What do parents want when they address you?
RG: The number one search is not alone of the educator, therefore, arises when they are being served by a school and the child shows signs of alarm, the first tears. Parents, for the first time in their life, are interested to know ultimately what goes on at school. Then, they become members of associations and begin to realize the dynamics of the schools, the social even political environment. These guardians of love of their children try to enter the organic school, when they realize the horror, wish other education.
What differentiates a Waldorf school from a public one?
RG: It's a revolution, it is an amazing thing. First, there is not a director, all teachers meet once a week religiously for hours, is the direction of the teachers, they decide everything. Secondly, the fact that parents, teachers are simultaneously the owners and administrators of the school. It is a non-profit institution, does not earn a penny.
Another aspect of this education is the lack of technological tools, including calculators and computers, encouraging creativity.
RG: There is a misunderstanding when someone makes a visit from all religions and backgrounds, who visit us, watch the harmony and imagine that this environment of colorful paintings is Waldorf education that is just an accompaniment. Our number one rule is the respect for the child's age, not to inflate the student of Portuguese, and mathematics or physics, any knowledge, any stimulus that is not according to their age level. It is a very important aspect. Computers and electronic goods is only one of these elements. The Waldorf is a natural extension of anthropology and scientific thinker's educators who had the courage to broaden their knowledge and came to the conclusion, before this information age, that the exposure to passive electronic goods was an absolute detriment to education. So our principle is not anti technology but absolute teaching. The world of new technologies has been serving adults and in children there is a right time to be introduced in these new tools.
Another issue that arises is reading. Children learn to read at their own pace. This is always a concern very evident in parents.
RG: Unfortunately this is part of a tsunami of a series of economic or political interests which dictates that the child should be prepared quickly to life, because it is a fight for survival. It encourages parents in a kind of fear, fills them with doubt on this issue, there is an African saying which is exemplary in this respect, grass does not grow faster by pulling it. All this fantasy to induce a child to learn to write five years if it is a game is legitimate, but when a school is dedicated to a prior maturing, that is harmful to the brain, will have no immediate effect, even in a child genius, the end result of this early ripening appears in adult life after 28 years of age as an antisocial element that will be detrimental to society.
So how do you deal with children with learning difficulties, disabled, how do you teach them?
RG: There are two types of disabilities, a chronic medical condition that requires an internship in these cases we have a curative education and then there is a normal school for 50 years, we have children of all classes in our classrooms, from a farmer to the director of a university. It is a mixture of qualities, including difficulties. This has an incredible educational value in a Waldorf school where there are no leads, no grades, when there is the presence of a child with disabilities or learning difficulties there is camaraderie even in the first class, they attracts the love of the classmates, is not the teacher, or psychologists who will make a huge effort to take care of that child, are the students who start innately helping his colleague who cannot write, or do math.
Another issue to address is whether the passage of the Waldorf school to public school, in particular, to the university, where there are no exams and students are at a disadvantage compared to others because it followed a formative educational program.
RG: The Waldorf teaching begins in the kindergarten and then to the 12th year of high school, no plumbs and no notes. From this year on, the teacher will verify the students intellectual trend to a certain area, or they have expressed already and idea, then there is a 13th year of preparation for university exams. Moreover, the Waldorf curriculum is basically the same of the official schools.
And what happens when parents wish to withdraw their children early from Waldorf's education and puts them on public education?
RG: That's really hard to go back to public school, otherwise not. The Waldorf may receive any student from outside who has no difficulty in inserting it, the child feels a huge relief, feels outside a yoke, a bureaucracy that pervades public education and that there is not our type teaching. It is the liberation of the child's soul; otherwise it is no longer true. The child began to have difficulties because they have to adapt to the scheme of examinations, which incidentally is criminal. All scholars and educators who study these matters think this is a remnant of medieval times. The last minister of education in Portugal gave an incentive on the matter saying that we must target to an education based on skills development. When a child leaves school Waldorf necessarily because of a family problem, they finds it difficult to adjust to the strict rules of a public school at the same time, becomes a brilliant personality in everything that is creativity. This ability Waldorf students bring with them, the intellectuals often ask: why do we need people who know how to paint, play instruments, when we need engineers and scientists? Currently with the globalization of economic and academic life was found that an individual with 28, 30 years of age in a prominent position, faced with problems of all kinds, all their academic preparation almost has no use, because it did not brought skills that the social and political world want. The ability to adjust to abnormal situations, even to run a large company needs flexibility and creativity, and that it is grown in Waldorf.
