Waldorf 100

2019 will mark the 100th anniversary of the world's first Waldorf School. With over 1,100 Waldorf Schools (1,700 Waldorf kindergartens) in 70 countries around the world and more being established every year, Waldorf Education has become a well established educational movement, transcending cultural and political boundaries. Waldorf 100 is a worldwide effort to unite schools, alumni, parents, and teachers to celebrate the first 100 years of Waldorf Education and to consider Waldorf Education in context of the needs and challenges the next century will bring. Heading towards this Centennial celebration, there are a number of projects that schools around the globe are participating in. At Otto Specht School, we are thrilled to have the chance for our small school to connect with so many others all over the world!

Upcoming EventS: Three days of celebration in the NY metro region including

“Sport Inspires and Unites Community 5K” hosted by OSS

W100 Lessons: Honeybees

Our students were fascinated to learn more about honeybees from Beekeeping expert Bill Day of the Pfeiffer Center. Fun fact - when bears stick their paws in a beehive to eat, its not the honey they are after - its the larva! We are so fortunate to have the Pfeiffer Center on campus, caring for these incredible creatures and we are happy to be able to help provide such a rich habitat for honeybees and all other pollinators!

Waldorf World Wide

To celebrate the global reach of Waldorf Education, we had a craft booth at our Spring Farm Faire where children could create one of several traditional crafts from various countries or draw a postcard to send to one of the thousands of Waldorf Schools around the world. See “Bees and Trees” below for more on this initiative.

Messages From Around the World

We have mounted wooden cutouts of the world's continents, created by our woodwork teacher Bill Kelly with artistic direction from our handwork teacher, Madeleine Weurgler, in the Threefold Cafe. We are pleased to share these postcards we are receiving from around the world with the greater community and with the many people who will come to our campus this summer to study Waldorf Education at Sunbridge Institute.

Bees and trees

Bees, integral to our survival, are creatures whose wisdom and worth we are only now beginning to recognize as all around the world, bees are struggling to survive. As Waldorf Education celebrates 100 years, it is with an eye to the future, a challenge to educate children who can grow to change the world in wonderful and remarkable ways. Rudolf Steiner noted a century ago that bees would suffer due to our actions on this earth, but he also noted that we could learn an enormous amount about life and community through observing bee colonies. We are finally waking up to the truth of his observations now.

  "Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require its social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die" - The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men

At Otto Specht School, we have planted seeds for our Therapeutic Herb Garden that will help support both native bee and honey bee populations. We are also incorporating lessons and crafts involving bees into the classrooms to open our students' eyes to the amazing life of bees.

See the film

A beautiful film showing the living art of Waldorf Education around the world and interviews with educators working with Steiner/Waldorf pedagogy.

taking part at oss

At Otto Specht School, students are busy writing and drawing postcards to other Waldorf Schools around the world, one of the Waldorf 100 projects. 

eurythmy World Tour