[Michael Soulé]

Here are a few good opportunities for individuals to gain skills important to their work in the schools. Check out each of these interesting workshops:

 

Waldorf School Leadership and Governance Seminar

Saturday, June 28 to Thursday, July 3, 2014, Hawthorne Valley, Ghent, NY

With Christopher Schaefer, Ph.D. and Marti Stewart. Christopher Schaefer is cofounder of the Hawthorne Valley Center for Social Research and for many years a faculty member and development director at Sunbridge Institute. Marti Stewart is the long-time administrator of the City of Lakes Waldorf School in Minneapolis.

Waldorf schools work with a new pedagogy based on a holistic, age-appropriate image of child development. They also practice a new form of community life in which teachers, administrative staff and parents are partners in developing the community of the school. The working together of these three groups in the life of the school requires insight, social sensitivity and competence so that the school can be healthy and best serve the needs of the children. These one week professional development seminars offer teachers, administrators, board members and parents an opportunity to reflect on and work with the challenges of building a Waldorf school community that is vibrant, innovative and effective while honoring the unique contributions of each member of the community. Each seminar can be taken individually but, when taken in sequence, the series will build a deeper capacity for serving the community impulse of Waldorf education.

The seminars are based on the successful certificate and Master’s Program in Waldorf school administration and community development offered at Sunbridge College between 1993-2008 as well as the more recent seven-week part-time course offered in China for the burgeoning Chinese Waldorf school movement.

Topics:

1. School Leadership in Waldorf School Communities
2. Models of Governance: the Roles of Faculty, Staff, Board and Parents
3. Working Together in Groups and Communities
4. Phases of School Development
5. School Renewal.

Each day of the seminar will consist of a presentation, casework, exercises, drama and role-play and a seminar on inner development.

For more information click HERE.

 

Threefold Social Ideals & Spirituality in Waldorf Education – Part II

July 7- 11, 2014, Waldorf Institute of S. California, Highland Hall School, Northridge, CA.

With Patrice Maynard, Leader of Waldorf Publications, former class teacher, former AWSNA Leader of Outreach and Development

The Revolution continues!  The imagination of social structures as living beings, the view of human spiritual development in different stages of consciousness, the revolutionary educational forms in Waldorf education are all reflective of the “realrevolution”: the one that begins in each of us.  We will continue the study of the threefold social organism (and the Inner Aspect of the Social Question lectures*), applying it to teaching through “social threefolding” – in the curriculum, in our classrooms, our faculty interactions, and all-school structures.  We will use existing structures from your schools – classrooms, faculty meetings, and all-school meetings – to identify opportunities along the path to aligning our education authentically with the spirit of our age.  Singing, role-playing and Eurythmy will expand our experience.

 

For more information click HERE

 

Personal and Organizational Renewal: From Survival to Success

June 29-July 4, 2014, High Mowing School, Wilton, NH

With Torin Finser, and Leonore Russell. Torin Finser is Chair of the Education Department at Antioch University New England and General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Leonore Russell is a eurythmist and consultant for organizational change.

Schools face many challenges today. “Peeling the onion,” one finds that behind external issues of deficits, low salaries, interpersonal conflict, and lack of support for leadership there is often an underlying need to rekindle the sources of inspiration and find a more collaborative approach. By bringing together the various groups represented in a typical school, this course attempts to model new ways of working together.

Our classrooms feature the magic of seeing the “whole child”; can our organizations learn to embrace whole-systems thinking?

This course is for parents, teachers, administrators, and board members interested in school renewal. Topics will include: group dynamics, leadership styles, the wisdom of human physiology and the planets, working with conflict, communication, mediation, artistic practice, and finding the balance between personal and professional demands. These themes will be supported through exercises from “Eurythmy in the Workplace.”

Participants will take up some of the current issues facing their schools and design strategies to work toward closer collaboration.

For more information click HERE.

 

Collaborative Leadership: Personalized Strategies for Effective Planning, Problem-Solving, and Decision-Making

July 20-25, 2014, Sunbridge Institute, Spring Valley, NY

With Joachim Ziegler, PhD, Organizational Development and Leadership Consultant and Jessica Heffernan Ziegler, Executive Director, Sunbridge Institute

Are you a teacher, faculty or section chair, administrator, board member, director, staffer, or key volunteer in a Waldorf school or other non-profit workplace? Do you serve on an administrative committee, sit on the college of teachers, or play another leadership role? No matter what your individual position is in your organization, if you participate in a planning or problem-solving process, you have leadership responsibilities. In this highly useful course for decision-makers who work in Waldorf schools or other non-profit settings, our focus is on practical work. Through a process imbued with the anthroposophical understanding of the human being, and successfully applied in organizations from multi-million dollar nationals to Waldorf schools, you will learn how to improve your effectiveness as a member of your team.

Each participant is asked to bring to the course his or her own organizational question, project, or challenge. Using these real-life cases, we will apply these five core models for collaborative leadership:

Three main leadership tasks (maintaining and creating identity / creating space for healthy, stable relationships / assuring professional results)

Diagnostic and planning tools: how to look at the organization as a whole and understand the dynamics of intersecting segments

How to create processes toward healthy decision-making

The balance between power and trust

Models for negotiation and conflict

Your course takeaway will be an individualized action plan for the question, project, or challenge you have brought with you, along with an understanding of the necessary skill set with which to execute it.

For more information click HERE.

 

The following three workshops are being offered at the

Summer AWSNA Conference June 23-26, 2014,

at the Hartsbrook School in Amherst, MA.

Check out these and other workshops at the conference HERE.

 

“Making Decisions, Taking Action, Getting Results: Transparent leadership and self-governance in a Waldorf school from student council through faculty, collegium, administration, and operations”

With Cary Hughes, Rea Taylor, John Buck

Through presentation and hands-on activities, explore and experience implementing a new pragmatic approach to school governance that successfully embraces the philosophical underpinnings of Steiner’s Threefold Social Order and uses proven effective self-governance principles and clearly defined processes and protocols which result in an elegant and effective operating structure. Cary Hughes is the humanities teacher and dean of students at High Mowing School. He has been teaching for more than 30 years. As the mentor of High Mowing School’s student council, he guides and supports students as they create and participate in student government using the principles and practices of self-governance. John Buck, co-author of “We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy,” and head of Governance Alive LLC, has extensive leadership experience with government, non-profits, and corporations. John is certified in circle-organization method of governance called “Dynamic Self-Governance” and has been working with High Mowing School for the past 30 years. Rea Taylor Gill is the executive director at High Mowing School and author of A School as a Living Entity. Over the past 25 years, Rea has developed a revolutionary approach to organizational development and school structure and has successfully guided High Mowing School in the implementation of a replicable, effective governance, and operating structure.

 

 “Building Regenerative Communities”

With Mary Christiansen

Can Rudolf Steiner’s ideas for the renewal of social life stimulate creative new approaches to our school’s resource needs? What is a regenerative community in the context of a Waldorf school? Participants will examine several ways to facilitate group conversations working with these questions. Mary also will present an online Conversation Resource Guide and offer hands-on practice in small groups around a topic from the guide such as associative economics or conscious threefolding.

Mary Christenson is the Development Director at the Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School where she has served for 20 years. She has a certificate in Waldorf School Administration and Community Building from Sunbridge College. She was DANA regional coordinator for 10 years, and board member of the Viroqua Chamber-Main Street Program for 10 years. She is co-author of an online book, “Building Regenerative Communities – A Conversation and Resource Guide.”

 

 “LeadTogether: The dynamics of leadership, governance and community building in a collaborative organization”

With Michael Soule

Collaboration was a radical form in the first Waldorf school and is no less so today. We are only beginning to realize its potential as a key to organizational health. How do we foster individual leadership in our schools, get beyond the usual organizational conflicts, and discover what Waldorf pedagogy offers for adult development? Participants will deepen their understanding of organizational dynamics, assess their own collaborative skills, and explore current research. This workshop is beneficial for parents, trustees, staff, and faculty.

Michael is a trained Waldorf teacher with an M.A. in Waldorf Education. He has been a class teacher, movement teacher, school administrator, board member, AWSNA regional representative, and Leader of programs and activities for AWSNA. He is currently the leader of the online collaborative community, Leadtogether.

 

[Anonymous]

52 yr old Transport Engineer Stanforth from Sault Ste. Marie, really likes squash, my little pony coloring pages online and soap making. Finds the world an amazing place we have spent 9 days at Archaeological Site of Cyrene. my little pony coloring pages characters.

[Author]

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