This is your third go-around as a main lesson teacher at WSOC. Prior to that, you were the Practical Arts teacher. Tell us about when you started teaching as a main lesson teacher at WSOC, and what brought you back again. I started with my first group as a class teacher in 2003 and have now completed two cycles. It is the joy the students bring and the amazing curriculum that I get to teach that brings me back. 

You initially taught at a public school. What drew you to Waldorf education?While I was getting my MFA at Long Beach State University, I was also working at a public school in Long Beach. When it was time to find a school for our first son, I was teaching in the art department at Cal State Long Beach. I was conflicted about sending him to an educational system that was so different from what I experienced growing up in Germany. It was through some serendipitous events that I learned that there was a fledgling Waldorf School in Fountain Valley! Long story short, I enrolled him and eventually followed in a teaching capacity myself.

You have now worked with three generations of Waldorf children. What is most noticeably different from one to the next, and what is similar? I have actually taught almost four generations of children when I include the eight years I spent as a specialty teacher, and I could answer this question in so many ways! If I start with the similarities, I would note that children are children and they come to class with their eyes and hearts wide open, ready to explore. Each individual brings so many gifts, inspirations, challenges and this incredible light of being young and full of potential.

What is most noticeably different is the existence of technology present in the children’s life. My early students felt accomplished in handing in something written on a typewriter, and the most modern gadget they would have had in the later grades was a flip phone and or electronic planner. My second group was surrounded by an ever-increasing line of gadgets, smart phones and the world of social media. I am still in the early stages with my current group, and under the impressions that even though there are even fancier and faster things available, there also is more information available to possible consequences of early exposure to these marvels. It is my hope that this group will get the chance to use them as a tool, and know how not to be ruled by them.

Each class community is unique and has their unique destiny. As to me, I feel blessed and enriched by every one of the kids I have taught and learned from. 

Some newer families might not realize you have a sibling here on campus, Ms. Ingrid who teaches science in the high school. Tell us about the German mountain village you grew up in, and how it shaped you as a teacher. Yes, Ms. Ingrid is my one-year-younger sister and I admire her so much. I also have a brother who is one year older than me. My parents were educators, and envisioned a childhood for us during which we would grow to be self-reliant, resilient and lifelong learners, while being steeped in a classical education. During my early years, we lived on a large dairy farm in the foothills of the Alps. Living on the land with the four seasons and livestock, our neighbors taught us much about where food comes from, and the cycle of life, and the practical skills needed to be self-sufficient.

When it was time for us to go to school, we moved to a village in the Alps surrounded by high mountains, a glacier lake and gentle meadows. Nature was our teacher as much as the interesting collection of intellectuals my parents frequented in their friend circle. My father was occupied as a math and physics professor and we spent most of his vacation times learning about different cultures and history by traveling throughout Europe. It is to this day when I teach history that I still get transported back to those years, strolling the Greek Acropolis, exploring the catacombs in Italy, or seeing the original art of Renaissance masters in one of the countless museums we visited. 

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