A cum laude graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Neal Martin Zeavy has spent more than two decades in leadership positions with real estate, hospitality, and wellness companies throughout the West Coast. A former teacher, Neal Martin Zeavy stays involved with the field of education through his support of the Seattle Waldorf School and his passion for Waldorf education.
For nearly 100 years, students around the world have evolved into critical thinkers, creative problem-solvers, and conscientious adults through a Waldorf education. Built around a comprehensive and rigorous academic curriculum, the Waldorf philosophy blends academics with the arts and experiential methods to provide a holistic learning journey.
The Waldorf philosophy is rooted in the work of Rudolf Steiner, an early-20th-century Austrian philosopher, who believed that a human being comprises mind, body, and spirit in equal measures. In 1919, he visited the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany, where he lectured to the workers on his ideas. Inspired, the owner of the factory invited Steiner to serve as head of pedagogy at a new school for the children of the factory workers.
Steiner agreed, though he stipulated that the school be coed, that it be open to all children, and that teachers have total control over the classroom. In September 1919, the first Waldorf school opened, ushering in a new philosophy of education that has since spread to hundreds of schools around the globe.
