At the end of World War I, Emil Molt, the owner of the Waldorf Astoria Cigarette Factory turned Rudolf Steiner, a leader in modern education thought and practices to develop a new education for the children of the employees at his factory. He wanted an education that would allow children to grow up to be clear thinkers who could work with social situations in a complex world in a way that would no longer lead humanity towards choosing war as a way of dealing with conflict between peoples. Emil Molt funded the first Waldorf School that opened its doors in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1919, with a full school program through the grades.

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Central to Waldorf Education is a recognition of and a respect for the child’s unfolding individuality. The curriculum is designed to meet the child’s specific developmental needs–where they are in their developmental stage– from the preschool through to high school. Rudolf Steiner maintained that “all education is self-education,” and therefore the task of the teacher lies in creating a learning environment in which the child can find age-appropriate nourishment and challenge. In a world in which education is focused on normative, quantifiable outcomes, the uniqueness of the individual child’s gifts and challenges often has to take a backseat to the pressure of general societal expectations.