On Monday, Sophia and I visited a Waldorf school in the city. Wow! It is a dream school. My first impression was good as we walked through the door and immediately Sophia was addressed as the person who had the appointment rather than me. Since Sophia is the one who researched and discovered the school and made the appointment as well as all email correspondence, I was so happy that she was respected as the person driving this interview.
Right off I also felt a sense of community and peace with this school. I have been somewhat familiar with Waldorf philosophy, but sitting there with the admissions adviser, I felt a sense of love and care would be given to my daughter if she attended.
The adviser talked a little about the school but also wanted to know about Sophia and her background. It truly makes me giddy to hear Sophia talk about her background. She knows herself so well. At first she struggled a bit in regards to explaining how she spends her days, but then shared how she isn't someone that likes to repeat activities. She likes to experience a lot of different things and then move on to the next experience. This is exactly as I have always seen her too!
During the high school years the school offers a more stringent curriculum which Sophia is actually looking forward to, while also providing lots of fine arts and travel which is an environment Sophia would no doubt thrive in.
However, there are disadvantages. This dream school comes with a hefty price tag. Even if we qualified for the largest amount of financial aid, it is still out of our league. Also, the commute would be awful. Sophia would have to take two different trains to get there with a commute of almost two hours each way. Plus, Sophia seems to want a potentially larger group of people to interact with.
Yesterday was only one day of the journey towards finding what Sophia wants and needs to fulfill her life learning journey. It gave us an idea of what choices are out there and also provided us with a lot of ideas we hadn't thought of before that we can start working on this year as she continues to live life at home. Overall, a great experience, but the search continues.
An interesting article on "unschooling" here: http://www.rr.com/news/topic/article/rr/1110/49827285/Schools_out_forever_for_unschoolers/1
ReplyDeleteI come from a family of traditional educators. Not being a parent, I'm glad I've never had to deal with the many issues you seem to handle with such grace.