“That’s what’s so wonderful about Waldorf education. You’re exposed to all these different ideas, but you’re never given one view of it. You’re encouraged to think as an individual.”
“When approached my the news media and asked the question, ‘What did Waldorf education do for you?’ I replied, “It encouraged me to always strive to become a better human being.”
“I look back on my Steiner years with extreme fondness. I believe that every aspect of the educational ethos shaped me into the…confident well-balanced person I am today.”
“I think the end result of Waldorf education is to raise our consciousness. There is a heightened consciousness of what our senses bring us from the world around us, about our feelings, about the way we relate to other people. It taught me how to think for myself, to be responsible for my decisions. Second, it made me a good listener, sensitive to the needs of others. And third, it helped to establish meaningful beliefs.”
Tilda Swinton says the Waldorf school she founded is her proudest achievement. She co-founded the Independent Drumduan School in Moray in the Scottish Highlands. "It’s the best," she told the new edition of Out magazine. She added that the Waldorf school was: "Probably the thing I’m most proud of."
Tilda Swinton, Actress
“When I went into the Steiner school for the first time, I was struck not only by the trusting and familial atmosphere for younger children, but mainly by older children, because I had never walked into a school before where teenagers had been so welcoming and self-possessed and kind. The older children play with and care for the younger children…
"As my children go through education, I am continually more impressed by how rigorous and engaged all the learning is. I heard of a student who got a double first in physics from Edinburgh University, who said that all he was ever interested in was science and if he had an education other than Steiner then he would have been another ‘geek’ – unable to do anything other than his subject. But through the Steiner system he had to learn other crafts. The Steiner [model] had nurtured him to become a fully functional person. The new upper school, which has only recently started here, has a 100 per cent success rate in placing students at universities, including Oxford and Cambridge. A don at Oxford, who sits on the interview board for applicants, said that state education is so under question that they long for Steiner pupils who still have that love for learning.”
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