We are a small private non-profit school located on the beautiful Big Island of Hawaii. We offer Waldorf education to children aged 3 years old all the way through the 8th Grade. Our campus is located on a beautiful 20-acre property in Hawaiian Paradise Park, just 10 minutes away from the ocean.

“Mālamalama” means “The Light of Knowledge”. We are committed to educating the thinking, feeling, and will of the child. Methods and all related activities are taken from the new psychology of childhood oriented toward a real knowledge of the developing human being – educating the healthy growth of body, mind, and spirit.

Curriculum and Philosophy

As a Waldorf school, our primary guides for directing the programs we offer are the educational philosophies and curriculum designs established by Rudolf Steiner and adopted by the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA). With these as our guide, the faculty has developed curriculum standards for Grades 1-8 as well as the preschool and kindergarten at Mālamalama Waldorf School. Our curriculum standards embrace and embody Waldorf educational philosophies, yet speak to our unique educational community. Currently, our grades 1-8 classes consist of combined grades, creating a unique educational environment for our students. To create a cohesive and seamless curriculum, which can be used with combined classes and with single grade classes, the faculty has developed a guide within our curriculum standards detailing adjustments made to the curriculum when teaching a combined grades class.

Perhaps the best expression of the Waldorf School philosophy is simply stated in the words of Rudolf Steiner himself:

To wonder at the beauty, stand guard over truth, Look up to the noble, Resolve on the good: This leads us truly to purpose in living, to right in doing, to peace in feeling, to light in thinking; And teaches us trust in the working of God – In all that there is, In the width of the world, In the depth of the soul.

The curriculum developed for Waldorf schools is unique and comprehensive and designed to meet the specific developmental milestones of children at each age and grade. Mālamalama Waldorf School is dedicated to creating an inner enthusiasm for learning within each child, which will help lead the student to find his or her own capacities for lifelong learning. We work with the needs of each stage of childhood. 

Waldorf education balances artistic, academic, and practical work educating the whole child, hand and heart as well as the mind. Its innovative methodology and developmentally-oriented curriculum, permeated with the arts, address the child's changing consciousness as it unfolds, stage by stage. Imagination and creativity are cultivated as well as cognitive growth and a sense of responsibility for the earth and its inhabitants. Under the warm and active instruction of their teachers, children are provided with a creative and nurturing environment in which to develop, grow and learn.

Since its founding by Rudolf Steiner in 1919, the Waldorf school movement has grown to over 1,000 schools and has become the fastest-growing throughout the world. Steiner's detailed psychology of child development, described early in the 20th century, has been supported by modern research in education and neuropsychology. Through Waldorf education, Steiner hoped that young people would develop the capacities of soul and intellect and the strength of will that would prepare them to meet the challenges of their own time and the future.