SUMMER 2025
In This Edition...
Centering: Alumni Spotlight: Melissa Farrell/WHiSTEP Class of 2023
Interviewed by Diana Tesni
Form drawing may be, in my opinion, the most important class that we teach in the Waldorf School. The classes teach a process of working with the will to bring a certain form into being. It is almost as though the purpose of the form and the purpose of the former is the same and they are seeking each other.
Through observation, iteration, and continued striving, the form appears on the paper. Insights for innovative forms often arise out of this process, and something new that was maybe not seen as part of the original endeavor can then come into the world.
I am continually struck, when I interview our program alumni, by how their biographies bend toward the manifestation of a certain form. Speaking with Melissa Farrell, who teaches High School Humanities at Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, New York, I saw this pattern again as she recounted her journey to her current work.
Melissa grew up in Pearl River, New York. When she was in middle school, she entered a poem in a Green Meadow Waldorf School poetry festival, and she was selected to visit the campus and read her poem. “I was so impressed by the school and the education that was being presented. Even though I was living only a few miles away, it felt like a different world.”
That first glimpse of Waldorf education stayed with Melissa as she went on to earn her BA at the University of Rhode Island and begin a career in publishing.
“Publishing was not a good fit for me,” says Melissa. “I kept being drawn to teaching and I kept thinking about Green Meadow. ” Melissa did a class observation there as she went on to earn her MST from St. Thomas Aquinas College. “I thought that it would be more practical to get a public school teaching degree. I knew that I wanted to live near my family, and Green Meadow was the only Waldorf school in that area – what were the odds that I could end up teaching there?”
Melissa spent 4 years as a public school teacher before the arrival of her first child drew her destiny clearly back to Green Meadow and Waldorf Education. She was Green Meadow’s Director of Admissions before she became a part of the teaching faculty at the high school. Receiving her certification from CfA’s Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program (WHiSTEP) has given Melissa the resources to complete her journey of becoming a Waldorf Educator.
“I appreciated that WHiSTEP was a well-established training, and the three summers spent learning in-person and with a cohort group helped me take my understanding of Waldorf education to a deeper level,” says Melissa. In her position as a Humanities teacher, Melissa is guiding her students through an exploration of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” as an alternative to the traditional study of the 13th century epic “Parzival.”
“Malcolm X is a complicated person; through connecting with his very relatable human struggles, the students are able to develop compassion and an ability to understand diverse viewpoints, ” says Melissa. “‘Parzival’ also explores the question of how to respond to the pain and suffering and injustice in the world, of course, but ‘Malcolm X’ connects this question to issues that are at the forefront of the world that we live in today.
“Encountering the other, ” continues Melissa, “and developing the ability to work together and solve problems with people with whom we may have little in common, with whom we may disagree, but with whom we share a common humanity – that is the work that we are preparing our students for. ”
Melissa gave a presentation on the Malcolm X curriculum last fall as a part of CfA’s “Starlight Rays in Darkened Times” lecture series. The opportunity for Melissa to bring this innovative curriculum to high school students in 2025 is the result of a long journey of many years; over many different iterations, the form of the work has come into being. Like a form drawing lends itself to ever more diverse variations, teaching is a path of continual development and exploration.
“It is exciting to be a part of an educational movement that is creatively meeting the needs of today’s students, ” says Melissa. “Continuing to be a part of CfA’s programs and sharing my work with other Waldorf educators is a part of that creative process.”
Spring/Summer 2022
