Ru d o l f S t e i n e r S c h o o l
B ULLETIN
A REPORT FROM THE NAIS CONFERENCE FEBRUARY 25 – 27, 2009
CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS: 4/7
Working with Student’s Learning Differences-A presentation with Brooke Brosenne; 8:30 am
4/8
Book Fair
IN
CHICAGO
BY IRENE MANTEL, DIRECTOR OF LOWER SCHOOL ADMISSIONS AND TIM HOFFMANN, FOURTH GRADE CLASS TEACHER
Working with Students’ Learning Differences-A presentation with Brooke Brosenne; 7:00 pm
School Closed
April 2009
4/9 & 4/ 10 4/17 & 4/18
For a complete and up-to-date Calendar of Events for the month of April logon to www.steiner.edu. Attn: MUSICAL STUDENTS GRADES 3 - 8 SUMMER INTERLUDE June 15 - 26 Join us for two weeks of chamber music, jazz band, orchestra, and musical theatre. Placement Auditions in April SIGN UP TODAY! For a brochure, please ask Ms. Bachleitner or check at the LS Front Desk. For any further inquiries or questions, please contact Anna-Maria Baeza at abaeza@brearley.org
When our former Rudolf Steiner School staff member Satira Bushell, now Associate Director of Annual Conference, invited us to offer a workshop on parent education at the annual NAIS conference, we were very excited to be able to put Waldorf education and our School in particular on the NAIS map. Members of NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools) come in all shapes and sizes. There are military academies, progressive and traditional boarding schools, Montessori and of course Waldorf schools. The only true common denominator is that all schools are independent—or private! The days of the conference were divided into sessions for smaller workshops as well as large presentations by the star attractions. Our workshop was sandwiched between a lecture by Michael Thompson, author of Raising Cain, and the closing remarks by Oprah Winfrey, who offered her gratitude to the educators who have guided her in starting her own school for 150 girls in South Africa. All keynote speakers challenged the attendees to be original in their advertising and in their mission statements. We all cringed when Dan Heath, author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die , put some well crafted but familiar mission statements on his power point. The generic nature of such statements— think “whole child,” excellence, creative, etc.—leave them bland and ultimately meaningless. The challenge is to distinguish oneself. Guy Kawasaki encouraged us to be daring with our PR and not to fear controversy. If some love you, while others hate you that is not a bad thing. If anything, indifference is to be avoided. As can be imagined, the relevance of the presentations to our own work varied greatly. In general, where we found our own experience of school life corroborated by others, we also felt encouraged. One presenter, Michelle Rhee, Superintendent of the D.C. public schools, took our breath away with her honesty and drive to improve the lot of children in Washington. She emphasized that she didn’t mind whether or not children get their education at public schools, at charter schools, or at independent schools, she just wanted them to get a great education. She is undaunted by the gargantuan challenge she faces. Her motto is powerful in its simplicity: Don’t turn a blind eye to what happens in the classroom in order to maintain harmony among adults. Continued on page 2...