TRILLIUM WALD ORF SCHOOL: DISCOVERING THE ‘HEART OF CHILDHOOD’

WORDS BY DANI KUEPFER; PHOTOS BY CHRIS TIESSEN

The first thing I see is a collection of small wooden desks facing a chalkboard that boasts a series of letters strung up in tidy cursive. An equal number of potted plants, each unique in size and species, fill the windowsill: a juvenile avocado tree, a wandering pathos, and a shy cactus catch my eye. A peep startles me, and I bend down to peer into the warm glow of a pen where four small chicks dart and tumble amongst each other. From my squat I look up at the shelves above me, lined with sprouted seedlings and baking supplies. To my right I notice a bucket of shovels, and beyond, a flash of movement through the window. Raising myself up to the pane, I see a group of children moving about the schoolyard in twos while an adult conducts the spectacle; rain dots the glass in front of me, but the children outside don’t seem to mind at all.

I am visiting Guelph’s Trillium Waldorf School – one of over a thousand Waldorf schools worldwide (although there are fewer than ten in Ontario). Following the core values of the Waldorf education system – communal upbringing, a healthy unfolding of childhood, joy in the learning process, and more – each school adapts the distinctive Waldorf structure to the community it’s rooted in. (These principles were first articulated by Rudolf Steiner, founder of the first Waldorf school, in Germany, in 1919). One of the defining characteristics of Trillium Waldorf is its cohort structure: from grades one through eight, the students take their elementary journey

‘IN MANY PUBLIC-SCHOOL SETTINGS, CHILDREN ARE LOOKED AT AS EMPTY VESSELS TO BE FILLED. AT WALDORF, CARE IS TAKEN NOT TO IMPOSE UPON CHILDREN WITH MEDIA, POLITICS, AND DISTRACTIONS; THEY ARE GIVEN THE SPACE TO UNFOLD NATURALLY, LIKE A PINECONE OR A ROSE.’ together, teacher included. ‘Kids learn so much, so fast. I get to learn with them – and from them,’ Jessica Gladio, who currently teaches sixth grade and also serves as faculty chair, tells me.

Trillium Waldorf students are encouraged to lean into their natural curiosity and follow their own instincts. At one point, when a teacher calls out, ‘raise your hand if you made a mistake,’ several tiny hands shoot up with enthusiasm. Throughout the grades, learning unfolds with a distinct rhythm: first, students are exposed to the area of study; next, they generate their own experience of it; and finally, the teacher delivers the lesson. My own tour of the school, for example, facilitated by the school’s lead administrator Stefanie Ly, allowed me to notice details (the cacophony of plants in each classroom’s windowsill) and ask my own questions (‘why is there a plant placed on the desk of the child who is absent?’) before learning that each plant belongs to a child, and they will care for their flora throughout their elementary journey. In addition to honing a green thumb, they’re conducting a scientific case study and developing a relationship with nature (which will later underscore their ‘social action’ studies, rather than, say, a focus on doom and gloom).

While decidedly not an ‘art school’, Trillium Waldorf uses music, movement, nature, and art to facilitate engaged learning through Socratic methods – that is, by encouraging a child’s natural curiosity rather than giving them the answers. The core subjects come alive across the grades: Greek history in the fifth grade culminates in an Olympics-inspired event; the grade twos learn multiplication through movement; and the grade threes experience their studies on the large scale during their annual overnight farm trip.

Instead of standardized textbooks, students learn through teacher-led stories and group engagement and create their own workbooks through age-appropriate writings and drawings. ‘It’s really easy to meet kids where they’re at when they all start with a blank book,’ says Megan Gruner, whose class is currently in grade five. Several of the parents I speak to relay a similar experience of their kids learning to read when they were ready, and once they did, becoming voracious readers seemingly overnight. ‘It’s not so important that our students meet a milestone at a specific age,’ Megan tells me. ‘Allowing them to grasp a skill at their own pace often has better staying power.’

And a Waldorf education doesn’t begin and end with the school’s students – but instead extends to the whole family. ‘Parents send their kids here because they want to experience – almost through osmosis – the curiosity, the community approach, even the field trips,’ Jessica tells me. ‘When the child enrols, the whole family enrols.’

The school has a ‘tri-pillar’ decision-making structure that involves a parent council along with members of faculty plus a board and administrative team. This alternative to the typical top-down structure is also core to how they bring together teachers, parents, advocates, and facilitators to address children’s behavioural issues. In addition to supporting events and participating on parent councils, interested parents are offered a pre-kindergarten class (for parents and babies) as well as parent-centred courses and conversations across a variety of shared challenges. ‘We don’t just drop the kids off,’ Kevork Tanielian, father of two, tells me. ‘Trillium Waldorf is a magical place where the children are looked at for who they are. And it’s a journey not just for the kids, but for ourselves.’

Trillium Waldorf is committed to cultivating young people who are engaged in their education and their community. The school nurtures the best in these young human beings, from encouraging their love for nature to helping them build skills for entrepreneurship and circular economy: building structures, mending clothing, growing their own food. As mom Ami Dehne remarks: ‘My son [a Trillium Waldorf student] has been a ball of energy since he arrived on this earth. It’s not that he doesn’t struggle at school – it’s that the school sees his good, too. He doesn’t get labelled as ‘that child’. The impact on our family has been tremendous. Our child can express himself and his love; he’s truly thriving.’

Among Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner's oftquoted remarks is this: 'We are fully human only while playing, and we play only when we are human in the truest sense of the word.'

Trillium Waldorf School is a treasured place that encourages children to play, imagine, explore, create, learn, go outside, and just be kids for a little while longer.

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