While growth of students' minds, bodies, and spirits underlies all academic pursuits at the Sacramento Waldorf School, the development of clear, independent thought is the focus in the High School. The curriculum offers rigorous challenges in sciences, humanities and mathematics. As in the Lower School, every academic study is infused with the arts.

The Waldorf approach is experiential and interdisciplinary. Students spend considerable time utilizing classroom-based concepts in real-world applications. In trigonometry our students survey the campus and surrounding area; in biology they evaluate the ecosystem of our stream; in architecture they visit neighborhoods and develop models for redevelopment; in English they spend Main Lesson outside to write in silence and experience nature in the context of the Transcendentalist authors Thoreau and Emerson. In this way, students deepen their learning and do far more than simply memorize. They experience and fully engage their studies.

In addition, subjects are studied in concert, not in isolation. We endeavor to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the disciplines -- how, for example, history and civics have had profound influence on the development of the arts and sciences. Cutting across disciplines and approaching a subject from a variety of perspectives provides our students with a multi-faceted understanding of complex issues and a more global approach to learning and thinking.

The Main Lesson is a special feature of the High School curriculum. Here students delve into a subject for a double period each day for a four-week block of time with a specialist main lesson teacher. While in the Lower School students spend most of the day with their class teacher, the rigor and depth of study in the High School requires a high level of expertise in each subject. Therefore, Sacramento Waldorf High School teachers are masters in their area of study and instruct only in their discipline.

A wide range of extra-curricular activities, social events, and foreign study invite young people to follow their interests and pursue their dreams. Opportunities are presented in diverse arenas, including:

• Drama
• Sports
• Community service
• Yearbook
• Robotics
• Ecology
• Speech & Debate - National Forensic League

The intimate size of the school allows for students to develop meaningful relationships with both peers and teachers. Learning occurs in a cooperative environment and students learn to value diversity. Our young men and women are challenged to consider the ethical components of their studies and life in our School community. This comprehensive educational experience enables our students to graduate from the Sacramento Waldorf School and step into the world as balanced, compassionate, and well-rounded individuals with a capacity for flexible, independent thought.

"Waldorf education addresses the child as no other education does. Learning, whether in chemistry, mathematics, history or geography, is imbued with life and so with joy, which is the only true basis for later study. The textures and colors of nature, the accomplishments and struggles of humankind fill the Waldorf students' imaginations and the pages of their beautiful books. Education grows into a union with life that serves them for decades. By the time they reach us at the college and university level, these students are grounded broadly and deeply and have a remarkable enthusiasm for learning. Such students possess the eye of the discoverer, and the compassionate heart of the reformer which, when joined to a task, can change the planet."

- Arthur Zajonc, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Physics, Amherst College

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Sacramento Waldorf School       3750 Bannister Road, Fair Oaks, California 95628       (916) 961-3900