This is a profound time of year for teachers! The school year, itself an annual marathon, is winding down with its abundance (perhaps overabundance!) of class plays, curriculum-based trips, final projects, ceremonies, the honoring of graduates and parents finishing up and moving on. Perhaps there is a chance to look up from one’s work, get one’s head above water, clear at least a corner of one’s desk.

“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. ”

The annual Abbot Hill Alumni Summer Gathering will take place on July 3 in the Big Room at High Mowing. Our theme is Rooted: Uniting Our Present Purpose to our Anthroposophical Foundation. Join us for a community gathering and discussion of our theme, followed by cake and our traditional dancing with music by Tattoo!

As in previous summers, the entire month of July will be humming with activity on Abbot Hill. Imagine a beautiful hilltop campus overlooking agricultural fields, forest, and mountains. Now imagine that setting filled with adults seeking transformation, professional deepening, artistic engagement, and the fun that comes from leaving behind daily responsibilities and immersing oneself in an adult learning community. Delicious, freshly prepared organic meals, (relatively) comfortable dorm or off-campus accommodations, evening lectures and activities, a dip in the pool when the humidity threatens to overwhelm, and, of course, quick games of Pickleball in between classes!

Hailing from across the Continental United States, its outlying territories, Canada, and diverse regions of Central and South Asia, the experienced professionals in the Mentor Training program will converge to deepen their understanding and hone their skills in mentorship, coaching, and professional evaluation within the unique framework of Waldorf education.

Summer is a sacred pause in the rhythm of the year—a time to rest, reflect, and prepare. Renewal Courses offer a week-long professional development experience designed to replenish your spirit, deepen your relationship with Waldorf education and anthroposophy, and connect you with a vibrant community.

The children and adolescents in our Consciousness Soul times need to integrate into the challenging world around them which assaults their developmental stages. We see the struggles in their behaviors and diverse learning needs. You may also be struggling mightily at times as teachers, administrators, and parents, searching for new approaches with practical insights and solutions. We are offering an advanced short training that will allow you to ask your questions and process your issues.

The Waldorf Teacher Education Programs at Center for Anthroposophy and Antioch take seriously their mission to inspire and prepare the next generation of Waldorf high school teachers to meet the needs of this “anxious generation.” Jonathan Haidt describes a transition from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood” (and by phone-based he includes all internet-connected electronics that fill young people’s time, including laptop computers, tablets, internet-connected video game consoles, and of course, smartphones with their millions of apps).

Anthroposophy and Waldorf education are global and our participation as teachers, administrators, therapists and artists working with impulses from Rudolf Steiner ties us through time and space to striving individuals all over the world. Center for Anthroposophy is part of the global dialogue seeking to meet the tremendous needs of the world.

Being reminded at the World Upper School Teachers’ Conference & 17th International Refresher Course Week at the Freie Waldorfschule Kassel in the most joyful way of the global nature of Waldorf high school education was inspiring and I returned to my less than inspiring reality in the US filled with images of new colleagues, new insights & new devotion and dedication to this vital work. As Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his 2021 book, “Happy teachers change the world!”

We worry a lot about the physical safety of children. Most of us would feel slightly nervous dropping our kids off at the New York Public Library, especially without cell phone contact. But the internet is like the largest public library on earth, a library with no rule-enforcing librarians, a library that has every great book and work of art, but which also has a billiard hall full of creeps, a pornographic movie theater, and a room where you can watch live beheadings. And we drop our kids off there every day and say, “Just don’t go into those rooms, okay?”

Climate change is not something that can be ‘fixed’, but rather challenges us to learn to know Earth differently. One aspect of this different form of knowing is an experienced understanding of the “Earth as a living whole. Learning to know Earth differently calls for not only new concepts, but also for a methodology appropriate for living beings.

Waldorf education came into existence explicitly to prepare the soil for a spiritually healthier future for humanity, arising from deep insight into human development. Let’s take that mission seriously enough to earnestly question our own cultural understanding of what it means, or can mean, to be a teenager today.

As they move into their high school years, Waldorf students become increasingly aware that all matters involving the environment are embedded in urgent questions around climate change and the role that humans play in it.