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.
