Home: Freunde Waldorf

In The City of Eternal Spring

Mexico: Carrying the name of the city, a Waldorf school exists in Cuernavaca since 1989. The initiative is the biggest Waldorf School in Mexico and is authorized to teach the students up to grade 9 instead of the usual authorization up to grade 6. Apart from building up a High School, the Centro Antroposofico in Cuernavaca founded a regular periodic teacher’s training in 2001, which is held each summer during a period of three weeks.

Alexander von Humboldt coined the second name of Cuernavaca: “City of Eternal Spring”. In order to get there form Mexico-City, 85 km have to be covered. Nearly every hour, a bus heads out from the airport to the city located in the Mexican highlands and which, up to today, remains a popular weekend get-away due to its warm climate. However, the beauty of the city should not deceive about the fact that it does not only host rangy canyons, often containing water throughout the year, but also social abysm. Again and again Cuernavaca is the scene of lasting criminality, reminding it of the huge discrepancy between poor and rich. In the past, several wealthy families have become kidnapping victims.

This is the background of the Waldorf School, which actually used to be a Montessori School before 1989. When its founder, Rosa Barocia, heard about Waldorf education in a lecture, held by a Waldorf teacher, she decided to successfully complete a Waldorf teacher’s training at the Rudolf Steiner College in Sacramento. Together with Martha Nanez, Rosa Barocia started her project to transfigure the existing school in Cuernavaca into a Waldorf school.

At first a kindergarten and six grades of school were established, until the official high school permit was authorized, allowing the school to open the grades 7-9.

Finally Rosa Barocia retired from running the school, in order to meet the constant need of Waldorf educated teachers with ongoing three-week teacher training. These courses became increasingly popular and are very well attended by international students, as students from El Salvador and the Dominican Republic also participate.

Despite the fact that the student figures rose very quickly at first, the school has gone through various crises over the past years, which led to an eventual closing of High School. A lot of effort was necessary to overcome these difficult times. Currently the school experiences a new period of revival, with a lot of new impulses, which someday in the future should turn into a reality.

Empower & donate now
Empower & donate now