The Director’s Activities
[Ed. During the past year, Dorit Winter has given lectures and workshops at a variety of venues including the Marin Waldorf School, the Sandpoint Waldorf School, the Chicago Christian Fellowship Seminary and the Seattle Waldorf School. The following articles provide accounts of some of these events.]
Marin Waldorf School, by Beth Nelson, Co-Chair Parent Association of the Marin Waldorf School
In the past few months, I was fortunate to attend two lectures given by Dorit at the Marin Waldorf school. They are (highly!) summarized below. I am old enough to remember the game of “gossip” often played at birthday parties in my childhood. Whispering a sentence from one child’s ear to another, down the row, until the sentence would be revealed at the end, to peals of laughter. Always absurd, always distorted. Never close to the original.
I was reminded of this game when Dorit gave her provocative and informative lecture on “The Phenomenon of Gossip.” What is the true nature of gossip? Where does it come from? How does it live in a community? What does it feed on? And how does gossip impact our Waldorf School communities?
My first Waldorf school was drowning in gossip. We were told to “move it out of the Great Hall,” so we took up residence in the car park. On being expelled from there, we congregated in the local cafe, and on cellphones late at night. It fed on itself, and on us, and on our children, and eventually it ate our school alive.
Dorit’s lecture reminded me of the fear behind most gossip, the darker place within ourselves where criticism and judgment hold sway. I was reminded of my responsibility to myself, and to my child’s school, and of my capacity to shift that impulse from one of despair to enlivening dialogue. For it is through seeing our human-ness, and our connectedness, that we strip gossip of its power over us. I was extremely grateful for the depth and insight Dorit brought to a phenomenon of our times.
Equally intriguing was the topic of “Authority in the Classroom,” the subject of the second lecture. The Oxford Universal Dictionary yields “Author: the person who originates or gives existence to anything”, and “Authority: the power to influence the conduct and actions of others.” I reflected that in today’s world the word “authority” often carries a negative connotation of hostile power.
Author, the root word, gives us a glimpse into a far more appropriate way of thinking about the term “authority in the classroom.” When one has authority over one’s subject, when one has the skill, artistry and temperament to bring a classroom to understand, and in fact become enlivened, this is the sort of authority that allows a different sort of classroom management, and a different sort of learning.
The mastery of a skill or subject brings with it a kind of enlightenment. We have all experienced this while watching an artist or musician and marveling at his expertise. “Authority” over a subject or skill leaves us humbled, and gives us something to which we can aspire.
When a teacher strives to have authority over something, he strives to experience it first-hand, which is the way to “know” something. From this he can impart lessons and elicit feelings from his own inner experience of the thing.
Dorit’s lecture was a reminder of our obligation to bring subject matter to children in such a way that the teacher “knows it.” or has authority over it, so it can then be skillfully, artistically, and joyfully shared in the classroom, and can connect with and enliven the child at a deep level.
Marin Waldorf School, by Michael Seifert, Class of 2003, second grade teacher at Sandpoint Waldorf School
Sandpoint Waldorf School faculty invited Dorit Winter to give talks to the faculty and public on the topic of “Language.” For parents, there can be an element of fear attached to this issue. Since Waldorf schools do not push the children to read in the early grades, as is the custom in public schools, some parents worry that their child may not learn to read when they should, or will not read at a level commensurate with the public schools.
Fear is often the result of a lack of understanding and experience. We as teachers wanted Dorit to give to the parents of our community a picture of how a child learns to read. It was our hope that in this one evening she could plant the seed of understanding. On a chilly March night Dorit spoke to a full house of eager listeners. Those attending were mostly parents of our school, mixed with some folks who wanted to learn more about us.
True to Waldorf methods, Dorit gave us a picture which will grow and deepen with further experience. She spoke of Waldorf education allowing the child to “build his own house” and inhabit it. When the child is allowed to be the architect of her own character she is then able to inhabit her being with confidence and articulateness. She develops a solid foundation for life, and has the resources to meet life’s challenges and solve problems.
Dorit also met with the faculty over the course of two days. She spoke on a deeper level of language as a capacity, and how future abilities naturally build upon earlier learning. As an example, we traced the study of grammar through the grades. It is all too easy to get lost in the nuts and bolts of the curriculum, and forget about the “house” that is being built. She reminded us that reading is an avenue for comprehension.
We were grateful to have Dorit visit our little community and inspire us with her deep understanding.
Chicago, by Karren McClelland, student of the Chicago Seminary of the Christian Community
The seminary students, teachers and guests were happy to come to the front of the room. Dorit had asked them to step forward as she called out the years of their birth. They stood on an imaginary map of the world, and as the years were counted off they moved around the map to demonstrate the locations and relocations each had experienced. With a cheer everyone descended on Chicago as Dorit said “2006.”
This was the delightful beginning of a week-long series on “Human Biography” in the course of which Dorit led the class through the seven-year cycles of life. Each stage has particular characteristics and developments. With colored chalk Dorit diagrammed the births of the etheric, astral and ego bodies. Using examples from her experiences in Waldorf education she described the challenges humans face as these new “births” require changes in what has already been formed. As she placed historical milestones on the diagram, the lifetime of the individual came into focus as a model of how mankind as a whole is evolving.
One concept brought a moment of solemnity as we acknowledged that life will bring to each one events or people that ask for courage. It is up to the individual to have the presence of mind to rightly meet the task.
Weaving anecdotes about Julius Caesar and other historical figures in with contributions from participants, Dorit made the week pass quickly by, until we came round to the end of the main lesson. We stopped at the cycle which begins at age 63, which Dorit intriguingly termed “a different realm altogether.”
Seattle by Esther Centers, sixth grade teacher, Santa Cruz Waldorf School
Dorit Winter provided new insight into social relationships in a three-lecture series entitled “Phenomenology of the Encounter” given July 25-27, 2006 in Seattle, Washington at the Sound Circle Summer Training. I’m appreciative of Dorit’s suggestions from her research, which have helped me experience a different “tone” in the space between colleagues and myself. True interest in the other, which Dorit’s exercises have helped me cultivate, gives hope for the future of our work in the Waldorf movement.
Bridging the Gap
by Clint Marsh, Class of 2008
Christof Wiechert Joins our Summer Session at East Bay Waldorf School
Bay Area Center for Teacher Training staff and students were delighted to welcome Christof Wiechert to the faculty for the 2007 summer session. The leader of the Pedagogical Section of the Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Wiechert shared knowledge and wisdom garnered from a lifetime in Waldorf education, as well as his vision for the future of the movement.
Wiechert’s involvement with Waldorf education began when he was a schoolboy at the Free School in Den Haag, the first Waldorf school outside of Germany. He returned to the school as an adult and began a thirty-year career teaching grades one through eight. “I’m convinced that my having had a Waldorf education is the reason I went into teaching,” Wiechert says. “The warmth of my teachers and their ability to bring life to their lessons inspired me.”
Throughout his career, Wiechert brought about many important initiatives in Waldorf education. He founded a school in Eastern Europe and co-founded a teacher training program in Holland. He also served as vice-president of the Anthroposophical Society and was eventually named head of the Pedagogical Section. Wiechert retired from teaching seven years ago to focus on this leadership role.
Wiechert’s week with us was his first visit to the Bay Area. During his time here, he gave a lecture outlining child health issues, led a weekend mini-conference, contributed centrally to the Waldorf seminar, and guided the Second and Third Year students in their study of Rudolf Steiner’s Education for Adolescents.
In his lecture and in conversation, Wiechert stressed the crucial need to bridge the gap between Waldorf schools and mainstream society, both in the community as a whole and in education in particular.
“It is essential for Waldorf to be part of our society, not off in the corner,” he stated. “We must bridge the gap between the school and the larger social reality, the town. There is also a growing gap between mainstream education and Waldorf education. The intellectual demands on the children are increasing in the mainstream schools.”
While Waldorf schools in Europe are eligible for state funding, American Waldorf initiatives are generally not qualified for such support. Wiechert sees the charter school movement, which incorporates Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogy into public schools, as an important step in the process of integrating the Waldorf schools into society.
Although Wiechert declined to make too many comparisons between European and American Waldorf programs, he did say that he found the schools in Europe to be “too businesslike. As for the American schools, they could use a bit more business sense. It’s got to be possible to have a financially successful school, in America of all places.”
Overall, though, Wiechert is optimistic about what he’s seen in the States. “I’m inspired by the openness of American teachers,” he said, “by their willingness to try new methods.”
Copyright © 2007 by Clint Marsh
A Study of ‘Education for Adolescents’
by Gifford Teeple, Class of 2007
Ask of yourself as a teacher, ‘Did I bring enough feeling to the lesson?’
Wiping a shock of silver hair from his smiling dark eyes, our guest teacher surveyed his new class with a penetrating gaze. In a distinctly Dutch accent, Christof Wiechert introduced himself and instantly took friendly command of our class. Right off the bat, he started pointing directly at students around the room, asking us what our mood was while reading “Education for Adolescents.” Thus began our week together of engaging with some of the more salient nuggets of The Adolescent Course, a lecture series given by Steiner in 1921.
“What’s a teacher to do if the children don’t understand something?” he asked us. To answer this question, he said to ask of yourself as a teacher, “Did I bring enough feeling to the lesson?” Engaging the feelings strengthens the memory— Christof called this one of the “Waldorf essentials.” The central theme of the first chapter, he said, is that “the teacher needs to feel it, so that the children feel it, so they remember it.” It is essential to feel in our thoughts; children don’t think without part of their feeling life in their thoughts.
Another question that Wiechert posed to us was, “Why is the product of a knitting class better after an imaginative lesson on Caesar?” He explained that it is because a polarity has been established. Imagination stimulates one pole (call it the “contemplative” pole), thereby creating the potential for the other pole of physical activity. With two poles now established, a healthy rhythm can flow.
Steiner’s main theme throughout”Education for Adolescents” is that
we must not raise children to be so objective. It’s much more important (and more difficult!) to convey feeling, by being engaged ourselves, both with the subject matter and with the children we teach. Thus, rather than merely conveying thoughts and ideas devoid of life, our enthusiasm feeds the children and allows their own inner life to grow — certainly a feat to match any of Caesar’s.
Copyright © 2007 by Gifford Teeple
The Four Temperaments
First year students represent the four temperaments for the Topics of Anthroposophy class. The question, ‘What was it like to be given this assignment?’ is answered here in the mood of each temperament.
Choleric, by Ashley Lockwood, Class of 2010
Being a choleric, I got right to work. I was even able to finish the project on the same day I started, surprisingly, within the hour. This seemed such an easy project for me. The idea just came to me that night: CARS! Why not show the four temperaments with cars as metaphors? For the melancholic, the obvious choice was a dark blue funeral hearse. It was a bit extreme but it really seemed to get the point across. For the phlegmatic I chose to represent it through a green tractor. Then onto the sanguine — that was easy — a yellow long skinny convertible. The red Corvette was, of course, used for the choleric. I placed them on a white board and made a road as a backdrop — and the choleric won the race! Dorit commented in class that I had invented a new game: Temperament Monopoly!
Phlegmatic, by Kate Roggeveen, Class of 2010
I had been expecting more reading assignments for homework, which I was just getting into a routine with, so I felt some resistance over this assignment. I like to have a clear goal and task and this was neither! It could be 2-D or 3-D, abstract or concrete, have one or many metaphors, and needed to be a pretty large size. I had associated the temperaments most closely with the four realms of nature: earth (melancholic), water (phlegmatic), air (sanguine) and fire (choleric). I decided to work very systematically each night building each section as a collage. Each night I slowly built them up, with the ideas coming as I worked steadily. The main representation for each was a geode for melancholic, a cactus for phlegmatic, a butterfly for sanguine and a prince
for choleric. Now can we please go back to reading assignment so I don’t feel so exhausted and have to clean another mess from a collage?
Sanguine, by Jessica Rimmer, Class of 2010
When I first learned about the assignment I was really excited to be doing another art project. Then the questions started rolling in. After all the discussion there were so many options… What was I going to choose, how was I going to include everything, and still be original? First I thought: flowers! But there are so many flowers to choose from… Next I thought: Buildings! Too materialistic…
What about musical instruments? Too boring… Maybe I can create a band and I can draw each member with the body type of each temperament and the corresponding instrument. But wait, I can’t draw very well. Time is running out, what am I going to do? Then it hit me when I opened the closet door and saw a cowboy boot — as clear as day! I will use shoes! A red stiletto heel, a green warm and fuzzy slipper, a yellow flowery flip-flop, and a blue rain boot. I will back-drop each shoe with the corresponding color and have them overlap in the areas that the temperaments overlap, and voila! it is finished.
Melancholic, by Wiene Frans, Class of 2010
When this assignment came I thought: “Oh great! There goes my relaxing weekend!” I knew my mind would be relentless in the pursuit of the true, deeper meaning of each temperament and the perfect visual representation. I decided to make a collage, something two-dimensional, so it could more easily be laminated and preserved (for eternity). This had to be aesthetically pleasing as well as instructional. I let myself be guided by the colors representing each temperament and the corresponding elements. I looked through stacks of magazines. The process of finding the right images was cumbersome and painstaking, and at times I wished I could just throw something on paper and not be so deeply invested in expressing my deepest insights. It took me all of the following week before I was ready to put everything together into a coherent whole, and finally, relax.
Copyright © 2007 by Ashley Lockwood, Kate Roggeveen, Jessica Rimmer and Wiene Frans, respectively
Morphological Thinking
by Evangeline Wolfe, Class of 2010
Morphological thinking, or imaginative thinking, leads us to the perception of higher worlds. It also leads to greater self-knowledge. In contrast to the scattered nature of ordinary thinking, morphological thinking is a self-generating organic whole consisting of forms and pictures. It grows and changes constantly. Morphological thinking exists only in the moment of our experiencing it, hence each thought arises as a new experience in our consciousness.
As opposed to ordinary thinking, which lives in space and is directed toward the outer, observable world, morphological thinking lives in time and is directed inward. Whereas ordinary thoughts flit through our consciousness unbidden, morphological thinking requires fully conscious will. Morphological thinking has a mathematical quality to it, in that it requires the thinker to willfully seek understanding, with this understanding unfolding within the soul. It is this conscious, internal willing which allows us to experience spiritual reality and freedom, bypassing the external illusions of materialism that might seduce our ordinary thinking.
Copyright © 2007 by Evangeline Wolfe
The Wisdom of the Sloth
by Greg Tompkins, Class of 2009
Greg Tompkins writes a fable for the Grade Four curriculum as part of the Kingdom of Childhood course in his first year.
There was a sloth who lived in a tree. And like all sloths he was so quiet and moved so slowly that you could be right under the tree or even on a nearby branch and you wouldn’t even notice he was there. He hung from the tree like a part of the tree itself.
In the same part of the rain forest where the sloth lived, there were three young howler monkeys who liked to clown around, and generally get into trouble. One day they stumbled across the sloth while they were monkeying around. They teased and made fun of him, saying, “Ooo, look how still and quiet I am. I’m not even an animal. I’m a big furry piece of fruit hanging from the tree.”
They poked the sloth and screeched in his face trying to get him riled up so that he might move or react. But sloths don’t get riled up. He just stared placidly off into the misty green forest. Soon the monkeys grew bored and went off into the trees looking for someone else to bother.
A few days later, while the monkeys were rollicking in a nearby tree, they stumbled upon another large animal sleeping on a branch. Like the sloth, it was almost impossible to see. Its spotted fur looked like dappled light on the tree bark.
The monkeys said to themselves, “Let’s scare this animal — startle it, poke it, and just plain bug it.” They pounced on the animal laughing and screeching. The animal woke and roared furiously. It was a fierce jaguar. When they saw her big sharp fangs, the monkeys screamed and tore away through the branches, scampering for their lives. The jaguar crashed through the branches after them, chasing them right up the sloth’s tree.
The monkeys whispered to the sloth, “Help us. Sloth, or Jaguar will surely eat us.”
The sloth said, “Be just like me.” So, the monkeys pretended to be sloths. They hung from the branch and stared placidly off into the misty green forest. It was very difficult for them to be so still, but somehow the peacefulness of the sloth helped them to relax.
Down below the surly jaguar circled the tree, growling. She glanced from branch to branch but could not see either the monkeys or the sloth. She kept waiting for a monkey to move or jump, but all she saw were bugs and birds going about their business.
After a while the jaguar became bored. She was really more sleepy than hungry, so she climbed up the tree and fell asleep. When she was deep asleep and snoring, the monkeys let out great sighs of relief.
They thanked the sloth for helping them and apologized for being mean to him. They quietly jumped to a nearby tree and put some distance between themselves and the jaguar.
The three rowdy monkeys never bothered the sloth again. In fact they sometimes visited the sloth and hung from the branch with him, pretending to be sloths.
For short periods of time they enjoyed being placid in the midst of the misty green forest. Then they would bound off into the branches to romp and play. However, they were much more respectful of the other animals that lived in the trees.
Copyright © 2007 by Greg Tompkins
The Road to Teacher Training
“How did you come to the teacher training?” Here are these students’ stories.
Susan Robinson, Class of 2010
As I reflect back on my life experiences, I see all the paths that have led me to the Waldorf teacher training. My childhood was very idyllic, full of fantasy play and living in the country. I spent most of my time playing outdoors. I have vivid memories of creating magical houses and villages in the long grasses in the summer. Snow was the medium for my creations in the winter.
My mother spent a lot of time with my sister and me, teaching us cooking, sewing and other crafts. I began sewing at the age of eight and I was soon entering my sewing projects in local and state fairs. I took these skills that I learned as a child and kept developing them in adulthood.
After graduating from college, I started my own line of clothing called Penelope Starr. I sold my clothing wholesale throughout the United States and Japan. I soon opened a store in the Lower Haight district in San Francisco to sell my clothing.
During this time, I was approached by California College of the Arts to teach in their fashion department. I accepted the position and I have found teaching to be a truly rewarding and enriching experience. My classes at the college are open to non-fashion majors. I love watching other artists take sewing into their artwork in different mediums.
I joined the San Francisco Waldorf School last summer. Arts Program Coordinator Patty Townsend had called me and asked if I would be interested in teaching the Sewing and Design class. I accepted, feeling honored and very excited to be a part of the school. The Waldorf students were very impressive young adults. They were confident, creative and ready to face challenges.
The seed was planted. I began to think about Waldorf teacher training.
So here I am, ready and open to accept new experiences and challenges in my Waldorf Education.
Wyliam Holder, Class of 2009
I have always wanted to make a contribution to others in my life, and I have also wondered how we could raise our children so that they would be happy, joyous, and free. The combination of these two questions was my entryway into how I came to the teacher training. I learned, much to my dismay, that our children, in the early years, copy adults in behavior, tone and attitude. I discovered that we humans are not born as independent beings, but as members of a community, and that it is up to the community to raise the children so they can have a good life. What a burden, I thought! I just want to be me and let other people work it out for themselves. And yet, this is not how it works. My love for children exceeds my desire to have an easy life. The further into the training I go, the more my love for other people expands. It is this love which has me practice the recorder, read books, write essays, and dance around in seemingly crazy Eurythmy patterns. Someday, I may even find myself in front of a classroom of children showing them the way, as best I can. The thought is both frightening, and a source of great joy.
Joan Tannheimer, Class of 2009
It has been a long road because the road is my whole life. That’s too long a tale to tell, so here are highlights. In my own childhood, art, music, and reading were what I loved most, but since they were only brought in as specialty subjects in early grades, they were, I felt, unimportant. Except for music lessons, I stopped pursuing them.
I’d been exposed to Waldorf education through my Guru in the 70′s, who started a Waldorf-inspired school in Denver, who, among others, led me to believe it was a good alternative. But educated in public schools, and in college as a public school teacher, I thought private schools were elitist, snobbish, and too expensive. But when I began substituting in public school, I realized I would not want to put a child of mine into some of the situations I was encountering.
When my daughter was four we went for the first time to the Halloween festival at the local Waldorf School. It was a journey to a magical world – enchantment, delight, humor, perfectly adapted to young children, with healthy treats given out, along with a tiny crystal for each child. I decided this beautiful setting was where she should go to school. All through her nine years there I learned from her teachers about caring for the young and growing child. I attended as many of the Waldorf School for Adults classes as I could, and wished I could have had such a profound, thoughtful, stimulating education myself. Some parents in my daughter’s class had attended the San Francisco Waldorf Teacher Training with Dorit Winter.
I realized a few years ago that the administrative job that has been my career for several vears was becoming less than fulfilling. I asked myself, “What would I most love to do when I retire?” Teaching in public school didn’t appeal to me, but just thinking about teaching in a Waldorf School filled me with enthusiasm. I acknowledged that this is where I would want to go to school.
A close friend encouraged me to join the Bay Area Center, as it provided a comprehensive and in-depth study of the philosophy underlying the curriculum. Now that I’m here I’m grateful to be receiving the artistic education I lost after second grade. It feels like I’ve been given a rare, precious gift — delightful, challenging and full of surprises!
Copyright © 2007 by Susan Robinson, Wyliam Holder and Joan Tannheimer, respectively
On Being Third Year
by Robin Masciocchi , Class of 2008
This year began with a sense of disbelief as my fellow classmates and I looked at each other and realized that we were now The Third Year. That lovely class of individuals whom we had watched graduate just over a month ago was no longer here. That very group with whom we’d shared choir, recorder classes, town meetings, and celebrations week after week for two whole years was gone, and we were now it! We were the Seniors in the Bay Area Center Teacher Training program. It boggled the mind!
With our first homework assignments came another realization: we no longer had the luxury of studying one Steiner work at a time — we would now study three, with other articles occasionally thrown into the mix — and, instead of weeks to prepare a final project and presentation, we would now create a comprehensive and artistic poster worthy of presentation every week, while simultaneously preparing outlines and bibliographies for our Third Year Projects. Our collective gasp was audible.
Time is not a luxury for any of us, no matter what our circumstances. For those carrying full time jobs, or mothering young children, finding adequate time for such demands is even more difficult. And yet, somehow, (is it because we are now Third Year?) no matter what our individual temperaments may be, we are managing, as a class, to muster the qualities of all the temperaments to meet the challenge. Strong choleric forces are necessary to tackle the materials with purpose. Harnessing the sanguine helps us handle the variety of tasks with more equanimity, and a strong phlegmatic keeps us focused on the task at hand in the present moment. Most difficult of all is engaging an ennobled melancholic to take on this spiritual bootcamp, when it is so tempting to feel overwhelmed, picked on and, well, … melancholic!
Choosing to stay with the program forces us to make choices, to prioritize, and to struggle to penetrate the material in our own individual ways. We have to find our balance between extremes so that we are not strung out on coffee, nervous energy, and adrenaline. When time runs out, we have to be OK with the imperfect, yet continue striving “to do it better next time.” The little ego has to whittle away at its sense of self-importance and go for the gold.
We are learning to make time for self-development and study, no matter what the limitations of time and energy might be, and are more aware than ever of how subtly this enriches our lives. Although we have just begun gathering questions and information for our Third Year Projects, this process, too, seems to be a practice in listening to the quiet voices of our hearts in order to pursue an avenue of inquiry truly meaningful for our own soul’s growth and development. Two important years, and two important summers have preceded this, our third year of the teacher training. It feels like some final pouring for a foundation that we will continue to build on for the rest of our lives.
Copyright © 2007 by Robin Masciocchi
Binary Being Symposium
by Afshin Jalalian, Board Member
In the fall of 2005 I got a call from Dorit Winter to ask if I was interested in helping her organize a conference called “Binary Being.” The theme of the conference was to explore the effects of computers on our meditative life. Being in the computer industry, most of it in front of a monitor for over twenty years, the topic was very close to my own heart, so I agreed.
For me, those early all day meetings with other conference coordinators to brainstorm what was to become the format and content of the conference are quite memorable.
On the evening of July 26, 2007, at UC Berkeley’s historic International House, the first Binary Being Symposium was attended by over 30 technology professionals, educators, and artists from around the world. Christopher Garvey’s dramatic presentation “Characters, Sonnets and Songs — a journey through Shakespeare’s imagination,” kick-started the event.
For the next two and a half days these people came together every morning and stayed together through most of day and into the night, and immersed themselves in speeches, presentations, arts, and conversations around the theme of “Staying Human in the Computer Age.”
We started each morning at 8:30 at the I-House Homeroom singing with Master singer Christiaan Boele, followed by a keynote speech. Ernst Schuberth spoke on “The Relationship between Human Thinking, IT, and Reality.” Americ Azevedo brought us “Being Wired, Being Human,” and Dorit Winter gave a speech on “Where am I? Language and Art in Cyberspace.”
For the rest of the day we broke into smaller groups and participated in artistic activities (painting with Chris Guilfoil, form drawing with Van James, speech with Christopher Garvey, singing with Christiaan Boele) and conversation groups around such topics as:
• The impact of virtual reality on our experience of nature. Are we losing our senses?
• How to maintain moral judgment in cyberspace.
• Computer addiction: impacts and implications.
• Pre-packaged choices versus individual initiative.
At the end of each afternoon we came together for a panel discussion to review the day and to give everyone an opportunity to share their impressions or questions from the activities of that day.
Our second evening event took place on Friday night and was titled “Inner and Outer Image.” Stefan Klocek gave a multimedia presentation and led the group through a number of interesting exercises.
It was a warm and cozy group which quickly bonded from the very beginning. We came from Australia, Germany, England, Hawaii, Colorado, and all around California. I wondered how often the different perspectives of technology professionals, educators and artists are shared in conversation.
At the end of the conference, one did not come away with a set of resolutions to the problems at hand (although some were suggested) but rather with some new thoughts, feelings, or perhaps even more questions to ponder during the rest of the year and beyond.
Copyright © 2007 by Afshin Jalalian
The Art of Teaching, Teaching as An Art
Waldorf Seminar 2007
by Lisa Sargent, Waldorf Music Teacher and Alumna 2006
When I registered for last year’s seminar, I would not have believed that 30 colleagues would be sitting in a circle with Christof Wiechert so hysterically laughing at our re-telling of “Little Red Riding Hood” that many of us, including Mr. Wiechert, had tears in our eyes. Our assignment that day had been to use the lens of the temperaments to fashion a new telling of the tale that allowed the essence of one or all of the four temperaments to shine through. Some of us improvised, some prepared, some panicked, and others just did it. (Can you guess which temperaments?) We learned from each other, and from engaging in the process. In addition to thought provoking, challenging, and lively lectures given by Christof in the morning, we were treated to a full day of artistic activities that included Eurythmy, sculpture, speech, singing, and painting, where we explored each one’s polarities and the movement between them. As a recent graduate of the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training, I felt the familiar challenges; with my first year of teaching behind me, I quickly recognized the benefits from simply engaging in the doing and not being so focused about the outcome. I witnessed, shared and learned from my colleagues’ successes and struggles as well.
Christof challenged us to challenge our assumptions about how Waldorf education is “supposed to work.” He encouraged us to look at the canvas of our time with the students to create a healthy and hygienic rhythm which honors the natural chrono-biological pace of the human being in the stream of daily educational life. We worked with the musical and pictorial aspects of speech, and recognized our own tendencies. Mr. Wiechert encouraged us to become more intimately connected with nature as one way to open ourselves to possibilities for imagery in language. And, of course, he was enthusiastic about the study of anthroposophy as a way to develop these skills.
We came together to form an alliance of Waldorf educators — class teachers, and subject teachers — working in partnership with the leader of the Pedagogical Section and the director of the Bay Area Center, both of whom clearly understand what Waldorf education needs to be for today’s children.
Our work in the arts developed our capacity for the inner flexibility to constantly reinvent ourselves and respond to the needs of the children who are in our care. As we created and recreated our sculptures, coaxed the paint onto the paper and then took it away again to create the music in a painting, formed the stream of singing and speech by sculpting sound and breath, and moved to music and speech with lightness and weight, we came into contact with that which strengthens us as teachers and informs our teaching each day.
Christof Wiechert identified this theme as one that does not need to be changed from year to year – it will live on into the future. I look forward to the deepening of our work together and to sitting in that circle of colleagues and leaders of Waldorf education to be challenged, and to enjoy a really good laugh!
The Art of Teaching, Teaching as An Art, by Wendy Baschkopf, Waldorf Eighth Grade Teacher
Why would a Waldorf teacher sign on for a one-week intensive seminar after a full year of teaching, year-end report writing and training for the upcoming year? Surely we need respite and rejuvenation to prepare ourselves for the coming school year. And that is exactly what the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training’s Seminar offered us.
Our day was filled with the arts – Eurythmy, speech, sculpture and singing. A gifted faculty worked together with the seminar theme “The Art of Teaching; Teaching as an Art” in every class. Christof Wiechert’s morning talks and afternoon conversations delved into this rich topic. His openness and spontaneity were a model of fine teaching and social working. By giving us homework, such as telling “Little Red Riding Hood” via the four temperaments, we each had a stake in making the art of teaching come alive. And it was fun too! What a delight it was to get to know new colleagues and see familiar ones in a new light. Between artistic endeavors, we had time for breaks and delicious meals to talk over our impressions. Waldorf teacher-trainees shared artistic performances in speech and singing to further fortify us. The spacious setting of the East Bay Waldorf School hosted this year’s seminar. The adjacent Wildcat Canyon Regional Park beckoned us for after lunch hikes. We set off with our teachers, enjoying an informal camaraderie and spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay.
As I write this, it is a mere 48-hours until I enter Class Eight. I look back at the Waldorf Seminar with gratitude for preparing me to teach as an artist.
