High School
Be engaged. Be motivated. Be challenged.
High school students are searching for truth. A Chicago Waldorf High School education offers adolescents the guidance and inspiration they seek in their pursuit of their emerging ideals. Who am I? How can I make a difference in the world? These questions are central and the CWHS helps students find their own answers by meeting them where they are in their cognitive, emotional and social development.
The faculty and staff of the CWHS understand that adolescence is a time when young people seek to be met by teachers who recognize that each student is crossing over one of the great thresholds of life. Specialist teachers lead the students through a rich and varied array of main lesson topics. Independent thinking, creative writing and consistent work habits are emphasized. The lesson books created in these classes are filled with essays and scientific observations, which increase in sophistication and beauty and become an important element of the student’s work.
Weekly lessons, or track classes, in mathematics, English, foreign language (Spanish or German), music, eurythmy, and physical education provide ongoing practice and acquisition of skill in these subjects. Fine and practical arts, taught for 90-minutes each day in blocks from three to six weeks long, enliven the heart by providing a balance to the more intellectual academic subjects, and provide students with a personal experience of the intrinsic value of beauty in everyday life, and the development of skill and discipline in the pursuit of each art experienced.
View the CWHS Graduates University Listing.
Unique to the Chicago Waldorf High School is the comprehensive community service/ service-learning program and a foreign exchange program. The community service learning program includes 50 hours of service in the city and two weeks out of town for each grade. Past out of town study trips have included biodynamic farming and land surveying on a working farm and land trust in Wisconsin, working with the developmentally disabled at an intentional community in Pennsylvania, studying and analyzing the tidal pools at Hermit Island in Maine, and doing physical labor to support building projects, a medical clinic and two local schools in Chacala and Las Varas, Mexico. Students also have the opportunity to broaden their perspective by spending a semester abroad in one of the many Waldorf schools around the world. CWHS students have gone on student exchange programs to Austria, Germany, Italy, Peru and Spain.
The Waldorf high school provides students with a comprehensive curriculum that focuses on developing the life of cognition. During each year of the high school a different cognitive faculty is trained: in ninth grade it is the powers of observation, in tenth the powers of comparison, in eleventh those of analysis, and in twelfth synthesis.
Special Programs
The Chicago Waldorf School offers many special programs as a part of our commitment to providing our students with a broad spectrum of activities.
Required Special Programs include:
Sophomore Play
Senior Play
Senior Project
Annual Chorus Performances
Annual Eurythmy Performances
100 Hours of Local Community Service
Annual Service Learning Trips
Extracurricular Programs
The Chicago Waldorf School offers students the following extracurricular programs that occur outside the regular school day. Participation in these activities is noted on the transcript.
Foreign Exchange
Women’s Volleyball
Women’s Basketball
Women’s Soccer
Men’s Volleyball
Men’s Basketball
Men’s Soccer
Model United Nations
Drama Club
Student Council
Yearbook
See enrollment information and a downloadable application for our High School program.