Instead of reciting numbers at their desks for their teacher, the first-graders at the Siskiyou School in Ashland sing and dance to review their numbers.

"One is for the golden sun," they sing as they hold hands and take the form of a circle.

"Two is for night and day." The children each take a partner and rotate around them.

This is one of the whimsical lessons inside Jackson County's largest Waldorf school.

"For every number, for every letter, an image is given," says School Administrator Catherine Razi, pointing to drawings depicting a tree, a snake and other images of nature growing out of letters of the alphabet.

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With the Waldorf method developed by Austrian scientist Rudolf Steiner in the early 1900s, nature dictates the pace of education. Imagination and creativity through storytelling, physical exercise, art and music enlivens it.

Unlike public schools, children aren't pressured to learn to read by the third grade. State standardized tests are nonexistent. Teachers stay with the same group of pupils for several years.

The Waldorf method is attracting a growing number of parents in Jackson County, but at $5,100 a year for tuition at the Siskiyou School, it's not affordable for everyone. Even at the school, much of the student body is on tuition assistance.

Parents have been pushing for more Waldorf instruction in public schools, particularly in the Ashland and Medford school districts.

On Tuesday, the Medford School Board is expected to decide whether to sponsor a Waldorf-style charter school that would charge no tuition.

The Ashland district's Willow Wind Community Learning Center is now the base for a Waldorf-inspired homeschool network. Similar networks have sprouted in Jacksonville and in Williams in Josephine County.

"After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, people started talking about education (in the United States) as a race," said Gesine Abraham, a teacher at the Star of the Morning, a Waldorf preschool in Jacksonville. "That attitude has prevailed. We are pushing kids faster and faster and losing childhood. Some people want to slow that down."

Instead of reading textbooks and filling out worksheets, Waldorf students create their own workbooks in which they process the lessons of the day through drawings and writings.

"The idea is you take the information and bring it to life," said Molly McKissick, the seventh-grade teacher at the Siskiyou School. "Rather than answering questions on a worksheet, you make the knowledge your own." That helps students to retain the information over time, she said.

In spite of the focus on the arts, the coursework is challenging, teachers said.

Pupils at the Siskiyou School take zoology in the fourth grade, U.S. geography in the fifth grade, world geography in the sixth grade and physics in the seventh grade.

Unlike public schools, foreign language is required in Waldorf schools.

Siskiyou School students take Spanish during grades 1-8.

Children do not receive numerical or letter grades until the sixth grade. Based on benchmarks in Waldorf curriculum, teachers evaluate students by looking for skills demonstrated in their workbook and reporting to parents in conferences and an annual letter outlining the pupil's progress.

"Because the teachers stay with students for seven to eight years, they know them intimately well in all aspects of their work and who they are as people," Razi said.

How Waldorf children perform academically compared to students in traditional schools is unclear. While little evidence is available, Waldorf proponents claim many Waldorf students who transfer to a traditional high school such as Ashland High earn high marks.

Out of the more than 1,100 students who graduated from Waldorf high schools in the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America between 1993 and 1999, 78 percent entered college immediately after graduation, according to surveys by the association. Another 10 percent indicated they were planning to seek a postsecondary education.

McKissick said her daughter, a freshman at Ashland High, has earned straight As after attending a Waldorf school for eight years.

"My daughter uses her (Waldorf workbooks) as a reference for high school," McKissick said. "The books are nice to show the grandparents, but to actually refer to the books in high school was a surprise."

Reach reporter Paris Achen by calling 541-776-4459 or pachen@mailtribune.com.