Rudolf Steiner told us, “We dare not be simply educators; we must be people of culture in the highest sense of the word… Each of us must be completely responsible.” Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin told us, “We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.” We are in this joyful revolution together. Are we ready to use our full strength to be completely responsible?

We want to remind everyone that donations to CfA are possible year round! We welcome gifts to our named scholarship funds as well as for general operations.

One WHiSTEP alum dreams of founding a tuition-free Waldorf High School in rural Nova Scotia. Another is striving to fulfill Steiner’s intention that we teach ‘living concepts’ to our students. How will you make a difference in the world and make your students’ learning experience rich and meaningful?

How do we not get drawn away from our roots and become overly anxious about the fruits of our labor? How do we avoid becoming separated from what anthroposophy teaches us about child development? Can we step back and connect to our roots by asking the question “Why?” Why am I here? Why am I a Waldorf Teacher?

There is immense suffering in the world. The virtue of fortitude is essential in Steiner’s framework. It is the soul’s capacity to endure the rigors of spiritual development with steadiness and courage. Fortitude arises from a trained will and becomes the strength that supports imagination. Without fortitude, imaginative forces risk dissolving into illusion or fantasy; with it, the soul remains grounded and receptive to genuine spiritual insight. Fortitude, then, is not only moral courage—it is the very vessel that contains and sustains our spiritual fire.

Every experienced teacher carries within them a wellspring of wisdom—shaped by years in the classroom, relationships with students and families, and the living practice of Waldorf pedagogy. Can the Mentor Training Program help you to to transform that wisdom into a new role of service: becoming a mentor, coach, and professional appraiser for Waldorf teachers? Are you ready to bring your knowledge to a higher level of service—and to renew your own inner capacities?

It is no accident that perhaps the greatest and most lasting contribution David Sloan has made to Waldorf education and to this scared and sometimes lonely planet is that he helped so many students- adolescents and teacher trainees- write their own Song of Themselves, to sound their barbaric yawps over the roofs of the world.

Thank you Michael Holdrege & David Sloan for 44 years of combined service to the Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program (WHiSTEP). We are thrilled to welcome Jake Gerber & Nathan Wilcox to WHiSTEP, knowing change is an essential part of growth. The future looks bright!

How do we become more fully human and learn to partner with intelligence- human & artificial- in ways that create real community and real meaning? How do Rudolf Steiner, David Byrne & Talking Heads, Nirvana, One Piece, the Bhagavad Gita, and helping the homeless all come together in CfA’s tech guru, Sage Lewis?

Lumberjack, farmer, gardener –– author, speaker, advocate –– teacher, mentor, counselor –– idealist, environmentalist, anthroposopher: who was John Gardner and what can we learn from him about upturning “ruts of conventional thought?”