Returning From Infinity and Other Lessons for Parents : School: Highland Hall offers six night courses so adults can experience what and how their children are learning.

The instructor drew a stick figure of a monkey with its four sprawled limbs clinging to the right side of the flattened “X” drawn on the blackboard. By asking the class to imagine the lines of the letter stretching infinitely and by moving the monkey along those lines, he attempted to demonstrate how the monkey turns upside down when it comes back from infinity.

The lesson in “projective geometry” boggled the minds of most of the traditionally educated parents in the class. But at the same time, it gave them an idea of what their children would learn under the unique curriculum at Highland Hall, a private school for kindergarten through 12th grade.

Since September, the private Northridge school has offered six night courses to parents who want to experience what their children are learning in the Waldorf-style education. The Waldorf curriculum uses interdisciplinary lessons to stimulate students’ creativity.

“They wanted to have that experience that their children were having because it’s quite a different experience than what they had in school,” said physics teacher Michael Ridenour, who coordinates the night classes. “Their children come home and tell them things about the curriculum and their curiosity is piqued.”

In the Waldorf curriculum two or more subjects may be taught together. For example, math might be taught using art, and medieval myths would be taught with a little psychology.

The curriculum is also tailored to students’ stages of development. As an example, Waldorf educators believe that children start challenging adults around age 12, so the fall of Rome is introduced to students in the sixth grade.

Parents get a three-night version of the same assignments that students receive in three-week courses during the day. The classes have included projective geometry and a myth about a search for the Holy Grail.

The adult classes were developed in response to parents’ questions about how lessons are presented to their children. Highland Hall teachers hope the parents will get enthused about the curriculum and the word-of-mouth will boost enrollment.

Not all parents have embraced the Waldorf education and some think its philosophy is rigid. One parent, who had withdrawn her child from the school and declined to identify herself, said that the school has ideas about education that border on the bizarre. She also felt it was unrealistic because it discouraged activities--such as playing video games--that many urban children enjoy as recreation.

But at the night classes, parents said they favored the Highland way over the traditional education approach.

“It’s really opened my mind up to seeing dry academics and how they really apply to life and the world we’re living in,” said parent Margaret Sachs, who has attended most of the classes offered at Highland. She has a son in first grade at Highland Hall and has already decided that he will continue there through high school.

The heads of other Valley private schools said they don’t know of other schools that offer parent classes similar to Highland Hall’s.

And a county education official, calling the classes “pretty unique,” said the concept fits into the recently changed mission statement of the County Office of Education.

“What we are encouraging school districts to do is think about the whole notion of parent education,” said Timothy Murphy, consultant in charge of the Division of Curriculum and Instruction in the County Office of Education.

Murphy said his office has been pushing more parent-school interaction because it helps parents support their children’s education while promoting a user-friendly image for schools.

“How can you communicate with your children about the homework they’re doing . . . to support what they’re doing at school?” Murphy said. “I think the more we do that, the less parents will think of schools as a baby-sitting agency.”

Waldorf schools originated early this century in Germany and are still popular there, Ridenour said. But the 35-year-old Highland Hall has had problems attracting new students, and only about 60 Waldorf schools have opened in this country.

Ridenour believes part of the problem lies in society’s materialistic definition of success. It conflicts with Highland Hall’s focus on intellectual and spiritual development of the student.

“We find ourselves somewhat at odds with the consumer-oriented society,” he explained. “The general inclination is to seek a higher-profile college preparatory school with well-developed faculties and an established reputation.”

Ridenour, who taught a night course on Light and Color, rated the evening programs a success, especially when skeptical parents challenge the teachings.

And although the staff promotes the educational and social advantages of the classes, there is also an element of an old-fashioned sales pitch when they talk about the curriculum.

The classes have “been intensely successful even though sometimes a handful of parents show up,” Ridenour said. “But they talk to other parents. We’re building something here, a community of parents who really understand what we’re doing so they can bring in other parents to enroll their kids in the school.

“The children are much more active than the parents. With the parents, it’s far more intellectual. With the children, they want to argue with you. The kids will go ‘Well, that doesn’t make sense. That’s stupid,’ I suspect, because teen-agers are far less inhibited than adults. With adults there’s a certain kind of ‘closed-ness’ and already an established point of view.”

Like other parents, Sachs said her point of view has been widened by the classes.

“Everything was presented to us in a neat package,” she said about her traditional British education. “The material that’s presented here doesn’t have any closed doors. You keep thinking about more possibilities.”

The range of possibilities was evident during the recent geometry class, where parents pondered the monkey that moved along the infinite lines of the “X” to return from the other side of the letter--in an upside down position.

“Is the right paw on the outside when he’s upside down as when he’s right side up?” asked parent Larry Seward, who has three children at Highland Hall. He wouldn’t be surprised if it were so, he said, adding “Stranger things have happened in infinity.”