Student council conducts raffle to raise funds for Sierra Leone school

What is leadership? How does one develop the capacity for leadership? At Waldorf High School of Massachusetts Bay, we consider these questions carefully.

Drawing on our understanding of how adolescents become adults, Waldorf High School provides students with an environment in which they discover their power to lead. As students perform as stewards of our community and agents of change for the greater good, they learn the meaning of and steps to leadership.

Waldorf High School of Massachusetts Bay is a small school: a place where no one is overlooked and everyone is asked to look out for others. In this setting, students come to know each other well--and in the process find out who they are. Their growing self-awareness and self-discipline is supported in their first year here with a curriculum featuring biography and opportunities to read, write and reflect on how other individuals have roused their strengths to overcome obstacles. Invigorating class discussions allow students to gain confidence in their perceptions.  Soon, even the most reticent students learn to speak with bold expression. As students discover their individual strengths and talents, they begin to draw on them to lead effectively.

Leading violin section of the classical ensemble

Waldorf High School students soon discover that a leader is able to collaborate, to put the group's goals ahead of individual goals, and to inspire others to do the same. A sports team captain sees that overall team unity leads to more success than individual statistics. Students travel together on extended curriculum field trips in intensive shared experiences, from paddling a canoe in tandem for several days to cooking meals for the entire group. When students participate in the Model UN Club, music concerts, theater performances, and other group endeavors, each carries an unusual degree of individual responsibility for the group's overall success.

Community Service

Adolescence is a time of idealism. At Waldorf High School, we give our students the tools to transform their idealism into positive action. Our Student Council, for example, is responsible for cultivating the social values of our school. As caretakers of our community's well-being, the elected members are given enormous responsibility. In the process they learn meeting procedures, how to reach a consensus, delegate tasks, and serve as the formal link between students and faculty. Recently, the council initiated our sister-school relationship with the Goderich Waldorf School in Sierra Leone, helping to build a stronger community there as well as here at home. Because public service fuels individual development, all Waldorf students put their ideals into action in a wide variety of community service projects and senior internships.

For an article from the school newsletter about a senior internship, go to Senior Interns at Centro Presente.

At Waldorf High School of Massachusetts Bay, students learn that the initiative of one person can affect real and widespread change. They leave our community to enter and build new communities knowing how to be that individual, the one who leads others toward better lives. Visit the alumni profiles below to see how a few of our graduates are making a difference.

Elissa Huber Anderson, Class of 2002

Claire Nelson, Class of 2001

Chris Bednar, Class of 2000