Turning School Inside Out

Waldorf High School Pedagogy Research and Development Project

Please apply by July 5, if you would like to attend so we can arrange catering! It is also possible to arrange your own stay at local B&B’s or inns.

When: July 14-18, 2024

Where: Camping at Filigreen Farm, Boonville, CA

Turning School Inside Out

Waldorf High School Pedagogy Research and Development Project

In July, high school teachers are invited to Filigreen Farm in Boonville, CA, for a summer intensive hosted by Waldorf teachers Kibby MacKinnon, America Worden, and Beth Weisburn, along with farmers Stephanie and Chris Tebbutt. We will explore the path from sense experience to thinking and how it changes as the child grows.

When: July 14-18, 2024

Where: Filigreen Farm, Boonville, CA

Upper Grades and High School Teachers are invited to join us for a working colloquium to explore questions around teaching Math today and to share our work-in-progress towards meeting our students in health-giving ways. 

Who: Marisha Plotnik, Jon McAlice, Beth Weisburn

When: February 17-19, 2024

Where: San Francisco Waldorf High School

Unlocking the Door to a New Pedagogy

Register now: Summer HS Intensive

Please note that we have changed the event to be 5 full days, Monday through Friday, with a possible field trip to Filigreen Farm in the Anderson Valley depending on participant interest.

Dates: July 3-7, 2023

Location: San Francisco Waldorf High School

Cost: $400

Unlocking the Door to a New Pedagogy

In July, both new and experienced high school teachers are invited to a 6-day intensive with Jon McAlice, where we delve into aspects of the anthropology of the human being and engage in artistic activity. You will have the opportunity to work collaboratively in forming an interdisciplinary course on a topic of your choosing.

When: July 3-8, 2023

Where: San Francisco Waldorf High School

Save the Date!

Note the updated times for the two workshops in San Francisco next week:

Timing: 9:00 - 3:30 arrive at 8:45 for coffee!

Reading: excerpts from “The Younger Generation”

February 20-21 - Meaning, Imagination, and the Art of Teaching for all teachers

February 22 - From Critical to Imaginative Thinking for upper grades and high school teachers

Register: CCS Website

A Changing Relationship to a Changing World

In July, both new and experienced high school teachers are invited to an intensive with Jon McAlice, where we delve into aspects of adolescent development and engage in artistic activity. You will have the opportunity to work collaboratively in forming an age-appropriate course on a topic of your choosing.

Who: Jon McAlice, BACWTT Faculty

When: July 4-8, 2022

Where: Marin Waldorf School

Register now for our in-person gathering this Saturday!

In Search of the Ineffable

Saturday, November 6, 2021

9:00 - 4:00 Pacific Standard Time

San Francisco Waldorf High School

Waldorf teachers in grades 6-12, as well as students in teacher education programs, are warmly invited to join this collaborative event for Bay Area Schools.

Jon McAlice will bring seed thoughts and activities that focus on practices of attentiveness and imagination that allow us to enter more fully into the learning experiences of our students. The lecture “Practical Training in Thought” by Rudolf Steiner can be found at the Rudolf Steiner Archive.

Registration: Click here for workshop registration and more information.

For our first in-person gathering since February, 2020, we will meet for a one-day intensive at the San Francisco Waldorf High School on Saturday, November 6! Waldorf teachers in grades 6-12, as well as students in teacher education programs, are warmly invited to join this collaborative event for Bay Area Schools.

Jon McAlice will bring seed thoughts and activities that focus on practices of attentiveness and imagination that allow us to enter more fully into the learning experiences of our students. The lecture “Practical Training in Thought” by Rudolf Steiner provides reading context and can be found at rsarchive.org.

Register now on the workshop page on the CCS Website.

On Wednesday evening, November 3, 6:30-8:00 p.m Pacific Time, Jon will give a Zoom talk, “The Inner Life of the Teacher” for BACWTT that will be related to Saturday’s work. We will send you the link once your are registered.

What is it like to be human?

In one week, Wilfried Sommer and Jon McAlice will be hosting an online symposium for students, alumni and teachers around this question. Now, individuals can register to attend on our website by choosing the page for Conditio Humana Workshop. You can listen to recorded youtube lectures by Siri Hustfedt, Hartmut Rosa, Thomas Fuchs and Wilfried Sommer whenever it is convenient for you. You are welcome to attend North American zoom discussions of Siri’s lectures with Jon McAlice scheduled at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time each day, Wednesday-Friday, June 9-11, 2021.

Wilfried Sommer introduces the conference theme:

In June, Waldorf high schools in North America have the unique opportunity for Juniors, Seniors and Alumni to participate in an international conference called the “Kassel Youth Symposium” which is organized by the Kassel Teacher Training College. This year, this event is being broadcast to English speaking schools around the world for the first time in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the opening of the first Waldorf high school.

The Center for Contextual Studies will be hosting the event in North America and would like to invite your students to participate. For this special year, the Symposium will feature an American author and three college professors collaborating with the theme of “Conditio humana” or “the human condition”.

February 13-15, 2021

Saturday, Sunday, Monday

10:00-12:00 Pacific Standard Time/ 1:00-3:00 Eastern Standard Time.

Registration: https://www.findingcontext.org/workshops/2021/2/13/sru3pjbg6pv6tlv1xxu0pvvh6qwgi6

Fee: There is a fee of $40 for the three days, scholarships are available.

Please register early, as we will limit attendance to 30 people for this offering.

What inspires your teaching? How are you crafting educational community? What tips would you like to share for teachers in these times? Although we cannot gather in person, this February, some colleagues have asked if we could meet using Zoom to foster dialogue between teachers from different schools.

We will host sessions on three consecutive days, for colleagues to consider the task of teaching as described by Rudolf Steiner in the first lecture for the teacher’s course in 1919. With this as background we will engage in open dialogue around the challenges teachers are experiencing at the moment, and what education might look like going forward. There will be time to reflect on your recent experiences, share ideas, and also take breaks as needed.

by Beth Weisburn

What activities could students say “yes” to and enter with their whole beings? How could each student be inspired to live with questions from main lesson all day long? What unique opportunities might our “sheltering in place” provide for learning?

These were questions that the high school faculty at Summerfield Waldorf School entertained in preparing a new schedule and lessons for April and May. What emerged were these goals: independence in planning a project the student chooses, deeper dives into core topics, time to experience nature as a teacher, practices for establishing rhythms, finding balance, and slowing down. All of these together would strengthen the individual student, and possibly open new avenues of growth.

Registration is open at the workshops page! 

We invite you to register for one or for all four of our upcoming February events in Santa Rosa.  The focus of the first two events is teaching adolescents and will be particularly appropriate for upper grades and high school teachers. The Wednesday and Thursday gatherings are open to all interested teachers.

At a time when our students lives are being increasingly influenced by the virtual, the question of the nature of embodied consciousness takes on new significance in education. The importance of learning through full-bodied experience will be a thread weaving through each of the four workshops.  

Bay Area Waldorf high schools, CCS and BACWTT are collaborating to host a series of February workshops in Santa Rosa. Wilfried Sommer, Jon McAlice and others will lead events designed for upper grades and high school teachers, but open to all. There will be activities to build teaching capacities, as well as opportunities for either interdisciplinary or specific subject deepening.

Warm greetings for this holiday season!

With the recognition that meeting adolescents today requires something different from us as teachers, three Bay Area high schools are joining to form a working conference for Waldorf teachers.  We plan to meet in February in Santa Rosa to explore aspects of developing imagination, initiative and thinking in teenage students.  We will wrestle with the transition from standing in front of the students to standing beside them as they mature, and as our societal relationship to the access of information changes.  How are the the tasks of teaching and learning affected? How do we foster creativity and imagination today?

All upper school and high school Waldorf teachers are welcome to attend!! See the Conference Flyer for further details. Registration is open on the Workshops page.

What is the nature of mathematical thinking?  How does a child engage in mathematics at different stages of development?  What is the step from mathematical to imaginative thinking? 

In just 10 days, we will meet in NYC to explore these aspects of teaching math! Colleagues will describe classroom experiences with the Ten Theorems.   We will work with mathematical exercises in projective geometry, described by Rudolf Steiner in 1921 (GA76, Lecture 3), to practice moving on the path from mathematical to imaginative thinking.   You can still register on the workshops page online.  Meanwhile, here is a glimpse into the weekend’s theme.

Registration is open on the website Workshops page!

As fall arrives, we look forward to gathering with Math teachers at the Rudolf Steiner School in Manhattan to share experiences of student learning!  For the second year we have collected and published Ten Theorems, invited you to work with them in the classroom, and to write up a description of your research.

Which of the ten theorems are you most intrigued by?  Would you like to share your teaching experience with one of “The Ten Theorems Take Two” at our Math gathering in November?