Three Years in Reflection
by Students of Classes 2004, 2005 and 2006
Editor’s Note: Students from all three years pause to reflect on their most recent experiences: third year students have finished their second teaching practicums; second year students have completed a study of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas on karma and reincarnation; and first year students have fully embarked on their journey. An additional reflection from first year student, Laura Young, describes her decision to start the teacher training after attending the Arts Festival last summer.
LISA SARGENT, Librarian, San Francisco Waldorf School, Class of 2006
I spent ten years exploring Waldorf education on my own. Now, as I start this journey, I real- I ize the importance of community. To study and live into anthroposophy and take up the task of becoming a Waldorf teacher is ultimately an individual effort. But the community provides the foundation and secure framework from which individual striving can take place. I am so grateful for my teachers and fellow students.
NORA MINASSIAN, Quality Engineering Manager, Class of 2004
In my Kindergarten practicum, I have experienced how what I have been learning becomes reality. It has become apparent that my effectiveness as a teacher does not lie only in how well I keep order in the class or on whether I am able to project myself as capable and confident. It lies in how precisely I am able to observe the children, in how true my perceptions are of where the children are in the moment, in how free my thoughts are from preconeived ideas or judgments, and in how open I can be to what is new and forthcoming in the children.
KATHERINE WILSON, Administrative Assistant, Marin Waldorf School, Class of 2004
The grades practicum experience has taught me, above all, that the teacher is the mediator between the child and the spiritual world, the world of wisdom. Entering the second grade after being in a 7th grade class last year, I realize that one classroom of children differs from another as each novel has its own unique character. As we have heard for three years, the children are the book to which the teacher must refer for guidance in her teaching.
CAROLINE HEBERT, PhD in Biochemistry, Class of 2006
After having my eye on this teacher training program for several years, the first day of school felt momentous. With the wind in our backs and palpable excitement all around, my classmates and I pushed off the wharf. My husband and two very young children agreed to be stowaways. We spent the first weeks studying arcane maps of the seascapes ahead as our ship headed for the horizon. As the maps began to reveal their hidden meaning, the weather grew rough. My mind was stretched by challenging new concepts, difficult reading, and a significant amount of homework. My sleep-deprived mother’s body desperately tried to find flow as we gathered for eurythmy; I couldn’t seem to come up for air as I practiced my new recorder. Then, my heart was cracked open again and again during our weekly “biography time” by my classmates’ accounts of the turning points which have shaped them and brought them here. Slowly, I became aware of our lives unfolding together with vulnerability, trust and courage.
MARIBETH LOCKHART, Preschool Director and Teacher, Class of 2005
As our class wends its way into the second year, a subtle but deep feeling is growing: a quiet and peaceful, yet very galvanized resolve. It feels almost like watching pieces of a complex puzzle slowly but surely falling into place, or – as with veil painting – layer upon subtle layer gradually evolving into an exquisitely warm and luminous image.
CAROL THOMPSON, Graphic Designer and Freelance Writer, Class of 2005
My experience so far has been remarkably rich – like the texture of a fine velvet, a soulful Rafael painting, a stunning sunset all rolled into one. As a single mom to two young children, I have found myself stretched in ways I hadn’t imagined possible. But nearing the halfway point in my second year, I have settled into a steady rhythm and I find myself more fully aware, awake and appreciative of the wonder of children and the incredible ideals that provide the foundation for Waldorf education.
