Te Akomanga Tuawaru

Class Eight

‘Identity’

The fourteenth year is a milestone year in the inner life of a young person. There is an increasing realisation – and assertion – of the individual sense of self, of the uniqueness of one’s own identity.

In Class Eight, students are encouraged to form opinions, take positions, and assume responsibility for themselves in the wider community. The students are in the process of completing their passage through childhood and are entering young adulthood, an achievement that provides a broader viewpoint, sharper powers of observation, and growing critical faculties. These skills help students develop the scope and the perceptive abilities to recollect, to connect, to see relationships – abilities which make it possible to build a comprehensive picture whether the subject is history, physics or maths.

The students are increasingly experiencing themselves as individuals with tastes and impulses of their own. They rightfully challenge accepted practices and ideas in order to understand and participate in a more independent way. The goal is for the students to experience a stronger sense of self-mastery and responsibility.

The Waldorf curriculum aims to meet these needs.