Every summer, the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training offers a number of professional development and renewal through the arts programs open to the greater Waldorf community and the public. If you would like to receive our newsletter with news and updates on our upcoming programs and events, please fill out the form on our Contact page.
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Rejuvenation Courses for Practicing Teachers
Public Arts Courses
Summer Program 2025
Each year, we invite lead presenters to share insights on a theme of current relevance for teachers in Waldorf schools. In addition, our team of experienced teachers will share their knowledge with each grades track, ensuring you receive a wide range of perspectives and practical support. Over the course of the week, an understanding of the essential developmental motifs and learning intentions for each grade will be built to anchor you in your year.
In-person on the beautiful Marin Waldorf School campus in San rafael, CA
Professional Development Courses for Practicing Teachers
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Early Childhood Teacher Rejuvenation
June 22-26 | 8am-4pm
Bathing in the Well of Inspiration
with Noelle Thompson and Kate Hammond
In this rejuvenating week, we will take a deep dive into the wellspring of our work—Rudolf Steiner’s indications for Early Childhood teachers. What resources will help us meet the children in the fall? How can we live into the essentials of our work so that our students may inspire us and fill us with the forces we need?
Throughout the week we will play together, move circles, and build a picture of how these principles can shine in the classroom. Our study will center around the pillars of Waldorf Early Childhood teaching. In the afternoons we will make, enliven, and animate with silk marionettes. Come and join us for crafts, study, eurythmy, and speech.
Noelle Thompson has been teaching for over 30 years in “alternative” schools where honoring the whole child and nurturing lifelong learners aligns closely with her personal values. Since 2008, she has been teaching in Early Childhood at Live Oak Waldorf School.
Kate Hammond is a Waldorf graduate and has taught early childhood and grades for over 30 years. She is a parent coach, an adult educator, and a Spacial Dynamics® trainer. Kate is the author of Why Be Screen Free?
Cost: $450
Grades 1-5 Teacher Rejuvenation
June 15-19 | 8am-4:30pm
The Waldorf Teacher’s Journey: Becoming Your Authentic Self in the Classroom
With Jack Petrash
Waldorf education was intended to generate forces of renewal for the children, the teachers, and the whole school. Great faith is placed in the teacher’s ability to be true to themselves and to work out of their own authenticity while being both creative and responsible. Today, we must intentionally reconnect to the inner striving of the teacher that is at the heart of our teaching. Jack will help us to reframe the path of the teacher, which is so needed today.
Our very experienced faculty will collaborate together to build a rich, artistic, informative, and rejuvenating week.
Jack Petrash worked at the Washington Waldorf School for over forty years where he taught four classes from first grade to eighth and mentored and trained teachers. He was the co-founder and director of the Nova Institute and the author of understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out, Navigating the Terrain of Childhood, and Turning Lead into Gold: The Transformative Alchemy of Waldorf Teaching. His TEDx talk, Preparing Children for the Journey, has been viewed worldwide.
Cost: $450
Grades 6-8 Teacher Rejuvenation
June 22-26 | 8am-4:30pm
Guiding Middle School Student Through Adolescence
Adolescence is challenging and navigating middle school requires a new level of intentionality from class teachers. Dealing with physical and emotional changes can take young people, along with their parents and teachers, to their breaking points. If we persist in treating adolescents like children, they will respond with the worst of childlike behaviors. It is then vital for class teachers to evolve alongside their students. As the curriculum heads into more factual, scientific, and academic territory, the class teacher is called to meet the world with objective heart forces and an ability to permeate all the subjects with beauty. The arts, deep truthfulness, and humor all come to the aid of striving teachers in their relationships with teens, as they struggle to find their inner harmony again. It is important that teachers keep a light shining on what is beautiful in humanity and in the natural world.
Our very experienced faculty will collaborate together to build a rich, artistic, informative, and rejuvenating week.
Warren Lee Cohen Warren just graduated his second eighth grade class from Toronto Waldorf School. He has served as a class teacher in the U.S., an adult educator in the U.K., and as Director of Waldorf Teacher Education at RSCT in Canada. His publications include The Waldorf Book of Blessings, Raising the Soul: Practical Exercises for Personal Development, Baking Bread with Children, and his latest book, Celebrate Passover.
Cost: $450
Gardening Teacher Training
June 22-26 | 9am-4pm
Growing Sustainable Children
Gather with other educators to explore K-12 garden, farm, and nature-based education. Curriculum and hands-on skill building will be woven throughout the week. Participants will create their own personalized grade-by-grade curriculum, accompanying manual activities for students, and site plans to help develop their school garden. The course will take place at both the Marin Waldorf School garden (Monday and Friday) as well as Three Springs Community Farm in West Sonoma County (Tuesday-Thursday).
Camping accommodations are available at Three Springs Community Farm, no additional charge, along with use of outdoor kitchen for personal cooking and daily childcare is available. Please bring your own lunch, snack, hat, water bottle, gloves, and work boots.
Willow Summer is the founder of City Slicker Farms and The Berkeley Basket as well as the coauthor of The Essential Urban Farmer. She completed her Waldorf teacher training in 2011 and currently runs Three Springs Community Farm, a biodynamic CSA and educational farm, with her husband.
Ronni Sands was the garden teacher at Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm for 32 years and taught herbal studies, basket weaving, cooking, landscape watercolor painting, and environmental studies. She is now teaching at Three Springs Community Farm. Ronni and Willow are the co-authors of Growing Sustainable Children: A Garden Teacher’s Guide.
Cost: $450
Public Workshops
To be announced soon.
