character Education” in The Atlantic. While character is no longer a focus at most schools, many educators, like Lahey, have found that emphasizing values and character at school can have a long-lasting positive effect on a school’s culture, as well as a child’s education and development.
Students spend a morning tending to the grounds of our seven acre campus. Service learning, both at our school and in the larger community, is an integral part of the education here.
A Well-Rounded Education
At Portland Waldorf School, we believe that a truly well-rounded education goes beyond academics. Here, we strive to inspire, challenge, and awaken our students to the world around them and to teach them to approach life with compassion, courage, and inner strength.
We do this in many ways.
Across ages and grade levels, our teachers foster inclusion, kindness, and respect for others. Teamwork, cooperation, and ensemble activities are part of every school day, from choir and class discussion to movement and play.
Strong and trusting multiyear teacher-student relationships help build integrity and self-confidence in our students. Our teachers see, understand, and value every student individually, encouraging them to reach their potential personally and academically.
We expect our students to be good citizens of their classroom and school community. Even young children are given meaningful chores, like folding laundry or sweeping the floor after snack time in kindergarten. In middle and high school, we encourage social responsibility through service work, volunteerism, and environmental stewardship, including opportunities to give back to the PWS community.
We teach through story, choosing myths, legends, folk tales, and fairy tales that awaken the young child’s spirit and engage their moral imagination. As they grow older, teachers continue to use stories in their teaching. For example, we study history largely through biography, learning from the extraordinary lives of people who had the courage to change the world.
We value diversity and encourage a classroom environment where open-mindedness and a spirit of inquiry supports diverse viewpoints. In middle and high school, we look beyond our campus to the world around us, discussing contemporary social issues and social ethics with our teachers and peers.
The High School Handshake Ceremony at the end of the school year lasts for several hours as students line up to shake hands with faculty and are acknowledged for their hard work. Faculty take time with each student to be with them, offering deep respect for their shared humanity.
In these—and many other ways—we’re not just encouraging good students, we’re raising good humans. Learn more about Portland Waldorf School on a campus tour this fall.