Newsletter - Fall 2019

FALL 2019 / ISSUE 9

The Importance of Gardening See page 4

In this issue . . .

2

Welcome Back from our Administrative Director

3

Growing Garden and Enthusiasm at the High School

4

The Importance of Gardening in the Grades

Actor/journalist

6

Alumni Profile: Dan Hoyle, Class of ‘98

alumnus Dan Hoyle

8

Bushnell Center Construction News

plays “Border People” and explores politics and humanity in his one-man shows READ MORE ON PAGE 6

A message from our Administrative Director Dear Friends,

Grade schoolers help work the soil and plant seeds for the growing garden.

It‘s shovels and hoes for these determined young students!

Welcome back to San Francisco Waldorf School. September 19, 2019 is the 100th anniversary of Waldorf education worldwide, marking the first day of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1919. The growth of Waldorf education is the result of the sustained energy and commitment of many faculties and families around the world for the past century. Our school has become one of the largest Waldorf schools in North America precisely because of the actions and purposeful engagement of our dedicated teachers and parents.

This year is no different, as the campuses on both sides of town are literally buzzing with activity. In this newsletter, we read about the bees at both the grade school and the high school and the gardens that help support them. The gardening program is an integral part of our curriculum, providing a living experience for students of the focused and dedicated work it takes to nurture and grow life. Students implicitly understand the value of their individual work in preserving natural systems and how their efforts will support those who follow.

Creativity is as equally important in our curriculum as taking up meaningful work in the world. This newsletter also contains a story about alumnus Dan Hoyle, whose creative work aims to inspire connection between people in San Francisco and around the country.

Hillary‘s Garden is being reimagined with the help of our students and parents.

Welcome to another school year and another opportunity to weave creativity and meaningful work together for the benefit of our children and each other.

Warm regards, Craig Appel

UPCOMING EVENTS October 2:

Stern Grove All-School

Gathering

October 20: Fairy Walk Check the website for complete calendar.

PS: The school website is being updated! Stay tuned for a new look coming in October. Visit our recently relaunched MySFWS portal for all the day-to-day information you need: schedules, directors, library resources, and more.

3

Growing Garden and Enthusiam Fueled by the high school's changing campus and close neighbors

BY JOHN BURKET, HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY AND GARDEN TEACHER

At the high school, our 9th and 10th graders engage in a Gardening and Landscaping class for 11 weeks.

The purpose of this class is to teach the fundamentals of growing and caring for plants in the school garden and the whole campus landscape.

Students test the soils for nutrients and pH and learn how these elements are important for growing healthy plants. We maintain worm compost bins where lunch scraps are turned into compost which is then used to feed the plants. Preparing the soil for seeds, planting, weeding, and watering are ongoing activities.

Students learn the proper use and care of the tools needed for this work. And then, of course, there is the harvesting, where students can taste the fruits of their labors.

The terraced garden thrives outside classroom windows.

“This kind of work can be a hard sell to teenagers, but I have seen the interest and enthusiasm grow each year as the campus continues to bloom.�

Speaking of fruits, we have planted and continue to care for a couple dozen fruit trees, blueberry bushes, grape vines, and many strawberry plants. At the appropriate time of year, students learn how to prune these fruit bearers as well.

Around the campus, students plant ornamentals, herbs, and flowers.

A new component of the class this year will be to return to Arden Wood, our neighbor behind the school, where we will help with landscaping and habitat restoration near the natural spring on their property.

The construction of the Bushnell Center has opened up many opportunities for further and remedial landscaping that we will begin to dive into this spring.

Sometimes this kind of work can be a hard sell to teenagers, but I have seen the interest and enthusiasm grow each year as the campus continues to bloom. More and

Bees and students in the Bee Club help keep campus green. more, I have noticed how students take pride in making their campus beautiful and tasty.

I attribute this a great deal to the increase in programs, such as the one at our grade school, that teach an appreciation for growing plants at a young age. ~

The Role of Gardening in the Grades Reflection on the wisdom of Steiner's vision

BY KARMIN GUZDER, GRADE SCHOOL GARDENING TEACHER

I thought it would be appropriate to look back to the first school garden in the very first Waldorf school.

Fortunately, Frei Waldorfschule Ulandshöhe is still in operation in Stuttgart. I was able to get in touch with Andreas Honig who runs the gardening program at the school.

When the school opened its doors in 1919, it did not yet have a gardening teacher. The class teachers themselves brought the children outdoors. In 1922, the teachers were having a conference with Rudolf Steiner, the philosopher and visionary behind Waldorf Education.

There in meeting notes, teachers were documented complaining about the sixth grade children: “The pupils growing awareness of their increasing independence is manifesting in considerable psychological irritability and lack of equanimity. They are being unruly in the classroom and they tend to be incredibly lazy.” I guess things haven’t changed that much in one hundred years!

The school also hired their first gardening teacher, Gertrud Michels, to oversee the program. The name alone says it all. I imagine her to have been tall and stern, with a wide brimmed sun hat and rosy cheeks.

And that her arms were as strong as her voice, to keep all those rascally middle schoolers on task. The students also helped care for several beehives.

In 1936, the school shut down due to the war, and Gertrud went to work with doctors who were exploring Steiner’s ideas in medicine. A pear orchard left behind in the school garden fed many people through the bleak years of scarcity until the school reopened in 1945.

Since Andreas became the gardening teacher about twenty years ago, he has expanded the program significantly. Several new greenhouses give the children an opportunity to learn about plant propagation. A young orchard stands next to the last few remaining pear trees. Andreas integrated animals into the program, including rabbits, sheep, goats, and a donkey as well as several more beehives.

Steiner was a man of many ideas in various fields: education, medicine, and agriculture as well.

When Andreas added animals to the program, he moved the garden towards becoming its own closedloop system, a central principle in biodynamic agriculture.

It was then that Steiner recommended that each child from the sixth grade and up receive his or her own small plot of land to cultivate daily. Students were expected to till their plots and plant all manner of vegetables from kale and spinach to radishes and broccoli.

Today the children at Ulandshöhe, like in most Waldorf garden programs, ours included, no longer tend to individual plots. They cultivate the garden as a whole and are taught various lessons by their teacher. They learn that healthy and balanced soil, amended with organic matter, is the basis for a vibrant garden. They learn to grow all variety of vegetables and to prune fruit trees.

They learn to harvest seeds and to nurture seedlings in the greenhouse.

The third grade children grow wheat and learn to thresh, winnow, and grind it into flour.

These are all wonderful activities of their own accord. However, I asked myself why Steiner insisted that a gardening program be integrated into the curriculum, especially at a time when teaching such a thing at a school was so uncommon.

Contemplating this question, I think back to my years as a class teacher, on the fourth grade curriculum and the Human Being and Animal Block in particular.

“How do we teach the next generation to be responsible stewards of the earth?”

Our fourth grade students are introduced to the animal kingdom through an observation of the form of various animals. We observe the long trunk of the elephant, the wide tail of the beaver, and the tiny but strong ant. The children compare and contrast animals. They write poetry and take exciting field trips to places like Año Nuevo to watch the elephant seals. The children feel and live into the experience of their chosen animal for their individual reports.

Towards the end of the block, the children learn that the beauty and wonder of the animal kingdom are truly synthesized within the human being. They learn that our will is often like a fierce bull charging, that our heart is like a courageous lion roaring, and that our thoughts are like an eagle soaring above.

They learn that unlike animals, the human being has the unique opportunity to stand upright. We are free in our limbs in a way that even our closest primate ancestors are not. They learn our unique form

5 reveals a purpose: that the human being is responsible for the wellbeing of the natural world because we alone can serve it.

Steiner’s advice on how to teach this one very special lesson block was closely tied to a child’s developing sense of responsibility. It was also focused on harnessing the young child’s growing capacities and will for the good. In Steiner’s first lectures to teachers in 1919 he noted, You ought to make use of what this special age of the children offers you, because if you apply natural lessons in the way I have described, you will implant into their souls moral concepts that are very firm and do not falter.

You cannot instill moral concepts into the children by appealing to their intellect; you have to appeal to their feeling and their will. You will engage the feeling and the will if you guide the children’s thoughts and feelings to an understanding of how they themselves are fully human only when they use their hands for working in the world.

(Practical Advice to Teachers, 102) This passage reveals the answer to my question of why Steiner insisted on integrating a gardening program into the Waldorf curriculum: we can be fully human only when we use our hands for working in the world.

This brings to mind one of the most pressing questions of our time. How do we teach the next generation to be responsible stewards of the earth?

In the face of pressing and complex

issues such as global warming, fracking, and wars over fresh water, how do we teach children that human beings are both dependent upon the earth and responsible for its well being? All of us teachers know that wagging the finger, telling the children to be good, won’t make them do good. If it did, then that would make things so easy! Steiner suggests that the answer is working with our hands and allowing the child to engage fully into his or her experience. Through gardening, children gain a feeling of what is good and what is right.

Furthermore, children need living experiences of nature. When they can observe change in a single plot of land, for example, when they plant and watch a garlic patch grow from the fall to the spring harvest, they gain a feeling for pace and transformation in nature. The children can see how planting the cloves, as well as all the hard work of digging and adding compost to the bed, lead towards goodness.

At harvest time the children will take some garlic home, gift some to others, and some will be planted again: nourishment, community, and regeneration. Through these experiences a child’s will translates into moral actions. It is our job as teachers to guide the children to activities from which they can receive and gain real experiences that hold an inherent truth within themselves.

When a young kindergartener enters the garden, she has a certain lightness of step. She is so excited by all the activities that lie ahead, but she gets quickly distracted. She

watches an ant crawl up a stem so closely that her nose nearly touches it. Her eyes follow a bean plant winding its way around a pole. She is always looking for treasures in the dirt, digging her way down with her bare hands. Lo and behold, it’s a wiggly worm that tickles her palm!

She knows that mustard greens are spicy and that the purple cabbage is her favorite because it‘s crunchy. On rainy days the whole class takes turns jumping into the mud pit.

A third grade child runs into the garden with a burst of energy and can’t wait to start digging down into the garden bed. Shovels work mechanically in the pit, and the dirt flies out. It is an utter surprise and joy when they all discover an enormous rock, and they expend all their energy for the rest of class trying to roll it out with all manner of ways. When they do, they break out in a cheer and wipe sweat off their brow! They’ve poured themselves so fully into their task.

“When the young child is allowed to discover the natural world freely and the older child’s curiosity is encouraged, then children learn to love the natural world and to care for it.”

When a fifth grade child sketches a sage plant contemplatively or discovers, through observation, that all flowers in the cruciferous family have four petals, the children experience something real.

These experiences become embedded in a child’s feeling life and strengthen the will for his or her entire life. Beyond grade school, our high school students study, read, and contemplate agroecology in depth.

They debate GMOs. They study the Continued page 7

ALUMNI PROFILE

Dan Hoyle, Class of ‘98

BY JESS BYRON, FORMER ALUMNI PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Dan Hoyle is the type of comedian you want to get to know. His style of comedy is what he likes to call journalistic theater. It is an artistic foray into storytelling that brings a people and a place to life through real research and human connections. With an uncanny ability to master accents and markers of race and class, Dan compassionately and respectfully brings to light the assumptions that curate the ideological divide on an international scale.

Dan’s show The Real Americans is a brilliant and hilarious story based on his three-month trip through small town America. He characterizes the people he met, young to old, North to South, black to white, with dramatic distinctions. It is through his performances that he tactfully unveils how diverse America truly is.

In his show Each and Everything, Dan remarkably brings us to question the importance of human connection during the height of technological dependence. Sound advice from his good friend Pratim leads Dan on an epic journey to a coffee house in Calcutta, India, and it is there that he discovers what real, true, and meaningful conversation and connection is.

When asked if he has a story to tell, it is quite clear that Dan does not have some profound life altering advice and does not demand that one live their life in a certain way.

The political controversies and pop culture dramatizations expose fragile and raw emotion, and it’s from these feelings that Dan hopes he can hearten some form of connection between people and place: “I want to encourage a way of thinking that is critical. We live in a world that is curious. Expand that curiosity and really seek to connect with other people and cultures.”

One could argue that acting is in Dan’s blood. His father Geoff Hoyle is a multifaceted actor, solo performer, and Pickle Family Circus clown. While attending Waldorf for his early years, Dan was always engaged in some form of role play or stage production.

“This is the thing about Waldorf education. It encourages imagination, courage, and empathy, all of which are the foundations of any character.”

He remembers his first real acting role as the lead in Noah’s Ark. He rehearsed his lines over and over again and yet still needed help from his teacher to remember his lines.

While reflecting on those early days on stage, he remarks, “This is the thing about Waldorf education. It encourages imagination, courage, and empathy, all of which are the foundations of any character.”

Growing up in San Francisco, Dan says, helped to build his social awareness and helped him grow as a person: “Riding the bus to school, walking around the city streets, I had more diverse interactions with people

and I was learning every day. It was important for me to have the Waldorf educational experience to encourage my imagination, and it was important for me to expose myself to the harshness and rawness of the city.”

The respectful and curious approach to sparking conversations with strangers is where all of Dan’s stories begin. Theater and acting allows Dan to make an experience as intense and compelling for the audience as it was for him experiencing it.

His diverse experiences include a month as an artist-in-residence at Trinity College in Ireland and a year in Nigeria as a Fulbright Scholar.

Dan is currently performing his latest creation, Border People, at The Marsh, a performance that exposes the geographic, cultural, emotional, religious, and racial borders that segment American culture today and the profound courage and commitment it takes to live on one. ~

For more on Dan Hoyle and his upcoming shows, visit his website at www.danhoyle.com.

7 (Gardening in the Grades continued)

effects of soybean mono-crops in the midwest, and they read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. They do this with the firm foundation that we have given them here at the grade school, knowing that the world is good and filled with beauty and that we will change it for the better.

When a child is interested in the work and in exploring the garden, when the young child is allowed to discover the natural world freely and the older child’s curiosity is encouraged, then children learn to love the natural world and to care for it. The activity of gardening teaches the child the hard work of cultivating the earth. By cultivating, we can create something beautiful and delicious with nature that would not have existed otherwise. Children also learn that harvest time is an opportunity to think of others and to share. They learn that death and decay, namely in smelly compost, are connected with birth and life.

I want to finish with a short quote from Steiner in his book The Philosophy of Freedom: “Only when I follow my love for an object is it I myself who act“ (151).

We are educating children to stand upright and strong and to act out of their love for the natural world. The gardening curriculum, in particular, engages what is uniquely human within the child, namely our hands.

Children learn that through the act of cultivation, the human being becomes a force for good.

This year, thanks to a generous grant, we will start our first beehive on the grade school campus. What could be more symbolic of a promising future than keeping a hive for the children to observe the bees! I think they will find much joy in being responsible stewards of the earth when they crank the extractor and lick the irresistible golden honey off their fingers. ~

B ushnell C enter

for

A thletics & C ommunity

Grand Opening Spring 2020!

Construction is moving along at the high school in West Portal, so mark you calendars! At the end of this new school year, we will open our doors and gather in celebration at the David Bushnell Center for Athletics and Community.

The Bushnell Center will be home to school athletic events, performances, and gatherings.

Thanks to the generosity and vision of our incredible community, we completed the largest capital campaign in our school history, raising nearly $8 million for this sustainable showcase facility.

Photo Credits: Gardening page 4: Lucy Goodhart Gardening page 5 in order of appearance: Lucy Goodhart, Scott Chernis Dan Hoyle page 6 in order of appearance: Ira Black (1), Patrick Weishampel (2,3) Dan Hoyle cover: Peter Prato