On first impression, Waldorf Education can seem a little curious. Or out of step with the times. Especially in a hyper-driven culture that stresses academic achievement over a more rounded sense of well being.
The truth is that Waldorf Education is more relevant than ever. The future you are leaving to your children will require more than just book smarts. It will call for courage, creativity, and care. These are the precise qualities that Waldorf has nurtured for the past 100 years.
Instead of memorizing facts from textbooks in order to pass exams, our students internalize knowledge by hand writing and illustrating their own textbooks. This results in a library of beautiful, prideful work, and a vivid understanding of the subject matter.
Our teachers often stay with a class for several years, if not first through eight grade. This allows teachers to develop a better understanding of the class community, as well as a deeper understanding of each student.
Reading is too important to be rushed, and the Waldorf approach is thorough, rich, artistic, and joyful for first graders. Our goal is children who love to read and become life-long readers. 100 years of Waldorf Education shows strong evidence of success in our methods.
The truth is that Waldorf Education is more relevant than ever. Click below to learn more.
The truth is that Waldorf Education is more relevant than ever. Click below to learn more.
The truth is that Waldorf Education is more relevant than ever. Click below to learn more.
See our vibrant alternative in education for yourself. Tours are for adults only and last about an hour. Bring your questions!
Film Writer/Director
"CLWS taught me that creativity and the arts should be integrated into life, I was never afraid to pursue the arts as a profession"
Highland Park, CA
Watershed and Perpich Center for the Arts
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
American Film Institute Conservatory
CLWS CLASS OF 2002
“Waldorf school taught me that creativity and the arts should be integrated into life,” says filmmaker Yoko Okumura CLWS ’02. “I was never afraid to pursue the arts as a profession.”
Okumura has been fixed on film since her grade school days at City of Lakes, when she was, as she laughingly puts it, “that kid who was always holding the taboo video recorder—I recorded all of our school plays!”
She stuck with it through an arts high school and BFA and MFA programs in film, ultimately gravitating toward directing.
Although directing is her passion, any neophyte filmmaker also has to write and produce her own work, which Okumura has done. Her film short Kimi Kabuki, an MFA project, earned her the Jury Award at the 2015 Austin Film Festival, among many other accolades. “That film got me a manager, an agent, and a lot of good meetings,” Okumura says. “It was a big step into the industry.”
Thanks in part to the success of Kimi Kabuki, Okumura today fully supports herself as a filmmaker. Along with working on feature films, she produces documentaries, including a recent one about her father, Soto Zen Buddhist priest Shohaku Okumura.
Her feature films currently in development are “pretty much all about Asian American women,” she says. “I want to tell more nuanced stories about minorities in this country.”
And although film is her primary creative outlet, it is by no means the only one, says Okumura, who also continues to draw, act, do improv and standup comedy, and perform in the circus arts. That last interest, she laughs, is “definitely something I got from Waldorf.”
“I’m blessed I got to do all these arts for eight years at City of Lakes,” says Okumura. “I gained a confidence in myself and in my creativity that my conventionally schooled friends have struggled for.”
Film Writer/Director
"CLWS taught me that creativity and the arts should be integrated into life, I was never afraid to pursue the arts as a profession"
Highland Park, CA
Watershed and Perpich Center for the Arts
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
American Film Institute Conservatory
CLWS CLASS OF 2002
“Waldorf school taught me that creativity and the arts should be integrated into life,” says filmmaker Yoko Okumura CLWS ’02. “I was never afraid to pursue the arts as a profession.”
Okumura has been fixed on film since her grade school days at City of Lakes, when she was, as she laughingly puts it, “that kid who was always holding the taboo video recorder—I recorded all of our school plays!”
She stuck with it through an arts high school and BFA and MFA programs in film, ultimately gravitating toward directing.
Although directing is her passion, any neophyte filmmaker also has to write and produce her own work, which Okumura has done. Her film short Kimi Kabuki, an MFA project, earned her the Jury Award at the 2015 Austin Film Festival, among many other accolades. “That film got me a manager, an agent, and a lot of good meetings,” Okumura says. “It was a big step into the industry.”
Thanks in part to the success of Kimi Kabuki, Okumura today fully supports herself as a filmmaker. Along with working on feature films, she produces documentaries, including a recent one about her father, Soto Zen Buddhist priest Shohaku Okumura.
Her feature films currently in development are “pretty much all about Asian American women,” she says. “I want to tell more nuanced stories about minorities in this country.”
And although film is her primary creative outlet, it is by no means the only one, says Okumura, who also continues to draw, act, do improv and standup comedy, and perform in the circus arts. That last interest, she laughs, is “definitely something I got from Waldorf.”
“I’m blessed I got to do all these arts for eight years at City of Lakes,” says Okumura. “I gained a confidence in myself and in my creativity that my conventionally schooled friends have struggled for.”
Film Writer/Director
"CLWS taught me that creativity and the arts should be integrated into life, I was never afraid to pursue the arts as a profession"
Highland Park, CA
Watershed and Perpich Center for the Arts
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
American Film Institute Conservatory
CLWS CLASS OF 2002
“Waldorf school taught me that creativity and the arts should be integrated into life,” says filmmaker Yoko Okumura CLWS ’02. “I was never afraid to pursue the arts as a profession.”
Okumura has been fixed on film since her grade school days at City of Lakes, when she was, as she laughingly puts it, “that kid who was always holding the taboo video recorder—I recorded all of our school plays!”
She stuck with it through an arts high school and BFA and MFA programs in film, ultimately gravitating toward directing.
Although directing is her passion, any neophyte filmmaker also has to write and produce her own work, which Okumura has done. Her film short Kimi Kabuki, an MFA project, earned her the Jury Award at the 2015 Austin Film Festival, among many other accolades. “That film got me a manager, an agent, and a lot of good meetings,” Okumura says. “It was a big step into the industry.”
Thanks in part to the success of Kimi Kabuki, Okumura today fully supports herself as a filmmaker. Along with working on feature films, she produces documentaries, including a recent one about her father, Soto Zen Buddhist priest Shohaku Okumura.
Her feature films currently in development are “pretty much all about Asian American women,” she says. “I want to tell more nuanced stories about minorities in this country.”
And although film is her primary creative outlet, it is by no means the only one, says Okumura, who also continues to draw, act, do improv and standup comedy, and perform in the circus arts. That last interest, she laughs, is “definitely something I got from Waldorf.”
“I’m blessed I got to do all these arts for eight years at City of Lakes,” says Okumura. “I gained a confidence in myself and in my creativity that my conventionally schooled friends have struggled for.”
Highland Park, CA
Watershed and Perpich Center for the Arts
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
American Film Institute Conservatory
CLWS CLASS OF 2002
“Waldorf school taught me that creativity and the arts should be integrated into life,” says filmmaker Yoko Okumura CLWS ’02. “I was never afraid to pursue the arts as a profession.”
Okumura has been fixed on film since her grade school days at City of Lakes, when she was, as she laughingly puts it, “that kid who was always holding the taboo video recorder—I recorded all of our school plays!”
She stuck with it through an arts high school and BFA and MFA programs in film, ultimately gravitating toward directing.
Although directing is her passion, any neophyte filmmaker also has to write and produce her own work, which Okumura has done. Her film short Kimi Kabuki, an MFA project, earned her the Jury Award at the 2015 Austin Film Festival, among many other accolades. “That film got me a manager, an agent, and a lot of good meetings,” Okumura says. “It was a big step into the industry.”
Thanks in part to the success of Kimi Kabuki, Okumura today fully supports herself as a filmmaker. Along with working on feature films, she produces documentaries, including a recent one about her father, Soto Zen Buddhist priest Shohaku Okumura.
Her feature films currently in development are “pretty much all about Asian American women,” she says. “I want to tell more nuanced stories about minorities in this country.”
And although film is her primary creative outlet, it is by no means the only one, says Okumura, who also continues to draw, act, do improv and standup comedy, and perform in the circus arts. That last interest, she laughs, is “definitely something I got from Waldorf.”
“I’m blessed I got to do all these arts for eight years at City of Lakes,” says Okumura. “I gained a confidence in myself and in my creativity that my conventionally schooled friends have struggled for.”
