by David Barham

This was a significant gathering of nearly 300 Waldorf high school teachers from 34 countries. As one can imagine, it was powerful to be around all of these teachers doing the real work, to take part in intensive workshops, and to hear daily lectures on meaningful topics. 

The days were long with four 90-minute workshops and two 90-minute lectures each day! I took a workshop with Jost Shieren called, The Development of Judgements in Adolescence, and another with Peter Lutzker called Anthroposophy and Pedagogical Practice. There were lectures from Constanza Kaliks (Rudolf Steiner’s Cosmopolitan Pedagogical Impulse), Rita Schumacher (World Literature as an Ongoing Translation in Time and Space),  Jost Schieren (Waldorf Education and Spirituality), and Martyn Rawson (How Can We Translate Anthroposophy for Waldorf Education?) Additionally, Dirk Rhohde & Wilfried Sommer spoke on a hybrid online/in-person course they taught together at two different Waldorf schools in Germany, and offered this as a model for collaboration. 

One morning, I had my breakfast with four teachers from Croatia. They tested me by asking if I knew where Rudolf Steiner was born. The correct answer was, of course, Croatia! That same day I had lunch with a teacher from China, one from Taiwan, and one from the Philippines. Another night, I sat at a raucous table with 6-7 (maybe it was 10 or 20!) teachers from Brazil. Another time I was invited to join the warm group from Russia. My final breakfast was with the delegation from Georgia, who had sung haunting Georgian folk songs the night before. One of the most moving moments of the entire conference for me was hearing the Israeli teachers talk about how traumatized their school and nation are since the terrorist attacks. The teachers there decided, after long conversations, to lead the entire high school in a production of Singin’ in the Rain. They showed a few minutes of video to the audience, and the joy and resiliency of youth filled the hall.

One really special event I would like to share: Two years ago at the World Teachers’ Conference at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Adam Dubignon, a school adminnistrator at Sasana International School in Malaysia asked Sven Saar for help starting an online high school professional development course for his teachers and others too far from teacher training institutes to attend live trainings. Sven asked Amanda Bell from England and me to work with him, and Waldorf 360 was born. The final session, number 60, took place at the Kassel conference. A number of us were live in a science classroom in Kassel, and we were joined by educators from other parts of the world for a lovely program taking up the question, “What Makes Waldorf special?” Sven Saar, Amanda Bell, Wilfried Sommer, Karla Neves and I were in the room together and we were joined by Robert Sim and former CfA Executive Director, Douglas Gerwin in the US, Bandana Basu from India, the Eurythmy India troupe also from India (with eurythmists from Nepal, India, Singapore, Iran, Taiwan and Malaysia), Alan Swindell from England and Adam from Malaysia. 

Being reminded 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, (and which Sven Saar shared on his t-shirt), “Happy teachers change the world!”