Partnerships of Hope

Partnerships of Hope: Building Waldorf School Communities Partnerships of Hope: Building Waldorf School Communities by Christopher Schaefer Printed with support from the Waldorf Curriculum Fund Published by: !e Association of Waldorf Schools of North America Publications O"ce 38 Main Street Chatham, New York 12037 Title: Parnerships of Hope: Building Waldorf School Communities Author: Christopher Schaefer Editor: David Mitchell Copy Editor and Proofreader: Ann Erwin Cover: David Mitchell Geometric drawing on cover by a Waldorf student © 2012 by AWSNA Publications ISBN # 978-1-936367-20-7 Printed by McNaughton & Gunn Saline, MI 48176 USA Table of Contents Hope .............................................. 7 Preface.............................................. 9 I !e Dialogue of Social Creation: Practicing Social Art .............................. 11 II Phases of Waldorf School Development................ 25 III Self-Administration and Governance in Waldorf Schools... 51 IV Working Together in Groups and Communities ......... 72 V Developing a Culture of Leadership, Learning and Service ..................................... 101 VI Transformation and Renewal in Waldorf Schools . 116 VII Rudolf Steiner as Social !inker and Reformer .......... 149 VIII !e Experience of Hope: Waldorf Schools as Cathedrals of the 21st Century ............................... 170 IX An Education for Peace, for Hope and for the Social Future .................................... 202 Acknowledgements .................................... 208 Hope Either we have hope in us or we don’t. It is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the Spirit, an orientation of the heart. … Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it’s good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. Hope is de#nitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. …It is also hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless. – Vaclav Havel (1986) Dedication !is book of essays is dedicated to my children, Karin and Stefan, and to their children, Kaya, Cyris, and Talei, in the hope that they will experience a world of increased educational freedom and creativity, an education dedicated to service and to peace. Preface It was a cold day in early March when I went to pick up my grandson at the kindergarten of the Brooklyn Waldorf School. As I walked down Hanson Street, the wind was blowing hard as it often does on streets with tall o"ce buildings. When I pulled the door open at the school building next to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I could hear singing and laughter as well as children’s chatter and the lower modulated voices of parents. !ere were smiles, greetings and hugs as we waited on the stairs and in the hallway for the doors of the cramped classroom to open. !en the children appeared under thick hats and coats, smiling as they saw the faces of parents and grandparents. After a quick greeting we trudged hand in hand down the long stairs, the children waving goodbye to their friends and classmates. In remembering this day and the children’s celebration of the Chinese New Year festival I had experienced a few weeks previously, I re$ected on my many years of deep connection to the Waldorf School Movement: #rst as a student, then as a founding parent at a new school and also as an active parent in three other Waldorf schools, and later as an advisor to many Waldorf schools in the United States and abroad. I also remembered the many years as a faculty member at Sunbridge College and our e%orts to build programs serving the needs of the Waldorf movement and of anthroposophy. A feeling of gratitude came to me as I pondered this life-long connection to Waldorf education and my involvement in the e%orts to build vibrant, joyful and life- enhancing Waldorf school communities. !is book of essays is written out of this experience with Waldorf education. It is for the children, teachers, parents, administrators and friends of this unique educational movement that is worldwide in scope and as diverse as the many cultural areas which it serves. !e focus of these essays is on the challenge and the opportunity of building community, of forging a partnership between teachers, parents, administrative sta% and friends of the school for the sake of the children and their development. It is an invitation to build community together as a seed for a new human-centered society of caring, of belonging and of mutual development. Many of the nine essays in the book were written over the last twenty years, often as talks given at Waldorf conferences and events. !ey have been updated and modi#ed to form a whole that I hope can be an inspiration and a help to the joys and struggles of building community among conscious and often opinionated adults. Many of the essays have bene#ted from the rich and enlivening dialogs that took place in the Waldorf School Administration and Community Development Program at Sunbridge College from 1993 to 2008. !ese conversations and shared case studies deepened my insights and caring, as have my many years of work in Waldorf school communities in this country and abroad. !e chapters can be read separately —with chapters 2–6 having a stronger practical focus, while chapters 1, 7, 8 and 9 have a more re$ective philosophical orientation. !e reader will, however, bene#t from reading them in sequence. !e more re$ective essays contain many of Rudolf Steiner’s social insights, which entered strongly into the founding of the #rst Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1919, and which have informed the history and traditions of the Waldorf School Movement since that time. While the Waldorf School Movement is now over ninety years old, I believe its educational philosophy, its pedagogy and its social forms are still young and desperately needed in modern societies that increasingly educate for standardized tests, social compliance and the work force rather than for human and social creativity. I wholeheartedly agree with one commentator who, in describing the founding of the #rst Waldorf school in 1919, said that this #rst Waldorf school “was not begun as the idyllic refuge of wealthy esoterically-minded parents and their children, but as a healing impulse, as a healing initiative not only for the individual child but for all children, as the essence, hope and reality of a future society of peace.” !is then is our challenge in building Waldorf school communities: to educate children for the future, while creating a community of peace out of diversity, a community which honors the spirit and the uniqueness of each individual. I hope these essays can serve that end. I !e Dialogue of Social Creation: Practicing Social Art Every person is a special kind of artist, and every activity is a special art. – M.C. Richards As individuals we are faced with a host of social, economic and political issues over which we appear to have little control. !e complexity of such questions and the burdens of everyday life can combine to breed a feeling of powerlessness. Yet there is a realm in which we can and do make a di%erence—the realm of social initiative, of social creation. Whether we listen with an open heart to a teenage boy talking about his fear; how we relate to our marriage partner; our contributions at a faculty meeting; the manner in which we develop a school, company or food cooperative—all make a di%erence. !ey are all acts of social creation, which externalize something of our ideas and values, of our being.1 !e marvelous wisdom and beauty of the natural world is given to us. We can admire it and seek to understand it, but it is not our creation. !e social world—that of Waldorf schools and of banks, hospitals, highways, stores, living rooms, quarrels and laughter —is our creation, no matter how objective, external and alien it may seem. Each of us is involved in this ongoing social creation process, although we seldom stop to think about it or to recognize its potential for transformation. We are all social artists or, as M.C. Richards puts it, “every person is a special kind of artist, and every activity is a special art.”2 Being part of a Waldorf school community o%ers us a unique opportunity to practice the art of social creation, to permeate our relationship to the world of things, to others, to groups and to the school community with a new consciousness. !e World of !ings If we accept the notion that we are all social artists, though often unconscious of our artistic activity and talent, questions arise about the nature, purpose, principles and areas of social art. Where does social art #nd expression? It seems to me that its most concrete manifestation is in our relation to the world of things—to tables, chairs, home decoration, classroom design, to how we button our shirt and set the table. My relation to the world of things hasn’t been a particularly strong aspect of my social creativity, and yet, with prodding, I have learned to see that a beautifully set table a%ects mood, conversation and enjoyment at supper and that a clean and artistically decorated classroom helps learning.

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