teacher training

summer school at steiner college

This summer, I am back at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks for my teacher training program. As I look forward to my post as the sixth grade teacher for Davis Waldorf in the Fall, I am excited to receive new insights and pedagogy from my instructors at the College. Thus far, in this past two weeks, the classes I have had are: eurythmy, singing, child observation, speech, painting, inner work, cosmology, and phenomenology.

The Waldorf teacher strives for the balance of head, heart, and hands for his or her students indeed, but this balance begins within the teacher. The training attempts to provide the teacher with a wealth of practical and intellectual knowledge that would enrich the teaching life.

This balance actually begins even before the formal teacher training is received. No one can teach another individual how to be compassionate, how to share one's life work, how to be giving, how to be selfless, how to be of service to humankind. These have to come from somewhere within the person. One's inner life then informs the outer engagement of life, and the harmony of spirit, mind, and the will gives the teacher the true foundation to be an excellent teacher.

The training, any teacher training, only gives information. How one uses the information, how one makes it his own, how one converts that information to a beautiful teaching experience is up to the teacher.

The children of a teacher who enters the classroom with compassion in his heart, artistry in his hands, and nimbleness of his mind are blessed. I strive to be this teacher.