Fall Newsletter 2021 by San Francisco Waldorf School

FALL 2021

Parts of the Whole

The Alumni Issue

High school students and faculty learning the merengue for Día de Los Muertos

Contents . . . 2

Winter Events

A Message from Craig Appel, Administrative Director

Democracy in the Classroom fostering a Sense of Belonging

parts, a central approach

Interview with new HS Chair Lenya Bloom

in Waldorf Education

Community Fund

Highlights from the David Bushnell Center

Season of Light

From the whole to the

PAGE 2

Upcoming Events

A message from our Administrative Director

December 5

Dear Friends, In Waldorf education, one central approach is working from the whole to the parts. In school and in the community at large, SFWS put this into practice by focusing on the overall health of the group as well as that of each unique individual. Our Fall 2021 newsletter presents examples of this part of our work, which is also illuminated in the verse below that is recited at many school meetings, including those of the Board of Trustees, Multicultural Council, and many others:

We are delighted to have Winter Fair back in person at the Grade School campus! sfwaldorf.org/winter-fair

December 10

Join us for a night of live musical performances—guitar, choir, jazz and more—by the high school students.

"The healthy social life is found, when, in the mirror of each human soul, the whole community finds its reflection, and when, in the community, the virtue of each one is living." - Steiner In the High School, a new faculty member discusses democracy in the classroom and how that supports each individual’s sense of belonging. We also celebrate the David Bushnell Center for Athletics and Community—its positive impact and the specific activities it has enabled and elevated. We hear from an alum who is now working at SFWS, bringing her individual efforts to improve the whole of our school. And we look forward to Winter Fair that showcases the uniquely imaginative vision and aroundthe-clock efforts of many to create an in-person event that reflects and uplifts our community and neighborhood. Thank you to everyone for the individual support, ideas, and commitment you bring to help grow and evolve the whole San Francisco Waldorf School.

6:00 - 8:00 pm Scottish Rite Masonic Center 2815 - 19th Ave.

Warm regards, Craig Appel

Photo Credit: Scott Chernis

Democracy in the Classroom: DEI and a Sense of Belonging by joshua stoll, humanities teacher

How do we bring diversity, equity, and inclusion into the classroom? There are, of course, a variety of ways to do this. Perhaps most obviously, we can highlight and focus on marginalized voices in the content we study. This is a vitally important practice, and it is something that we do at SF Waldorf. For example, in our U.S. history class at the High School, we engage with the perspectives of the enslaved people whose labor has built the physical and economic

infrastructure that the United States has stood on rather than focusing solely on the “founding fathers” or touching abstractly and at an arm’s length on the topic of slavery. We also examine Native American perspectives on the arrival of Europeans to their lands rather than studying only the European perspective of Columbus’ “discovery” or the “first” Thanksgiving. But another way of doing this, and the way which I’d like to address here, is by focusing on the form of the class. In particular, we can bring diversity, equity, and inclusion into the classroom by setting up a situation where a plurality of voices can be heard, given equal consideration, and integrated into our lessons—in other words by bringing democracy into the classroom. When I talk about democracy in the classroom, I’m referring to the 20th century American philosopher and educational theorist John Dewey’s understanding of democracy and education. He talks about education as preparing students to not just participate in democratic institutions or politics but also to develop democratic habits, mindsets, and ways of living. Education, then, is not only to teach students

about civics or history or math or science but to help cultivate a sense of community spirit and dynamic cooperation in a selfaware group organization. We can think of these ideas in terms of the relation between identity and community. Our identity, our sense of self, is a process that manifests itself within an evolving relational context of social networks. Thus, cultivating democracy in the classroom, in this Deweyan sense, requires us to think about this identitycommunity interaction. Identity is something that is always growing and evolving. The self is a continuous work in progress and, even at moments in our lives when we have a more stable understanding of who we are, we still reflect in many ways on that most philosophical question, “Who am I?” We ask, for example: What kind of friend am I? What kind of friend do I want to be? Have I achieved that yet? How can I become that kind of friend? And, of course, we can replace “friend” with any kind of social role: partner, teacher, mother, father, sibling, citizen, etc. But these kinds of questions, and the progress required to become who we are, are virtually unending. High school students are in Continued on next page

Democracy Continued from page 3

a particularly intense period of identity formation. They’re really beginning to ask these massive questions seriously and consciously: Who am I? Who do I want to be? How can I become that person? Related to these questions are concerns about one’s confidence, one’s sense of accomplishment, and one’s sense of autonomy. A democratic classroom emphasizes the importance and value of these questions and concerns. And there is a strong philosophical precedent for this. Socrates, as reported by Plato, famously held the Delphic maxim “know thyself”—one half of our Waldorf motto—as being central to wisdom. Plato, using Socrates as his mouthpiece, talks about “caring for your soul” by which he meant that we should examine our lives, asking questions about who we are, what we believe, and how our values ground these beliefs and guide our actions. A better understanding of who one is, what one believes, and what one values produces a certain kind of organization in the soul, as Plato puts it, that allows us to more efficiently pursue those things that would lead to more fulfilling and enriched lives. Education, Plato and Socrates argue, orients the student towards the kinds of feeling and thinking that result in deeper self-understanding. Self-understanding has also been central to South Asian philosophical and religious traditions. Despite their varied differences, Jain, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions all see the

question of the self as being of paramount importance. In Buddhism, for example, confusion about the long-term stability of self-identity results in living through cycles of dissatisfaction and suffering— cycles that extend over multiple lifetimes—since we thereby attach value to the illusion of an eternally unchanging entity. Awareness of the impermanence of self-identity—of its dynamic, ever-changing quality—leads to liberation from such cycles. The kind of spiritual and mental training we see in Buddhist monasteries is intended to lead us to clearer insights about our self-identity.

“We are cultivating an attentiveness to how a plurality of voices contributes to our individual and collective understanding.” But, as these traditions also understand, community is central to identity. Thus, Plato emphasized that the structure of society must be such as to encourage self-knowledge, and Buddhism has emphasized the role the sangha—or spiritual community—plays in training and practice. Here, we have a recognition that our relation to others and the integrity of our relations are key to the development of our self-identity. Understanding ourselves always means understanding ourselves in a relational context. Again, consider the questions asked above: What kind of partner am I? What kind of friend? What kind of parent? What kind of partner/friend/parent do I want to be? Have I achieved that? How can I best enact my roles

in my relationships and become the best partner/friend/parent I can be? These questions, posed in terms of the social roles we play, show that selfunderstanding is always already tied to understanding where we stand with respect to others and, as the other half of our Waldorf motto says, to understanding our world. A democratic classroom therefore educates toward identity formation in community. There are many ways of setting up a democratic classroom. The way I have approached it has been inspired by a movement known as Philosophy for Children or p4c— particularly the version of p4c implemented in Hawai’i. This form of classroom democracy puts special emphasis on the creation of a community of inquiry. At SF Waldorf, we want to create a community within the classroom in which we feel comfortable sharing our thoughts and feelings. The idea is to give students’ voices, views, and questions precedence. It centers the learning experience on student agency and responsibility. The aim is to give students the potent sense that what they think matters, that they have significant and compelling questions and views that deserve serious consideration. Forming such a community taps directly into students’ identity and fosters in them a kind of cognitive autonomy and confidence in their thinking. In forming this community, it is made explicit that we are in this learning experience together and that we have much to learn from each other. Others have experience and understanding that can significantly contribute Continued on page 8

Interview with Lenya Bloom, New High School Chair by samantha cosentino at the hs, october

2021

gifts come in many forms

Waldorf Education maintains a unique educational culture. By taking a developmental approach to education, this curricuulum fully meets our children in transformational ways. In addition to the pedagogy, the school commnunity encircles our children, encouraging them, expecting their best from them, supporting them through challenges, and cheering them on in their successes.

SC: For those who don‘t know you, would you like to start with your connection to the school? LB: My connection to SFWS goes way back, right to its origins. I was in the classroom even before I was officially enrolled as a student because my parents were some of the school founders, and my mom was one of the first Waldorf teachers here back when the groups were small enough that you could take your baby into the class with you. She likes to joke that I used to take my naps in the dolly cradles in the Kindergarten. So, I’ve been part of the school my whole life, first as a student and then as alumni. And now as a parent as well since I have a 1st and a 5th grader at the school. I went to University High School, before SF Waldorf High School existed. SC: How was that transition as a Waldorf grade school student going into what is considered to be an academically competitive high school? LB: I didn’t know what it meant to be academically competitive in a social setting. It had always been

Like any community, we are called upon to do out part. When we achieve 100% participation in the Community Fund, we know that we are coming together in meaningful ways. A successful Community Fund provides needed financial support for vital programs, especially in years that are as uncertain as the last two have been. It also makes the school more financially accessible—the new Equitable Tuition Program demonstrates the school‘s ever deepening commitment to making sure that this unique education is available to any family who seeks it. No matter the size, your gift matters. We welcome gifts in many forms. Please consider making your gift today. Credit Card: sfwaldorf.org/give Venmo: @sfwaldorf Paypal: advancement@sfwaldorf.org Thank you!

DAVID BUSHNELL CENTER Staff & Faculty Retreats

IN FULL SWING thanks to the generosity and caring of sfws families, what was once a vision of a home court and a place for community is now a vital part of the everyday life of our school. here are some of the many ways we are making the most of the bushnell center and curiosity courtyard.

All-School Assemblies & Presentations

Sports

Hot Lunch & Bake Sales

Photo Credit: Scott Chernis

Eurythmy Performances

Gardening

Plays & Musicals

Inauguration

Graduation

Photo Credit: Scott Chernis

Breaktime

Democracy Continued from page 4

to our own. As such, dialogue will enhance our learning. We can approach a more objective kind of truth by giving space for and listening to a plurality of voices. Coming together in this way, our explicit goal is to work towards developing a more complex and nuanced understanding of our subject and how it affects our lives. This makes clear the role that our community of inquiry plays in identity formation, in how our self-knowledge and knowledge develop. A good way to build a community of inquiry is to start the school year by having everyone in a class contribute to a single project that represents the diversity and integration of its members. My classes have started, for example, with making a community ball, a multi-colored ball of yarn. As we come together to make this ball, each student shares a bit about themselves (for example, their passions) and their expectations for class. We also sometimes engage with other relevant questions about the subject (for example, in my grammar

class, we talked about the question, “What is language?”). Once it’s finished, I explain the significance of what we have done: we have worked together to build the ball. In building the ball, we’re building our community, and we each put a bit of ourselves (physical work as well as “soul” work) into the ball. The ball itself, when complete, reflects our community. It is a variety of strands with different lengths and colors, but they are all tied together to facilitate a singular goal: working together to learn.

at large and not just with the teacher. They must look around at each other’s raised hands or any body language that says, “I have something to contribute.” Finally, if the ball happens to land in your lap, you can always pass. This provides a certain degree of safety: there is no pressure to speak when you don’t want to or don’t feel like you have something to contribute to the current discussion. In these ways, the community is made simultaneously aware of the individuality and the collective intentionality of its members.

The ball is used to help direct the community’s inquiry and conversation, and it comes with some rules that contribute to the flow of the inquiry. For example, the person with the ball speaks. With respect, we listen to the person with the ball. Additionally, whoever has the ball can choose who speaks next. Thus, students become responsible for including others’ voices and for observing who has something to say. Crucially, this makes class more dynamic; now, students must make eye contact with the class

Additionally, in building the community of inquiry, it is a good idea to establish together some basic guidelines and expectations for how to conduct ourselves. This is especially the case if the class will be touching on sensitive and controversial topics. On their own, students come up with wonderful guidelines that themselves are lessons in democratic living. For example, many students emphasize open-mindedness and listening to understand. Here, there is a recognition that Continued on next page

Democracy

Interview

Continued from page 8

Continued from page 5

we are limited in our knowledge and can always learn from each other. A concern for mindfulness of language is also common. This is a recognition that what we say and, just as importantly, how we say it, matters. It impacts the learning experience of others— whether they understand and whether and how they engage or disengage with the class. In doing this, they make explicit for themselves the kind of democratic habits of mind that we are looking to exercise and cultivate. They make clear for themselves the importance of integrating diverse perspectives into the learning experience.

this theme of everyone does his/her best with their best. And that was equally valuable across the board. So I didn’t have this sense of going into a highly competitive environment. I just knew that wherever I went, I had to do my best. Of course, the setting was completely different, the structure, and I realize now that it was really a traditional learning format that I just had to get used to. It is basically like learning a formula and then plugging in the skills that you already have and then having extra that went beyond what was expected in that format.

Ultimately, in establishing such a community, however it is done, we are encouraging the formation of democratic habits. In this, we are—as is essential to Waldorf pedagogy— acknowledging and educating the whole person. We are cultivating an attentiveness to how a plurality of voices contributes to our individual and collective understanding. Additionally, such a community creates space for equal consideration of these different voices and views. Moreover, it integrates this plurality into a common goal: working together to know ourselves and to know our world. ~ Josh Stoll earned a Ph.D. in cross-cultural philosophy. His passion is promoting liberal arts and humanities education to encourage personal and communal inquiry into who we are and how we can live well together.

SC: Coming from different pedagogies and now entering a high school that draws upon your Waldorf foundation, what do you feel is the advantage of Waldorf education at the high school level? LB: In high school, I had classmates who were really suffering and making sacrifices to do well academically. I could see that, but my own way of learning was always to maintain that well-roundedness. I think this gift of having basically occupational therapy woven into how students need to live, as a lifestyle, kept me healthy through high school. I can see now that having those elements alive and part of the high school curriculum really does not take away all the pressure but relax it so that it is just part of the high school camaraderie. It is still college prep in that way but without that being the only focus. Here the students are supported in that process at school, keeping all the different intelligences alive and equally valued. And knowing what you need to feel balanced, whether that is movement, being with nature, music, or a craft, anything that keeps you balanced that comes from your own true nature. We have that in our curriculum. SC: When was the point Waldorf moved from an educational system to something more for you? LB: My first glimpse of that was in college. I went to the University of Pennsylvania, graduated in 2002, and majored in Anthropology and Spanish. I realized the gift that had been my early education while in my late college seminar classes, particularly some of the literature and anthropology courses where professors commented on the foundational knowledge that I had, such as mythology and the origins of Western knowledge and even some themes from Eastern knowledge as well that are still active in greats work of literature. Being able to draw on ancient knowledge and bring it into the modern times and weave it back and forth, that was always something professors noticed. This web-like thinking instead of linear thinking is something that I think specifically comes from Waldorf education, where there isn’t a hierarchy of knowledge and it’s all interconnected because it’s all human. Having that in the forefront of college discussions and essays was when I realized was given an education that allowed me to stand out. I actively returned to Waldorf more as a way of life rather than just a part of my education when I became a parent. I realized then how deeply internalized these structures and values were around sustaining a healthy childhood and trying to Continued on page 11

Season of Light celebrating traditions together Our school families come from all over San Francisco, the greater Bay Area, and many parts of the world. In our community lives individual traditions and cultures that shine brightly in their own unique way. Fall and Winter in particular are filled with festivals that bring the gift of light as we move into cold, darker days. Our whole community reflects in this moment the collective flame that has been kindled by the many individual traditions we honor during this season—from Diwali to Martinmas, Michaelmas to Día de Los Muertos, to the coming of Chanukah and the Garden of Light.

“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.” - Malcolm X

Martinmas or Lantern Walk

Diwali

Michaelmas

Interview Continued from page 9

respect the inner life of young people. And that was when I founded the school in Mexico in 2004, because I needed a place that would do that for my own children and so I could feel that I was working with people that would share if not all of my values at least some of them and we would be able to put the child at the center to allay any of our differences. People have different perspectives, different paradigms, but if we all choose this education, we have something in common to work from. SC: What did you learn from that process of starting a school from the ground up that you are applying to this position? LB: No matter how much you think you know there’s always so much you don’t know. You don’t want to accumulate too much knowledge without being able to bring it into practice. And you don’t want to do too many things that are uninformed by knowledge, especially in a Waldorf school. This is where my own internal checks and balances comes from. Everything that I learn, I try to find a way to bring it into practice. That I think keeps things moving in balance, moving forward as conscientiously as possible, but also making sure that everything is current. SC: How do you see your role as the high school chair? LB: As of right now, it’s this combination of facilitating and serving. They meet where currents of communication are Continued on next page Día de Los Muertos

Interview Continued from page 11

active, making sure that there is a pluralism of voices that are being directed to where they need to go rather than just chatter. That is a goal I have, so that we can construct together with all those different currents. This is the nexus of where faculty, parents, and student voices meet. The serving part is to create a space for the students where the faculties can exercise their vocation with sufficient freedom and where the parents can also have an impact on the social sphere and the health of the community. SC: How do you balance the independent, progressive thinking that we value with staying true to a curriculum that has a historical path? LB: In this regard, the conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion is a gift to us because it allows us to ask a wider range of questions than what have been asked in the past. That means that we can not only bring more voices into the classroom but to look at the ones that are already there in a new and creative way, almost as if we were turning a threedimensional object in the air and examining it from different sides, which is something students do in Geometry, an exercise around diversity, equity, and inclusion. We don’t even need to explicitly say, “Hey, let’s do this DEI exercise.” We want examining things from many different perspectives to be part of how students think and live, so they then become arbiters

of that. Turning things around and looking at it from another side, that’s how you understand what isn’t being seen, by moving yourself or causing the object to move. It can be a conversation, and it can be a way of life as well. Working with faculty to see where they are in that process is an open conversation. Most of the faculty are already bringing in voices that had been excluded from the curriculum. That is a foundational impulse, and I think that’s what makes this school as big and long-standing as it is. This seems to be a practice that predates the current conversation around social justice. But now it’s a shared expectation and growing. SC: At the student level, what are you excited about bringing from your unique experience? LB: I want to help students practice advocating for themselves and one another. It is unique to the high school that students have the capacity to do that, away from parental influence. They can decide what’s right and wrong and bring that forward. To create as many avenues for them to take the leadership role in that. They also are aware of and in touch with things, that many adults don’t necessarily have contact with, that are pressing for them. Teenagers’ priorities are of course different than adults’ priorities, and we need to hear that in order to be relevant to them so that they feel seen and respected so that their world is enfolded by our world rather than separated from it. SC: What is your guiding question, something you ask yourself to reorient your approach?

LB: It would be, “What do we need right now?” That is closely followed by, ‘What do we have to meet that need?” It’s clear that this year and probably the few coming years will be about healing, not living in the loss of the last two years but really overcoming and coming back to a balance as is defined by the world we’re in. Everything has been changed. We can’t ignore that. Internally we’re all a little bit different. The students are. The families are. And I think the school is too. Looking at that fearlessly and understanding what our work is in terms of healing and, in that process, defining what is new. SC: What would you like to build upon during your time here? LB: What I am working on now, and see as a priority always, is looking at the diversity, equity, and inclusion that already lives in the classrooms here and bringing that out so everyone can see it. This way we can conscientiously build on what we have. Our teachers have a long-standing exposure to the conversation on a broader scale, and many of them are already working with it directly in their classrooms. We are in the Bay Area. We have to respond. This is a cosmopolitan, diverse setting. We need to be on the forefront of this conversation. ~ Lenya C. Bloom holds an M.A. in Sociology and serves on the Advisory Board of three Waldorf schools in Mexico. She is currently enrolled in the Waldorf Administration & Leadership Program at the Center for Anthroposophy and the Waldorf Teacher Education Program at El Centro de Desarrollo Antroposofico.