Waldorf/Steiner Community Courses and Programs
Thoreau College
Thoreau College challenges students to "embrace the real": Wisconsin microcollege charts path towards new model of higher education.
Thoreau College, a microcollege located in Viroqua, Wisconsin, in the heart of the rugged Driftless Region in the western part of the state, is challenging young people to think outside the box when considering their options after high school. What does it mean to be an educated adult human being? Is it enough to simply master the contents of a standardized academic curriculum or acquire a narrow set of skills related to a particular profession? Or does becoming a resilient, thoughtful, ethically grounded person with the capacity to build and live a meaningful life require perhaps a bit more?
For Thoreau College, the answer to that latter question is quite definitely “Yes.” Since staging its first short-term programming in 2016, Thoreau College now offers programs for young adults, and older adults too, ranging from a three-week summer program to yearlong immersions in ideas and literature, the arts, farm work, wilderness expeditions, and self-governing community life. The college also coordinates full and part-time internships with a variety of local farms, schools, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.
Uniting these diverse offerings is a deep commitment to education and community at a “micro” scale - typically each program cohort includes no more than 15 participants. Moreover, the community involved in the college including students, staff, faculty, and internship participants generally includes about 20 - 25 members at most, all of whom share a role in the governance, development, and physical care for the college and its facilities, including growing, preparing, and sharing food. This small size means that each student has a chance to be seen and to contribute as a district individual, whose ideas, needs, interests, and gifts are uniquely important to the life of the community. Needless to say, this is also not a college where a student has the option of hiding in the back of the lecture hall - or the Zoom classroom!
Another central component of the Thoreau College approach to education, is its philosophy of “Higher Education for the Whole Human Being.” Inspired by the example of the American Transcendentalist thinker Henry David Thoreau, as well as by the models of Waldorf education and Deep Springs College, Thoreau College builds all of its programs around the “Five Pillars”: Academics, Labor, Art, Nature, and Community. Conceived of as the broadest possible form of the traditional liberal arts curriculum, Thoreau College programs strive to challenge and stimulate every student every day in some way. Examples might include engaging a deep reading and discussion of a work of classic literature, solving a difficult practical problem at the commercial greenhouse or small organic farm run by the college, braving the elements and darkness on a wilderness solo or expedition, wrestling with a consequential governance decision with fellow students in a committee meeting, or working with focus to carve a beautiful spoon out of piece of wood you have harvested.
A final distinctive aspect of Thoreau College is its serious commitment to financial accessibility. While most innovative alternative education programs, including most formal Gap Year Programs, can be prohibitively expensive for most students, Thoreau College works closely with each to make sure that they are able to participate, through extensive individualized financial aid, extended payment options, and support for travel, living expenses, and course materials. To do this, the college asks students to take on important administrative and manual tasks, including at the Thoreau’s Garden greenhouse business, which generates some income for the college. More ...
Thoreau College, a microcollege located in Viroqua, Wisconsin, in the heart of the rugged Driftless Region in the western part of the state, is challenging young people to think outside the box when considering their options after high school. What does it mean to be an educated adult human being? Is it enough to simply master the contents of a standardized academic curriculum or acquire a narrow set of skills related to a particular profession? Or does becoming a resilient, thoughtful, ethically grounded person with the capacity to build and live a meaningful life require perhaps a bit more?
For Thoreau College, the answer to that latter question is quite definitely “Yes.” Since staging its first short-term programming in 2016, Thoreau College now offers programs for young adults, and older adults too, ranging from a three-week summer program to yearlong immersions in ideas and literature, the arts, farm work, wilderness expeditions, and self-governing community life. The college also coordinates full and part-time internships with a variety of local farms, schools, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.
Uniting these diverse offerings is a deep commitment to education and community at a “micro” scale - typically each program cohort includes no more than 15 participants. Moreover, the community involved in the college including students, staff, faculty, and internship participants generally includes about 20 - 25 members at most, all of whom share a role in the governance, development, and physical care for the college and its facilities, including growing, preparing, and sharing food. This small size means that each student has a chance to be seen and to contribute as a district individual, whose ideas, needs, interests, and gifts are uniquely important to the life of the community. Needless to say, this is also not a college where a student has the option of hiding in the back of the lecture hall - or the Zoom classroom!
Another central component of the Thoreau College approach to education, is its philosophy of “Higher Education for the Whole Human Being.” Inspired by the example of the American Transcendentalist thinker Henry David Thoreau, as well as by the models of Waldorf education and Deep Springs College, Thoreau College builds all of its programs around the “Five Pillars”: Academics, Labor, Art, Nature, and Community. Conceived of as the broadest possible form of the traditional liberal arts curriculum, Thoreau College programs strive to challenge and stimulate every student every day in some way. Examples might include engaging a deep reading and discussion of a work of classic literature, solving a difficult practical problem at the commercial greenhouse or small organic farm run by the college, braving the elements and darkness on a wilderness solo or expedition, wrestling with a consequential governance decision with fellow students in a committee meeting, or working with focus to carve a beautiful spoon out of piece of wood you have harvested.
A final distinctive aspect of Thoreau College is its serious commitment to financial accessibility. While most innovative alternative education programs, including most formal Gap Year Programs, can be prohibitively expensive for most students, Thoreau College works closely with each to make sure that they are able to participate, through extensive individualized financial aid, extended payment options, and support for travel, living expenses, and course materials. To do this, the college asks students to take on important administrative and manual tasks, including at the Thoreau’s Garden greenhouse business, which generates some income for the college. More ...