What follows is another brief exchange on administration in a Waldorf school. The questions are from a person thinking of applying to work in a Waldorf school; the responses are mine.
What I have seen in the Waldorf schools I have been associated with are Administrators who have no Waldorf training background or Anthroposophical study (or interest, for that matter).
It seems to me that this is just not workable in the long run—how can the administrator gain the trust of the teachers without at least some real interest? In one school at which I worked, however, one administrator was an anthroposophist through and through but then not a good administrator. This person would sit in the office talking about the influence of Jupiter while the bookkeeper’s questions went unanswered… That was a disaster and the person ended up losing the job. So some interest in anthroposophy is probably essential, but that alone, of course, isn’t sufficient.
It also appears to be a relatively new concept for a Waldorf school to allow someone outside of the faculty to assist with the running of the school. Having been an administrator for a lot of my previous career, I see this as a positive move for the sustainability of Waldorf schools, if a school can afford that position.
I agree, and I think there are differences between what Steiner meant by “administration,” which really has to do with things that impact the children’s experiences in the classrooms, and what we now call “governance,” which includes lots of things that the first Waldorf school simply didn’t have to deal with (and, I’ll bet, when they did have to deal with such things, Emil Molt, not the administrative committee of the teachers, handled them), things like admissions, business management, publicity, development, etc.
I also believe that the role of Administrator is probably different in each school, meeting the school's needs where it is and helping to carry it where it needs to go.
I couldn’t agree more. There is no blueprint. Each school is a different organism.
That being said, do you find that there are some "general" experiences that prove to be beneficial in being an Administrator (qualifications, etc)?
Yes—things that any good administrator would have—organization, a sense for the whole, an even temper, mediation and facilitation skills, management (of admin. staff) skills, strategic thinking, and on and on… And, in my experience, I had to develop what I didn’t have!
Is it necessary to have been a Waldorf teacher? (I know you say it is optimal, but I agree that usually a teacher prefers a classroom--administration, being a part of a team, requires another set of skills--at least that's been my experience).
No, not necessary. BUT I believe it’s powerful (and perhaps, according to Steiner, necessary) for an administrator to teach, even if just a period or two per week—if nothing else, the administrator can have a third grade reading group, for example, or teach a middle school main lesson block, or whatever matches with her or his abilities. This contact with students is invaluable—it keeps an administrator “grounded” in the work of the school.
I also wonder if the skills I have in being a director/administrator for several programs for children would be useful in the administration of a Waldorf school? Are they "universally translatable" skills? Or do they need to be more anthrophosophically based?
Yes, I believe solid administrative skills are directly translatable. More than 90% of the work is the same from organization to organization. It’s also valuable to have a solid understanding of Steiner’s work on threefold organization because of the way it informs so much of the rhetoric around Waldorf school governance, administration, and organization. And it’s NOT well understood, in my experience. An administrator who is willing to develop a good understanding of this aspect of work in a school can be invaluable to the institution.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Why are some Waldorf school parents so emotional?
Parents love and want the best for their children. They live vicariously through their children’s experiences, good and bad, and defend and protect their children vigilantly. All of this, healthfully pursued, is noble, good, and understandable.
The emotions that attend parent experiences in Waldorf schools, however, seem more frequently than at other schools to spill over into extremes.
Sometimes, parents who apply to a Waldorf school have their child rejected, and then seem, instantly, to develop animosity to the school, a school they were almost desperate to be part of moments before; their hopes were high, then their hearts were broken. By contrast, parents of applicants rejected by local prep schools are much more likely to be upset but still to hold the school in high esteem; and, if a place there opens in the future, to send their children. Those rejected by a Waldorf school may form a negative impression that they carry for years. They don’t just feel rejected, they feel ill-used.
Or parents enter a Waldorf school community with tremendous energy, enthusiasm, and idealism, only to have their perceptions change a couple of years later when they realize that the school actually doesn’t, can’t, live up to their image of it. In my experience, this process is more intense than the general “burnout” that parents who volunteer at any school can feel. And schools contribute to this phenomenon—maybe even cause it—by allowing expectations to be so high. Out of insecurity, perhaps, Waldorf schools may represent ideals, far more than they can ever deliver, without offering a healthy dose of reality.
Or parents withdraw their students—sometimes for perfectly valid reasons, and sometimes for reasons that have more to do with adult interactions and not with a child’s experience in school—and badmouth the school for years afterward. Again, by comparison, parents who leave a more conventional school may blame a teacher or an administrator or a social dynamic, but they are less likely, I believe, to blame the school as a whole.
In all of these cases, it seems as if the emotions attached to the experiences are greater than the emotions attached to parallel experiences at another school—Montessori, Country Day, public school.
I have two interlocking theories about why this is so.
First, the idealism and even zealotry of the convert can be dangerous. To the extent that parents act as “converts” to Waldorf education and see Waldorf schools as “more” than just schools, or to the extent that Waldorf schools raise parents’ expectations too high, higher than the schools can ever fulfill, they are in for an awakening down the road. Many families navigate this terrain well, but for a few it provides a shock from which they don’t easily recover.
Second, parents see the world through their children’s eyes and occasionally forget that it’s not appropriate for an adult to see the world only as a third or seventh grader sees it. Research demonstrates, for example, that children lose confidence or faith in school between third and fourth grade. Whether we call this evidence of a “nine year change” or something else, it’s a genuine phenomenon. Teachers see it all the time. Children who loved school and loved their teachers in second grade begin to question these things in third and fourth grade. A parent invested in perfection just can’t stand to hear the words—perhaps uttered more as a test than as a fact, “I hate my teacher.” The teacher is the same one of whom the student said the year before, “I love my teacher.” Usually it’s the student who is changing, of course, not the teacher. (This is not an argument for parent blindness—not all teachers are good teachers for every student, and no parent should be so zealous as to keep a child in a class or school against better judgment.)
And parents don’t just lend undue credence to the reports of their children, they often affect the behavior of their children, as well. I have seen seventh grade parents, upset with children’s behavior that caused hurt feelings and schisms in the class, behave to each other exactly in order to create hurt feelings and schisms among the parents. A rule of thumb for teachers and administrators might be, parents may look like adults, but, when pushed, will behave like the children in whom they have such a great stake.
I don’t say this to insult parents (I have two children myself, and my wife frequently used to ask, “How can you be so good with other people’s children, and so obtuse with your own?”) but to warn of unconscious behavior that can only make some difficult situations worse.
What do you think?
The emotions that attend parent experiences in Waldorf schools, however, seem more frequently than at other schools to spill over into extremes.
Sometimes, parents who apply to a Waldorf school have their child rejected, and then seem, instantly, to develop animosity to the school, a school they were almost desperate to be part of moments before; their hopes were high, then their hearts were broken. By contrast, parents of applicants rejected by local prep schools are much more likely to be upset but still to hold the school in high esteem; and, if a place there opens in the future, to send their children. Those rejected by a Waldorf school may form a negative impression that they carry for years. They don’t just feel rejected, they feel ill-used.
Or parents enter a Waldorf school community with tremendous energy, enthusiasm, and idealism, only to have their perceptions change a couple of years later when they realize that the school actually doesn’t, can’t, live up to their image of it. In my experience, this process is more intense than the general “burnout” that parents who volunteer at any school can feel. And schools contribute to this phenomenon—maybe even cause it—by allowing expectations to be so high. Out of insecurity, perhaps, Waldorf schools may represent ideals, far more than they can ever deliver, without offering a healthy dose of reality.
Or parents withdraw their students—sometimes for perfectly valid reasons, and sometimes for reasons that have more to do with adult interactions and not with a child’s experience in school—and badmouth the school for years afterward. Again, by comparison, parents who leave a more conventional school may blame a teacher or an administrator or a social dynamic, but they are less likely, I believe, to blame the school as a whole.
In all of these cases, it seems as if the emotions attached to the experiences are greater than the emotions attached to parallel experiences at another school—Montessori, Country Day, public school.
I have two interlocking theories about why this is so.
First, the idealism and even zealotry of the convert can be dangerous. To the extent that parents act as “converts” to Waldorf education and see Waldorf schools as “more” than just schools, or to the extent that Waldorf schools raise parents’ expectations too high, higher than the schools can ever fulfill, they are in for an awakening down the road. Many families navigate this terrain well, but for a few it provides a shock from which they don’t easily recover.
Second, parents see the world through their children’s eyes and occasionally forget that it’s not appropriate for an adult to see the world only as a third or seventh grader sees it. Research demonstrates, for example, that children lose confidence or faith in school between third and fourth grade. Whether we call this evidence of a “nine year change” or something else, it’s a genuine phenomenon. Teachers see it all the time. Children who loved school and loved their teachers in second grade begin to question these things in third and fourth grade. A parent invested in perfection just can’t stand to hear the words—perhaps uttered more as a test than as a fact, “I hate my teacher.” The teacher is the same one of whom the student said the year before, “I love my teacher.” Usually it’s the student who is changing, of course, not the teacher. (This is not an argument for parent blindness—not all teachers are good teachers for every student, and no parent should be so zealous as to keep a child in a class or school against better judgment.)
And parents don’t just lend undue credence to the reports of their children, they often affect the behavior of their children, as well. I have seen seventh grade parents, upset with children’s behavior that caused hurt feelings and schisms in the class, behave to each other exactly in order to create hurt feelings and schisms among the parents. A rule of thumb for teachers and administrators might be, parents may look like adults, but, when pushed, will behave like the children in whom they have such a great stake.
I don’t say this to insult parents (I have two children myself, and my wife frequently used to ask, “How can you be so good with other people’s children, and so obtuse with your own?”) but to warn of unconscious behavior that can only make some difficult situations worse.
What do you think?
Friday, January 21, 2011
A Perspective on Wealth
If you are reading this, you are likely among the wealthiest persons ever to live. Ever.
Do you have heat in your house, a car, hot and cold running water, a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, a TV? Do you have more than one pair of shoes, more than a couple of sets of clothes?
Imagine trying to replace all of these things with labor—yours or your servants’—in a pre-industrial world. Think of the horses, liverymen, stablehands, cartwrights you’d need to begin to replace your automobile. (And, if you don’t own a car, you can still probably travel a hundred miles or so by public transportation for the cost of about an hour’s labor.)
Imagine what it would have taken to have a variety of fresh food—bananas in December—available to you year-round.
Imagine the labor necessary to cut, haul, and split the wood to heat your house and your stove.
Imagine the labor needed to herd the sheep, grow the flax or cotton, harvest or shear it, turn it into thread, weave the cloth and sew your clothes. To make your shoes. To bring you news of the world. To give you a hot bath or shower any time you like.
(Of course, regardless of your wealth, the pace of your travel wouldn’t come close to the speed of travel today, for those who can afford it. You might not be able to find a banana in January for all your wealth. And nylon, lycra, and polypropylene simply didn’t exist.)
Each of us in the industrialized world lives like only a king could live through most of human history. Cheers!
Do you have heat in your house, a car, hot and cold running water, a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, a TV? Do you have more than one pair of shoes, more than a couple of sets of clothes?
Imagine trying to replace all of these things with labor—yours or your servants’—in a pre-industrial world. Think of the horses, liverymen, stablehands, cartwrights you’d need to begin to replace your automobile. (And, if you don’t own a car, you can still probably travel a hundred miles or so by public transportation for the cost of about an hour’s labor.)
Imagine what it would have taken to have a variety of fresh food—bananas in December—available to you year-round.
Imagine the labor necessary to cut, haul, and split the wood to heat your house and your stove.
Imagine the labor needed to herd the sheep, grow the flax or cotton, harvest or shear it, turn it into thread, weave the cloth and sew your clothes. To make your shoes. To bring you news of the world. To give you a hot bath or shower any time you like.
(Of course, regardless of your wealth, the pace of your travel wouldn’t come close to the speed of travel today, for those who can afford it. You might not be able to find a banana in January for all your wealth. And nylon, lycra, and polypropylene simply didn’t exist.)
Each of us in the industrialized world lives like only a king could live through most of human history. Cheers!
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