being human - fall-winter 2024

Empowering our Children for a Brighter Future: The Origin and Growth of Indigenous Waldorf Education at the Lakota Waldorf School

By Sara Ciborski

Amid rolling hills and grasslands in southwestern South Dakota, the Lakota Waldorf School is an inspiration for social and cultural renewal in a community contending with the burdens of centurieslong subjugation and poverty. Every morning, children and teachers gather in their classrooms and recite:

Anpetu iyohila miye ekta he (The Sun with loving light/ Makes bright for me each day…)

The LWS recently celebrated its 30-year anniversary and the opening of a new classroom and community building. A tuition-free school, it is funded by a network of individual and foundation donors. Some 65 children, grades K through 8, are currently enrolled, with more expected next year. Fourteen teachers and staff, plus bus drivers and a cook, most Lakota tribal members, are dedicated to ensuring that this next generation can build positive futures for themselves, their community, and beyond.

The new building is a model of green construction, built over seven years in phases at a cost of almost $3 million. It has a light-filled sunroom, four spacious classrooms (classes meet in combined groups), a reception area, administrative offices, cafeteria, and fully equipped commercial-size kitchen. It makes possible the school’s robust public outreach: open houses, seasonal celebrations, student performances, and fundraising fairs. These events attract attention to the benefits of Waldorf education-age-appropriate academics, experiential learning, the nurturing of imagination, creativity, initiative, and respect for nature—and to the unique curriculum of Lakota culture, values, and lifeways integrated into the daily life of the school.

Pine Ridge is one of nine Lakota/Dakota/Nakota reservations in South Dakota. It is a vast territory of scattered communities and remote homesteads - 40,000 people spread over 2.8 million acres. Indian lands are held in trust by the federal government for federallyrecognized tribes, in this case, the Oglala Sioux Tribe, or Nation, the largest Lakota subtribe. The OST Education Agency and Tribal Council, which have supervision over reservation schools, have endorsed the school’s mission and grant it full autonomy in matters of curriculum, governance, and school operations.

The children of Pine Ridge are among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in the country. Despite federal funding to tribal governments for health, education, and other programs, over fifty percent of families live below the poverty line and unemployment runs as high as 80 percent. The high-school drop-out rate is 60 percent, the adolescent suicide rate four times the national average. Children grow up at risk from high rates of chronic illnesses, like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease; they suffer from significantly higher rates of attention deficit disorder and fetal alcohol syndrome. Many are separated, intermittently or permanently, from their parents.

The LWS administrator, Isabel Stadnick, says many children come to school suffering the effects of tragedies related to domestic violence, alcoholism, or drug abuse. Many lack strong role models for a healthy lifestyle: lack of meaningful work options, harsh living conditions, and political powerlessness have led to discouragement and diminished expectations on the part of many adults. Hope for a better future for these children was the school’s founding impulse.

ANTHROPOSOPHY IN SOUTH DAKOTA

The school’s origin story, according to Isabel, one of the founders, involves several fortuitous encounters. She grew up in Switzerland, attended Waldorf school in Basel, and studied speech and drama at the Goetheanum. In 1989, she visited Pine Ridge on a group tour, but it was definitely not with anthroposophy in mind. She was sure, she recalls, that she was leaving it all behind, responding instead to a different call: a deep inner connection she had long felt with America’s Plains Indians.

The group was hosted in tipis outside the town of Kyle and every evening some Lakota people would come and talk to them by the campfire. To Isabel’s surprise, one man, speaking about traditional Lakota wisdom, mentioned Rudolf Steiner. Then she met another Lakota man, Robert Stadnick, who had a book by Rudolf Steiner in his simple earth lodge. She does not recall the title; it had belonged to a retired Lakota public school principal.

Isabel and Robert married. He was raising four young children and they had three children together. Like many Lakota parents at that time, they were concerned about education, because the standardized curriculum and teaching methods in the reservation’s public schools were not supporting the development of a positive Lakota identity. They began meeting with other parents to look at alternative models. Because there was already awareness of Rudolf Steiner, it was an easy step to Waldorf education. Isabel supplied details, and it became clear that Waldorf education was harmonious with traditional Lakota child-rearing methods. In olden times, Lakota parents taught values, customs, attitudes through storytelling. They engaged children in crafts and practical work important for survival. Children were given freedom to play and explore nature. Gratitude and reverence for all life are the heart of the culture along with interdependence in social relationships.

Isabel and three Lakota elders traveled to Switzerland and met with Dr. Heinz Zimmerman, then head of the Pedagogical Section. They asked him if they could start a school that would be a Waldorf school with Lakota language and culture. He not only said yes; he said it would not be a Waldorf school if it was not filled with the culture and language of the people.

We don’t know how a book by Rudolf Steiner reached a remote South Dakota Indian reservation, but we can trace connections back 100 years on Isabel’s side. Her grandparents, Caroline and Walter Sommer, were a Swiss couple living in London who knew Rudolf Steiner when he visited there in the early 1920s. Her grandmother took tickets at the door for his lectures. Her grandfather became an anthroposophical doctor. Her grandmother sent her daughter, Isabel’s mother, to the first Waldorf school in London and later Isabel’s parents were active members of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland.

STRUGGLES AND SLOW GROWTH

In 1993, 40 acres of land were purchased with donations; a one-room building was built by local volunteers and Waldorf students from Europe. At first the LWS offered only an early childhood/ kindergarten program. The first teacher was a Waldorf class teacher who was on sabbatical and stayed two years. Later, other experienced Waldorf teachers came to teach and mentor their Lakota assistants. From 1997 (when Robert died) to 2008, Isabel was in Switzerland where she completed a fundraising training program, and during the early 2000s, without an administrator, the school had to close for two years.

Since 2008, with capable Lakota people serving on the Board and Isabel’s administrative leadership, the LWS has grown steadily. The kindergarten was always full with 18 to 20 children, the most the building could accommodate. By 2016, grades one through four had been added, using two small adjacent buildings. Finally, in 2019, with the opening of the classroom wing of the new building, the LWS became a full eight-grade elementary school. It is now affiliated with AWSNA as an Associate Member, following a recent comprehensive evaluation.

The LWS is the only school on the reservation explicitly committed to decolonizing the education of Lakota children. To this end, it offers a culturally relevant curriculum of Lakota activities and content integrated into the standard Waldorf sequence of academic, artistic, and practical subjects. The faculty includes a full-time Lakota culture specialist who organizes Lakota arts, crafts, plays, and ceremonies. To meet the urgent need to preserve the Lakota language—it is classified by the United Nations as at risk of extinction; most fluent speakers are over 60the LWS offers a near-immersion program of language instruction. In response to the health crisis, the school serves nutritious breakfasts, lunches, and snacks every school day.

The most recent initiative, in collaboration with tribal authorities, is a program of Lakota cultural activities, gardening, art therapy, and GED preparation for teenage boys and girls incarcerated in the local Juvenile Detention Center.

The LWS faculty now also includes Isabel’s daughters, Celestine and Caroline. As children of a Lakota father, they are enrolled members of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. Both received Waldorf teacher certification from the Academy for Anthroposophical Pedagogy in Dornach (AfAP). Both have Masters degrees from the University of New Brunswick: Celestine for educational administration and Caroline for exceptional learners. They are now providing teaching expertise along with supervision and instruction for the school’s new onsite Waldorf teacher training program.

ACADEMY FOR INDIGENOUS WALDORF PEDAGOGY

A huge challenge for the school is finding qualified native teachers. Native teachers are needed because they understand the circumstances shaping native children’s lives. Sending Lakota teachers away to distant Waldorf teacher education programs proved difficult because of the hardship of leaving families and because the cost was a strain on the school’s budget.

Under Celestine’s direction, the Academy for Indigenous Waldorf Pedagogy (AIWP) was established in 2019 in collaboration with AfAP in Dornach. The AfAP provides oversight and will confer Waldorf certification on Lakota teachers who complete the four-year program. It is designed to accommodate indigenous teacher-trainees with an individualized approach taking into consideration their socioeconomic backgrounds, family circumstances, and their status as full-time teachers at LWS. It is the first and only such program in the U.S.

While the LWS is now thriving, much work remains. Funds are needed for a building with additional classroom and handcrafts space. More teachers’ cabins are needed (there are three now). A critical shortage of reservation housing makes this imperative for teacher retention. The school’s website (www. lakotawaldorfschool.org) and social media activity keep the many individual supporters engaged, and it will continue to depend largely on foundation grants. The newest initiative: A proposal for every Waldorf school to adopt a policy of free tuition for any Native American student who would like to attend. Since all Waldorf schools in the U.S. are on land originally owned by their ancestors, this seems fair and would be a long overdue act of reconciliation.

Sara Ciborski (saraciborski@gmail.com) has been a member of the Anthroposophical Society since 1984. She is a Waldorf parent and grandparent, and author of a research monograph on Waldorf assessment methods. She has a PhD in cultural anthropology with a focus on Northeastern North American Indians. She has been a grants writer for Camphill Village in Copake (NY), AWSNA, and for the last eight years the Lakota Waldorf School.