About GWS, Vision, History, Our future, Our policies, Media policy, Food policy, Clothing policy

Discussion to open a Waldorf school in Kalispell began in 2003, and we have had many ups and downs since then. We have a wonderful core group of committed families, but we still need more to financially support the operation of a school.

For now, we have teachers working from their homes, we have a growing Waldorf homeschool network, we hold regular seasonal festivals, have handwork and book clubs, a musical group, hold special events like workshops and parent-child classes, produce an annual children's play, and just generally enjoy raising our children with others interested in the child development philosophy of Waldorf as inspired by Rudolf Steiner.

If you are interested in joining us in any of these activities, please email Catherine at ckflynn@montanasky.net.

Part of what makes a Waldorf school special is the attention accorded to creating an environment that is visually pleasing. When we are surrounded by beauty, beauty is reflected within us and allowed to grow and flourish. For this reason, we request some care and thought taken in choosing clothing for school. Here are some guidelines.

Keeping Things Simple and Natural

• Simple pants and cotton shirts are best, no holes or frays please (plain patches and mended holes are fine!)
• Natural fibers such as cotton or wool are warmer in winter and cooler in summer than clothing made from synthetics such as nylon or polyester (this is a suggestion, not a mandatory guideline; synthetic fibers will be allowed! And of course outerwear needs to be synthetic to repel rain and snow)
• No makeup, fingernail polish, jewellery or tattoos (even temporary type)
• To help those who are allergy sensitive, wear clean clothes every day and do not pick up and cuddle the cat before you leave for school

Keeping the Environment Calm and Not Distracting

• No wording, advertising, messages, large logos, etc.
• No media characters or cartoons
• No wild, distracting, or camouflage patterns
• No flashing, lighted footwear or clothing
• Choose solid colors, or gentle patterns

Keeping things Practical

• Outdoor footwear should NOT be flip flops, open-toed shoes, clogs, cowboy boots or shoes with heels or platforms.
• High-quality, well-fitting, sturdy walking or tennis shoes support and protect the child at school, enabling him or her to fully participate in this very active education that includes lots of running around outside, climbing, jumping, digging with shovels, carrying logs and stumps, swinging, etc. Protect those toes!
• Rain boots for rainy days and snow boots for winter.
• Indoor shoes – simple and sturdy again, to prevent crushed toes, indoor activities do include moving and building with wood boards, cubes, playstands, woodworking, etc. Indoor shoes should be kept at school in child’s cubby.

Keep Proper Outdoor Gear at School, as we will be outside everyday rain, snow or shine (and of course in Montana we can get all three of these within an hour):

• Fall and Spring: rain pants and rain jacket and wellies or rain boots
• Winter: warm-lined snow pants and parka and snow boots for winter
• Sun hat for warmer weather, and warm hat and gloves for cold weather
• If your child is sensitive, send “warm packets” in their gloves and/or boots
  Plan to keep the outdoor gear at school Monday morning through Friday. If it is more practical to keep a “school set” of this gear at school, good places to go are the thrift stores. Outdoor gear can go home on the weekends for laundering.

  At a Waldorf school, children are working and playing, indoors and out, and need clothes that allow them freedom of movement and that offer warmth and breathability. If you need any further assistance with the clothing guidelines, feel free to talk with your child’s teacher.

Glacier Lifelong Learning Center in Kalispell has been given approval to add the words Waldorf School to its name effective immediately. Approval comes from the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), the governing body of Waldorf Schools and copyright holder for the school name Waldorf. Schools may not use the name Waldorf in its name until it has demonstrated to AWSNA through practice and operations that it is meeting the requirements of a Waldorf School. This is to ensure to prospective families wanting a Waldorf education for their children that their educational needs will be met through Waldorf trained teachers using Waldorf methods.
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To enlarge photo, click on it.
Some of our children enjoying a tipi they built out of fir boughs left over from the Spiral of Light Festival.

Our Vision, Mission and Principles

Our History

Our Future

Our Policies

Food provided by the school
In keeping with our growing understanding of nutrition and its important role in health, food prepared and provided by the GLLC will be organic, whole foods snacks or balanced meals. Whole, minimally processed foods contribute to whole-person health and are essential to the task of maintaining balanced bodies, minds and emotions, especially for our growing children. We encourage children to drink water and do not serve juice because of its high sugar content.

We strive to continually educate ourselves, our students and our support community about healthy, balanced food choices and preparation through practical cooking experience and our future biodynamic gardening program. Families are encouraged to extend the benefits of healthful eating by selecting for health at home.

Food brought from home
When bringing food from home for lunch or special celebrations, please remember that sugary and fatty junk foods do not contribute favorably to our work and atmosphere here and are not to be eaten at school. Candy and soda will not be allowed. Please try to limit prepackaged, heavily processed foods in favor of fresh and home-prepared choices.

In bringing snacks or celebration treats to share, please ask if you need help in thinking of healthy ideas. A list of snack ideas will be available in the kitchen, as well as several cookbooks featuring naturally sweetened cakes, cookies and treats.

Food allergies
If food allergies exist, please let us know in writing so that we may inform people who may be bringing or preparing snacks or meals, and we will be happy to accommodate.

For further reading about food topics, click on parenting articles

Waldorf education is dedicated to nourishing and nurturing each child’s innate creative, emotional, intellectual and physical capacities. The full development of these capacities is of profound importance to each human being’s ability to resolve life’s riddles, to take up the task of destiny, and to grow and live in a spirit of fulfillment and positive contribution. They influence the young child’s ability to work with others, to problem-solve, to picture, to envision, to see inwardly, and respond creatively and positively to life’s challenges. These capacities are, in short, crucial elements of a child’s development.

Such capacities are established and enlarged in the early years through a combination of creative, unfettered “free imaginative play” coupled with age appropriate classroom work of a rhythmic nature. Such activities can imbue young children with energy that will later become intellectual energy, tempered with a strong sense of beauty and goodness.

The debilitating effects of media on children’s developing capacities are increasingly apparent to Waldorf teachers and are well documented by independent researchers. “Media” includes the full array of visual and aural electronic devices, including but not limited to videos, DVDs, video games, television, CD walkman units, computers and computer games, and radio. Of equal concern are large-screen movies, whether in the theatre or at home. We fully recognize the prevalence of media in our culture and the need that many adults have for this in their vocation and leisure time. We must also recognize, however, that the adult has the ability to absorb and consciously process these experiences. This a child cannot yet do.

The critical but delicate impulse for free imaginative play is deadened by the constant bombardment of media images from television, movies and video games. This is primarily due to the powerful rapid-fire image-forming nature of electronic media, which places the viewer in a semi-hypnotic state. The “TV child” also adopts a more passive relationship to the world – outer stimulation and inner emptiness – which makes them at risk for drug and alcohol addiction later in life. These powerful media reduce attention spans and expose the children to much that is not appropriate to their age. Recent studies also show the debilitating and distorting effects of television watching (regardless of content, including so-called “children’s programming”) on the nervous systems and perceptions of growing children and its contribution to learning disabilities. Indeed, the vivid and powerful images in much of today’s children’s television programming and computer video games override and severely limit the child’s naturally occurring imagination and higher-order neural development.

In these ways, television, movies, videos and computer/electronic games work directly to counter the aims of Waldorf education. Therefore in the highest service of the children, we ask that before fifth grade, ideally eighth grade, this interference be eliminated. After that, exposure should be kept to a minimum (especially not on school days). It is important to review movies beforehand, watch with them and discuss the content afterwards. Even through high school, media influences should be carefully monitored and regulated. For older students, a Waldorf school works with parents to bring some of the forms of media to them in a healthy way, to educate them in being knowledgeable, productive, and discerning users of media in our world.

!Computers

Computers are carefully introduced into the Waldorf curriculum at the high school level (grade 9 and above). They are not introduced sooner because the type of thinking required to operate a computer is highly abstract, and physically, socially and emotionally disconnecting. Computers impose on the user what Valdemar Setzer refers to in his paper on the subject as a “shrunken thinking environment,” making them an impediment in the actively developing feeling and soul life of younger children.

The age at which a child is physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually ready to work with a tool that imposes such limitations is approximately 14 (grade 9). Before that, research is finding that young children, after using so-called educational computer programs for six months, experience a dramatic reduction of creativity, ability to answer open-ended questions or brainstorm with fluency and originality. By waiting until age 14 to introduce computers, however, the proper foundation has been laid in thinking, feeling and willing and abstract thinking and critical judgment has begun to mature, making the introduction to computer technology in high school less damaging and more fruitful. Delaying exposure to the computer until adolescence not only mitigates the potential dangers, it allows the child the come to the computer from a position of emotional and intellectual strength.

Since basic computer skills are vocational in nature, delaying their use until the child is developmentally ready to handle it poses no disadvantage to the child, and is in fact an advantage. Effective use of the computer as a tool is completely dependent upon the imagination and thinking skills of the use. The intellect is born with adolescence – this is the appropriate time to introduce computers.

The aim of a Waldorf education is to nurture and enlarge the child’s multiple capacities. Computers, by imposing restrictions and distortions on the still developing emotions, minds, bodies, and egos of preadolescent children, work directly counter to the aims of Waldorf education for children younger than grade 9. Therefore, we support eliminating computers from the lives of your young children, and significantly limiting older children’s access to them.

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For further reading click on [parenting articles|http://www.glaciercenter.org/taxonomy_menu/1/3/16] and look for the article Strangers in Our Home: TV and Our Children's Minds.

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!Some Resources
Marie Winn, ''The Plug-In Drug,'' and, ''Unplugging the'' ''Plug-In Drug''

Jane M. Healy, PhD, ''Endangered Minds: Why Children'' ''Don't Think And What We Can Do About It'', and, ''Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our'' ''Children's Minds For Better or Worse''

Joseph Chilton Pearce, ''The Biology of Transcendence''

Keith Buzzell, ''The Children of Cyclops: The Influence'' ''of Television Viewing on the Developing'' ''Human Brain''

Martin Large, ''Who's Bringing Them Up? How to Break'' ''the TV Habit''

Jerry Mander, ''Four Arguments for the Elimination''
''of Television''

Frances Moore Lappe, ''What to Do After You Turn Off'' ''the TV''

Russel Sage Foundation, New York, ''Sesame Street'' ''Revisited''

Neil Postman, ''Amusing Ourselves to Death''

www.tvturnoff.org

www.wholehumanbeans.com

''REVISED May 2005''

It began with an ad in the newspaper by the parents of a three-year-old, parents looking for other parents who were interested in starting a Waldorf school in the Valley. One family responded. That was May 2003. A year later, the two families became part of a seven-family board, with a Vision, Mission Statement and Statement of Principles. They also decided upon a name: Glacier Lifelong Learning Center (GLLC), and they looked forward to the day they would be called Glacier Waldorf School and Lifelong Learning Center. That day arrived in January 2008, when the Association of Waldorf Schools of North American (AWSNA) gave its approval, nearly five years after that first ad in the paper.

Waldorf education is new to the Flathead Valley, indeed to Montana. Glacier Waldorf School is the first AWSNA Waldorf school initiative in Montana. Despite being relatively new to Montana, Waldorf is currently the fastest growing independent school movement worldwide with more than 800 Waldorf schools in over 40 countries, over 150 in North America, and several public schools using Waldorf methods to enrich their teaching.

Waldorf education is more than just a school or method; it is a whole lifestyle and way of thinking and being. Indeed, the impulse behind Waldorf education is cultural renewal - an impulse that it's founder, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, felt could be fostered through a new understanding of the individual and community. Fundamental to Waldorf education is the recognition that each human being is a unique individual who passes through distinct life stages and that it is the responsibility of education to address the physical, social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of each developmental stage. Waldorf teachers are dedicated to creating a genuine inner enthusiasm for learning, which is essential for educational success. They truly believe, as Yeats said, that, "education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." Guiding values are a life-long love of learning, creative thinking and self-confidence, a sympathetic interest in the world and the lives of others, and an abiding sense of moral purpose. Waldorf students learn with more than their heads; they learn with their heads, hearts and hands.

Certain activities, which are often considered "frills" at mainstream schools, are central at Waldorf schools, such as art, music, organic gardening, and foreign languages. In the younger grades, all subjects are introduced through artistic mediums, because children respond better to this medium than to dry lecturing and rote learning. Waldorf schools balance academic, artistic and practical disciplines as teachers guide students through a richly creative program that approaches academic subjects through storytelling, music, movement, and artistic activity.

Waldorf education has its roots in the spiritual-scientific research of the Austrian scientist, educator, and thinker Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). In 1919, a director of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory asked Steiner how children might be educated to prevent another catastrophe like World War I. Steiner responded by opening six months later the Independent Waldorf School with the stipulations that it be open to all children, co-educational, and run by the faculty rather than an administrative body or the government. Steiner's aim wasn't to inculcate in children any particular viewpoint, religion, philosophy or ideology, indeed he was completely against setting up any form of dogma. Rather, he believed and taught that "our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who, of themselves, are able to impart purpose and direction to their lives;" to make them so healthy, strong and inwardly free that they would become a kind of tonic for society as a whole.

Steiner was a pioneer in the area of developmentally based, age-appropriate learning. According to Steiner, the human being is a threefold being of spirit, soul, and body whose capacities unfold in three developmental stages on the path to adulthood: early childhood (kindergarten), middle childhood (grade school), and adolescence (high school).