Register now for the June 22-27  CCS summer colloquium in Hillsdale, New York at www.findingcontext.org!

We are looking forward to gathering for a week of collaborative research with a focus on “Nurturing the Etheric in Education”.   A poster describing the event can be downloaded as a .pdf file and printed to share with your schools and colleagues.  

CCS is once again offering a summer colloquium for teachers who are interested in working collaboratively. The week offers an opportunity to explore new approaches, to strengthen teaching skills and to take the time to deepen our understanding of the challenges facing education today.

In November 2017, teachers presented results of working with one of “The Ten Theorems”. In 2018, we would like to deepen this action research. We have a new list of theorems, “The Ten Theorems Take Two”, and more specific questions to take with you on the journey into the classroom. This year, we invite you to bring a problem or theorem to students in at least two different grades, ranging from grade 6 to grade 12.

Next week, we will gather in Santa Rosa for the fifth Phenomena to Insight science teachers working conference to explore the themes of life and light.  More detailed information about the conference can be found by clicking through the buttons on the workshop page.  Please register now if you are planning to attend!  You can do this online or by contacting Beth at www.findingcontext.org.

We will have two open lectures as part of the conference this year.  Both will take place in Sophia Hall on the Summerfield campus, and offer windows into the conference themes. Read this blog to find descriptions of the lectures, as well as an excerpt from a related article by Wilfried Sommer.

In our 10th year at the Center for Contextual Studies (CCS), as the number of workshop events increases, we are taking steps to streamline our communications with you.  We are combining our individual email contact lists and connecting them to the Blog on the Website.   We will send out updates on the Blog no more than once per week, and they will include information about upcoming events, short essays written out of our experiences, as well as longer pieces which will then be catalogued on the “Writings” portion of the website.   If you would like to publish something from your teaching or research work, please send it along!

For this initial Blog, we would like to introduce an article on the “writings” page and to remind you to register for the upcoming February teacher conferences.   You are receiving this email because you have attended a CCS event in the past or have been referred to us as someone who might be interested in attending in the future.  If you wish to stop receiving emails about events or writings from CCS please choose your preferences in the link below.  You may unsubscribe completely, or you may choose to only receive event notices.

The first installment of our Ten Theorems Project culminated at the Teachers’ Colloquium in New York City in November, 2017. Four teachers took up the research task of working on one of these theorems with their students, documenting that work, and reporting on their work at the Colloquium. Their research papers are available on the "writings" page. 

We are now inviting submissions for Take Two of the Ten Theorems. In addition to the wonderful “puzzle problems”, like Mrs. Wiggs’ Cabbages from the 2017 list, we invite you to also submit theorems that would require a longer-term approach. Could one theorem motivate an entire main lesson block? A semester of track class? A full-year course? Perhaps there is something of interest from your own mathematical work, the “unpacking” of which could provide material for the students you teach.

Please forward your submissions to Beth Weisburn, baw@sonic.net and to Marisha Plotnik, mplotnik@steiner.edu before February 28, 2018.

Our warmest wishes for a creative new year, full of exciting discoveries and insights!

In the coming year the central focus here at the Center for Contextual Studies will continue to be the nature of the etheric and the role our understanding of the etheric plays in education. The winter conferences in Santa Rosa, the gathering for younger teachers this spring and the planned summer seminar in Hillsdale, NY will all address different aspects of the question of the etheric in education and how we can cultivate a stronger relationship to these forces of formative vitality.

For some time now I have tried to better understand how the changes that have taken place since Steiner’s time affect what is needed in education. The world is certainly much different than it was then. Human impact on the environment has changed the natural world on a scale we have yet to fathom. The cultural environment of children has certainly changed. Gone are the uniquely place-based characters of villages, regions, and neighborhoods. Even cities have lost much of their differences. And the shifts in how we find a relationship to the divine, how we regard the acquisition of knowledge and the growth of understanding point to a deep change in the spiritual life of a child’s surroundings. What do these changes mean for the way we think about education?

It's been quite a delight to try out your submissions and assemble our final list for the November, 2017 Mathematics research colloquium.   You can find The Ten Theorems by selecting the button on the "The Ten Theorems Project"  page of this website.  We think there's something here for everyone, from sixth graders to twelfth graders, things with numbers and things with geometry. Now the fun begins!

In just over two weeks, teachers will gather in Santa Rosa to explore the stages of scientific understanding in relation to the birth of the astral body, beginning with sixth grade, in morning demonstrations with Wilfried Sommer and Craig Holdrege.  

Themes of "sustainability" and the "atom" will be addressed in the afternoon sessions.   

Does the sense world provide a knowledge and wisdom that is beyond the mechanical aspects of atomic concepts?  If yes, how are we able to grasp them?  Wilfried Sommer, Wade Cavin and John Petering will work with these questions in Physics and Chemistry experiments.

The terms “sustainability” and “sustainability education” point to our relation to earth.   Craig Holdrege, Jon McAlice and Ronni Sands will collaborate to lead an exploration of aspects of sustainability, especially with respect to the Waldorf school curriculum.

If you plan to attend, register now for the Science Teachers’ conference, so that we can prepare!

The flavor of our recent Mathematics Research Colloquium is captured in two written contributions by Jamie York and Kevin Farey which can be found on the Writings page of this website. 

As the days grow shorter, and the weather colder, at CCS we are planning back-to-back events for the week of February 18-25, 2017 at Summerfield Waldorf School, working with these themes:

      Finding a new approach to understanding the will

      Understanding the relation between science and the birth of the astral body

These events will provide a context for teachers to work together, to focus on what Waldorf education can become and to grapple with the challenges coming towards us as educators.

In a clear, straightforward, and personable style, this book introduces and guides the reader gently but rigorously into a method of spiritual development that, in the end, can be understood only on its own terms. 

I want to wish you all a good new year. I hope it brings us all the right balance of joy, challenge, humor and insight to enable us to keep growing and striving! Let it be a year in which we all find the courage to take one more decisive step on this remarkable path of becoming human.

Another school year has begun. Parents, children and teachers are once again settling into ordered learning situations. Parents are breathing sighs of relief. The feelings of the teachers are mixed. And the children?

Engaged Community provides anyone involved in Waldorf education with the appropriate tools and language to take the hard work of dialog and conversation to a higher level.