By Marti Stewart, Administrative Director
March 16, 2016
Tonight we look forward to sharing a picture of the current state of our school with you. As many of you know, we are in the midst of implementing a strategic plan whose theme is to Deepen our Roots and Expand our Reach. Our three primary goals are to maintain quality and excellence in our educational programs, to nurture a vital and sustainable community, and to enhance the beauty and functionality of our school spaces. Tonight you will hear about the school’s growth and development, and some of our work towards our strategic plan goals.
This deepening and expanding work takes many forms. As you can easily imagine, the strength of a living entity—like a tree or a school—is dependent not only on how tall and wide it can grow, but even more importantly on the depth and strength of its roots. The deepening activity needs to balance and support the expansion and growth activity to be healthy and strong. Deepening work is not always as easy to see and can also be neglected; this work is often unrecognized or underground. But just as gardeners must tend to the quality of the soil to grow strong and healthy plants, we must tend to the quality of the soil the school is growing in. And in many ways the soil the school is growing in is the social sphere of our community; we all make up that potting mix.
The school’s deepening work involves strengthening and maintaining a connection to the roots of Waldorf education (to the foundational philosophy); it involves strengthening and maintaining a connection to the core of our school mission; to one another; and to the community and world that we live within. An essential part of our deepening work takes the form of professional development for faculty including self-development, study, training, collegial dialogue and child observation so that we can answer the essential question: What do the children need, and how can we bring to them what they need in a living and healthy way?
As a community our deepening work also takes the form of healthy relationship building—between colleagues, classmates, teachers and students, teachers and parents, parents and parents, and as a whole community relating to our neighborhood and the broader community around us. When treated with care, these relationships weave us together and create a safe vessel for learning and growing. These relationships directly support learning for our students—and for us as adults involved in the great tasks of teaching and parenting. The quality of our relationships enables us to work together effectively in service to the children. The relationships we form strengthen our capacity to listen, to have courageous conversations, to overcome conflict, to find solutions to problems or challenges that arise, to envision and plan for the future, and to demonstrate collaborative working—and create a harmonious and healthy environment for our students: the rich soil in which they can grow.
In the Waldorf School movement, we often speak of the social mission of Waldorf education. What exactly are we talking about, you may ask? What is this higher level mission that exists in Waldorf schools though is seldom spoken of?
Rudolf Steiner shared a verse that has been entitled the Motto of Social Ethics and reads this way: The Healing 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.
The social mission of Waldorf education is related to this verse. One aspect of the social mission is to support our students in becoming human beings who take real interest in the world and in other people and who understand, in a fundamental way, the relationship and interconnectedness of all of humanity in a time in which there is a rise of isolation, divisiveness and polarities. Another aspect of the social mission is to assist our students in developing the capacities of objective judgement and discernment; to discern what is real and truthful in an age where we are confronted by a multiplicity of conjectured truths—and manufactured images—and are immersed in virtual realities. A third aspect of the social mission of Waldorf education is to awaken within our students the will to work on behalf of others—to put the welfare of the earth and humanity before their own self-interests and to work in service to a greater good. This includes developing the desire and ability to cooperate and collaborate with others to achieve more than they could achieve on their own.
But the social mission of Waldorf education can perhaps best be found at the very heart—or within the essential purpose—of the education, which is not to prepare your children for a successful high school or college or professional career—though they will be well-prepared for all of those experiences. We have a different end game. I would say a much bigger and more important end game. Waldorf educators have the very tall task of recognizing, awakening, and nurturing the full extent of human capacities within each child so that each child is free to fulfill their unique and individual purpose or destiny. Rudolf Steiner said of the task of Waldorf education: Our endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. You can imagine that when human beings are living into their highest capacities they inevitably make a mark upon their communities. They see and bring out the best in others, they share and collaborate and contribute in meaningful ways, they become the change that we all want to see, they are courageous in bringing their gifts to the world, and they are happy and fulfilled because of the quality in their living. This outcome is at the heart of our greater social mission.
As parents and members of the school community we want this for our children and for all of the children in the school and in our world. We each have the opportunity to see the capacities of the students—and one another—and to support this expansion and expression of full human potential. This activity of seeing one another is both simple and profound. Like the verse.
As parents you are the warm, protective sheath that surrounds the school; the staff, the teachers, and the students. We are all held in your embrace. Your resources, your creativity, your volunteerism, your tuition payments, your attention and consideration, your good will, your constructive criticism, your vision, your supportive relationships with your teachers, your relationships with one another, your relationships with one another’s children—all strengthen, support and connect us—and create the rich fabric of our community and contribute to our well-being as a school. So as you listen to reports about the school’s finances and enrollment and development and strategic plan activities, consider these a reflection of the good, collaborative work we are all engaged in together on behalf of our students and the social mission of Waldorf education.