Visiting Detroit Waldorf School

Dear SSWS Community,

As most of you know, I was away at the start of our spring semester, as I had the opportunity to visit the Detroit Waldorf School as a member of an AWSNA accreditation team. I wanted to share some parts of my visit with you, since it was a wonderfully enriching experience.

For those that don’t know, every seven years Waldorf schools are required to go through an accreditation process. Accreditation begins with a year-long self study, where the community looks deeply at its processes, policies, and principles to identify areas of strength and areas for improvement. A regular commitment to this process builds a dedication to inquiry, reflection, and improvement into the fabric of the school, and yields many benefits to everyone involved.

At the end of the self-study, an accreditation team composed of members from other Waldorf schools receives that self-study report, and then travels to the school itself. We spend three days observing every aspect of the school, witnessing classes in action, having meetings with the Faculty, Board, Staff, Parents, and various committees of the school, and engaging each other in rich conversation afterwards. At the end of those three days we also produce a report, where we note the moments of consonance between the school’s own self-study and our observations, and make commendations and recommendations for areas the school may want to investigate further.

Going on the trip allowed me to build connections to other Waldorf schools in our region, through my close contact with my fellow accreditation team members. I also got to witness the magic and dedication of another Waldorf community, and see the ways that Detroit Waldorf School has taken the Waldorf curriculum and connected it to their own local concerns and interests.

The school is very urban, in the heart of a historic district of Detroit, and it has roughly 5 times the number of students we do. Like us, their school is in a very old building that was originally designed as a school, and so walking the halls there is a sense of history that is surprisingly similar to my experience of walking up the old stairway to our Grade 1-2 classroom. It is also one of the first Waldorf schools in North America, founded in the 1960s during a time of great racial division in Detroit and America in general. During our visit I was struck by how committed the school is to its vision of Belonging and Equity for all students, and I wanted to bring that energy back to our school in some way.

I was also held in the very familiar embrace of some Waldorf traditions, as I got to say verses with a kindergarten class and watch them prepare for bread baking day, and watch the fifth grade class work with watercolour paints. The school has a strong Eurythmy and Learning Support program, language classes in German and Mandarin, and a strings and band program, all of which made me dream about the future growth of our school and the possibilities we might summon into existence as a community.

I would love to answer any questions you have about my trip, so if you see me in the yard after school please don’t hesitate to ask. And let’s bring our own dedication to inquiry, reflection, and improvement into our lives in the school as well, so that as a community we can continue to grow and flourish for many years.

With warmth,

Ben Gallagher