From Susan Howard, WECAN Coordinator |
What a year this has been! Before we all move on to summer conferences, training and professional development courses, and hopefully some much-deserved time off, we would like to share with you some articles and announcements.
The WECAN Community Hub will continue through the summer at a slower pace as we make plans for the new school year. Job postings continue to appear there, as well as conversations, a few zoom meetings, and important announcements. If you are not yet a member of the Hub, please write to me at showard@waldorfearlychildhood.org.
Wishing you a delightful and restful summer,
Susan
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JUNE WALDORF EDUCATION CONFERENCE NEXT WEEK! |
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The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN), and Alliance for Public Waldorf Education (APWE) invite you and your colleagues to join us in celebrating our past and planning for the future.
Did you know that you can "attend" the summer conference all year long? Register for the conference by Thursday and you'll have access to ALL CONTENT, even the artistic presentations, ALL YEAR. Listen to Keelah Helwig's keynote or Florian Osswald's webinar or even watch students sing "All You Need is Love" — all year. At $140 per teacher, and half that for individuals over ten in a group, this is a year for everyone to attend.
REGISTRATION CLOSES TODAY! CLICK HERE to register today! Group discounts are available for schools.
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News from the WECAN Board
Louise deForest, Board Chair
The WECAN Board met online for four days at the beginning of June. Before our meeting we once again met with WECAN Regional Representatives to hear how the year has been for the schools and teachers in their regions and how WECAN can continue to offer support and resources. Each region has had a slightly different reality in terms of enrollment, parental involvement, COVID restrictions and regional activity, but what is shared by all the regions are genuine questions as to how to move forward with responsiveness and respect for the issues of our times and how to transform our pedagogical work as teachers while preserving the essentials of Waldorf early childhood education.
The WECAN Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Committee was formed two years ago and has been steadfastly carried by several board members working with a growing number of committee members. In our recent meeting the Board affirmed a position description for a part-time WECAN Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Coordinator and we are now actively searching for candidates (you can read more information below). The board has identified filling this position as our first priority for our coming year, which begins on July 1.
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We also bid farewell to long-time WECAN Board member, Nancy Blanning. Our sadness at saying goodbye was mitigated by knowing that she will continue as the editor of Gateways and remain an active member of the Publications Committee and Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee. Words cannot express our gratitude for Nancy’s selfless devotion to the mission of WECAN and the many, many contributions she has made to our work.
There is no doubt that we are all entering a new era of our work and that we are all searching for the appropriate forms and structures that can carry this new work into the future. As Joseph Campbell once said, 'the old story no longer works, and we haven't yet created a new one.' To that end, the WECAN Board is spending time looking at our own internal structures in terms of equity and diversity, reexamining our mandate groups, salary structures, processes, roles and responsibilities to ready ourselves to meet this new era.
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WECAN IS HIRING!
New Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Coordinator Position
Dear Colleagues,
The WECAN Board has made an on-going commitment to work consciously and intentionally with the themes of inclusion, diversity, equity and access (IDEA) in Waldorf Early Childhood Education. As a next step in our activity, and in commitment to our Accountability Statement, we are seeking a part-time, paid IDEA Coordinator. If you are interested in applying for this position, please review the IDEA Coordinator Position Description.
We encourage letters of interest from people who are practicing IDEA related work in Waldorf and other settings, especially those who have been traditionally excluded from positions of power, people of the global majority, the LGBTQ community, and historically marginalized groups.
In your letter, please include the following:
- Share why you are interested in the position of WECAN IDEA Coordinator.
- Write about experiences you’ve had working with groups of people who have different perspectives, skills, and levels of understanding, as well as facilitation of these groups.
- Please include what would you bring to this work as an individual and ideas you have about how to move IDEA work forward in Waldorf Early Childhood education.
- Attach your resumé or curriculum vitae.
Deadline for applications is Friday, July 9th. After that date, if your application is moved forward, you will be asked for further reflection and to participate in an interview process.
Please submit your letter and resumé to
We look forward to hearing from you!
Anjum Mir and Magdalena Toran
WECAN Search Committee
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Threshold Moment for Renewal: The Both/And Gesture
Stephanie Hoelscher, WECAN Early Childhood Research Group
In the final WECAN zoom webinar of 2020-21, four voices spoke from the heart. Speaking from the heart requires honesty, courage, and humility. This is always so but is more significant now at a time when polarizing forces are strong. The work of diversity requires the same qualities, and in considering the question of coming to a new inner gesture of both/and as we work together toward change, several members of WECAN’s Early Childhood Research Group - Nancy Blanning, Leslie Wetzonis-Woolverton, Holly Koteen-Soule, and Laurie Clark - spoke as individuals, vulnerable and authentic. What emerged was an unscripted resonance about the tasks at hand and how to move forward. Personal narratives of self-discovery and struggle, together with new inspirations coming forth from a wellspring of diverse sources, spoke to the urgent need for selfless, creative, and courageous work on behalf of a universal humanity. In the end the conversation guided us to listen to “seeds-in-the-conversations” that might lead us together into a shared universal space for healing and growth. Now is the time when we all must stand (up) for love.
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Waldorf Education as Preparation for Successful Crisis Management
Philipp Reubke, Pedagogical Section
Educators in Waldorf kindergartens know the phenomenon that the free play of a group of 3 - 6-year-old children is subject to atmospheric fluctuations: occasionally there is calm, sometimes even a lack of initiative, suddenly there is a warm urge to create, and it hums like a beehive, and sometimes there is great nervousness and aggressiveness. Often, as an educator, I could not clearly determine the reasons for the mood swings, and the search for culprits and the denunciation of bullies did not seem to make any more sense to me than being angry about a thunderstorm outbreak during a hike. But it was important for me to perceive the mood well, to hear the key and then to harmonize through non-verbal means what had become one-sided: Music, light, intervention in the spatial design, movement, etc.
In the way the Covid-19 crisis was managed by the respective leaders in the different countries and levels of society, in the way we all behaved since the beginning of the pandemic, one could also perceive a certain large-scale weather situation in which enormous tensions were occasionally built up, which then erupted in storms of relationships: in the family, in schools and institutions, within certain professional groups, and so on.
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From the Membership Office
Laura Mason, Membership Coordinator
After a long pause on membership processes over the last year, we are eager to resume renewals for over 50 programs this fall. We also have a record number of applicants awaiting membership processes and hoping to be accepted as Associate Members. We look forward to welcoming them!
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School Closures
After 45 years of providing Waldorf Education to students in Keene, New Hampshire, the Monadnock Waldorf School will close its doors this summer. The following statement was provided by Monadnock:
It is with sadness and gratitude that Monadnock Waldorf School announces that we will be closing at the end of this school year. It has been our honor to serve the Monadnock region since our inception in 1976. Like many independent schools, in recent years changing regional demographics have created an ever-tightening financial picture in. In just this past year a confluence of unique events –– the Covid-19 pandemic, and the recent approval of a Waldorf-inspired charter school to open in Keene in 2021 –– have made it clear that a sustainable path beyond the 2020-2021 school year was simply not feasible.
We look forward to finishing out this year with strength, and to honoring this transitional moment –– grieving the things we will miss, celebrating the time we have shared, and anticipating what new impulses might continue to grow forth from the soil we have nourished over 45 years. We send deep gratitude to all the many member schools, teachers, mentors, and friends who have sustained and supported us along the way.
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Teacher Education Update
Ruth Ker, Teacher Education Coordinator
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A closer connection amongst the Teacher Training Institutes continues to be fostered with regularly scheduled, well-attended zoom calls. Important discussions have happened around bringing more diversity into our trainings, on-line teaching formats and tools, emphasizing the young child’s need to know there is morality in our world, birth to three training requirements, and working with individual questions from our member institutes. In this mutually supportive environment, good will thrives amongst our member institute colleagues. The best result is that relationships have been cultivated that have fostered more collaboration between the institutes in between our meetings, with the intent of helping each other. Having met on May 26th, we have scheduled two more meetings after our institutes’ summer trainings are complete and we will keep up our regular monthly meetings after that.
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Birth To Three
Heather Church and Magdalena Toran
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In last year’s report, we opened by sharing how surreal life felt - we could never have imagined that we would still be in a pandemic over a year later. Yes, the unthinkable is possible. This spring has brought new opportunities to begin to engage more with the planned pre-pandemic work.
The Birth to Three Advisory Circle met recently; conversations with this group bring clarity, inspire, and provide avenues for resources to support WECAN’s work with birth- to-three caregivers/teachers. In August, we will be offering two zoom meetings. One will explore how Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access pertain to the work with the youngest children, and the other will be to connect those leading birth-to-three childcare programs within school settings. Most recently, we met with teacher trainers who are offering newly WECAN-recognized birth to three programs this summer to learn about how things are unfolding for them as they welcome new caregivers and teachers into their programs.
We are still uncertain about our ability to hold the Birth to Three Conference this fall but ask that you save the date: October 1-3, 2021. Sophia’s Hearth is once again open to hosting the event. Stay tuned for more information.
We are also excited to share that WECAN now has a web page dedicated exclusively to supporting those working in Birth to Three. This page is now live and will be growing as we add resources in the coming weeks. Go to the new page now.
The Dignity of the Young Child Conference in Dornach, sponsored by the Medical Section and the Pedagogical Section, was postponed again, and is now scheduled to take place from June 15-18, 2022. We hope that some of you were able to attend the Care1 Early Childhood Online Lecture Cycle this spring.
We wish everyone a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you soon, even if by zoom.
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Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access: The WECAN IDEA Committee
The WECAN IDEA Committee expanded this year to a group of thirteen colleagues coming from both the US and Canada with a variety of backgrounds and many collective years of experience in IDEA work of all kinds. Our common thread is a deep commitment to Waldorf early childhood education and our wish to support its advancement in the realm of IDEA. The committee has met monthly since December, focusing on creating a vessel for healthy collaboration, sharing our hopes, and developing a set of recommendations that the WECAN Board can use to identify priorities for focus and action in the coming years. We very much look forward to sharing our plans in the coming months.
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SAVE THE DATE! FEBRUARY 2022 WECAN CONFERENCE - Toward a Kinder, More Compassionate Society: Working Together Toward Change |
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Freya Jaffke 1937 -2021
Freya Jaffke, master Waldorf kindergarten teacher and teacher trainer from Germany who lectured and offered workshops for educators and parents worldwide, crossed the threshold on June 1st at the age of 84.
Her books on early childhood have sold over quarter of a million copies worldwide and include Work and Play in Early Childhood, Toymaking with Children, On the Play of the Child, Celebrating Festivals with Children, Magic Wool, and Let’s Dance and Sing. After retiring, she continued to be active by creating and performing marionette plays and teaching crafts and doll making at the Cusanus House in Stuttgart where she spent her final years.
North American early childhood educators may remember her from workshops and courses she offered in Spring Valley, and at the Rudolf Steiner Institute, as well as for her participation in the first International Waldorf Kindergarten conference held in Wilton, New Hampshire, in 1986, where she taught woodcarving and presented simple marionette plays. She inspired many Waldorf Early Childhood educators here in North America and throughout the world through her conscious, artistic and practical work with young children.
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IASWECE is pleased to present its 2020 Annual Report, which will inform you about the work of the past year
and how IASWECE used our WECAN membership contributions and conference donations to make its work possible.
We hope that the activity described will motivate you to continue to support IASWECE's work on behalf of the young child worldwide.
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Truer than True
by Holly Koteen Soule
Truer than True is a book of world fairy tales for the home and classroom selected and edited by Holly Koteen Soulé. Holly has created beautiful puppet show tableaux of several fairy tales to illustrate the book.
$25 Available July 1st.
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WECAN 2021 Early Childhood Resource Catalog
Copies of our current Catalog are complimentary, individually or in bundles of five.
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Upcoming Events
The World Association of Puppetry and Storytelling Arts - Summer Arts Conference
Online July 29-August 1, 2021
Storytelling and puppetry performances from around the world, puppet crafting workshops with master artists, interest group discussion sessions, "seed planting" for collaborative endeavors.
Summer 2020 Courses and Workshops
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Join WECAN by becoming an Individual Member!
Membership benefits include:
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A subscription to the Gateways Journal (includes the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 issues)
- WECAN News Updates
- A 10% discount on WECAN book sales
- Discounts on registration fees at WECAN Conferences
- Email messages that include announcements and the IASWECE Newsletter (the International Association of Waldorf/Steiner Waldorf Early Childhood Education).
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Make a Gift to WECAN!
Please consider making a contribution towards our Annual Spring Appeal. Gifts to WECAN are tax deductible. Please give online or call our office at 845-352-1690 to make your gift by phone. Every gift helps to further our work together on behalf of the young child and is immensely appreciated.
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