Newsletter Fall 2021
Center & Periphery The Online Newsletter of the Center for Anthroposophy Fall | 2021 In This Issue Dateline Amherst, MA: Feeling Blue Dateline Keene, NH: “Paying Forward” for Explorations International Dateline Wilton, NH:Exploring Relations with Parents Dateline Conway, NH:Speech and Self-Development in a Forest Glade Dateline Keene, NH:From Renewal to Remediation Dateline Wilton, NH: Renewal in New Hands Dateline Keene, NH:New Training Course for School Leaders and Administrators Dateline Wilton, NH: Preparing to Teach Science in a Waldorf High School Dateline Wilton, NH:Where Are They Now? Dateline Wilton, NH:A New Vision for Alumni of CfA and Antioch programs From the Editor’s Notepad The word “new” keeps cropping up in this issue of our three-yearly newsletter: new leadership, new programs, new formats, new ideas about funding, and the formation of a new institute. And yet, the temporal and transitional is framed by the eternal and the enduring. We invite you to explore this juxtaposition of timely and timeless. –– Douglas Gerwin Executive DirectorCenter for Anthroposophy Dateline Amherst, MA: Feeling Blue Now and again, you may come across a remark by Rudolf Steiner in which he captures an infinitely complicated and seemingly ephemeral reality in simple down-to-earth words that speak across the centuries to the immediate needs of our time. Here is such an example: Now I must show you how we can arrive at such an assumption that behind our physical nature there is an etheric or life body—strictly speaking, an etheric or life world—that is a multiplicity of differentiated beings. To express how we can arrive at this, I can clothe it in simple words: we are more and more able to recognize the etheric or life world behind physical nature when we begin to have a moral feeling and perception of the world around us. What do I mean by perceiving or sensing the whole world morally? First of all, we direct our gaze upward from the Earth into the ranges of cosmic space from which the blue of the sky comes to meet us. Suppose we look upward into this blue sky spread out above us on a day when there are no clouds, not even the faintest, silver-white cloudlet. Whether we recognize it in the physical sense as something real or not, does not matter. The point is the impression that this wide expanse of the blue heavens makes upon us. Suppose that we can yield ourselves up to this blue of the sky, and that we do this with intensity for a long, long time. Imagine that we can do this in such a way that we forget everything else that we know in life and all that is around us. Suppose that we are able, for one moment, to forget all external impressions, all memories, all cares and troubles of life, and can yield ourselves completely to the single impression of the blue heavens. What I am now saying to you can be experienced by every human soul that fulfills the necessary conditions; this can be a common human experience. Suppose a human soul gazes in this way at nothing but the blue of the sky. A certain moment then comes when the blue of the sky ceases to be blue—when we no longer see blue or anything that can be called “blue” in human language. If we turn our attention to our own soul at that moment when the blue ceases to be blue to us, an infinity arises before us, and in this infinity we experience a quite definite mood. A quite definite feeling, a quite definite sensation pours itself into the emptiness that arises where the blue had been before. If we would give a name to this soul feeling, or sensation, and to what would soar out there into infinite distances, there is only one word for it: devotion, a devout feeling in our soul, a feeling of pious devotion toward infinity. —Rudolf Steiner,Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature [CW 136; Lecture 1 of 10 given in Helsinki, 3-14 April 1912] Dateline Keene, NH: Paying Forward for Explorations International “Explorations”, CfA’s popular online program of foundational studies, is drawing a growing number of participants from around the world. Many of them, however, face the yawning gap between their level of income and the value of their currencies when set against the U.S. dollar. Torin Finser, President of the CfA Board of Trustees, outlines a way to help bridge this gap. Thanks to an increasing number of donors to our annual appeal last year, we were able to award several diversity scholarships to eligible candidates for their teacher training. Recipients of these funds were most grateful for this new form of assistance, and our diversity fund will continue this year. At the same time, we recognize how few of these candidates generally apply to our teacher education programs, thereby limiting the scope of this new initiative. By contrast, our Explorations Program, now fully online this year, has become much more accessible, thus increasing both the number of participants (we grew from 40 to over 100 this past year) and the scope of diversity. We are now planning to launch our first-ever international Explorations Program, thanks to active conversations with interested groups in Indonesia, Kenya, Denmark, and other parts of the world. We hope that many will be attracted to this trend-setting program, which provides prerequisite foundational studies for prospective and practicing teachers (see program flyer here). If we can reach an even wider audience through Explorations, we can expect to increase the diversity of applicants wishing to become Waldorf teachers and, in this way, better serve our schools. We will also need to determine an appropriate level of tuition for those who apply from other countries while still paying in U.S. dollars. This very real challenge affords us an opportunity to finally implement an aspect of social finance we have long yearned to initiate. Simply put, it is the concept of “paying forward”. We propose that if we can raise the money needed for our first international Explorations cohort (approximately $30,000) through the generosity of
Newsletter Spring 2021
Dear Friends: Over the years, CfA has pioneered a growing number of different programs related to Waldorf education, from introductory courses and teacher preparation to administrative training and ongoing rejuvenation – seven programs in all. In this issue of our online newsletter, we briefly showcase their latest offerings and most recent innovations. And we examine a basic right of all students. — Douglas Gerwin Executive Director Center for Anthroposophy Dateline Amherst, MA: The Right to Write In barely a generation, students have reversed the order in which they learn to write and to type. Douglas Gerwin, Executive Director of the Center for Anthroposophy (CfA), explores what happens when keyboard replaces cursive. The last time I wrote out a major-length paper by hand was during the early 1980s, when I was working on my graduate dissertation. Under pressure of time, I disciplined myself to compose some ten pages per day––or 50 pages a week––so that in eight weeks I had completed a first draft of the manuscript. To speed the process, I placed a typewriter at my elbow in order, with minimum distraction, to keep a running tab of footnote references and supplementary remarks. However, notwithstanding impending deadlines, I opted to write––at times to scribble––the body of the dissertation itself in long-hand. At the time, it was quite evident to me that the tone and style arising from long-hand cursive (or sometimes my short-handed approximation of cursive) were quite different from the more clipped tone and style of the typed footnotes. At some level I was aware that linking one letter to another by hand was helping me construct an argument in which one thought was linked (“seamlessly”, I hoped my dissertation advisor would say) to the next. Footnoting, by contrast, did not require that kind of textual weaving. Only after a final edit did I undertake the weary task of converting the written manuscript into a 391-page typed document. Were I to engage in such a project today, I would doubtless opt for the convenience of a computer –– not least because of that convenient button labeled “delete”, to say nothing of the time-savers “cut” and “paste”. In retrospect, however, I am grateful that I chose to compose that thesis on a notepad, rather than an electronic Notebook. Nowadays, in light of government-mandated Common Core standards, I read with alarm how cursive has been dropped as a curricular requirement in many schools (to be precise, Common Core remains silent on this issue), though several states––among them California, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee––have opted to give cursive another look. One reason to be alarmed is that, according to William Klemm, a neuro-scientist at Texas A&M University, writing in cursive makes kids smarter. below“Cursive writing, compared to printing,” he concludes, is more beneficial “because the movement tasks are more demanding, the letters are less stereotypical, and the visual-recognition requirements create a broader repertoire of letter representation.” His is not the only voice to speak up for the merits of cursive writing, though there are others who challenge his conclusions. But the National Association of State Boards of Education, for one, stands with Professor Klemm: it has issued a report saying that cursive helps develop memory, fine motor skills, and better expression. belowKlemm’s conclusions are further supported by a study in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, which reports that children who practice cursive writing show improved symbol recognition, leading to a heightened ability to read fluently. The study’s published fMRI scans show that physically writing the letters by hand links visual processing and motor experience, thereby strengthening students’ ability to recognize––and later to write––words and sentences. Writing by hand also improves memory and comprehension among adults. According to a study published in the journal Psychological Science, college students who take notes longhand write less but remember more than those who type their notes on a laptop. However, even those elementary schools that retain cursive in their curriculum are giving their students less time to practice it. Catholic schools, famous for emphasizing penmanship, are devoting considerably less class time these days to this skill. Instead of getting it for a half hour or so a day––or roughly 7 1/2 hours per week––students may get 15 minutes’ practice three times a week. That comes to less than an hour a week, or a tenth of the time once allotted to this exercise. Meg Kursonis, principal at St. Peter Central Catholic Elementary School in Worcester, nevertheless points to research that comprehension and retention improves among students who write in cursive. “Students who print or type on a keyboard see individual letters when writing,” she says, “whereas cursive writers see the word as a whole, using the bridges and circular movements to join letters for connectivity. Seeing the whole word also helps them to be better spellers.” Meanwhile, an online poll by Harris Interactive reports that 79 percent of adult respondents––and even 68 percent of kids, ages 8-18––feel cursive should still be taught in school. Nearly half the adults polled (49%) and more than a third of the kids (35%) said that practicing reading and writing in cursive improved literacy. Regardless of what schools decide about their curricula, most children these days begin to peck their way around the keyboard of a computer or smartphone long before they enter school and years before they are handed their first pen (if indeed they are handed a pen in school at all). And even when––in some cases we may need to say if––they pick up a pen, a growing number of children don’t even attempt to learn cursive, since they are allowed to remain with printing as they exercise their writing skills. Some teachers worry that students may leave school unable to sign their name in cursive. What does this developmental switch––from writing or printing to typing or keyboarding––imply for future generations of writers –– and of thinkers? At a superficial level, one could say that they will not be able to decipher great historical documents such
Center & Periphery Winter 2021
Dear Reader, It has been just over a year since news of the Covid-19 virus first began to encircle the world. Beyond its impact on human life and society, this pandemic has in short order radically upturned the way we teach children. In this issue we explore some of the human undercurrents coursing beneath the flow of events and peer ahead to see how teacher education will look during the coming year in light of the outbreak. You will also be brought up to date on several new programs–ands faces–at CfA and Antioch, as well as the latest news from the Leadership Group of our new Alumni Association. We invite you to join us on this retro- and pro-spective journey. Meanwhile, we wish you good health and continued strength for the remainder of this exceptional school year. — Douglas Gerwin Executive Director Center for Anthroposophy Dateline Amherst, MA: Teaching in the Age of Coronavirus Perhaps even more widespread than the current Covid-19 outbreak is a pandemic of fear and anxiety reaching down from adults into the lives of young people and arresting their ability to learn. As a long-time high school teacher, Douglas Gerwin reflects on a root cause and possible remedy for today’s youth. In teaching high school students, I encounter fewer cases of truculent teenagers who say, “I won’t!” and many more cases of trepid students who say, “I can’t.” We have entered a new age of heightened mental and emotional–to some extent even physical–paralysis. Rudolf Steiner predicted more than a century ago that we would find ourselves living in an age of ever more heightened anxiety. In a widely-read lecture known in English as “Overcoming Nervousness”, Steiner characterized a worldwide outbreak of fear and stress that was already gripping people during his time. “Everywhere,” he told a German audience some six years before the outbreak of the Spanish flu epidemic, “something like nervousness is present.” He went on: All this will, in the near future, grow worse and worse for people. If people remain as they are, then a good outlook for the future cannot by any means be offered. For there are harmful influences that affect our current life in a quite extraordinary way and that carry over from one person to the other like an epidemic. Therefore, people become a bit diseased in this direction: not only the ones who have the illness, but also others, who are perhaps only weak but otherwise healthy, get it by a kind of infection. Today, even more all-encompassing than the current pandemic attributed to new strains of the coronavirus, we live in an atmosphere of nameless anxiety that intensifies in our students–as in ourselves–an arresting stenosis of soul. In this same lecture, delivered fully seven years before the opening of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Steiner criticised educators who induce a condition of pedagogical terror in their students by prompting them to cram for what today we would call “high stakes testing”. However, never one to leave his audience in a state of despair or hopelessness, Steiner spent the rest of this lecture outlining no fewer than ten practical exercises on how we as adults can come to grips with what is by now a worldwide psychological affliction. This very matter-of-fact lecture can be found here: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19120111p01.html In this context, we need to ask: Given that students are growing up in an age of societal anxiety–a condition exacerbated by the use of smart phones and the Internet, which have been shown to arouse stress right down to a neurological and hormonal level–how are they to be educated? And how best to prepare their teachers to educate them? Step for a moment into the shoes of a student and you will recognize that, if you are suffering an intensified state of stress or anxiety, you will probably be unwilling, or simply unable, to learn anything new until you feel safe in your place of learning. In a condition of heightened stress, you are more likely instead to protect and defend what you know and shut out or simply ignore what you don’t know or can’t control. Cramming for a school test represents an archetypal example of this condition. While feeling the pressure to organize and retain what you have been told, it is simply too risky to explore an unfamiliar perspective or be open to the epiphany of new insight. More generally, if students don’t feel safe, they won’t move, which is to say that in order to move or be moved–whether outwardly in physical activity or inwardly in soul and spirit–they first need to feel safe. We can say, therefore, that in educating our students we need first to make sure they move. But here’s the rub: whatever pressure an adult exerts on a student from without will inevitably create anxiety in that student, who will feel–rightly–the alien source of this pressure. Though in younger years children need to be steered towards healthy situations and protected from harmful ones, by the time they are young adults movement needs to arise more from within, not be induced from without. In the end, all healthy movement arises from within, even if it is initially stimulated from without. This is the secret of the free human will, easily overlooked because clouded in unconsciousness and, among younger children, still largely undeveloped. With the exception of the reflex–an autonomic (and hence entirely unfree) reaction to the stimulation of the nervous system–healthy movement originates from within the human being, even if it is in response to outer guidance. Only when the kid moves will the kid learn. By the same token, as children grow into teenagers, loving guidance administered from without must give way to inner self-direction and a sense of confidence if something is to be regarded as truly “learned”. As we know from learning to ride a bicycle, you cannot claim to have learned the skill of balancing if your training wheels are still attached. Though the development of this
Center & Periphery Special Edition April 2020
From the Editor’s Notepad[ps2id id=’1′ target=”/] Dear Friends of CfA: So much has transpired since we last wrote to you a month ago! The unimaginable has become fact, the impossible common practice. This is true of Waldorf schools and institutes just as it is of virtually all human activity at the moment –– from cultural practices and public policy making to private home life and the care of children. Almost overnight, Waldorf institutions the world over––including us at CfA and our partners at Antioch University New England––have removed courses or converted them into online classes, supplementing them by all manner of creative and practical solutions. By our actions we demonstrate the flexibility and boundless good will of the human spirit. Like so many other people working in Waldorf schools and institutes, we at CfA are learning a lot about what does and what does not work in a virtual setting, and these lessons are helping us map out options for the coming summer, specifically a new line-up we are calling “Renewal Online 2020: Serving in the Interval” as well as our Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program. Click here to read the latest plans for Renewal Courses; click here for latest news on the high school program. In the meantime, we offer you a link to a new interview with the leading physician Michaela Gloeckler, one of our featured presenters this summer. In her inimitable way, she offers simultaneously lofty and down-to-earth perspectives on the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. Click here to read her interview. We are still expecting to open new hubs of our foundational Explorations Program in Southern New Hampshire and in Alaska next fall, as well as new groups of our Building Bridges program in Arizona and perhaps Jacksonville, Florida. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, we have extended the registration date for these groups to July 1. Register here for Explorations and here for Building Bridges. Mindful of the financial disruption that the current pandemic is wreaking, we are inaugurating new approaches to financial assistance for our summer programs. Click here to read about our new fund for financial assistance. Meanwhile, be well and stay in touch –– even if, for now, the contact has to be held back at a distance of six feet! Douglas Karine Torin Milan Rachel Center for Anthroposophy ————– Against Fear May the events that seek me Come unto me; May I receive them With a quiet mind Through the Spirit’s ground of peace On which we walk. May the people who seek me Come unto me; May I receive them With an understanding heart Through the Spirit’s stream of love In which we live. May the spirits who seek me Come unto me; May I receive them With a clear soul Through the healing Spirit’s Light By which we see. ––– adapted from a verse by Adam Bittleston ———————————————————— Update on our Programs for Summer 2020: Renewal Courses[ps2id id=’2′ target=”/] With heavy heart we have decided to forego offering face-to-face Renewal Courses, as we have done for the past twenty-one years. But, as with most portals, the closure of one door makes possible the opening of another. For this summer, then, we are offering a new sequence of courses we are calling Renewal Online 2020: Serving in the Interval Week I: Sunday 28 June – Friday 3 July Week II: Sunday 5 July – Friday 10 July In making music, one note is juxtaposed with another, creating a unique interval that bridges both notes while being distinct from each. In this sense, this summer’s online courses will serve as bridge from Renewal Courses, as they were in previous years, to what they will become in an as yet undefined future setting. In short, here is a chance to meet in the “interval” that has arisen between the face-to-face experiences of past Renewal Courses and those new human encounters we are already planning for future years. In the potent opening that can arise between remembered past and imagined future, we can together create something meaningful and harmonious in the noisy tumult of these cacophonous times. In brief, we are offering online versions of the following: In Week I: Separate grades-specific courses for each year 1 through 8 (Part 1) Teaching Mixed Grades (Part 1) In Week II: Separate grades-specific courses for 1 through 8 (Part 2) Teaching Mixed Grades (Part 2) Michaela Gloeckler’s seminar on “Healing Impulses and the Call of Destiny” Karsten Massei’s workshop on climate change Linda Bergh and Jennifer Fox’s biography workshop Jamie York’s course on projective geometry Robyn Brown’s course on curative education The grades-specific and mixed-grades courses will be spread over two weeks in order to limit online time each day. Tuition for an online course will be reduced to $395. The course on “The Human Encounter and Community Building” with Torin Finser and Carla Comey will be offered face-to- face during the middle of the next school year. The remaining Renewal Courses previously advertised for this summer will not be offered at this time. Roberto Trostli (science) Meg Chittenden (music) will participate again this summer, and we are planning evening short lectures by Christof Wiechert. We look forward to hearing from you soon. Meanwhile we are working hard to prepare a carefully thought-out framework that will include some Renewal ingredients to help us bridge what we have come to cherish as Renewal from past years and hope to rework in future years. In the meantime, we will need your support to spread the word, in order for us to meet this year and in years to come. With gratitude and best wishes for your protection, Karine CfA Director of Renewal Courses; Renewal Online 2020 [maxbutton id=”4″ url=”https://centerforanthroposophy.org/programs/renewal-courses/” text=”Renewal Online Registration Here” ] A Verse for Our Time We must eradicate from the soul All fear and terror of what comes towards us from out of the future. We must acquire serenity In all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity To everything
Center & Periphery Special Edition March 2020
From the Editor’s Notepad Dear Friends of CfA: In steering through rough seas, it is important to focus one’s vision on the far horizon while simultaneously keeping sharp watch on the surges straight ahead. In this spirit, we would like to share with you how we at the Center for Anthroposophy are navigating the immediate as well as some of the longer-term implications of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. To begin, our hearts go out to all of you who, in your own ways, are dealing with the imponderables that have descended upon us all. Your children, your extended family, your parents, jobs, possible quarantine, your personal health concerns — all of these considerations challenge us to the limit. We wish you courage and strength to weather these turbulent times. Through our website––as well as in e-mails to participants in our various programs––we will keep you posted concerning our plans for the remainder of this spring and the forthcoming summer season. Please check in with us regularly. –– Douglas Gerwin, Executive Director Center for Anthroposophy Inner Quiet Quiet I bear within me, I bear within myself Forces to make me strong. Now will I be imbued with their glowing warmth. Now will I fill myself With my own will’s resolve. And I will feel the quiet Pouring through all my being When by my steadfast striving I become strong To find within myself the source of strength The strength of inner quiet. ~Rudolf Steiner Currently at CfA Recognizing that the worldwide situation is changing rapidly, here is where we stand as of this moment: Our summertime programs of Renewal Courses and the Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program (WHiSTEP) will be offered. If you are planning to attend one or more Renewal Courses this summer, we encourage you to register so that we can gauge levels of interest in them. Confirmation of these courses, after all, is always contingent on sufficient interest and enrollment. If you are enrolled as a returning WHiSTEP student, you are already registered for the summer program of high school teacher training. We will contact you concerning options for your first-week Renewal Course later in the spring. If you have just been accepted as a new WHiSTEP student, you can proceed with further arrangements concerning food and lodging as previously instructed (see next bullet). For both Renewal Courses and WHiSTEP, participants can book room and board through our website. Rest assured that all payments will be refunded if personal or programmatic circumstances necessitate it. Students making private arrangements should negotiate terms with their hosts. We expect to send out confirmation of our summer plans by mid-May. All who have registered for one or more of our summer courses will be contacted via e-mail. Please let us know if you have not heard from us by mid-May. Those taking part in our current Explorations and Building Bridges programs have already been contacted about prospects for the remaining onsite and online sessions of these programs. Further updates will follow as they unfold. Those wishing to sign up for next year’s Explorations and Building Bridges are encouraged to do so on our website, since these programs (like all of our offerings) are contingent on sufficient registered enrollments. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to us with questions or concerns. We are here to support you. A Verse for Our Time We must eradicate from the soul All fear and terror of what comes towards us from out of the future. We must acquire serenity In all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity To everything that may come. And we must think only that whatever comes Is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, Without any security in existence. Trust in the ever present help Of the spiritual world. Truly, nothing else will do If our courage is not to fail us. And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves Every morning and every evening. ~Rudolf Steiner https://www.rudolfsteineranthroposophy.com/practice/inner-quiet/ COVID-19 and our existential crisis By Torin M. Finser Looking outside at 7:30 each morning, I no longer see the yellow school bus that has appeared regularly for years and years. All local gatherings are cancelled, and many local stores have sold out on basic products. Thanks to various news outlets, we see images of Rome, Madrid and other cities around the world totally deserted. More than a “news event”, this is an existential crisis that begs a larger question: what is going on? [ps2id id=’Torin’ target=”/] Waldorf high school students are taught to look beyond the presented information, and practice symptomatology. The human spirit yearns for understanding that goes beyond what is incessantly presented in the news; we are in search of meaning as never before. The Abyss of Nothingness Already over the past year, I have observed that many of the old supports are being taken away from us. Waldorf traditions are questioned as never before, finances are stretched to the breaking point in many schools, and basic social norms seem to be eroding. Now in our corona-crisis we see stark images of what has been creeping up on us for some time: an experience of nothingness. The past is being stripped away, and we stand alone as never before. This presents a new necessity: We are at a point in evolution where the “old” can no longer continue, and now everything will depend on our own efforts as single human beings. We now need to create out of Nothingness. That which I have been given is no longer sufficient; I need to create out of myself as never before. Social Justice and a New Order Last September, Waldorf Today published my article on The Future of Waldorf Education: Beyond 100. A major theme was the need for critical self-assessment of established practices and the need to change our ways in order to thrive in the years going forward. Waldorf
Center & Periphery Winter/Spring 2020
From the Editor’s Notepad The Romans named this the month of purification (februo = “purify through sacrifice”), signaling it was a time for cleansing and fresh beginnings. This year we get an extra day of this activity as we re-align the earth’s orbital relationship to the sun with the addition of February 29. In this spirit, we preview some of the new beginnings in the offerings––and those who offer them––during the coming months. In addition, with this issue we are rolling out a new format. Tell us what you think of it! –– Douglas Gerwin, Executive Director Center for Anthroposophy [ps2id id=’RC’ target=”/] A New Look and a New Manager With this issue, Center and Periphery, the online newsletter of the Center for Anthroposophy, gets a new look, thanks to the expertise of Rachel Cohen, the Center’s recently appointed Operations Manager. Here is a brief introduction to the latest member of our administrative team. Regular readers of our online newsletter, Center & Periphery, will notice a different look to our thrice-yearly broadsheet as of the current issue. This is but one change wrought by Rachel Cohen, who was appointed last fall to the new position of Operations Manager at the Center for Anthroposophy (CfA). Rachel came across the advertisement for this position while working as a sales account executive at the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, a regional newspaper in Southern New Hampshire. It happened to be her task to place this ad in her newspaper and––as a Waldorf parent herself––she seized upon the opportunity to submit her own application. After a series of interviews, she was asked to join CfA’s administrative team as of 1 September 2019. Rachel brings to this position a rich background in administration and graphic design. Before joining the Monadnock Ledger she worked as a real estate agent, graphics designer, technology trainer at Keene State College (where she received her BA degree), and editor of a golf club newsletter in Flagstaff, AZ. She earned a MS in Management from Antioch New England Graduate School in 1999. In her previous newspaper job, she was known as “The Zen Master” for her serene disposition and ability to work quickly on multiple publication tasks without losing her center. What better testimonial for her new role as Operations Manager of our Center! We warmly welcome Rachel to our circle and hope our readers will too when they have occasion to speak with her. In the meanwhile, we extend heartfelt thanks to Anamyn Turowski of Waldorf Publications at the Research Institute for Waldorf Education, who from the inception of our newsletter skillfully handled its graphics and layout, as well as supplying the articles with a lively and sometimes humorous accompaniment of visual images. Thank you, Anamyn! = = = = = = = = = [ps2id id=’alumni’ target=”/] Alumni Responding to the Call Over the past year, participants in CfA and Antioch programs have rallied to the call for the creation of a new alumni association. Torin Finser, who has spearheaded this initiative, offers a first work-in-progress. Thanks to the support of foundations and several individual donors, we have successfully launched a new project to connect with alumni who have participated in programs sponsored by the Center for Anthroposophy (CfA) and the Waldorf Program at Antioch University New England (AUNE). In the first six months of this project, we have conducted an initial survey of alums to assess their wishes for an alumni association, and held five alumni gatherings: two in New England, one each in Tucson, Seattle, Kone, and Maui. In each case alums expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to meet face to face and share valuable insights arising from their years in the classroom. We have designed and will soon send to our alumni a more comprehensive survey asking for a more in-depth review of their teacher training experience in light of subsequent years of teaching. We will use the results of this second survey to evaluate the courses of our teacher education programs. In the meantime, we are collecting “stories of success” from our alums and others for a new book on “Waldorf Teacher Education – Best Practices Beyond 100”. Alumni of CfA and Antioch programs are invited to submit brief outlines of any story describing a moment of success they have had with a student in or outside the classroom. If you are an Antioch or CfA High School Teacher alum please take part 2 of our Alumni survey here. = = = = = [ps2id id=’Renewal’ target=”/] Preview of Renewal Courses for Summer 2020 Karine Munk Finser, Director of CfA’s popular Renewal Courses, offers a brief preview of common attractions this summer, including some new options of timely urgency. Dear Friends, This year we have taken the big step of going paperless with our Renewal brochure, not simply to support the environment but also because we know that most of you find us and register online. A single flyer listing all of our courses has already been sent to many of you. We are delighted to share our new Renewal Brochure for 2020 here. The first week of courses––June 28th to July 3rd––will feature our grades-specific courses. New this year is that Christof Wiechert, in addition to offering his popular morning lectures, will visit all the grades once to share his rich insights into the art of the child study. David Newbatt will help teachers tackle blackboard drawings that enrich the curriculum and express the joy of creating fresh images in front of the students. During the second week––July 5th to July 10th––we will address burning questions of our times. A five-day research symposium on financing Waldorf education and addressing diversity and equity in our schools is intended to stimulate a creative and solutions-based exchange. Leaders of our movement, including Linda Williams and John Bloom, will be on campus to help find solutions and create the language needed for their implementation. In this spirit, Bronya Evers and Melody Brinch will offer storytelling and
