Veteran Denver Waldorf School teacher Michael Baker showed a recent group of visitors through his spacious woodshop on the school’s south Denver campus. Student work, ranging from the whimsical to the practical lined the shelves.
As he described the woodworking program, which begins in fifth grade, he offered a succinct description of how Waldorf intertwines the heart, the body, and the mind through activities like woodworking.
“What is the well you go to in order to find the motive force to do?” he asked rhetorically. “Here we develop the thought life, feeling life, and will life. We try to bring these three aspects of being into balance.”
Developing will in its students is one of the more unique aspects of the Waldorf philosophy. Why is will so important? Baker explains it this way:
“Without will, what does the world receive from you? Nothing.”
