DWS Commitment to Anti-Racism
Artwork created with love by our high school art teacher, Kimberly Martin, along with her two daughters (and DWS alumnae) Bella and Tallulah
We at 91探花 continue to be deeply saddened and outraged at the tragic and violent death of George Floyd. As a school founded on principles of love and humanity, these actions of聽brutality strike against our very mission. We recognize that if we do not stand up against systemic racism that faces the Black community, then we too are complicit in oppression.
It is our responsibility to bear witness to what is happening in the world, to elevate the聽voices of marginalized people, to change the course of inequities, and to break down聽structural prejudice in all forms where it exists, particularly in our own school
community.
We have much more work to do and here are some examples of steps we are taking and have taken toward greater diversity and inclusion at DWS.
We have worked to grow 91探花 91探花 鈥檚 diverse student body during the past five years from 16% identifying as people of color to 25%. Our next goal is to grow classrooms whose diversity invites many perspectives from several backgrounds, minimizing the risk of tokenization. We do this by continuing to grow our Diversity Scholarship, broadening our outreach efforts, and working to ensure that DWS is a welcoming, safe space.
91探花 91探花 鈥檚 inherently multicultural curriculum has broadened and deepened to be ever more inclusive of diverse stories and perspectives. We have brought diverse community members in and together through our festivals and celebrations we are working to make our festival life even more inclusive, honoring all people. These same efforts are being taken up on a national level for the greater Waldorf education movement, in particular teacher training institutes. We strive to grow increasingly welcoming and affirming and we, as individuals involved with the school, are working to deepen our personal understanding and be better witnesses of the experiences of people from different backgrounds than our own.
As staff and teachers, we participate in trainings on cultural competence, examining privilege and dismantling oppression. We also strive to help our students recognize and counter white supremacy and oppression, developing positive identities through conversations with their teachers as well as with guests, most recently the Flobots.
Our Diversity and Inclusivity Committee helps shepherd this work throughout the school. Together we reflect, envision, and act to shape 91探花 as a place where families, faculty, and staff of all backgrounds feel welcomed and valued. Part of our work as a committee is studying together. This year we read Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum. This book helped us better understand racial identity development as it unfolds in Black children, children of color, and White children and our role as parents and educators.
This summer, Diversity and Inclusivity member Vernon Dewey invites all DWS community members who are interested to join him in reading and discussing White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, a book previously read by the committee. This book is particularly helpful for White people in understanding White privilege in order to better engage in social change. You may email him at [email protected]. Magally Luna will also be leading a Healing Justice Circle for any DWS People of Color wanting support during this time. You may email her at [email protected].
We also recommend the following:
: resources for teachers, parents and guardians
: a compilation of resources for white people and parents to deepen our work in anti-racism
: Started by Ava DuVernay, director of Now They See Us, this is a compilation of African American independent films – an array of stories and voices.
: Teaching about race, racism, and police violence
: Curated by Medium and updated regularly.
Thank you to our community for joining us in elevating our commitment to social justice and renewal.
In Solidarity,
91探花
3 Things You Can Start Doing Now to Keep Your Kids Safe Online
There 91探花 鈥檚 no arguing that modern technology poses a range of dangers to your children 91探花 鈥檚 development and to the value of their relationships. You know your child needs your guidance to develop a healthy relationship with technology, and to learn to regulate their own use in a healthy manner in the long term.
You also know that you must protect your child, especially from more acute threats, until they learn the foundations of self-regulation.
Ideally, your child 91探花 鈥檚 school would partner with you to help you manage technology use and nurture the development of your child 91探花 鈥檚 inner life. But the reality is that screen time and internet exposure is becoming increasingly pervasive in most schools.
The world is becoming increasingly digital. Whether you keep your children on a strict screen-time schedule or allow them to regulate their own time, these tools will help you keep your children safe as they explore the digital world.
Password Manager
Password managers can keep your children from accessing sensitive account information while using your devices, while keeping those accounts accessible to you.
A password manager is digital organizer for all of your online passwords that is stored online and accessed with, well, a password.
The benefit of a password manager is freedom of security. With a password manager you can protect all of your online accounts with strong passwords with the reassurance that you will be able to access your accounts even if you can鈥檛 remember each individual password. And that 91探花 鈥檚 great, because the number of password protected accounts we need just to get from one place to another is only increasing.
When deciding on a password manager, you鈥檒l have to determine whether you prefer cloud storage or local storage, which will depend on two things: how much functionality you desire and how paranoid you are. Local storage is a good idea if you鈥檙e very worried about a data breach or if you work in a highly sensitive field.
Parental Controls
Nearly every digital device is equipped with parental controls designed to help parents set and enforce limits on screen time, content, and more.
Sometimes, a device 91探花 鈥檚 onboard parental controls simply aren鈥檛 enough. In those cases, there is a wide range of third-party controls, which give parents more options and provide greater functionality. 聽Most parental control apps require a yearly paid subscription, so be sure the app you choose is right for your family 91探花 鈥檚 needs.
Parental controls are important on your child 91探花 鈥檚 personal devices, as well as family devices.
Click here for a detailed list of parental control options.
Communicate
Any time you consider restriction, you must also consider how such measures will affect trust between you and your child. Your child needs your trust to transition through to adulthood in a whole, healthy manner. However, this trust must be mutual. Your child must also trust you.
Thus the importance of communication. As a parent, you can鈥檛 demand trust. It 91探花 鈥檚 a gradual process that requires mutual commitment and constant communication over time.
聽鈥淥ur highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility鈥攖hese three forces are the very nerve of education.鈥�
鈥暵�Rudolf Steiner
We minimize screen time and maximize our students' experience.
Want to see how we do it? Schedule a tour!
3 Defining Attributes of a Waldorf High School Student College Recruiters Can鈥檛 Resist
College recruiters are actively seeking Waldorf educated youth for their programs in record numbers. Since the release of , primary and secondary educators have become increasingly aware of the exceptional quality and deeper learning opportunities of Waldorf education, and increasingly enthusiastic.
This year alone, 94% of graduating seniors at the Denver Waldorf High School have been accepted to high quality postsecondary institutions, earning $4.4M in scholarships.
Waldorf students leave high school with three traits the best colleges and universities are particularly excited about.
Self-direction. In a world where change is the only thing we can count on, it 91探花 鈥檚 not enough to wait for instructions. To be successful, one must be able to assess circumstances and direct their own actions. This is so not only for employment, but for life.
A self-directed individual can look beyond the norm to piece together a fulfilling life for themselves based on their own needs and joys. These are the individuals who are least susceptible to mental illness and spiritual fatigue.
Personal Development. Before adulthood, personal development is a physiological function of growth. Later, however, we must actively and consciously endeavor to continue growing toward our best selves.
Waldorf education prepares graduates to strive continuously toward personal growth and development. They鈥檙e challenged not only to examine the world around them, but the world within them. And they career this ability into the rest of their life.
Academic Confidence. It 91探花 鈥檚 long been understood that confidence, one 91探花 鈥檚 belief in themselves, is the spice of success. However, overreaching confidence can become detrimental when not focused. Academic confidence is specific. Waldorf high school students are challenged to learn that they can learn. They leave high school confident in their ability to identify problems and investigate solutions.
We know from experience why Waldorf students are in such high demand at the world 91探花 鈥檚 best colleges and universities. But what does the research say?
鈥淥ne overriding result is that Waldorf students seem more interested to learn and more socially engaged than mainstream students,鈥� according to Bob Dahlin, international academic and author of Rudolf Steiner: The Relevance of Waldorf Education.
Read "How to Choose the Right High School"
But this study isn鈥檛 all roses. In his conclusion, Dahlin suggests that while Waldorf students leave high school with a greater likelihood of being driven to continue their education not only immediately in college or university, but throughout their life, they may be behind their peers in fact recitation. He notes in his examination that we may have to choose between fostering wrote memorization of a greater pool of facts, or fewer recitable facts and a greater passion for inquiry.
Higher education administrators appear to have made their choice.
In a world wherein all factual knowledge is accessible instantaneously, fostering the intrinsic drive to discover is the most important trait we can foster in our youth to ensure lifelong success.
Come see how we do it. Schedule a tour of our high school!
Don鈥檛 Quiet Your Mind. Quiet Your Thoughts So You Can Hear Your Mind.
From meditation to dreams, the vital health benefits of quieting our thoughts and exploring our mind have been well documented. Research supports the growing trend of including meditation in education. Schools worldwide have even gone as far as replacing detention and other traditionally punitive measures with breathing and meditation.
Though the conversation about how these practices are beneficial, there is little discussion around why these practices are so beneficial. And really, though the prompt is common, there 91探花 鈥檚 very little discussion about what actually happens when we 鈥渢urn off the mind.鈥�Read more
If We Want Our Children to be More Innovative, Courageous, and Resilient, We Must Encourage Them to be More Vulnerable
What does it mean to be vulnerable?
In a world where it 91探花 鈥檚 become popular to deride anyone who doesn鈥檛 have 鈥渢hick skin鈥�, anyone who believes in standing up for something 鈥� including themselves 鈥� it may be difficult as a parent to embrace teaching your child to be vulnerable. We want them to be safe, after all. We want them to be protected.
But what is lost in the space between our hearts, and our armor? And what happens when that armor comes off?Read more
The Life-long Success Equation for High School Students
Innovations in technology means changes in the paths our children may take in the world. Work requiring a human touch is becoming more select. Yesterday 91探花 鈥檚 jobs 鈥� and the security that came with them 鈥� are rapidly being replaced by either algorithms or creative thinkers who cannot only predict innovation, but drive it.
Innovation is the currency of modern success, and innovation is driven from within.Read more
Intrinsic Motivation Drives Lifelong Learning
We鈥檝e developed a culture motivated by external rewards, unrelated compensation for work done. On a basic level, this drive is a natural extension of the give-take relationship between working members of a community. In a functioning society, all members participate in bringing goods to bear for trade, so that the entire community may live a more fruitful life.
But education is personal. Inquiry is the mechanism by which we each advance our own understanding of the observable world and our place within it.
Waldorf Education Prepares Teens for Fulfilling Lives. Here's How.
Being a teenager is challenging.
On one hand they鈥檙e expected to be adults, to discover who they are in the myriad possibilities and support themselves physically and emotionally. Far too many teens are challenged to practically pick out a personality from a two-dimensional storefront of limited acceptance, and then cash that in for a place in the workforce.Read more
Problem Solving or Problem Finding? How To Prepare Teens For The Future
Problem solving gets a lot of attention, and for good reason. As an employee, those who can identify a problem and quickly find a solution can spare their team a lot of stress. And in today 91探花 鈥檚 relatively egalitarian workspace, everyone is responsible for contributing ideas and solutions. It 91探花 鈥檚 no wonder, therefore, that the best universities and employers keep problem solving high on the list of admirable attributes.
Less discussed is problem-solving 91探花 鈥檚 more creative cousin, problem finding.
What do I mean by more creative? Recent research into creativity shows that problem finding - the ability to discover, create, or preempt problems in order to better understand a mechanism 鈥� serves a prime role in Of course that 91探花 鈥檚 great if your child plans to enter a creative career.
It 91探花 鈥檚 also important in nearly any career.
The days of getting good at your job and staying there for thirty years are long gone. Your child is entering a world that changes at the speed of ideas. It will always be important to be able to solve problems. However, in this new, fluid economy, problem solving is just too slow.
What is problem solving? In ages past, when change took decades or even lifetimes, problem solving was one of the most valuable skills an individual could carry with them into a career. Reserved primarily for leaders, problem solving skills were an elite quality generally only acknowledged in upper management even in more creative organizations.
Over time, however, the hierarchical model of paid ideation disintegrated beneath the weight of consumer demand. It became everyone 91探花 鈥檚 job to drop a comment in the box, if you will, though the cultural shift toward breaking down that hierarchy didn鈥檛 take so easily. Many of those comments were ignored.
Up to that point, problem solvers were those who could take the numbers weeks, months, even years after the problem began, and quickly piece together a 鈥渟olution.鈥� With a band-aid on the issue, it would be weeks, months, even years before anyone discovered that the solution didn鈥檛 work or worse, it caused a new problem.
It turns out, problem solving doesn鈥檛 affect long-term success. Problem solving cuts the discovery process short, focuses on the symptom, and most inefficient, is reactionary.
What is problem finding? Today, change happens rapidly. The modern world 鈥� employment economy included 鈥� can comfortably be described as fluid. By the time a solution rolls out in a large organization, a new problem has arisen. The time an organization spends trying to stop leaks is time a competing organization spends attracting the first company 91探花 鈥檚 business.
Individuals working under this type of stress cannot thrive. They get swept up in the current and moved along too fast until everything falls to pieces 鈥� at work and at home.
A defining attribute of problem finders is their ability to be comfortable with discomfort in order to take the time they need to examine and identify the root of a problem.
Problem finding, then, allows individuals to delve more deeply into issues affecting their work, and that 91探花 鈥檚 great. What makes problem finders more successful, however, is their ability to dig deeply and find the cause of problems affecting their life, feelings, and relationships.
Because the eagerness of problem solving tempts solvers to accept the easiest answer, they tend to attribute difficult interpersonal situations to the ill will of others. Conversely, problem finders are more willing to spend time in their discomfort to discover the true reason behind their negative interactions, even if it implicates themselves.
So, which is it?
Helping youth develop their problem finding skills certainly prepares them for success in their future career, relationships, and personal wellness. Promoting problem solving skills prepares youth to think on their feet, overcome problems quickly, and lead effectively from anywhere in an organization.
Which is it, then? Well, both.
Ideally, as parents and educators we teach our children how to find problems, how to solve problems, and when to do each. Better yet, we prepare youth for independence by teaching them how to discover the answers for themselves.
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Schedule a tour.
What Makes Some People Innovative?
And How to Make Sure Your Child Is One of Them.
Innovation.
Have you heard that word lately? Unless you鈥檝e been away from the world for a while, chances are you hear it every day. You don鈥檛 just hear it, you live it. And your children live it too.Read more