So many kids in the US have struggled with their mental health in one way or another. Many kids struggle with feelings of depression and anxiety from the way that students are pressured in school for a multitude of reasons. In the United States especially, so much importance is put on doing well in school, getting good grades, and getting accepted into the “right” or “best” college. In a country that puts so much pressure and importance on these things, you would assume that our education system has been modernized to fit our current generation of students, but it hasn’t. Classrooms still look the same as they did 100 years ago, and kids are still struggling with a suffocating atmosphere in school.

Each generation is always different and no two students will ever be the same. We need to create a system that works for a majority of students and is an improvement from what we have now. There have been education systems that attempt at making this happen, and those include the Reggio Emilia approach, the Montessori approach, and the Waldorf education system. 

To focus on one of these systems that really focuses on the well-being of our future generations, the Waldorf Education system is really interesting. The main focus of Waldorf education is to develop a child’s mind, body, and spirit. In the younger years of a child’s life (preschool age) they accomplish this in many ways, one being the involvement of nature in their teachings. They spend most of their time outdoors, letting a child use their gross motor skills to learn. In an interview with Melissa Campbell, a current teacher’s assistant at a Waldorf preschool, she says, “No one would look at this and ask, ’where are the academics?’ The focus is getting the child to connect with the body so that when they are introduced to academics, they are more successful.” The kids in this preschool don’t work with numbers or letters, and they don’t have any posters on the walls, or distractions in the classrooms. No technology, no books, and no academics. The kids also don’t learn stories through books because the teacher, who is seen more as a role model, memorizes these stories and then tells them to the kids so that they can use their imaginations when listening. 

This way of learning is much different than a standard academic approach. One of the main points of this education system is to let kids be kids. Another quote from Melissa Campbell is: “Kids need play. Kids learn through play. To limit their play is to limit their ability to be imaginative.” In these Waldorf schools, the pressure is also significantly reduced and a kid doesn’t feel the pressure to excel in academics, when they should be exploring, being curious, and being a kid. 

Something that modern day schools really miss is letting go of the pressure that they give kids. One thing that really doesn’t help is standardized testing. A lot of what school is, is rankings, G.P.A.s, numbers and letters determining scores in classes, and kids can really feel that their worth is only how high that number is, how high they can make it, is it higher than someone else’s, and so on and so forth. This represents a bad spiral a student can go down and it can lead to a lack of motivation and self-esteem. 

The Waldorf education system surrounds students in a good environment and works towards not giving kids the stress that modern schools do. A change in our modern day school system is needed desperately as so many kids struggle with poor mental health because of it. 

At the end of the day, no system can really be perfect, as it can’t ultimately fit or work for every student, but the beauty of a system like the Waldorf system is that it works to fit the individual needs of kids in general, and that is exactly what this generation needs. Its time that school stops being about standardized testing and GPA’s, and start prioritizing the well-being of our students.