In fact, the “new” element this year was “King Arthur’s Wedding,” a new play written and directed by Dennis Demanett and performed by the Sixth Grade. The weather was pleasant, the flowers were stunning (including some lovely blue ones here and there), and the Maypole Dancing (an ancient tradition) exquisite. What a wonderful celebration of the season. Some of the photos were taken with a borrowed camera….

Here’s a selection of photos from the day, most of them taken by PWS parent Ken Wallace. Be patient, it takes the slide show a while to load, but once it gets going, it’s worth the wait!

Mrs. Demanett and Sakura Koshikawa in the PWS 8th Grade Classroom

Sakura Koshikawa (PWS Class of 2004) dropped by campus this week to take a bit of a sentimental journey, check out the old stomping grounds, and seek advice about the teaching profession from Sue Demanett (pictured here with Sakura).

Sakura attended PWS from Kindergarten through 8th grade, graduating from South Pasadena High School in 2008. After attending Pasadena City College, she
transferred to Pepperdine University, from which she graduated this past Saturday, April 28, 2012, with a major in Liberal Arts and a teaching credential through a special Teacher Education program which she describes as “amazing,” with a faculty that she calls “spectacular.”

The Thursday Reader asked Sakura (whose father, Yoichi, taught Japanese at PWS prior to Koyanaga-sensei) to describe for our readers the place of her PWS
education in her life, and this is what she wrote:

Only a week ago, I was student-teaching at a Title I school, working with a group of enthusiastic second graders, mostly English learners. It was their first week of STAR testing, their induction into the hall of standardized testing. To that end for 4 months I had prepared daily lessons exclusively for Math and English. So coming back to PWS, seeing the colors, smelling the trees, hearing the singing, I couldn’t help but think that these two places, or more precisely the approaches, are worlds apart. Where to begin? The color of the walls, the infusion of music into all aspects of the curriculum, the flowers, the trees, the arts, the main lesson books, the dedication of the teachers, the time to think deeply about those things that matter most… worlds apart.

After reflecting on a journey that has led me through a Waldorf primary education, public high school, community college, and private university, as well as public elementary school student teaching experiences, I can say without a doubt that Waldorf has been the most meaningful experience for me, one that nurtured human beings with respect to the child’s development. A standards-happy education is a climate conducive to neither growth of the imagination nor nourishment of the soul. After all, do standards address morality? Do they measure kindness? Do they require anything more of a child than what a computer can output, and with greater accuracy? All that to say I love PWS, and with each new experience outside PWS I see its value rising. Even now as I apply for jobs and my future is unclear, I know my heart is set to somehow bridge the gap between two worlds, the worlds of public education and Waldorf. I am so excited for what is yet to come and thankful for everyone who made this journey possible!

(Bonus content for the online version of the Thursday Reader only)

Karen Livingston, PWS music teacher, mentioned to the editors of the Thursday Reader that Sakura visited a middle school chorus rehearsal  and sang with the kids on the same day she was photographed with Mrs. Demanett.

“In our conversation before class began,” Mrs. Livingston reports, “Sakura reflected on an earlier experience she had on returning to PWS after graduation: she stopped by a music class and heard the 8th graders, who were in a history block on the French revolution, singing a song she had written as an 8th grader when she was in the same block! She has told a number of people that she can’t imagine any other place where such a thing could have occurred.”

–submitted by Clark Hansen, Communications and
Outreach Coordinator

From the “World of Waldorf Video Series,” this film about Marin Waldorf School by Paul Zehrer encapsulates the Waldorf educational experience in a way that is not just specific to Marin, but to all Waldorf schools, including Pasadena Waldorf School.

High Tech Waldorf Graduate

Stefan Klocek, ’93, a digital products designer and senior consultant at a technology development firm, shares how his Waldorf education prepared him for a high tech career.

Waldorf Alumni on Innovation and Adaptability

Chicago Waldorf School Alumni and other Waldorf school alumni reflect on the value of their unique education detailing how it prepared them for creative thinking, innovation and adaptability in the professional world.

From Waldorf Today: “Why Waldorf Teaching Is the Greatest Profession,” by Henning Kullac-Ublick.

Being a teacher not only involves professional and technical knowledge, but imagination and fantasy, unbridled interest in the world, and especially the courage to explore new things together with the children. Only those who love the world can reach children.

April 23, 1919:
The First World War is over and Germany is economically and politically on the rocks. In a Stuttgart factory tobacco bundles are stacked everywhere, from which Waldorf-Astoria brand cigarettes will be rolled. The workers are sitting on the bundles and a speaker calls out to them: “For more than a century, this mantra has echoed through humanity: Freedom, Equality, Fraternity. Much was written in the nineteenth century regarding the sheer incompatibility of these three words. They were right. Why? These concepts were buried by the hypnotic effects of an emerging centralized federal government. Only when these three words, these three impulses: the freedom of the spiritual life, the equality of the democratic state, and the brotherhood of the association of economic life are put in place, only then can they their true meaning be fulfilled.”

Click HERE to read the entire article….

This article was originally published in Erziehungskunst, which translates as: The Art of Education. The Special December 2011 Issue was called: “One World – One Idea, Celebrating 40 years of the Friends of Waldorf Education.”

Daily Nightly, MSNBC, 11/30/11: “The Waldorf Way: California school eschews technology.” This clip begins with a piece on Waldorf, but includes commercials (for products and companies PWS does NOT endorse), and many other education stories. It’s nice to see Waldorf in the mainstream media, but… Let us know what you think.

Scientific American, November 2011 has an article called “The Death of Preschool?” The entire article is not available on the Scientific American site, but our friends at Waldorf Today have reprinted it on their site.

New York Times, 10/30/11: “In a Standardized Era, a Creative School Is Forced to Be More So” – No child left behind catches up with New Hampshire school.

New York Sunday Times, 10/23/11 – Front Page: “A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute”

Here’s a 10/25/11 Letter to the Editor in response to this story from Greg Simon, Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore. Simon, father of two Waldorf-educated children, oversaw the Clinton Administration’s program to connect  classrooms to the Internet.

If you’re interested in other articles in this series on “Grading the Digital School” by Mr. Richtel, which demonstrate the lack of research for computer learning, you might want to visit Classroom of the Future, Stagnant Scores,” or “Inflating the Software Report Card.”

CNN Opinion, 12/29/10 – “Want to get your kids into college? Let them play”

Renewal, Spring/Summer 2011: “Not So Strange, After All,” by Douglas Gerwin, Ph.D. [PDF]

Q. & A. with Douglas Gerwin, INTERVIEW by Leslie Lindeman

New York Times: “Secret to Success“ – NB: The elitist tone of the first page of this article might be off-putting. For those who have heard Douglas Gerwin speak about the way the Waldorf curriculum incorporates “character education,” it is well worth reading further into the article; the insights definitely resonate….

Morning Edition: “The Teen Brain: It’s Just Not Grown Up Yet”

All Things Considered: “SAT Reading Scores”

National Geographic: “Teenage Brains”

All Things Considered: “How Can Parents Navigate Children’s TV Shows?”

Here’s a selection of photos from the trip. Be patient, it takes the slide show a while to load, but once it gets going, it’s worth the wait!

Cast Photo by Donna Herlihy

What a joy and a privilege it is to see class plays at Pasadena Waldorf School! As a parent here for 15 years, I got a lot of Waldorf play-watching under my belt. As someone whose children also acted in other plays at other schools, and who, as director of communications at Polytechnic School, watched twelve grades of plays for over twelve years, I can say, without exaggeration, that I’m an experienced scholastic play-watcher.

There are a number of aspects in Waldorf plays that make them unique and distinctive. This year’s fifth grade play contained all of those elements, and so serves as a great example of the dramatic difference in the Waldorf approach to drama.

The play opened with the entire ensemble playing an overture on cellos, violins, and recorders. Throughout the rest of the play, interludes between scenes were punctuated by recorder music. Scenes in the second half of the play included students making “reed” sounds with recorders, and there was even a musical duel between Apollo, god of music, playing a lyre, and a satyr named Marsyas playing panpipes made from the reeds. Notice how nature, and representatives of the spirits of nature, are actors in the drama.

After the musical overture, the entire cast acted as Chorus, reciting in a variety of classical verse forms the lessons to be learned by watching the play. We long ago forgot how to name the verse forms we were hearing – Iambic? Trochaic? Hexameter? Pentameter? – but we could hear the differences in the students’ strong, confident recitations, and that made all the difference. And part of a Waldorf performance always includes beautiful movement – in this case, a brief eurythmic interlude – which so elevates the audience’s experience of the play.

This reviewer attended the Wednesday morning performance, along with the first through fourth grades. There is always an element of humor in Waldorf plays, which helps to make a connection with the audience, and this play was no exception. When King Midas’s barber, who is sworn to secrecy after discovering the donkey’s ears that Apollo has gifted to Midas, can no longer keep the secret and so digs a hole and yells into it, “The King has big asses’ ears! Big asses’ ears has he!” it tickled the funny bones of the younger members of the audience, and as the older, more mature students that they are, the fifth graders kept their cool as cast members repeated the secret to one another over the course of the next few minutes. Very professional, in this reviewer’s opinion.

The material chosen for each grade always has a connection to the students’ development, and ties in with other parts of the curriculum. Fifth grade represents a kind of classical “Golden Age,” in the Waldorf way of seeing things: students’ mental, emotional and physical beings are briefly, and delightfully, in balance. In this production of The Story of King Midas, Apollo, the Greek ideal of tasteful proportion, is victorious over the money-grubbing and essentially “tone deaf” King Midas, who has been counseled by Apollo’s opposite, Dionysus, along the way. There’s a hint that, for now, Apollo’s Way is the proper path to follow; Dionysian excess isn’t where it’s at. The play closed with the cast singing the same hymn they will be singing this Friday, April 27, with all the other Southern California Waldorf Fifth Graders at the Pentathalon down in San Diego.

Finally, another lovely thing about Waldorf plays is that, behind the scenes, parents help with the make-up, costumes, set design, and sometimes lighting, staging and sound cues. The feel for the audience is of an inspired and loving theatrical ensemble that has worked together for years. And in a way, that’s exactly what they are.

Well done, cast, crew, and Mrs. Murray!

-submitted by Clark Hansen, communications and outreach coordinator

We are looking for an experienced High School teacher for geometry classes.  Waldorf high school teacher training is preferred. This is a wonderful opportunity, especially for a well-seasoned specialist, to help build and form a Waldorf High School. The ideal candidate is friendly, open, well-spoken, and holds a bachelor’s degree or higher.  He or she has already been successful teaching and enjoys working collegially in a Waldorf school.

Qualified interested candidates should fax, mail, or e-mail the following to Jennifer Tse, Director of High School Administration, at jtse@pasadenawaldorf.org 

• Letter of interest and intention
• Resume
• Brief biography
• Three references, including most recent employer
• Current contact information

 Date posted:  April, 2012

 Pasadena Waldorf School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, religion, political affiliation, handicapping conditions, or sex in it educational programs or employment.  No person shall be denied employment solely because of any impairment that is unrelated to the ability to engage in activities involved in the position or program to which application has been made.

If you are interested, please fax, mail, or e-mail your letter of interest, resume, three references including most recent school employer, and a brief biography as soon as possible to Adrienne Wilde, Faculty Co-Chair, awilde@pasaendawaldorf.org.

Date posted: April 2012

Pasadena Waldorf School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, religion, political affiliation, handicapping conditions, or sex in its educational programs or employment.  No person shall be denied employment solely because of any impairment which is unrelated to the ability to engage in activities involved in the position or program to which application has been made.

In our continuing effort to understand and communicate information about our very unique Waldorf educational system, in this week’s Thursday Reader we turn our attention to what Dorit Winter, Director of the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training, calls “The Tricky Triangle: Children, Parents, and Teachers.” We take our insights from Ms. Winter’s article of the same name, published in the Research Bulletin, Autumn 2006, Volume 12, #1, which is available HERE as a PDF. Thanks to visiting mentor Douglas Gerwin for passing the article along.

The first thing to draw our attention is the pull quote on the first page of the article: “The entire trajectory of education consists of transforming subjective love into objective love.” Intriguing. What does it mean?

Winter begins by defining subjective love as kind of love that parents have for their children. It’s marked by loyalty, unconditional love, and support through thick and thin. It’s similar to the bond that, in earlier times, we had with our “tribe.” By its very nature, it’s exclusive.

Objective love is inclusive, not limited to the familiar, and “can enfold the separate, the individual.” The love of a teacher for a child is, or should be, objective.

“We can grasp how difficult this transformation” from subjective love to objective love is, says Winter, “when we consider that we have been engaged in it for thousands of years. In this sense, education is a microcosm of the evolution of human consciousness.”

Heady words.

“In Waldorf teacher training,” Winter goes on to explain, “The fundamental goal is to enable the adult student to jettison her or his own sack of tocks, so that he or she can approach a child without the distorting weight of personal predilections.” Note that she says it’s a goal, not a given. “Waldorf education is predicated on the notion that a teacher aims to see through these screens, to see a child as the child is.”

So, Winter tells us, parents and teachers play different roles in the life of a child. And in a Waldorf school community, the different roles can get confusing. When the first Waldorf schools opened nearly a century ago, “there was still some formality in the relationship of parent and child to teacher. The teacher was endowed with some inherent authority.”

Winter observes that in the 50 years since she entered 10^th grade at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City, the formalities have “evaporated, along with all sorts of expectations, which in that bygone era were considered normal. Dress, language, behavior … all have become informal. In all that informality it’s little wonder that parents and teachers are confused about their roles.

“If we don’t clarify these roles, if this confusion persists,” Winter warns, “Waldorf education will also become confused, vitiated, and porous.”

She goes on to describe how Waldorf teachers are different from other teachers, because, in addition to specific skills and knowledge, “the Waldorf teacher is schooled in self-knowledge. And this self-knowledge comes through the Waldorf teacher’s study of anthroposophy. Anthroposophy informs a Waldorf school curriculum, but it also provides the framework for the Waldorf teacher’s inner striving, without which she or he will not become a Waldorf teacher.” [Emphasis added.]

Parents do not participate in this striving, Winter observes, and therefore “find themselves looking at a scene they cannot quite penetrate. What are those teachers up to? Why won’t they ‘open up’? Why do some of them act as if their classrooms have an invisible threshold that parents may not cross? Parents feel that something mysterious is going on. Some parents join the teacher training or a study group in their school,” Winter continues, “But others may start to criticize, to complain, in an attempt to make comprehensible what is otherwise not comprehensible. In so doing, they unwittingly weaken the very thing that makes a Waldorf school what it is.” [Emphasis added].

The rest of the article is a fascinating look at the role of trust, independence, and self-reliance (versus a chronic need for reassurance and validation) in healthy relationships. Winter acknowledges that, because each “Waldorf school is its own independent entity, each school will have to find its own way to the practical details of parent-teacher collaboration.”

In discussing the tasks of the College of Teachers and the Board of Trustees, Winter emphasizes that, “Any decision regarding the welfare of the children should be in the hands of those working with the children, the teachers. Any decision regarding the welfare of the institution should be in the hands of those legally responsible for the institution, namely, the Board.”

She acknowledges that it sounds simpler than it is. “In real life,” she says, “We get confused about our mandate, we lose sight of the common goal, we get polarized. Our great striving is to keep the whole child before us: head, heart, and hands; thinking, feeling, and willing; spirit, soul, and body.”

She concludes that, “Only by recognizing the true task of each of these three will we be able to educate the child to withstand the storms of life. And only if parents and teachers recognize their distinct tasks will schools withstand the fracturing forces loose in the world. Then parents and teachers can all be proud of the amazing work, the daily miracles that grace life in Waldorf schools.”

–Submitted by Clark Hansen