outofbounds - Toronto Waldorf School

a magazine for the alumni/ae of the Toronto Waldorf School
1
2003/04
outofbounds
outofbounds 1
editorial
Why an alumni/ae programme? Most schools have them. But this is not a real answer. In fact, alumni/ae associations are
often the lamest part of any school. My other alumni/ae associations tend to focus on fund-raising and cheap insurance
schemes.
c o n t e n t s
Toronto Waldorf School
editorial
But there are more substantial reasons for such a programme. TWS alumni/ae are the living history of the Toronto Waldorf
School, and it is in us that the school can fully see itself mirrored. Is it doing what it sets out to do? Are its ideals manifested
in our lives? Only we, ultimately, can provide the answers to these questions. The school is eager to know what we’ve done
since graduating and to receive our feedback about its strengths and weaknesses. It will also benefit tremendously from our
expertise, our skills, and our many resources. The initiative of the school to start up a formal alumni/ae programme is not,
however, primarily driven by the need for accountability or support. As Helga Rudolph and Helene Gross make clear, the
school is really interested in you - in everything that you are, in what you think, in how you approach life, and in simply
having the energy of your presence augment the school in a dynamic and meaningful way.
But what about for us, the alumni/ae? Why an alumni/ae programme? On June 21st, 2003, the Class of ’83 had its twentieth
graduation anniversary reunion. It began at ten thirty in the morning at the school and ended after midnight at a private
house. It brought together the majority of the class. Below are fragments of some of the e-mails that were circulated after
the event. I think they provide some answers to this question.
► I think we all have a very unique bond. Something that probably a lot of adults don’t share with their former childhood
friends/acquaintances. I think this is very unique to Waldorf and we should consider ourselves very lucky. We take things
so for granted when we are young and to have this sort of bond is very important and very special.
I also feel that in some way I’ve reached a bit of a crossroads and Saturday has started me looking inwards to evaluate
whether I am truly where I want to be at this point in my life. I’m not totally comfortable with what I’m doing, but one
gets into a routine - and I’m speaking specifically about my “working” career. I hope that in the near future, whether by
serendipity, or by some conscious effort, I get out of the lulling and controlling office/paper pushing environment, to
something more fulfilling. My fear is one of the unknown and (as Ivan said) of being chicken to just go for something,
taking the risk. I don’t know what that risk is going to be, but I hope that when it is in front of me, I have the faith and
strength to take that chance.
Cheers, Vicki '83
► For me the reunion experience had a sort of anchoring, referencing, centering effect, that I think I saw others
experiencing.
I think when one leaves high school one begins the process of discovering that one will never have quite the same forced
yet appreciated camaraderie again. The real world promptly starts to take it away. I often think one spends the rest of one’s
life looking for the type of friendships that were there in school. One doesn’t really ever have the same circumstance again.
It’s all WAY too serious later. If not deep friendships, these school relationships may be very important references for one’s
identity that was forming at the time. That’s my philosophical note.
Thank you all for a great day.
Cheers, Arthur '83
► I hear your words and sincerely appreciate what you’re saying. I guess I’ve been both an unlucky then...lucky one. You
see, to be perfectly honest, a lot of the time I felt “tolerated” in school, with a few exceptions. (Hang on, now - twenty years
have passed and truths can certainly be told). Once out into the world, I found myself gravitating towards some very deep
friendships with some other very cool people, making some new, strong connections. I’m sure we can all agree that this is
possible...
As to the lucky part - I felt/feel lucky to have had the opportunity to see my ghosts wither and die. I guess that’s the power
of the connection we all feel. As I said in our “circle” chat, Grade 12 was but the beginning of a process for myself, and it
was such a very good feeling to speak of some of my truth to all of you - it was like a beach ball held underwater...when
you let it go, it goes! Anyway...here endeth my screed. Our reunion was/is a blessing and that’s all that matters.
Hugs and love to all, Morgan '83
Greeting - Board Chair
And why this magazine?
A publication is an excellent way to draw people together. Although my main focus for this and future editions of
outofbounds magazine is to feature the lives, ideas and activities of alumni/ae, in this first edition I have also tried to
present a picture of the school and of Waldorf education. This is not an attempt to proselytize, but simply to inform; to give
you a history and a context for your memories. Hence, this premier edition serves as a re-introduction to each other and to
the world of Waldorf education. Future editions will have other themes and I look forward to hearing your ideas about the
directions this publication could take. ■
Katja Rudolph '84 katjarudolph@aol.com
Why Did We Do That, Anyway?
2 outofbounds
outofbounds
Greeting - Faculty Chair
Katja Rudolph
Katja Rudolph
Katherine Dynes
all photos by Katherine (katherinedynes@hotmail.com) unless childhood photos or otherwise credited
Alumni/ae News
Thomas Dannenberg
TWS News
In Memoriam
Alumni/ae History
Waldorf History
Christine von Bezold
Katherine Dynes
hundreds of volunteer hours have gone into this magazine - thanks to the
C
O
N
T
R
I
B
U
T O
R
S
Geoff Chan '89, has been a tree
planter, an ad writer, an egret watcher,
a NOW magazine writer and a backpacker, not necessarily in that order.
He is now a Web site/newsletter
editor for the International Freedom
of Expression eXchange (IFEX)
Clearing House in Toronto. IFEX is a
global network of fifty-seven organizations that promote press freedom
and free expression (www.ifex.org).
Geoff hopes one day he’ll be able to
say the words, “For CBC News, this
is....in Ulan Bator.”
TWS History
TWS Faculty and Staff - to jog your
memories
Alumni/ae Feature - Dan Jaciw ’83
Alumni/ae Feature - Seth Coyle ’94
Alumni/ae Feature - Layah SingerWilson ’00
Alumna/us, What’s Your Passion?
Chantal Lemiex ’83 - Nils Junge ’88 Jo Russel ’89 - Eric Robi ’83
Art Feature - Christian McLeod ’87
Faculty Feature - Bob Pickering ’73
Faculty Feature - Elisabeth
Koekebakker ’57
Feature - School Building
Waldorf Education: Basic Principles
Alumni/ae, TWS, RSCT events
schedules
Tim Dannenberg '02 graduated
from TWS in 2002 and went on to do his
OAC year at Alexander Mackenzie High
School in Thornhill. He has been painting
for several years and has sold some of his
work, as well as receiving the art prize in
his OAC year. In June of 2003, he bought
a one-way ticket to Vancouver, BC, and
will spend the following year working,
travelling and finding out what he wants to
do with the next years of his life.
timdannenberg@dannenbergdesign.com
Welcome, Class of ’03
outofbounds 3
Craighall Primary School; Hyde Park School, Johannesberg, South Africa, Class of 1970
Helga in Grade 11
Helene in Grade 2
Helene Gross '70 - Faculty Chair
Helga Rudolph '55 - Board Chair
Freie Waldorf Schule, Tübingen, Germany; Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School, Class of 1955
It gives me great pleasure to be able to send you
these greetings!
It is every teacher’s dream that the student surpass her or him.
And it is every school’s hope that the educational experience
has been such that some students will want to become teachers
themselves, taking up the torch of education and attempting
e have long felt your absence and pondered the ways and
that challenging and rewarding activity of nurturing children to
means to reconnect with you in a meaningful way. Much
time has gone by, but we at the school are now doing our utmost become the best of who they are. To be able to watch a young
colleague in action with the memory of the young student clearly
to reach out to you. You are very important to the life of the
in mind is truly a remarkable experience.
school since you represent the ultimate goal of the daily efforts
This complex process called education can be thought of as a
of board members, teachers, staff, parents and all who come
stewardship, similar to the manner in which good farmers look
together to make the school possible: to contribute educated,
striving, socially aware, curious, open, and hopeful individuals to after the land. They don’t make the soil or the seeds or the sun or
the rain, but they take what is given them and look after it so that
the world.
the seed can take root in the soil and grow. These small seedlings
And we’d like to have you back!
are carefully nurtured so that they become what they were
Last spring I met a former student downstairs in what used to
meant to become! This is what education is all about in Waldorf
be the red-carpet area. In front of me stood an accomplished,
schools: the attempt to remove hindrances! Rudolf Steiner said in
confident young woman. While chatting with her, an image
a lecture in Oxford, England, in August of 1922:
stole into the back of my mind. It was the image of a little girl
entering Kindergarten. As she told me her story since graduating, It is our rightful place as educators to be removers of
hindrances. Each child in every age brings something
I saw in my mind’s eye this girl move through the lower grades
new into the world from divine regions, and it is
and enter high school, all the while constantly changing and
growing, developing talents and finding her place in the world. I our task as educators to remove bodily and physical obstacles
out of his/her way; to remove hindrances so that her/his spirit
was grateful to be able to talk to her again in the present and to
may enter in full freedom into life.
complete my picture of her.
I call it coming full circle and my hope is that this circle become For years the teachers tend the land with love and reverence to
ever more visible and ever stronger as our alumni/ae programme the best of their ability - however, rarely do they see much of
the harvest that you bring to the world. Your return to us gives
grows into a real and vibrant alumni/ae community. It doesn’t
matter whether a student has been with us for a year or for fifteen us also the opportunity to share in the harvest: to share in your
hopes, aspirations, doubts and ideals; to share in who you have
years, we want to be in touch with you.
become.
We have had quite a wonderful experience of the “coming full
circle” phenomenon in the last few years. Alumni/ae becoming
Therefore, dear friends, do come back! Let the circle be
colleagues!
unbroken! ■ rumaxe@hotmail.com
Altogether, we have had nine former students join the faculty.
W
4 outofbounds
Greetings, dear alumna and alumnus!
Y
ou are among a group of close to a thousand alumni/ae of the
Toronto Waldorf School. I know many of you personally, but
of course there are many among you who attended TWS before my
time. I have fond memories of all of you I do know – even those
who provided me with the opportunity to test my abilities as a new
teacher!
I have witnessed many changes in the physical space, the
programmes and the governance structure of TWS over the fourteen
years that I have been a part of the school. Many of you will be
surprised when you visit us to see just how much we have changed.
We have added an arts and sports wing including the Rudolf Steiner
Centre for adult education and the WSAO offices and bookstore.
More recently, we have developed a teaching area for the farm
and garden programme that includes a vegetable and herb garden
and enclosures for sheep and chickens. The land surrounding
our property has changed radically over the past six months with
hundreds of new homes being built on the former farmlands around
us and an Islamic centre right beside us.
We have developed the physical education program – giving our
teams the chance to be competitive in the local sports leagues (no
more leggings and tie-dyed T-shirts as sports uniforms) and we
have expanded the programme to include circus classes. We have
introduced work experience programmes of two to three weeks in
Grades 9, 10 and 11: a three week farm experience in Grade 9, two
weeks in a business in Grade 10, and two weeks in a social-work
setting in Grade 11. Providing placements for these programmes
is an area where alumni/ae could be a valuable resource. For the
past five years, a group of OAC students has travelled to Peru for
a month as part of their World Issues programme. We hope to find
some way of keeping this trip going now that the OAC programme
in Ontario has ended. We are currently developing a programme to
provide educational support for students with special needs.
Over the past two years, the faculty and the administrative staff have
been actively engaged in a process to renew the governance structure of
the school. We heard a strong message from our community regarding
clarity and accountability - that the community needed to know
“where the buck stops.” We undertook this process towards change in
governance by engaging the services of an outside facilitator to lead us
through the process of taking stock of the past, examining the structure
we were working with and developing a new governance vision for the
school’s future.
We always welcome the opportunity to talk to you - to find out where
life has taken you and what thoughts you have as you reflect on your
education at TWS. We want to know how your education prepared you
for your future and where it failed you. We can learn from you as we
educate our current students and prepare to educate students that will
come to us in the future. Many parents in our current parent body have
chosen to send their children to TWS as a direct result of an encounter
they have had with an alumnus or alumna. You are an impressive group
of individuals, and you represent a tangible link between the past,
present, and future of the school.
We hope that you will take the time to visit us and experience some of
these changes for yourself. All the teachers and administrative staff
enjoy your visits very much. We love to see the adults you have become
and to hear from you how each of you has pursued your own unique
destiny. Some of you visit us regularly (some of you have even enrolled
your own children at TWS) and others have not been here for a long
time. We realise that we have neglected our alumni/ae and we hope that,
through building up the new alumni/ae programme, it will be possible
to rekindle some of the very strong bonds we had with you in
the past. ■ helenegross@yahoo.ca
outofbounds 5
C O N T R I B U T O R S continued
After graduating in 1984, Katherine
Dynes '84 studied theatre at Ryerson and
spent the next 10 years working free-lance
as an actor. Her acting career brought her
to strange and exotic places such as South
Porcupine, Red Lake and Wawa. Her own
personal travels have taken her to Europe,
Thailand and Vietnam. Despite recent
attempts to become more “serious” and
“practical,” Katherine recently found herself
enrolling at the Ontario College of Art and
Design where she is currently enjoying experimenting with print-making, photography
and book arts.
Class of 1984
alumna = feminine, singular
alumnus = masculine, singular
alumnae = feminine, plural
alumni = masculine, plural
alumni/ae =…all together now!
Katherine in Grade 2
TWS ALUMNI/AE
COURTESY OF UNKNOWN - TWS STUDENTS, 1970S
why ALUMNI/AE with all those
letters and the awkward slash?
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - IN THE FORUM, 1972
i n c l u d e s a n y o n e who has attended
t h e s c h o o l f o r at least one year
Visit the official TWS Web site at
www.torontowaldorfschool.com
(it’s not up yet, but will be soon - I’ll notify
you) and check out the alumni/ae pages.
You will find news, information, archive
photos, alumni/ae profiles and more…You
can register to get into the alumni/ae email directory and have access to the
blind-email addresses of your friends (the
e-mail addresses aren’t actually visible,
but you can click on the icon and send a
message…if they still like you, your friends
will respond!). For those who have not done
so yet, you are encouraged to fill out the online database questionnaire. In this way, we
can remain in touch with you, send you this
publication, and find out what you’ve been
up to.
6 outofbounds
Anne Greer '60 was a parent and teacher
at the Toronto Waldorf School for twenty-one
years. Both her daughters attended the school
from Kindergarten through twelfth grade.
She taught English and Drama for eighteen of
those years and served as the Waldorf School
Association of Ontario Chair, TWS High
School Chair and TWS Board Chair. Anne
grew up in Nova Scotia and after thirty plus
years’ experience teaching in public schools,
teacher-training institutions, community colleges and Waldorf schools, she has retired to
live by the ocean once more. Her passions
include theatre, poetry, picking wild strawberries and hiking.
Nils in Grade 5
Class of 1988
Class of 1960, Colchester County Academy, NS
NEWS
Anne in Grade 2
Alumni/ae News
Katja Rudolph
After high school, Nils Junge '88 studied
Russian at Bowdoin College in Main,
which led to two years of theatre school
in Russia and a stab at an acting career in
New York City. Five years on and tired
of the audition treadmill, Nils decided to
abandon the arts as a way of life and
to pursue other interests. He received
an MA in International Relations and
Economics at Johns Hopkins University and currently is a consultant at the
World Bank in Washington, D.C. Nils is
engaged to Nevila, whom he met while
working in Albania. No word yet on
where they will live.
In July of 2002, the new Toronto Waldorf School alumni/ae programme was launched by the
school. This new programme has all the school support that it needs to develop the various
aspects of a strong, sustainable alumni/ae association. A part-time, contract position of alumni/
ae coordinator was created and many projects were set into motion. Since then:
►The alumni/ae database project has reached more
than 350 alumni/ae. It is our goal to be in touch with
all TWS alumni/ae, which we estimate to number
about 1,000. If we have not yet contacted you, do get
in touch with us.
►Over the last year, we’ve already been able to
bring alumni/ae in to an open house and a Grade 11
high school student and parent meeting as part of our
service programme which will be expanded in the
years to come.
►Alumni/ae made a presentation at the Grade 12
graduation, welcoming the graduates into the alumni/
ae community. A fruit-tree was planted by the Class
of ’83 for the Class of ’03. This will be an annual
occurrence, and with time, our “alumni/ae orchard”
will grow for the use of TWS students.
►Alumni/ae pages have been developed for
the official TWS Web site. See side-bar on
page 6.
►“Alumin/ae news” is a regular feature of
the bi-weekly TWS community newsletter.
Submissions include statistical information
about alumin/ae, letters written by alumni/ae,
archive photographs, messages from alumni/
ae to the school community, and requests to
support this magazine.
►The Class of ’83 20th anniversary reunion
on June 21st, 2003, brought together about 50
class members, family and teachers. As we all
know, high school reunions have become
iconic in popular culture as something of a
nightmare. This one was really moving, I
think. The class seemed genuinely thrilled to
see each other and former teachers again, and
they had the chance to re-connect with each
other in a real way. The class gave a class gift
to the school in the form of $2,200 worth of
sound equipment for the drama department.
A 20th anniversary reunion will be held every
year from now on, and other events and
reunions are being developed. ■
NEWS continued on page 8
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - CLASS OF ‘83, CIRCA GRADE 4, 1974/5
COURTESY OF ERIC ROBI ‘83 - CLASS OF ‘83 REUNION, JUNE 2003
outofbounds 7
C O N T R I B U T O R S continued
Shahnaz in Grade 1
NEWS continued
Shahnaz Khan '86 was a student in Mel
Belenson’s class at TWS from 1974 to
1982. She completed a BA in English,
Psychology and German from U of T, a
MA in English from U of T, and a BEd
from U of T with teachables of English,
Drama and ESL. She teaches high school
English and Drama at a Toronto public
school, and lives with her husband in
Toronto.
Class of 1986
After a two-year trip in Europe,
Alexander Koekebakker '84 completed a BA in German Literature at
the University of Toronto, followed
by a training in Bothmer Gymnastics
in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1995, Alexander joined the faculty of the Freie
Waldorf Schule in Freiburg, Germany, as its Phys Ed teacher. Extra
time is devoted to an ongoing circus
project at the school.
Class of 1984
Alexander in Grade 1
Class of 1948, Mädchen Gymnasium, Stuttgart, Germany
Renate in Grade 6
8 outofbounds
Renate Krause '48 immigrated to
Canada from Germany in 1952. She
received her teaching diploma from the
University of Alberta in 1953, and from
1954 to 1965 was a class teacher in the
Ontario public school system. In 1965,
she returned to Europe to study Eurythmy at the Eurythmeum, Stuttgart. She
and Helmut Krause came back to Canada in 1969 to join TWS’s small group of
pioneering faculty. She taught Eurythmy
at TWS for many years, with a short stint
with Helmut at the Vancouver Waldorf
School in the late '70s. In 1990, they
moved to Milton and joined the Halton
Waldorf School’s faculty. Now retired
from teaching children, Renate teaches
Eurythmy courses to adults.
TWS News
Christine von Bezold
►Over the last twelve years the Village Market
has grown into a strong business and social
organism. Vendors sell a variety of organic food
every Saturday morning (8:30 – 1:30) in the
lower gym; there is usually music (sometimes
from the versatile Ed Crabtree, Class of ‘94);
and the conversations at the café tables are wideranging and deep. The Richmond Hill Liberal
called the Market “the best place to spend a
Saturday.”
►High school initiation has evolved into a
major camping trip for the whole high school,
which incorporates Michaelmas celebrations.
For some years it was also combined with
a trip to Stratford to see a play. Activities
vary, but they usually involve cold water and
courage, and singing around the bonfire.
►For some years now, the first main lesson of
the year has taken Grade 12 to Hermit Island,
Maine, for a week of marine biology together
with several U.S. Waldorf schools. In 2001
they were there on September 11th, and so had
a unique perspective on those events. Despite
some anxiety, they returned safely.
►In November of each year, long lines of
parents and children with candle lanterns wind
through the woods and across the field. These
are the traditional lantern walks for the children
of the kindergartens and lower grades. Together
they meet the growing darkness of the closing
year with light from their handmade lanterns.
►No longer can students gaze out of their
classroom windows and see deer or coyotes
crossing the fields. Beyond our boundary
line, along which volunteers planted trees a
few years ago, are now the houses of a new
development. The wild boundary of the ravine
has become more precious in contrast.
►The Bathurst Glen Nursing Home (known
as “the Villa”) to the south of the school was
bought by the Islamic Education and Community
Centre, and transformed into a school, a
community centre and mosque. They are
building now and should be opening by the end
of the year. Relations with them are friendly,
and we share parking with them for some events.
They donated their little barn for our farm and
garden programme. It was towed into position,
and used for two years now to house our new
sheep (we already had some chickens). A “sheep
to shawl” programme is planned, if we can find
someone to come and spin.
►Some ten years ago, Bob Pickering began
The Wooden Ship, an acoustic open stage
coffee house at the school that continues
to draw many students, parents and other
participants several times a year with its
outstanding music. They occur irregularly on
Fridays at 8:30. We will keep you posted.
►Bob Pickering has become the school
beekeeper, with three or four hives in operation
on the field each summer. Students in the lower
grades get to meet the bees and help to extract
the honey. TWS honey is excellent!
►The 13th of December Santa Lucia celebration
is now presented by Grade 12. Dressed in white,
carrying candles, their singing procession goes
into every room in the school (and sometimes
over to Hesperus) leaving cookies with the
students. The Kindergarten children watch these
angels open-mouthed.
►The Early Childhood Faculty has
been expanding. In addition to the three
Kindergarten classes, there are now two
Nursery classes for three-year-olds, three
mornings a week, with their own rooms and
outdoor fenced play space. On Monday to
Saturday (except Wednesday), these rooms are
used by the Parent and Tot programmes, for
two-year-olds and their parents. The teachers
of these programmes spend a lot of time
helping parents with the issues of parenting
their little children. For many, this is their
introduction to Waldorf education.
►On April 1st a few years ago, students
arrived to see the sun glinting off the new
wooden high school chairs that had been
placed in a circle around the upper section
of the roof. It was a considerable feat for
the high school students to get them up there,
hampered by teachers who were working in the
building until the early hours of the morning as
they often do. It was a beautiful sight.
►This year some Grade 10 students snowboarded
off the roof. They were caught as they prepared to
video their exploit. Safety concerns now prevent
such creative but hazardous ploys.
►Celebrations are held each Monday morning
during Advent as they always have been, and are
very special times when all the grades are together.
It is very quiet, and the darkness is lit only by
a few candles. There is music, and a brief talk.
A student from each class lights a candle at the
wreath to take the light back to their classroom.
A new development is Star Mother’s Youngest
Child, performed by Grade 12 students on the last
Monday of the term. At the end-of-term assembly,
every student in Grade 12 lights a candle. After
this solemn festival, the high school breakfast and
party show quite a different mood. Alumnae/i are
welcome to these celebrations, especially the one
on the last day of term. The Advent assemblies
start at 9:00am on the Mondays after each Advent
Sunday in December until school ends.
►The old Waldorf School Association of Ontario
(WSAO) room downstairs is now a Community
Room where meetings are held, and where parents
make toys for the Candlelight Fair. Part of it was
partitioned off for a Development Office, and is
now used by the Board Chair (Helga Rudolph).
The Faculty Chair (Helene Gross) and Head of
Guidance (Bob Pickering) now have their own
offices on the mezzanine, with phone extensions
and computers; slices were taken from what had
become the OAC Seminar Room. The
lower school teachers have an office, taken
from the back part of the Grade 1 room. The
high school teachers’ office is now quite
smart, and equipped with three computers
that are needed for student reports.
►The Café Downstairs in the servery is a
much appreciated addition to the school’s
everyday life. William Movel provides
lunches and snacks all day. Lunches for the
lower grades are ordered in advance and
taken up to the classrooms in a big basket.
Grade 12 still sells pizza on Wednesdays.
►The playground has seen some changes.
Part of it is fenced off, and bags of leaves
are added in the fall, in the hope that this
rest and feeding will help the forest to
regenerate. Much of the old equipment has
been judged unsafe by new standards, and
replaced. There is a fine new structure, new
swings, “monkey bars” and a big old tree
trunk donated from the grounds of the new
Christian Community Church on Rutherford
Road. There are “fall zones” of sand around
everything that the children could fall from.
For high school students, a beach volleyball
court has been constructed beyond the
woodwork room. Les Black continues to
create a toboggan slide between the forest
and the blacktop each winter.
►For several years, Susana Toledo has
taken her OAC Biology and World Issues
class for a month-long trip to Peru. As well
as studying and visiting historic sites, they
volunteer some time to teach visual arts. On
their return, they present their experiences at
a lively “EcoCafé.”
►Practica were introduced into the high
school in 1991, first for two weeks each
May, later expanding to three weeks. While
Grade 12 prepares their class play, Grade 11
students find placements in social services,
Grade 10 in trades and Grade 9 students
are sent out to organic or biodynamic farms
across Ontario. They return to school with
a wider view of the world, and with many
different stories to tell.
continued on page 10
outofbounds 9
Bodyforme, a fitness and wellness consulting
company dedicated to providing scientificallybased, integrative programming of the highest
standards. Chantal has been working in the fitness
industry for over 10 years, running a successful
personal training and corporate wellness consulting
practice serving both individual and corporate
clients. Corporate clients include The Royal Bank,
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, The
Boston Consulting Group, General Electric, and the
Stratford Festival of Canada. Chantal is currently
working towards a Masters of Science Degree at
the University of Toronto in Exercises Sciences and
Health Psychology. She has recently completed the
Clinical Training Program in Mind/Body Medicine
at Harvard Medical School.
►Under Jacques Racine and with the splendid
new gym, the competitive sports programme
really took off. School teams play volleyball
and basketball in local private school and small
public school leagues, as well as taking annual
trips to Kimberton to compete against other
Waldorf schools. Banners decorating the gym
walls attest to our successes.
Class of 1983
►Jacques Racine, Jonathan Emerson and
Les Black have worked hard to introduce
Bothmer gymnastics to the school. This form of
movement, also called spatial dynamics, could
be described as Waldorf gymnastics.
Chantal in Grade 9
Class of 1980
Eric Robi '83 left TWS to a dangerous world
PHOTO COURTESY SHELAGH HOWARD
Alice Priestley '80 has been working as
Alice in Grade 3
without Arnica in the 10th grade. After finishing at
Thornlea SS, Eric continued to live recklessly. He
graduated from U of T with a BA in English and
Drama. Deserting Toronto in 1989 for southern
California, Eric experimented with different careers:
surf bum, ESL teacher and graphic artist. Bored, Eric
obtained an MA in Instructional Technology from
California State University, LA, in 1997. Furthering
his ADCD (Attention Deficit Career Disorder), Eric
then ran a team of programmers for a multi-media
training firm before deciding to start up his own internet marketing agency. Realizing he had zero marketing talent, he expanded the firm to 20 employees,
before promptly crashing it in the dot.com flame-out.
In a recent turn of events, Eric works as a Computer
Forensics Expert and Investigator.
10 outofbounds
NEWS continued
an illustrator since 1986. She has illustrated
10 picture books and 2 children’s novels and
her drawings appear in numerous school
textbooks and anthologies. Her picture books
include Lights for Gita by Rachna Gilmore,
Someone is Reading This Book, which Alice
wrote herself, and Hush by Anna Strauss. One
of Alice’s earliest books, Out on the Ice in
the Middle of the Bay by Peter Cumming, is
due to be re-released sometime in 2004. Alice
obtained a Fine Art and English degree from
U of T after graduating from TWS in 1980.
She is married to videographer Peter Jestadt
and they have two children, Ilissa (11) and
Malcolm (7).
Class of 1983
►Circus arts are also a recent introduction to
Phys Ed classes. Students respond strongly to
the fun aspect and the performance element.
A visit from the high school Flying Gravity
Circus from New Hampshire in March of 2003
enlivened the whole school and sparked a lively
interest in creating our own circus.
►The exchange program in Grades 10 and 11
has been enriching our high school for at least
fifteen years. Some of our students arrange to
spend a semester with a family abroad, usually
in France or Germany, and their counter-part
spends a semester here. Even for those who
don’t go themselves, this intimate contact with
someone from another culture really broadens
their experience.
►The high school curriculum is changing all the
time, as the Ministry of Education dictates. The
balance between ministry demands and Waldorf
ideals is always a difficult one. In the early 90s
we had to expand into an OAC year; now there
is the need to compress the necessary Ontario
credits into four years again. Government
demands have become more stringent, and Grade
10 now takes the provincial literacy test, which is
a requirement for graduation.
►Grade 3 has a three-day trip to Tomten Farm.
Farmers Niek and Jop Wit introduce them to
ploughing (they pull a plough handled by Niek),
lambs, spinning with drop spindles, and other
aspects of farm life.
►Grade 4 spends a week with their teacher in
Eric in Grade 3
pioneer dress at the Dixon Schoolhouse at
Black Creek Pioneer Village. In the mornings
they have lessons, as visitors watch, and in
the afternoons they sample the trades of the
village. This is a highlight of the year for the
children, and for those parents lucky enough to
accompany them.
►The high school yearbook is produced
by the Grade 11 Business Studies class, in
which the students learn all aspects of putting
a publication together, including selling
advertizing space.
►The Walpaper is a sporadic publication by
and for high school students.
►Just Desserts is the annual production of the
Grade 11 and 12 drama class at the end of the
first semester in January, as it has been since
the early '80s. It is an evening of workshop
theatre enjoyed by the whole community.
Alumni/ae will be reminded to attend.
►The Parent Association’s special project has
been to set up a Parent Association Web site,
which is slowly becoming the forum for parent
communications.
Doran Antonel 1993
Rhys Bowman 1995
Ray Haller 1996
Karen Hart 1974
Mary Howard 1983
Alan Howard 1996
►Ten to twelve students a year from the Rudolf
Steiner Centre do their observation and teaching
practice in our classrooms. Many of them have
subsequently joined our faculty. The Steiner
Centre has also begun a Foundation Year, held
through the year on Saturdays.
►The Parent Association has become very strong
in bringing in special performers for concerts.
Mark O’Connor has delighted us with his fiddling,
and this April Kevin Burke was a worthy successor.
cob house in the playground. They had fun
trampling the mud and straw with their feet.
It almost looks as if it had grown there.
►In 2001, Todd Royer’s Grade 3 class built
a straw bale house in the playground. Todd
first brought in a couple of experts to give a
public weekend workshop, and they taught
the technique by constructing a little house
for the farm and garden programme.
►The Christmas Fair has changed its name to
the Candlelight Fair to reflect the diversity of the
school community and the nature of the fair: a lot
of candles are dipped in the space of just a few
hours.
►In 2002, Michael Wright’s Grade 6
class put on a day of medieval games,
performances and feasting, which the Grade
6 class from the Alan Howard Waldorf
School attended. Kathryn Humphrey’s class
continued the “tradition” in 2003.
►In 1998 the Third Stream Co-op found itself no
longer necessary, and laid itself down after twelve
or thirteen years. It was founded as a way for its
members to buy good food at reasonable prices,
and bulk orders were received and packaged in the
kitchen once a month. Then society as a whole
became more conscious of the need for healthy
food, and the Village Market took up the slack.
►Because of new regulations following
Walkerton, the school’s drinking water must
be chlorinated as of 31 December 2002.
We had to install our own system as we
could not yet hook up to municipal water.
The sulphur taste that many of you may
remember is now replaced by a chlorine
taste. ■
►In 1999, Suzanne Hill’s Grade 3 class built a
cvonbezold@torontowaldorfschool.com
Simantha McGugan 1994
Doreen Rawlings 1997
In Memoriam
Tanya Richmond 1975
Erik Hughes 1994
Cameron Stewart 1978
Aedsgard Koekebakker 1991 Augy van Boxel 2002
Helmut Krause 1994
Natalie Villim
Donald Leech
Bettle Massett 2003
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE
C O N T R I B U T O R S continued
Chantal Lemieux '83 is the owner of
outofbounds 11
C O N T R I B U T O R S continued
Class of 1942, Realgymnasium, Nürnberg, Germany
Gerhard in Grade 8
Katja Rudolph '84 travelled for a year in
Gerhard Rudolph '42 immigrated to
Canada from Germany in 1952, after receiving his
civil engineering degree from the University of
Munich and working for several years for a large
construction company in Nuremberg. He was an
engineer for the Township of Etobicoke for 10 years
(you may drive over his bridges from time-to-time!)
before packing up for England and the Waldorf
teachers training course at Emerson College in 1964.
After completing the course, Gerhard taught at the
Michael Hall Waldorf School in England until 1973,
when he moved back to Toronto to join TWS’s
small group of pioneering faculty and become the
class teacher of the Class of ‘85. He was both faculty
chair and board chair for many years. When the
class graduated in 1981, he taught History (Math and
Drama) in the high school. He “retired” to the library
in 1989, where he has been working full-time ever
since, giving courses in the Rudolf Steiner College
teacher training programme, stepping in to teach
when required, and dealing with the kids sent up to
the library!
Class of 1984
Europe and Canada before deciding to go to university. She spent the next 11 years there obtaining a
BA in Cultural Studies and Political Science from
Trent U, an MA in Social and Political Sciences from
Cambridge U, England, and a PhD in Theory and
Policy Studies in Education from U of T, with a break
between degrees to travel and work. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled “The Politics of Choice in
Education: Theorizing a Post-Liberal Choosing
Subject.” This meant something to her at the time of
its writing! She has given herself a few years grace to
try her hand at writing fiction (a manuscript is about a
year away from completion), before considering more
reasonable life-options, like teaching in the university.
She works as a freelance writer/researcher and lives in
Toronto.
Katja in Grade 2
Jo Russel '89
took the BA/BPHE programme at Queen’s University. She volunteered for
a while in the jungles of Guyana, South America,
after which she migrated out west, and discovered
Vancouver, where she waitressed at a few seedy bars
in the east end. She went to Exeter University in the
UK for teachers college, and then taught Phys Ed and
Math in Kamloops. She visited a friend in Yellowknife
for a week, liked it, and stayed. She did some graduate work in applied Kinesiology at the University of
Saskatchewan, and now has a respectable job as the
Regional Health Promotion Coordinator for Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority.
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - CLASS OF 1979, THE SCHOOL’S FIRST CLASS, WITH CLASS TEACHER ALAN HOWARD - AROUND GRADE 6, 1973
Katja Rudolph '84
katjarudolph@aol.com
►In the 1980s, the alumni/ae programme
consisted of an invitation to alumni/ae by the
faculty to visit the school and to meet with two
or three faculty. This usually took place during
the winter vacation. The event was organized as
a discussion group, in which participants shared
their experiences since graduation.
►In 1990, three alumni/ae came together to talk
about creating an alumni/ae association. Nothing
came of that endeavour.
►In 1994, Arlene Thorn, the school’s Outreach
and Development Coordinator at the time,
approached a few alumni/ae to see whether they
would participate in the year-long celebration
of the school’s 25th anniversary. Out of this
prompting arose an alumni/ae association with a
volunteer base of about fifteen people.
►These alumni/ae organized an ambitious
three-day conference and alumni/ae reunion in
May of 1994 to commemorate the school’s 25th
anniversary, in which over a hundred alumni/ae
and most of the faculty, including many exfaculty, participated. The conference programme
included guest lecturers, workshops, social
events, and meals (organized and prepared by
alumni/ae). It was a successful event, raising
enthusiasm for the potential of an alumni/ae
presence in the school community.
Class of 1989
12 outofbounds
Alumni/ae History
tackle the huge
database project required to build a
true alumni/ae association.
►In July of 2002, the new TWS alumni/
ae programme was launched by the
school. Its main work is to facilitate
communication amongst alumni/ae, and
between alumni/ae and the school. This
will be accomplished through:
►In the six years from 1994 to 2000, the
association tried to maintain the momentum
created by that single event. It organized two
yearly events: the annual Alumni/ae Room at
the Candlelight Fair (formerly Christmas Fair)
and the May social event at the end of the school
year.
► Updating and maintaining the
alumni/ae database
►The work of the association during these
six years included monthly meetings, events
organization, an effort to keep in contact with
alumni/ae members, and an ongoing endeavour
to define the role of the alumni/ae within the
school community.
► Programming events, reunions
and clubs (sports, drama, music...)
►The association was disbanded in the summer
of 2000, due to a lack of volunteers. The fifteen
alumni/ae involved in 1994 had dwindled
down to two, without the hope of finding new
volunteers. The association had struggled
because it was working without a database and
was therefore unable to reach the majority of
alumni/ae. Volunteer hours were insufficient to
► Developing and maintaining
alumni/ae pages on the TWS Web
site
► Developing a service programme
► Developing a volunteer base
► Initiating and maintaining a
TWS History Project
► Publishing this annual magazine
■
more about this on page 43
HISTORIES
The first Waldorf school was
founded in Stuttgart in 1919.
Emil Molt had asked Rudolf
Steiner to start a school for the
children
Waldorf History
Alexander Koekebakker ‘84
of the
a.koekebakker@tesionmail.de
factory
workers of his Waldorf Astoria
cigarette factory.
began in Germany in 1936 and by 1941 all
schools had been closed down, including
those in Austria and Holland. As a result,
many Waldorf teachers immigrated to
Great Britain and the USA, which led to
the founding of numerous Waldorf schools
there.
Within half a year after the end of the
Second World War, the first Waldorf schools
in Germany had re-opened and the founding
of new schools had begun. By 1956, there
were 62 Waldorf schools world-wide, 53 in
Europe and 9 in North and South America.
Along with the rise of Waldorf education,
many other anthroposophically inspired
social initiatives have thrived, many of them
Within seven years, 10 Waldorf schools were founded
pioneering in areas where the mainstream
across Europe: in Hamburg, The Hague, Essen,
is now active: homeopathic medicine,
London, Basel, Budapest, Hannover, King’s Langley
organic biodynamic farming, the Camphill
(Great Britain), Lisbon and Oslo. By 1933, 14 Waldorf
movement for developmentally and
schools had been founded, including one in New York
physically challenged children and adults,
City, USA, and in Vienna, Austria.
arts centres, and Fellowship retirement
communities.
In these years, the Waldorf movement gained more and
more acceptance, particularly in Germany, where it was
Today, the sun does not set on Waldorf
welcomed as a valuable addition to the pedagogical
schools, with 857 schools in 57 countries
landscape. This attitude began to change in 1933,
when the National Socialist Worker’s Party (NSDAP) around the globe. The following Waldorf
Schools World-Wide list gives an idea of
came to power; Waldorf education did not fit into the
the distribution:
Nazi worldview. The closing of the Waldorf schools
continued on page 14
outofbounds 13
C O N T R I B U T O R S continued
Heidi Strahm (Krause) '60 did her school-
ing in Germany and Peterborough, Canada. After
obtaining a teacher’s certificate, she taught Math
and English at King Edward School in Toronto,
while studying further at York University. In the late
‘60s, she took the Waldorf teacher training course at
Emerson College, England, before returning to Canada
to teach Kindergarten and painting at the Toronto Waldorf School. During this time, she began to take her
painting seriously. She left for Dornach, Switzerland,
to pursue it with artist Beppe Assenza, whose assistant she became until his death in 1985. Now, she and
Christoph Koller run the Freie Malschule Dornach
(Independent School of Painting, Dornach) where she
teaches according to Rudolf Steiner’s colour lectures,
systematically developed by Assenza. She gives painting courses throughout Europe - lately in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Russia.
Class of 1965, Solihull School for Girls, England
continued from page 13
Class of 1960, Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School
Wa l d o r f S c h o o l s
Wo r l d - w i d e
Statistics from 2000
Heidi in Grade 1
Having had an excellent academic education
herself in an England, Christine von
Bezold '65 found that and much more in
Waldorf education, notably at a TWS Open
House in the late ‘70s. This inspired her to join
the group starting the London Waldorf School,
where she became the school secretary. She
came to the Toronto Waldorf School in 1991, so
that her children could go to high school. Penn
and Emily Davies and Ting von Bezold have
now graduated and gone their separate ways.
Bethany von Bezold is still in high school, and
Christine continues to watch the world go by
(and help it along) from the vantage point of
the school’s front desk. She has also taken up
bookbinding, and has been able to substitute
for Helga Sieber in the Grade 11 bookbinding
course.
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Columbia
Croatia
Czech Rep.
Denmark
Egypt
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Great Britain
Hungary
Iceland
India
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kyrghyzstan
Latvia
Liechtenstein
7
1
38
10
14
1
20
20
3
4
2
8
17
1
5
17
14
1
178
27
17
2
2
3
4
35
2
1
2
1
5
1
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Mexico
Moldavia
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Rumania
Russia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Ukraine
Uruguay
USA
3
1
5
2
1
1
94
10
27
2
1
3
12
26
1
18
1
41
39
1
1
1
7
1
115
Of course, the 1,706 Waldorf
Kindergartens world-wide
play a very important role in
this development. ■
Christine in Grade 5
TWS’s
Woodwork - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Main Lesson - Nairobi, Kenya
Diversacare
Diversacare-Waldorf has been established to help provide
a safety net underneath the tuition assistance fund to help
keep students in our high school who might have to leave,
in spite of tuition assistance. From the sale of studentmade greeting cards, funds are generated for those who
need help to complete their final years, but they may be
applied to others in the lower school as well.
If you are interested in helping
by buying cards call 905 707-8714
I
I
T
F
COURTESY OF FREUNDE DER ERZIEHUNGSKUNST RUDOLF STEINERS E.V.
14 outofbounds
optimism of this lecture, the original group
started to concentrate their studies more and
more on questions of education. From 1959
onwards, members of the group attended the
t was as early as 1954 when a small group
annual conferences at the Green Meadow
of young people met on a regular basis
Waldorf School in Springvalley, NY. These
to study lectures
experiences prompted
by Rudolf Steiner
them to organize their own
A Brief History of
and to discuss and
conference in Toronto
socialize just in
the Toronto Waldorf School in 1962. Dr. Ernst Katz,
general. Some of the
Physics professor at
by Gerhard Rudolph '42
participants came
the University of Ann
gerhardrudolph@sympatico.ca
from Europe and,
Arbor, John Gardner, chair
with the relentless
carnage of the Second World
War still freshly in mind, were on
the search for a meaningful and
human philosophy of life. There
were John and Pat Kettle, Gerhard
and Helga Rudolph, Frank and
Franzeska Steinrück, Helmut
and Renate Krause. From 1961
onwards, Aedsgard and Elisabeth
Koekebakker and a number of
other participants joined the
group. Each year at Adventtime, they began to rehearse the
Oberufer Christmas Plays, which
were then performed in churches,
halls and hospitals in Toronto.
n 1956, three young Canadian
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - CONSTRUCTION, 1972
musicians, Graham Jackson,
Harry Kretz and Irene MacLellan,
of the Garden City Waldorf School and Dr.
independently took an enthusiastic interest in Godfrey from Edmonton, were invited as guest
Waldorf education. In the following year, they speakers to this well attended and successful
attended the teacher training programme at the event.
New York Steiner School and later travelled
he lectures by Mr. Edmunds, by now
to many places in Europe in order to get fully
founder and principal of Emerson College
acquainted with the philosophy and practice
in England, became regular yearly occasions,
of this education. In 1963, after this long and every time rekindling new enthusiasm for the
intense immersion abroad, Graham and his
creation of a Waldorf school in Toronto.
wife, Veronica, returned to Toronto.
rancis Edmunds, one of the most
PLANNING, PREPARING,
experienced Waldorf teachers in England,
IMPLEMENTING 1964-1968
gave his first lecture on Waldorf education
at Trinity College, University of Toronto, in
1957. Encouraged by the enthusiasm and
EARLY INITIATIVES 1954-1964
B
y 1964, the resolve to found a
Waldorf school in Toronto had been
firmly established and decisive steps for
its implementation were systematically
pursued. The Waldorf Education Committee
was formed, consisting of Bob and Shirley
Routledge, Helmut and Renate Krause and
Graham and Veronica Jackson, with the task
of organizing public events and preparing to
form a legal school entity.
uring the winter, Graham Jackson
gave a series of lectures on Waldorf
education in Toronto, usually followed by
demonstrations and classes in Bothmer
gymnastics.
In the fall of 1964, the Rudolphs
decided to leave everything behind
in Toronto and enroll in the Waldorf
teacher training programme at
Emerson College in England.
n 1965, the Waldorf Education
Committee was greatly strengthened
when John and Pat Kettle and Douglas
Andress joined their ranks. The first
concrete step was made when Douglas
and Else Andress purchased a nursery
school in Willowdale. At the time,
there were twenty children registered
in the nursery. The teachers, Helen
Coleman, Doreen Browning (later
Rawlings) and Mieke Cryns, stayed
on for many years with the Toronto
Waldorf School. The little school moved into
some rented rooms in the annex building of
St. Patrick’s Anglican Church, also located
in Willowdale. The committee changed
the nursery’s name from “Bunny Hop” to
“Sunnyhill” and its business management
was taken over by Veronica and Graham
Jackson and Shirley and Bob Routledge
n April of that year, the Waldorf School
Association of Ontario (WSAO) was
officially incorporated. The aims of the
WSAO were described as:
To explain and promote the ideals
and principles of Waldorf education
amongst educators and the general
D
I
I
outofbounds 15
public in Toronto and, with time, in all of Ontario. To prepare
the establishment of a Waldorf school first in Toronto and later
the founding of more schools in the rest of the province.
Mr. Edmunds advised the directors of the WSAO to split the task into
four parts: Faculty and Staff; Public and Publicity; Site and Building;
Finance and Administration.
he three couples, Andress, Routledge and Kettle, worked on
these tasks in a very thorough and professional way creating
hypothetical cases of possible enrollment numbers, fees, salaries,
rental costs, initial deficits, possible locations, etc., always assisted
by Graham Jackson with regard to educational considerations.
In order to establish a future faculty, Pat and John Kettle traveled to
Micheal Hall Waldorf School in Forest Row, England, to meet with a
T
BIRTH AND INFANCY OF THE SCHOOL
1968-1972
F
inally the historic day arrived:
ON SEPTEMBER 3, 1968, THE TORONTO WALDORF
SCHOOL OPENED ITS DOORS
Alan Howard wrote later:
“We teachers opened the door and ushered in the very first
students, on the very first day, of the very first Waldorf school
to construct the outer shell of the building
and to complete the interior spaces in
accordance with the growing number of
classes. This step-by-step approach made
it possible to realize such an ambitious
plan with the limited financial resources
available.
n the summer of 1972, excavation began
at the new site on Bathurst Street and on
October 14th of that year the foundationstone was laid in a ceremony that included
the whole community. This was another
historical moment in the life of the school.
I
endless time, resources and good energy in
receive the necessary mortgage. The school
the growing venture. Much thanks should go was always able to fulfill the repayment-plan
to them for their confidence in the school.
of the mortgage and the promissory notes
remained untouched.
THE PIONEERING YEARS
uring the summer of 1974, the faculty
spent their entire summer vacation
1973-1984
completing the structure of the roof and
he school building was largely
covering it with a tar emulsion.
unfinished. The mezzanine and the
It was decided to expand the school into the
forum level were unusable, there were no
high school right away during the 1974/75
doors and windows on that level and the
academic year. Necessary preparations
roof remained unfinished during the winter. involved obtaining commitment from the
The forum floor, which served as roof
Grade 8 parents, establishing our own
T
D
CONSTRUCTION, 1972, TWS ARCHIVE; “MOUSE” BY HEIDI STRAHM, 1973, PHOTO KATHERINE DYNES; “HANDS UP”, TWS ARCHIVE; BUILDING IN GRADE 3, CLASS OF ‘85, TWS ARCHIVE; LOCKERS, KATHERINE DYNES; THE “SMALL GYM”, TWS ARCHIVE; THE “BIG GYM”, TWS ARCHIVE; CAUTION, “ANIMAL” CROSSING, KATHERINE DYNES; SLIDING IN GRADE 4, CLASS OF ‘88, TWS ARCHIVE
number of potential teachers who had been invited by the committee.
The meeting took place in the home of Helga and Gerhard Rudolph
during the Whitsun holidays of 1967. (Gerhard had become a class
teacher at Michael Hall in the meantime). Present were: Alan and
Mary Howard, Helmut Krause, Diana Lawrence (later Hughes), Cecil
Jordan, George Wilson, Pat and John Kettle and Helga and Gerhard
Rudolph.
or three days they discussed the plans for the future school and
what contribution each could make. In the end, Alan Howard,
Mary Howard and Diana Lawrence pledged that they would come
to start the school in September of 1968. Helmut and Renate Krause
committed themself to join in 1969 and the Rudolphs agreed that they
would come as soon as their commitments at Michael Hall had been
fulfilled. It was a tremendous good fortune to have in the Howards two
very experienced teachers to guide the new school into life.
n May 1968, several rooms at St. Patrick’s were rented and
alterations were designed and carried out. The Sunnyhill Nursery
School still occupied the basement. On June 16th, 1968, the Toronto
Waldorf School was officially incorporated.
he committee had completed their preparations. The worthiness of
the cause and the thoroughness of the planning inspired Cawthra
and Julyan Mulock and Douglas and Else Andress to pledge to cover
all losses predicted for the first three years.
F
I
T
16 outofbounds
in Canada. Nobody noticed us very much, there weren’t long
columns and pictures about it in the Globe and Mail, the traffic
down Lilian Street went by as before, but WE all felt that history
was being made, and as Wordsworth wrote, “Bliss was it in that
dawn to be alive and part of it.”
n September, 1968, nineteen children were enrolled in Grades
1, 2 and 3. The existing nursery downstairs had grown to sixty
children. The Toronto Waldorf School was admitted as a full
member of the Association of Waldorf Schools in North America
(AWSNA) in June, 1969, a recognition which is rare for such a
young school. Since the building at St. Patrick’s had only room
for six grades, the search for property and the design of a new
school building became a top priority. In the fall 1971, Don
Stewart, a parent of the school, offered a piece of land on Bathurst
Street as a gift to the school. However, the size of the lot was
inadequate. After long negotiations with a neighbouring farmer,
additional land across the ravine could be acquired, making up
thirteen and a half acres in total. Plans for the proposed building
were prepared by Denis Bowman, architect and parent of the
school, in close cooperation with the faculty.
he building was designed to house two Kindergartens, twelve
classrooms, a small gym, arts and crafts rooms, office and
auxiliary space, a kitchen and a forum with a stage. The idea was
I
T
In these early years, the faculty was small
and consisted of a close and intimate
group of dedicated teachers. The faculty
administered the school in a consensusbased system of decision-making. There
was (and still is) no principal. They were
committed to the aims of Waldorf education
and were encouraged by the wonderful
results that a truly human curriculum was
able to provide. They were able to reach
a consensus in dealing with the many
challenges facing the new enterprise.
Above all, they were guided by Alan
Howard, a wise, wonderfully modest,
and very experienced teacher and human
being. This period was often described by
the participants as the golden years of the
school.
n June of 1973, the school started its
move to the Bathurst Street site and a new
chapter of the school began. During this
time, many parents of the school invested
I
substitute, was not watertight in spite of
efforts to seal cracks. In spite of all these
difficulties, the seven grades of the school
moved into the usable part on the main
floor in September of 1973, with only a
two-week delay. This was the result of the
backbreaking and heartwarming efforts of
the whole community.
inancially, this enterprise was possible
through the generous support in the form
of guarantees and loans by Cawthra and
Julyan Mulock and through short term and
low-interest loans by other friends of the
school. Some of these contributions needed
to be returned and it became necessary to
consolidate these debts into one mortgage
arrangement. However, no bank or company
was willing to provide a mortgage for a
young school with a half-finished building
as collateral. Again, the provision of
promissory notes in lieu of the collateral
by friends of the school made it possible to
F
high school curriculum, meeting with the
Ministry of Education concerning their
course outlines and accreditation, providing
space and facilities, hiring teachers,
and planning for financial support. The
preparation committee consisted of Ron
Mason, a parent and high school principal,
Aedsgard Koekebakker, Allan Hughes and
Gerhard Rudolph. The meetings with the
ministry inspectors were very informative
and helpful. They provided much written
material and explained how to proceed with
the accreditation of special subjects outside
their usual curriculum.
I
n June 1975, TWS celebrated its
first Grade 8 graduation. Aedsgard
Koekebakker and the Class of '79 produced
“Robert of Sicily,” a delightful play, which
was performed by the fourteen students in
the school’s basement (the forum was not
yet ready for use).
outofbounds 17
T
he first high school class was held in
September of 1975. The Class of '79 were
the pioneers in this uncharted territory.
The forum was opened for the first time for
Renate Kurth’s and the Class of '80’s Grade 8
play in June of 1976.
That same June, the Toronto Waldorf School
hosted the Teachers’ Meeting of AWSNA, an
annual meeting of Waldorf teachers from across
the North American continent. The preparation
for the event took much time, but it was quite an
honour for a small school like ours to be asked to
host it. It put the school “on the map.”
uring the holidays, major projects had to
be completed. For instance: the construction
of staircases to the forum level, the wiring,
plumbing, dry-walling, and painting of three
upper-level classrooms, as well as the installation
of three science labs on the main floor. Faculty
members learned new building skills every year!
round this time, the faculty decided to
limit teacher’s vacation work on the school
building to three weeks each year, for the sake of
time for school-preparation and for the restoring
of inner forces. Some teachers helped with the
running of a summer camp. Others worked on
the completion of the interior of three additional
classrooms upstairs and of the forum which still
needed much work to get it ready for general
use. In the next years, Jan Wintjes, a contractor
and parent of the school, and his crew applied
the wooden siding around the upper level of the
building free of charge. His continuous generous
support was always greatly appreciated.
Towards the end of the academic year in 1980,
the school was honoured by the visit of its
patron, Pauline McGibbon, Lieutenant Governor
of Ontario, arranged by Henry Dynes, a parent
of the school. It was very formal occasion with a
rigid protocol and great pomp and circumstance.
TWS students had to learn the words to “Oh
Canada” in both official languages!
uring the holidays, a great change in the
allocation of classrooms took place. Many
lower school classes moved upstairs. The
classrooms on the main floor were turned into
a third Kindergarten, a woodwork room and a
handwork room.
ost interior spaces of the building were
now usable, including the mezzanine.
Now greater concentration could be devoted
to the school grounds. The parking area
along Bathurst Street was considerably
extended towards the south. The exit to
Bathurst Street was relocated opposite Teefy
Avenue. Traffic lights were installed. The
road to the school was widened and paved.
M
need for a separate fieldhouse became very
evident.
fter the graduation of three Grade 12
classes in 1982, it seemed about time
to establish a student council, which still
is composed of two elected members each
from Grades 9-11 and three from Grade 12.
This council has become an essential organ
in the life of the school.
A
A
W
A
18 outofbounds
he school acquired an additional ten acres from a
neighbouring farmer in 1986. The sports field was extended
to about double its original size. Five and a half acres were leased
to the Hesperus Fellowship Community for a seniors’ residence.
Construction of its building began. In June, 1987, the Hesperus
building was completed and the first residents moved in.
round this time, the school reached the end of the pioneering
stage. The building was complete and fully usable. Certain
policies and procedures had been established, festivals and
ceremonies throughout the year had found an appropriate form,
and with the graduation of ten high school classes, the initial
dream and years of hard work were producing great results.
THE ESTABLISHMENT YEARS
1989 TO PRESENT
D
D
T
TURNING OF THE SOD FOR THE NEW WING, 1990, COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE; HESPERUS FELLOWSHIP COMMUNITY, 2003, COURTESY OF ERIC ROBI; GRADE 4 STUDENTS READING IN THE LIBRARY, 2003; GRADE 12 GRADUATION, 2003
The last ramps to the upper-level classrooms
were completed and the whole area was
regraded.
n 1981/82, the stage was extended into
the forum. The blackout disk was built
for the sky dome. The art room, library and
language rooms moved up to the mezzanine.
In September, 1982, the gym in the basement
became too small for the growing high
school classes and high school gym activities
were moved up to the forum, where they
created noise problems for the Eurythmy
lessons back stage and time-table problems
for drama rehearsals and performances. The
I
T
he second AWSNA conference was held
at TWS in June of 1983. In contrast to
the first one in 1975, the conference could
be held in a nearly completed building and
participating was a well-established TWS
high school faculty.
n 1983, the Rudolf Steiner Centre,
Toronto, a Waldorf teacher training
programme, opened its doors at a location
in downtown Toronto. The “Third Sream
Coop” was founded, supplying organic food
from farmers in the surrounding areas to the
school community.
I
ith the increasing number of teachers attending faculty
meetings, it became more difficult for some participants to
feel included and make their voice heard. In a special conference,
the faculty explored new forms of working together. After a
lengthy and useful discussion, it was decided to introduce a
mandate system. Faculty members would join a mandate group,
and each group was to be responsible for one specific aspect of
the school’s operation and were expected to report their decisions
back to the whole faculty. In 1989/90, the mandate system was
implemented. During this academic year, the planning for the
new field-house continued. A site for the proposed building was
chosen and the size of the building was extended to include arts
and crafts rooms and space for the WSAO and the Rudolf Steiner
Centre.
n June of 1990, again surrounded by all classes, faculty, staff
and parents, the ceremony of the turning-of-the-sod for the
new building took place. The new building was called the “Arts
and Sports Wing.”
In June of 1991, the Arts and Sports Wing was opened with
a festive assembly inside the building and the third AWSNA
Teacher Conference was held at TWS. During the summer
holidays, all arts and crafts furniture and equipment together with
sports equipment were moved to the new building. The WSAO
and the Rudolf Steiner Centre also moved into their new spaces.
The close proximity of the RSC to the school proved to be a very
good arrangement. Student teachers do their practice teaching
at the school, TWS faculty teach some of the teacher training
programmes, and the RSC provides seminars and lectures to the
school community.
The first OAC classes began in 1992, in spite of the financial
I
concerns by some teachers. However, this programme proved to be very
successful and ran very well until all OAC courses were abolished by the
ministry in 2003. In the same year, a three-week practicum programme
was introduced for Grades 9, 10 and 11.
1993/94 was a big year for the school. It celebrated its 25th
anniversary, with many festivities. Some members of the alumni/ae
organized a 25th Anniversary Reunion and Conference for all former
students of the school, teachers, former teachers and friends of the
school. Over a hundred alumni/ae and many teachers and former teachers
attended.
uring the 1995 vacation, a number of teachers, key among them Ed
Edelstein and Anne Greer, had to deal with increasing interference
by the Ministry of Education, especially with their implementation of
a province-wide standardized testing programme, which went directly
against Waldorf pedagogical principles. After a court injunction, a
compromise was reached but this was not a real solution to this problem.
The Committee for Freedom in Education became very active, seeking
advice and the support from AWSNA and from the international Waldorf
school federation called “The Hague Circle.”
he school began a self-evaluation process in the 1998/99 academic
year, which required many meetings at all levels. This process was
instituted by AWSNA in order to ensure that all their member-schools
maintain high standards of Waldorf education. This was also an attempt
to provide North American Waldorf schools with an alternative to state
inspections, state accreditation and standardized testing. In June of 1999,
the AWSNA evaluation team visited the school and made observations for
their final report.
n September, 2002, as a result of the discussions during the in-house
conferences run by Andy Leaf, new procedures were introduced in
the way the TWS faculty administered the school. In the coming school
year, a “circle of chairs” (an executive body composed of faculty chair,
the chairs of the high school, lower school and early childhood education
programme and the administrative coordinator) began to represent the
faculty to the parents and the public and deal with organizational and
administrative concerns. These teachers receive more time to deal with
these matters whilst the rest of the faculty are able to concentrate more
intensely on pedagogical issues.
On June 13th, 2003, the school graduated its 25th Grade 12 class.
D
T
I
L
ooking at the impressive buildings, facilities, and organizational
structures that have been created during the last thirty years, one
can only be amazed that the dreams of the past have actually come true.
Considering the limited finances in the beginning, all this seems a miracle.
But, obviously, we did not come together to build buildings. Our intention
and our hopes were that the spirit of our teaching would manifest itself in
society at large. The real fruit of all our efforts can only show themselves
in what the alumni/ae of the Toronto Waldorf School bring to the world. ■
outofbounds 19
TWS Faculty and Staff
....to jog your memories
Bill Jackson 1977-1981
Ingrid Belenson 1977-1995
Martin Levin 1978-1991
compiled by Gerhard Rudolph
1960s
1980s
Pat Kettle 1968-1969
Alan Howard 1968-1973
Mary Howard 1968-1973
Diana Lawrence (later Hughes) 1968-1971
Franziska Steinrück 1968-1971
Elisabeth Koekebakker 1968-1976;
1979-present
Helen Coleman 1968-1976
Doreen Rawlings (formerly Browning) 1968-1987
Mieke Cryns 1968-1985
Renate Krause 1969-1977; 1979-1990
Helmut Krause 1969-1977; 1979-1990
Heidi Krause (later Strahm) 1969-1973
Ruth Bednar 1980-1985
Niek Wit 1980-1988
Patty Wolfe 1980-1983; 1989-present
Larry Ney 1980-1988
Susan Elmore 1980-1983
Susan McLeod 1981-1994
Jan Patterson 1981-1988
Anne Greer 1982-1998
Jop Wit 1982-1987
Gregg Robins 1982-1990
Ulrike Barghout 1982-1987
Les Black 1983-present
Bob Pickering 1983-present
Silvia Richmond 1983-1998
Ena Bruce 1983-1984; 1996-2003
Ute Mehl 1983-1984
Jean Deleski 1983-1984
Alfred Korber 1984-1992
Natasha Kraus 1984-1992; 1994-1996
Graham Jackson 1984-present
Aneline Koopman 1984-1991
Angelika Warner 1984-1986; 1995-present
Deborah McAllister 1984-1985; 2000-present
Kathy Levin (later Welch) 1984-1989
David Wilkinson 1985-1994
Beth Currie 1985-1990; 1995-present
Graham Oslund 1985-1986
Todd Smith 1986-1987 (TWS alumnus '83)
Helga Sieber 1986-present
Richard Tibbetts 1986-1994
Kathy Brunetta 1987-1992; 1998-2002
Margaret Bleek 1987-present
Anahid Movel 1987-present
Kathryn Humphrey 1988-present
Laurie Harrison 1988-1993
Elena Murchison 1988-1999
Sarah Walsh 1988-1990
Juan Escobar 1988-1991
Patricia Luckey 1989-1992
Flora-Jane Hartford (formerly Fisher)
1988-1999
Helene Gross 1989-present
Francie Lake 1989-1992
1970s
Ray Haller 1970-1996
David Taylor 1970-1988
Dorothy Haller 1970-1994
Renate Kurth 1971-1984
Irene Smedley 1971-1977
Allan Hughes 1972-1989
Helga Taylor 1972-1976
Huguette Lemieux 1972-1975
Gerhard Rudolph 1973-present
Helga Rudolph 1973-present
Aedsgard Koekebakker 1973-1977
Annemarie Heintz 1973-1981
Mel Belenson 1974-1990
Augy van Boxel 1974-1991
Gary Kobran 1974-1985
Elisabeth Lebret 1974-1995
Antje Ghaznavi 1974-1978; 1985-1999
Charlotte Chambers 1975-1979
Eleanor Fruchtman 1975-1982
Elisabeth Chomko (formerly Hoffman)
1976-1984; 1991-present
Inge Shukla 1976-1983; 1988-present
Peter Batzel 1976-1977
Duncan Alderson 1976-1988
James Madsen 1977-1981
Jane McWhinney 1977-1991
Edward Edelstein 1977-2002
GRADE 12 PLAYS
1979 – Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw
1980 – The Importance of Being Ernest, Oscar Wilde
1981 – Arsenic and Old Lace, Joseph Kesselring
1982 – The Enchanted, Jean Giraudoux
1983 – The Lady is Not for Burning, Christopher Fry
1984 – Anastasia, Marcelle Maurette
1985 – The Crucible, Arthur Miller
1986 – The Physicists, Friedrich Durrenmatt
1987 – The Madwoman Of Chaillot, Jean Giraudoux
1988 – The State of Revolution, Robert Bolt
1989 – The Ottawa Man, Mavor Moore
1990 – The Visit, Friedrich Durrenmatt
1991 – The Good Woman of Sezuan, Bertolt Brecht
1992 – The Angry 12 (The 12 Angry Men), Reginald
Rose; The Importance of Being Ernest (Abridged),
Oscar Wilde
1993 – The Crucible, Arthur Miller
1994 – Spring Awakening, Frank Wedekind
1995 – Museum, Tina Howe
1996 – JB, Archibald MacLeish
1997 – Peter Gynt, Henrik Ibsen
1998 – The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder
1999 – The Free Fall – a collection of monologues,
Anthology
2000 – Ondine, Jean Giraudoux
2001 – The Madwoman of Chaillot, Jean Giraudoux
2002 – The Dining Room, A. R. Gurney
2003 – On the Razzle, Tom Stoppard
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - JULIE BRODEUR AND SERGEI KUPREJANOV IN THE VISIT, 1990
20 outofbounds
Apologies if anyone was inadvertently omitted
– please let us know if this is the case….
gerhard_rudolph@hotmail.com 905 731-0837;
katjarudolph@aol.com 416 538-9536
1990s
Desmond Gross 1990-present
Annie Gross 1990-present
Carol Nasr 1990-1998
Sara Anderson 1990-1991; 1993-1994
(TWS alumna '85)
Peter Chapman 1990-1991
Arlene Thorn 1990-1998
Christine von Bezold 1991-present
Janny Cheng 1991-2000
Vicky Kelly 1991-1999
Sheryl Leigh 1991-1999
Silke Mombacher 1991-1992
Jim Reid 1992-1999
Jacques Racine 1992-2000
Sue Martin 1992-present
Ilse Black 1992-1994; 1996-present
Leed Jackson 1992-present
Nina Jasen 1992-1995
Sandy Churchward 1993-present
Nicola Schindler (formerly Tarshis)
1993-1997
Vivienne Carady 1993-1994
Susana Toledo 1993-present
Robert Tuewen 1993-1993
(TWS alumnus '84)
Ed Crabtree 1994-2000; 2001-2002
(TWS alumnus '94)
Tanya Kutschera 1994-2000
Agathe Polach 1994-present
Maria Theresia Rommelt 1994-1998
Anna Trubashnik 1994-1998
Natashia Hanna 1994-1996; 2002-present
Adrienne Behrmann 1995-1998
Eric Philpott 1995-2002
(TWS alumnus '79)
Nicoli Tarasov 1995-1998
Bonny Hietala 1995-present
Suzanne Hill 1996-2000
Brian Searson 1996-2003
Bozena Ciepielewski 1997-1998
Mary Jo Clark (formerly Worm)
1997-present
Todd Royer, 1998-present
Christopher Cotton 1998-2001
Timothy Cox 1998-2001
Andrea von Wurmb 1998-2000
Paolo Tommasini 1999-2001
Bettle Masset 1999-2001
Rachel Aide 1999-2001
(TWS alumna '92)
Dianne Goldsmith 1999-present
Lisa Daniels 1999-present
Michelle Frank 1999-present
Karen Weyler 1999-present
Leslie Moffit 1999-2002
Yasmin Mamdani 2000-present
Karen Blitz 2000-2001
Jonathan Emerson 2000-2002
Julie Hewitt 2000-present
Linda Ojala 2000-2001
Michael Wright 2001-present
Biju Joseph 2001-2003
Patricia MacMaster 2001-present
George Amzu 2001-present
Genevieve Munro 2001-present
(TWS alumna '90)
Katharina Dannenberg 2001-present
Robert O’Driscoll – 2001-2002
(TWS alumnus '87)
Richard Heinzle 2001-2002
Paul Hietala 2001-2003
Heidi Vukowich 2001-present
Natalie Semenov (formerly
Kristolovich) 2002- present
(TWS alumna '86)
Barbara Eriksson 2002-present
Jocelyne Arseneau 2002-present
Jane-Anne Clegg
2002-2003
Timothy Clegg
2002-present
Miriam Rothgerber
2002-2003
George Ivanoff
2002-2003
Daniel Schulbeck
2002-present
(TWS alumnus '90)
Gregory Scott
2002-present
(TWS alumnus '85)
Maria Helms 2002present
Kate Walter 2002present ■
“1,2,3” by Tim Dannenberg, 2002
FACULTY ROOM CLOCK AND THE OLD BELL
FACULTY ROOM BLACKBOARD
THE BIG TREE
WHEELBARROWS BY THE SHED
outofbounds 21
class of '83
Maybe it’s because there isn’t any firefighting to
be done at the moment and Dan has just finished
his working shift. Other firefighters mingle about
the place, snippets of conversations occasionally
wafting over from other rooms, but otherwise it’s
quiet. In fact, it feels too quiet. I keep wondering
when the silence will be broken suddenly by
the wail of an alarm going off, jolting the men
into action. As we sit and chat beside the giant
fire trucks, I ask Dan how it feels to be always
operating as if on a knife’s edge.
“There’s definitely an adrenalin rush that I get,” he
says, adding that he loves the challenge of having
to respond to unknown situations at a moment’s
notice. “There’s a cause-and-effect aspect to it that
really appeals to me,” Dan says. “I get to see the
effects of my work immediately.”
Like the recent incident in which the fire station
received a 911 call about an eighteen-month-old
baby who had lost consciousness. “He had no pulse
and he wasn’t breathing by the time we arrived
on the scene,” Dan recalls. “We just went into a
routine, applying CPR, and the baby started to
breathe again. The most important thing in these
moments is to keep your hands busy. As long as
we’re busy, things are fine. There’s nothing worse
than standing around with nothing to do.”
t may very well have been a Grade 12 end-of-year “class circle” that gave Dan Jaciw the idea that firefighting was his calling.
“Someone told me I was good in a crisis,” he remembers.
That advice appears to have stuck for this thirty-eight-year old Toronto-based firefighter, a veteran of twelve seasons at North
Toronto’s Fire Station #135. When I meet him at the Eglinton Avenue station, he greets me with an assured warm handshake one
immediately associates with safety. This man radiates calm.
22 outofbounds
Dan in Grade 9
I ask him whether the element of danger
is something that initially attracted him to
firefighting. “Not really, although there is the
occasional sense of exhilaration in knowing you
have a task to accomplish and there are only thirty
minutes to find people before your breathing
apparatus uses up all its oxygen,” he says. “You’re
also losing six litres of liquid from simply
sweating during those thirty minutes,” he adds.
How does it feel to be inside a blazing inferno?
“It’s like swimming in murky water. You can’t
see anything and it’s hard to tell which direction
sounds are coming from. What never ceases to
amaze me is what the building looks like after the
smoke has cleared. It looks completely different
from what I experienced.”
Although the excitement of firefighting is
appealing, Dan tells me it’s the satisfaction
that comes from helping others and the sense
of camaraderie between firefighters that really
attracted him to the profession. “It’s the best
feeling to be working in the community and
having day-to-day contact with people in the
community,” Dan adds. “People recognize me and
they’re always happy to see me,” he laughs.
“You also develop bonds with colleagues since
it’s imperative that people look out for each
other,” Dan adds. I ask him whether TWS’s tightknit community environment might have had an
influence. He pauses, and then says, “I may very
well have come looking for that in my career.”
It was this sense of community that made a
particular impression on Dan when he first entered
TWS in 1980. He came in Grade 9 after a stint at
a public school in Toronto where his marks hadn’t
been so hot. “Waldorf embraced me and I was
struck by the genuine relationships that developed
between classmates, class advisors and teachers,”
he says. It was also the low-key atmosphere and
absence of cliques that Dan says made him feel at
home.
Now that Dan has become a father to two
daughters (a four-year-old and a four-month old),
he and his wife Sara, also a TWS graduate, are
considering sending the eldest to TWS next year.
He’s also become acutely aware of the importance
of spending time with his daughters in their
primary years.
Dan wasn’t always a firefighter. Shortly after
graduating from TWS in 1983, he entered the
audio-visual business as a sound and lighting
technician for television. He would often get jobs
prepping press conferences and liked the “buzz”
of witnessing news in the making, although he
says it’s made him wary of the media’s tendency
to “put a spin on everything.”
Recently, Dan tells me, he has begun renewing
contacts in the audio-visual field and doing
occasional contracts to keep his foot in the door.
In the past few months, he has been getting
lots of work due to Toronto’s SARS (Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome) crisis, preparing
lighting for the daily press conferences that have,
until recently, become a staple on nightly news
programmes.
“Having been through some troubling
(firefighting) instances, I want to keep my options
open in the audio-visual field while remaining
involved in the community. At the same time, I
want to be there for my daughters,” Dan says. ■
Geoff Chan '89
gwchan@yahoo.com
ALUMNI/AE
F E AT U R E S
I
dan jaciw
That sense of helplessness can sometimes take
over a situation, Dan says, and it’s one of the
things he dislikes most about the job. He recounts
an incident that sends palpable chills down my
spine. He and a crew had been called to the scene
of a double homicide at Lawrence Avenue and
Allen Road. It was a gangland slaying and the
firefighters were the first to arrive. The dead bodies
were in full view and the crowded atmosphere was
extremely tense. “Very creepy,” Dan remembers.
“We couldn’t do anything. I just wanted to get out
of there.”
outofbounds 23
seth coyle
COURTESY OF EVAN DION BRASSERIE AIX ON COLLEGE STREET
“Since therapy is a journey, this building has three structural tiers that
represent progression or ascension,” Seth explains to me excitedly.
“The layout of the house and its rooms revolves around the concept of
protecting a seed, allowing it to germinate, and nurturing its growth,”
he says. “You enter the building through one hallway, and you exit
through another so you never see anyone other than your therapist.
Leaving the office through another exit also means you’ve taken a
journey forward each time: progress.”
At this point, I should add a caveat to readers. It’s true that Seth is
showing me his space. It’s just that it’s not built to scale – yet: it’s a
model he made for his thesis project at OCAD, where he’s majoring in
Environmental Design.
class of '94
Seth in Grade 3
You can see it in the way this Ontario College of Art and Design architecture student has designed a home-office
tailor-made for counseling and therapy in Toronto’s west-end. Seth takes me on a tour of the space and I’m
immediately struck by its devotion to privacy.
Imagining myself as a client walking through the hallways, I realise I would never have to bump into anyone else while waiting for my therapy session because
the layout doesn’t allow for it. The wood paneled interior is soothing to the eyes and fluorescent lighting is nowhere to be found. I can also forget about the
outside world by gazing at a reflecting pool situated in the middle of the space. It has a very calming effect.
24 outofbounds
The design’s frequent references to nature through the use of natural
materials and holistic concepts stand out noticeably. Radiant heat pipes,
straw bale insulation and a roof top garden have been added to the
design to make the building more energy efficient. It’s something Seth
says he intends to incorporate in future design projects once he begins
working on actual buildings.
It’s clear from the way Seth talks about his project that it’s a reflection
of how he views the world. “Our relationship to the earth is symbiotic.
There are things out there that we should respect.” I ask him whether
TWS’s natural setting had any influence on his ecological sensitivity.
“I remember Ray Haller at the school always yelling at us for picking
trilliums or running around in the ravine,” he says with a laugh. “Now
I realise that he was doing it out of a genuine concern for nature.”
Seth also says Helga Rudolph’s recycling class set off flashing lightbulbs in his Grade 10 brain. “I distinctly remember learning about the
While Seth says it’s unlikely his thesis project will become a reality any time
soon (the actual building is already owned and isn’t up for sale), it’s been
entered into an awards competition and has caught the attention of a Toronto
psychoanalyst who has suggested that he promote the model in the psychology
community.
Seth tells me he has long been interested in design, beginning when he was a
child watching his father practising woodworking at home. TWS’s hands-on
craft lessons (woodworking, metalwork, etc.) further fed his interest. That early
exposure to handiwork eventually led to him gaining experience as a housebuilder and renovator after graduation from TWS.
ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING, BULWER STREET THERAPY CENTRE, BY SETH COYLE
In recent years, these skills have been put to use for Yabu Pushelberg, the
red-hot Toronto interior design firm that’s earning rave reviews locally and
internationally for its innovative projects, including the award-winning
Monsoon Lounge and Restaurant on Toronto’s Simcoe Street and a high-profile
re-design of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City.
In fact, Seth took a year off school in 2001 so he could work on renovating a
restaurant Yabu Pushelberg redesigned in Toronto’s Little Italy district. Since
opening last summer on College Street, Brasserie Aïx has been turning heads
for the way it has faithfully restored and incorporated a former theatre into a
space suited for fine-dining. Seth shows me pictures of the restored
space, which were recently featured in a European architecture
magazine, and they are stunning. Some of the former theatre’s
design details have been combined with modern additions, lending
it a perfect mix of old-world charm and contemporary chic. If you
visit the restaurant, you will see Seth’s craftsmanship on display and
understand why he has no time for frivolity.
So what’s next on the horizon? “Graduation in 2004 or 2005 and
maybe a visit to Finland before then to help a friend – Aron Fabian,
also a TWS alumnus and architecture student – build an addition to
a log cabin,” he says. Whatever he puts his hands on, it’s a sure bet
that the finished product will be stamped with Seth’s keen sense of
dedication to all things meaningful. ■
Geoff Chan '89 gwchan@yahoo.com
ALUMNI/AE
F E AT U R E S
Seth Coyle can’t stand frivolity. In his world, everything should be endowed with importance, including space.
Using an abandoned industrial building on Bulwer Street as his reallife model, Seth shows me a miniature replica he has designed for both
work and rest. As well as accommodating the needs of therapy patients,
the building contains a private inner courtyard where the therapist
can seek solitude and unwind after a long day of work before retiring
upstairs to the residence. Trees and lush vegetation fill the courtyard,
lending it an atmosphere of calm and relaxation.
concept of garbage, that its roots lie in humanity’s consumption of resources.”
outofbounds 25
S
inger-songwriter, dancer, musician and teacher, twenty-year-old Layah Jane Singer-Wilson is doing
her best to live “the interconnectedness of things,” and the process is intriguing to behold. Layah, a
member of the Alan Howard Waldorf School’s first Grade 8 graduating class, asks that we meet initially
at her apartment, a converted loft in an industrial area just west of the Don River, where joggers share the
path with tree planters on weekend mornings in the spring.
music and writing, and began to focus seriously on a career as singer-songwriter. In her present situation as Kindergarten teacher, she has the time to sing
with bands in clubs like C’est What? and the Free Times Café around Toronto. Usually she also plays guitar and piano but, after breaking her arm recently,
she needs to wait for it to heal before moving on with her own music in the studio and on stage. To Layah, this injury also presented itself as a door rather
than an obstacle: all of the energy that would have gone into playing is emerging in new politically charged lyrics as well as a musical repertoire that she’s
developing from singing back-up vocals for other local artists. “More and more I am loving these musical relationships,” she says, excited to see herself
creating and performing as much in bands as in solo gigs. Eventually, she hopes her material will earn her a chance to sign a record deal, produce a full-length
CD, and take her music on tour, though she’s conflicted about winning exposure to a larger audience at the expense of artistic control.
layah singerwilson
class of '00
layah@layahjane.com
www.layahjane.com
Layah in Grade 6
S
So that I might better understand the sources of her present artistic
involvement, she hands me her demo CD, “Layah Jane,” a collection
of songs rooted in adolescence that she produced with a grant from
“FACTOR” (Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Records), and
a volume of York University’s publication Canadian Woman Studies
containing her article “Utopia in Action: Mapping an Ideal Humanist
World.” Adapted from her OAC Independent Study in English at the
26 outofbounds
Toronto Waldorf School, her piece discusses Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
Herland (1915) as a vehicle for expressing her own experiences and ideals
as a modern young woman. Like Gilman, Layah believes in exploring
feminine models of success alongside masculine ones in order to rectify
patriarchal imbalances and create a humanist society.
We discuss her choices playfully within this framework a week later sitting
by the statue of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, a landmark for Tai Chi practitioners
overlooking Riverdale Park and the Toronto skyline. While her classmates
opted to compete for academic recognition Layah, with the support of
her parents and teachers, instead pursued training in various types of
dance, meditation, and leadership. She now teaches seven out of ten
days at Gaia, a Waldorf-inspired early childhood education programme
on Danforth, while actively striking out on her own as an artist. The
recipient of a Governor General’s Millenial History award, a University
of Toronto National Book Award, and an Outstanding Youth of Canada
Award at Queen’s Park, she might have chosen an academic route from
high school, but says ingenuously, “I think I should go to university when I
passionately want to engage in a particular course of study.”
Recently, she co-founded a dancers’ collective which meets once a week.
This initiative is very important to her because, although as a child she
“identified first as a dancer” and used to dance about twenty hours a week,
she had to give up performance at fifteen when she developed Achilles
tendinitis in both ankles. Finding herself at a crossroads, she turned to
As a Kindergarten teacher, she is able to earn a living doing something she enjoys and believes in. “I like working with the young ones because they keep you
spontaneous and fresh. I also like building individual relationships with the kids because I think that’s how you make a difference. Having gone to a Waldorf
school, I know how valuable the teacher-student relationship is.” I ask her whether as a teacher and an artist she also supports a Waldorfian
approach to creativity, which at times can seem ironically rigid in its constraints. She pauses, fascinated by the contradiction. “Yes,” she finally
says, exploring her answer. “I think that by having to paint only in yellow, I got to know yellow really well. It’s like getting to know one tool very
well, instead of being bombarded with so many that you don’t have a chance to explore any of them intimately and therefore cannot create in
depth.”
If she didn’t enjoy the process so much, it might seem that Layah is beset by struggle. She makes a joyous home in an industrial setting, yet finds
her elemental self in nature. She makes strong statements as a singer and writer about the necessity of a feminizing socio-political influence while
resisting the label “feminist.” She is driven by intellect and passion to set high standards for herself in career and character, but feels that it is too
soon for her to enrol in university. However, what Layah is working out is not a series of contradictions, but rather a system of interconnections.
She searches for patterns and parallels, needing to transform what she learns in theory into practice, and, especially as a lyricist, “to pay attention
to the relationships between the international political and environmental sphere and an individual’s weaknesses and struggles.” Unhurried by
expectations, she interprets and balances her experience. Through her music, she strives to send people a message “to learn themselves deeply, to
learn the world deeply, because they are one and the same - mirrors.” ■
Shahnaz Khan ‘86 shahnaz_k@hotmail.com
ALUMNI/AE
F E AT U R E S
he greets me sotto voce - three
people are still sleeping above
us - and invites me into the openconcept space. Signs of an engaged
poetic muse are everywhere: in
racks of batik garments, opalescent
trinkets, her guitar in the corner,
hearty pasta jars, and a tortoiseshell
cat, all vibrant against the grey-blue
walls. Times are busy: she’s singing
in “Creating for the Cure,” a benefit
concert for cancer, applying for
recording grants, auditioning for
festivals - she made the prestigious
stand-by list of the North by North
East music festival showcase - and investing time in the business side
of music by working on a Web page with a designer.
outofbounds 27
COURTESY OF FRANK GUNN (CANADIAN PRESS)
RACING
by Chantal Lemieux '83 bodyforme@sympatico.ca
I suppose that one can look at life as a series of passions. This has
It all started at the tender age of nine when I discovered the first passion of my life
(aside from chocolate, of course) at a concert in the gym of the newly built Toronto
Waldorf School in Thornhill. To this day the image in my mind is vivid and clear; the
newly erected concrete walls, the painted burgundy gym floor, and Ms. Kurt playing the
most divine piece of music on the flute. I was instantly spellbound and mesmerized by
the sound of the instrument, and from that day forward, music became the main focus of
my life, as I was convinced that I had discovered my life’s purpose and “passion.” For
many years to follow, my newly discovered passion for music was nurtured by many
a great teacher, starting with Mrs. Haller at TWS. It wasn’t until I was at university
studying Music and Arts Administration that I discovered another passion that has led
me to my current profession.
28 outofbounds
What began as a form of cross-training to stay fit during those
stressful days and nights at university, soon became a passion that
eventually led me to my current profession as an exercise and
movement therapist. I had always been entranced by the sport
of cycling, and having no formal athletic background or training,
I became inspired by female endurance athletes of the likes of
triathlete Paula Newby-Fraser and French cyclist Jeannie Longo
who were winning Olympic medals and World Championships
at the peak of their sports in their late thirties and early forties. I
decided it looked like fun, and I jumped into my first duathlon
(run-bike-run) at the age of thirty-two, and was instantly bitten
by the bug. Later that year, I qualified for the National Duathlon
Team, and in 1998 competed at the World Championships in
Germany.
In 1999, I decided to become a purist, and focused my efforts on
the bike alone (my preferred sport) and began road racing. It is
hard to imagine two sports involving cycling being so different,
yet they equally present unique thrills, and challenges. Road
racing can be likened to a strategic game of chess that occurs at a
speed averaging up to fifty kilometers plus an hour, in a pack of
thirty to one hundred riders, all an inch away from each others’
tires. One can certainly imagine the thrills and risks, and the
sport certainly presented me with both, as well as the opportunity
to race against some of the world’s finest athletes. That year,
with a little luck, I had the race of my life earning a Canadian
Jersey after winning the Masters Road Race at the National
Championships.
My motivation to begin training for the sport somewhat
competitively was certainly not inspired by the pain of endless
hours of training, the crashes, road-rashes and scars, broken
bones, and countless dangerous run-ins with dogs and cars, but
rather by that meditative transcendental state or “zone” that one
often achieves through movement and sport. Perhaps it has
something to do with the element of risk and speed, or simply
the achievement of a personal best; however, there is something
truly empowering in taking your mind and body to a level that
was previously unimaginable. The ability to conquer challenges
through training and racing has had a definite and positive
carryover effect that has permeated all aspects of my life, from
business to personal. Racing has led me to the latest and ultimate
passion of my life, that of my twenty-month-old daughter,
Danielle, and of course my husband James, whom I met racing.
You see, when you really get down to it, life is really a series of
passions, and for me it all started with music. ■
What’s your passion?
by Nils Junge '88 ncjunge@hotmail.com
The old adage suggests that more lasting benefits will come
from teaching to fish than from giving someone a fish. The logic
is appealing. Although both actions may stem from a genuine
desire to help, one liberates while the other creates dependence.
HELPING
I work with the Social Development group and devote most of my
time to issues of local governance, community-based participation,
and government decentralization. Lately the Bank has taken an
interest in working at the community level, to complement its
traditional top-down approach and make project outcomes more
sustainable. Recently I went to Armenia to evaluate some of these
community-based projects.
The country is beautiful, mountainous, dotted with old churches
steeped in an ancient culture and, like most post-Soviet countries,
grindingly poor outside the capital city. A local official makes about
6,000 drams ($10) a month. In rural areas, most people eke out a
COURTESY OF NILS JUNGE
The first approach places knowledge at the centre of the unequal relationship
between the haves and have-nots, removing the patina of condescension
associated with charity. Not a profound observation – what is education for,
after all, if not freedom, acquiring the tools for self-reliance? – but the waters
become muddy when one puts words into action. In the ‘real world,’ theory
and practice collide in sometimes unexpected ways. What good is learning to
fish, for example, if there is nothing to make a rod from, no bait available, or
your family refuses to change their diet? What if the entire village takes up
fishing and within six years the lake is empty? Such obstacles are not always
easy to predict, though they often seem obvious in retrospect. As a consultant
in the field of international development, currently at the World Bank in
Washington D.C, I spend a fair amount of time wracking my brain over such
things.
In this field, ‘helping others help themselves’ has become a truism.
Whether stated explicitly or not, it is one of the fundamental principles in
development. How to help the poor effectively, but indirectly? Yes, this
controversial institution is in fact focused on the poor. The World Bank’s
mission statement begins, “Our dream is a world free of poverty” and,
ultimately, most of the aid to developing countries, in both loans and grants,
is intended to support this goal. A large bureaucracy, overpaid staff and a
tendency to ignore corruption can blur, if not subvert, that vision. Combine
this with many technical factors, including project design, country context
and implementation procedures, and the challenges are legion. But there are
also many dedicated people at the Bank and their desire to solve intractable
social and economic problems is genuine.
living by farming small land plots. For many, life under communism
is remembered with nostalgia.
One village I visited, Tatev, is near a 12th Century monastery of
bygone splendour, majestically overlooking the valley below and
snowcapped mountains beyond. Although abandoned since the
1930s and in disrepair, every year thousands of tourists, including
foreigners, drive up the winding dirt road to visit. And yet there is
not a café in sight, no seller of souvenirs or soft drinks, no sign for a
guest room, almost nothing, in fact, that would induce a tourist to help
the local economy a little. Unspoiled, one might say, except for the
old crane in the middle of the grounds. The village is hardly touched
either, but poverty is not quaint and rustic to its inhabitants. So with
the help of a local consultant, community groups have been
set up to explore ideas to generate extra income.
Over two years, the fairly modest sum (by Bank standards)
of $20,000 has been spent on stimulating entrepreneurial
activity, by way of training, group work, and regular site
visits by local and international consultants. But although
community members are willing to learn and have been
meeting to plan and discuss ways of developing a small
tourist industry, no new businesses have been set up and
hardly a dram has been earned.
One is almost tempted to say, just give them the whole pot
of money, no strings attached, and let them spend it as they
W h a t ’s y o u r
passion?
certainly been my experience as I look back and reflect upon my life as I
incredulously approach the cusp of my fortieth year. I have often been
asked how I arrived at my current profession, or what inspired me to
venture into the realm of movement, athletics and racing. My answer to
those inquiring minds is simply, music.
Alumni/ae,
continued on page 30
outofbounds 29
Alumni/ae,
BIG RIVER
wish. They would all be happy
and a few would probably
invest their share. But that
would be breaking the rules of
the game. Yes, ‘fishing’ must be
taught. Discipline is essential.
So the $20,000 goes to pay my
salary, the local consultant fees,
travel, hotel.
by Jo Russell '89 jo@theedge.ca
Sitting here in the Deh Cho region (which means Big River in
South Slavey, the local Dene dialect) of the Northwest Territories, I
realize that my passion is the north. I have always been interested
in and drawn to the north. Maybe reading Lost in the Barrens with
Gary Kobran, way back in Grade 4, helped inspire this passion.
With other projects, a little
start-up capital is often
available. This particular
endeavour had none, a possible
shortcoming. On the other
hand, the community seems
curiously indifferent to the
opportunities knocking at its
door. Of course, results are
not measured only in income
earned, and one hopes that
knowledge, however intangible
and elusive, is left behind. A
different community I visited
had done quite well for itself,
had found donors and installed
a gas line, but this was an
exceptional case.
Why do I do it? Is it to
fight poverty and injustice?
Probably not. Poverty is less
an enemy than a condition.
As to justice, it is difficult to
know who owes what to whom.
Perhaps it is the satisfaction of
exploring different cultures,
understanding different
economies. Perhaps simply the
predilection for puzzle-solving,
in a world where things don’t
fit together very well. ■
30 outofbounds
PHOTOS COURTESY OF JO RUSSELL
Development work can be
frustrating, there are so many
obstacles, so many variables.
One is constantly searching for
the right formula and asking
oneself, how can it be done
more effectively?
I came to live in Yellowknife quite by accident, as is true for many northerners.
A friend of mine was living here, and invited me up for Caribou Carnival. How
could I resist something called Caribou Carnival? Anyway, I fell in love with
Yellowknife, and decided to stay.
I am very fortunate in that I have work that I love, through which I get to explore
this amazing territory and meet an extremely diverse group of people. The
longer I stay here, the more I learn about this remote area of Canada. Where else
could I fly into isolated settlements in a small bush plane full of tomato plants
and steer-manure for a community garden? Where else could I play the lead role
in Evita? Where else would I set up a stand at Caribou Carnival so that people
can sample Muktuk (a.k.a. raw whale blubber) – a traditional Inuit staple? I
have watched a Beluga whale surface for some air amongst the pack ice while
flying to the Arctic Islands, and had the privilege of hearing the life story of
an Elder who was born “on the land” one spring long ago (she thinks she was
born in the spring – her family was “on the trail” at the time). I have spent time
working with people who have gone from living a very traditional lifestyle to a
modern lifestyle, in a very short amount of time. Their stories are amazing.
I have done a lot of contract work up here involving diabetes awareness and
prevention, and I am now permanently working in the field of health promotion.
This involves traveling
to fifteen fly-in
communities and
helping the Community
Health Representatives
with their health
promotion efforts. It’s
great.
So that’s my passion.
I think it’s awesome
up here. If you want
to visit, it’s not hard to
find: drive west from
Ontario and hang a
right at Edmonton.
When the road ends,
you’ve arrived!!! ▄
“One, Two, Three” by Tim Dannenberg, 2002
What’s your passion?
BURNING
MAN
by Eric Robi '83 eric@ericrobi.com
I was stuck in a Salvador Dali painting for week.
Burning Man 2002 was one of the most exciting and intensely surreal
experiences I’ve ever undergone. Words and photos can deliver only a
sliver of the experience I had attending the seven day art festival that
takes place annually in northern Nevada. Driving north of Reno, urban
culture rapidly faded into some distant memory. Burnt orange desert
mountains at sunset funneled us onto the Black Rock desert. We arrived
slowly, behind a long line of vehicles onto the playa – a twelve mile by
five mile long dry lake bed.
A precise description of Burning Man remains elusive to me. Some
think it’s a venue for emerging art. Others think it’s a huge dance party
in the desert. It is an annual experiment in temporary community. First
appearing on Baker Beach near San Francisco in 1986 with twenty
participants and an eight-foot high Man, its founder Larry Harvey
moved it to the Black Rock desert in 1990. That year eight-hundred
people took part. In 2002, there were nearly thirty-thousand counterculture, digital-hippie, exuberant participants who fashioned a
fleeting city filled with massive art installations, costumes, shows,
interactive exhibits and structures of every kind.
Imagine traveling seven-hundred miles to arrive on the playa
where the only thing you can purchase is coffee. Conventional
commerce is not allowed at Burning Man. Mr. Harvey promotes a
gift-based economy where one is encouraged to give freely with no
expectation of remuneration. To survive, you must bring anything
and everything you need for the week. If you don’t
have something, you must either barter or articulate
your words convincingly.
The weather can be punishing. I was lucky. It was
sunny and hot every day; warm at night. There are
stories of violent sand storms and torrential rains
creating a sixty square-mile mud pit. There are
temperature extremes. Burning Man is not for the
Hyatt Regency enthusiast.
Radical self- and group-expression is highly encouraged through annual
themes. For 2002, “The Floating World” led many theme camps to
create ingenious, interactive art installations based upon things nautical.
The evening of our arrival we pedaled our bicycles out on the playa and
encountered at least two dozen art cars. One of the most stunning was
a massive fire-breathing dragon in three sections upon which revelers
shook their dusty booties to funky house music. We went to a few ‘clubs’
– tents or areas set up with DJs and hundreds of dancers. We also made
a pilgrimage to the Man that evening: a forty-foot high structure made
entirely of wood outlined in blue neon.
The first evening was typical of my entire week there. In other words,
wonderfully dreamlike. The playa was crawling with thousands of people
engaged in hundreds of theme camps. continued on page 32
outofbounds 31
There were ingenious displays
of fire including Mad Max-style fire-breathing art cars. There
was too much to see in my week. I realize now that Burning
Man represents a myriad of experiences and ideas to those who
have been there. By mid-week, the lake bed was teeming with
installations including a metal roller coaster, a large bathtub
duck/casino, several ships, fire displays, sculpture and geodesic
domes of all sorts filled with music and vivid individuals from
every walk of life. Memorable theme camps included Arson
Island Resort, Barbie Death Camp & Wine Bistro and the Nude
Foam Party camp. Nudity is commonplace. My favorite was the
Tuna Camp where they served seared Ahi every evening. Music
was everywhere. It was Salvador Dali meets Monty Python.
The anticipation was thick leading up to The Burn on Saturday
night. At 9pm, with fifteen thousand participants surrounding
the Man, a barrage of fireworks filled the black sky for a very
long time. Then the chanting started as hundreds of fire dancers
and fire-breathing cars encircled the Man. When the Man was lit
there was a silence in the crowd, which escalated to a massive
cheer as the Man was engulfed by hungry flames lighting up
the entire playa. It was the largest fire I have ever witnessed. A
feeling of renewal and rebirth quickly surged through me. Many
are inspired by the Burn as a spiritual cleansing.
The next evening, the Temple of Joy, a wooden Japanese
pagoda, was burned. It was attended by a much smaller group
of people who were treated to a choir singing “Amazing Grace”
prior to the lighting. It was a more solemn ceremony punctuated
by the release of six doves which flew around the fire, their
underbellies illuminated in a Phoenix-like ghostly illusion.
Why voyage annually to a remote desert lake-bed? Some go to
create and participate in an art installation or theme camp. Some
come to release the inner phoenix and incinerate a negative
thing so forward progress can resume. Of course, many come
to party. I came because my friends talked about it too damn
much.
www.burningman.org has thousands of photos and much information
about all aspects of Burning Man. Start with the ‘What is Burning
Man’ link.
32 outofbounds
class
of
'87
mcLeod
“Living Room” 2000/01, oil on canvas 18”/18”
“Two Cell Apartment” 2001, oil on canvas 10”/12”
“Bot Flag” 2000, oil on canvas 12”/16”
“Coffee Shop with Sheep” 1999, oil on canvas 32”/32”
“Commuter Kitchen” 2001, oil on canvas 24”/36”
Collective Exhibition.) (Permanent Collection)
1990 1087 Queen W. / Toronto, Canada. (Table of Dogs
- Collective Exhibition.)
About the Artist:
Christian McLeod was born in 1969 in Barry’s Bay,
northern Ontario. He was formally educated in Canada
(Toronto) and Germany (Landshut and Uberlingen).
He gained his art training at the Toronto School of Art,
and is a founding member of the Table of Dogs arts
“Cyclops Towers” 1999, oil on canvas 42”/32”
“Invisible Pedestrian” 2002, oil on canvas 12”/16”
collective. McLeod has lived in Canada, Germany, Spain (Balearic
Island, Ibiza) and the United States (Santa Fe, New Mexico). He has
travelled in Central America, Europe and Russia (pre iron-curtain
collapse). His works are found in private and institutional collections
both in Canada and internationally.
His mediums include oil and acrylics on canvas, mono prints,
photography, digital, Web based exhibitions, sonic collage and video.
Working out of a sense of intuitive language and visual tools he
moves us to and through his observation of urban mechanics. He
varies scant applications of oil wash with very thick impasto-like oilfriezes. ■
outofbounds
Alumni/ae
art
Some people must think I’m obsessed with Burning Man
because I still tell animated tales about it nine months later.
It’s hard to describe why. Maybe it’s the new friends I made
and the many philosophical conversations I had that week. All
I know is, returning to LA, I felt like a new person, renewed
with vigour and a passion for life. ■
christian
Education:
1997-98 Toronto Image Works Digital PrePress.
1990-93 Toronto School of Art, Fine Art
Studies. Graduate Diploma Programme
Member of:
Visual Arts Ontario, 1153-A Queen St. W.
Toronto, ON 416-591-8883
Exhibitions:
2002 Propeller Art Centre, Weg Way
Juried Exhibition - Gary Dault, John
Scott, Stewart Pollock.
2001 Art Focus Magazine Annual
Exhibition, Juried Show; 3rd place for oil
painting.
2000 The Downstairs Gallery / Toronto,
Canada.
2000 Kennok Fine Arts / Toronto, Canada
2000 sothebys.com / Toronto - New York. contact Christian at:
1998 / 99 Louise Smith Gallery / Toronto, cmc@christianmcleod.com
see more work at:
Canada.
www.christianmcleod.com
1997 Palacio des Artes / Belo Horizonte,
Brazil.
1997 G a l l e ry 7 / Toronto, Canada.
1996 A . O . A . V. - Artistes Ontarios
Arts Visuels / Touring Group Exhibition
- Cambridge, Kapuskasing, Toronto,
Canada.
1995 Doorstep Gallery / 80 Spadina /
Toronto, Canada.
1995 Mississauga City Gallery / Canada.
(Permanent Collection)
1995 Cafe Verite / Toronto, Canada.
Christian in Grade 1
1994 Finca Gallery / Ibiza, Spain.
1994 Geronimo / Munich, Germany.
1993 Finca Gallery / Ibiza, Spain. (Table of
Dogs - Collective Exhibition.)
1992 The Rosedale Diner / Toronto,
Canada.
1991 Creative Marketing Network Inc.
/ Toronto, Canada. (Table of Dogs Collective Exhibition.)
1990 Minkler Gallery, Seneca College /
Toronto, Canada. ( Table of Dogs -
33
As a high school graduate in 1973, I have a clear
to-day vision of reality. In truth, I view my students as being on a developmental
path from the past into the future, placing the lessons of today into the context of
memory of knowing what I didn’t want to do with
yesterday and tomorrow. This contextual approach, which pervades all of Waldorf
my life - that was to be a high school science teacher.
education, allows me and my colleagues to view our students as individuals (indeed
as spiritual beings) on a journey of discovery, striving to reconcile themselves to
This was a strong reaction to my father’s occupation
the realities of the past and prepare themselves to step lightly and wisely into the
as a high school science teacher! (Funny how we
future. Truly, a future-oriented education is one filled with purpose and hope, and
are shaped by the lives of our parents, and also, how
thrives on the motivation of inspired teachers, working out of a vision for a better
our destinies may be so unknown to us whilst we are
world. This sense of the ideal, which permeates Waldorf education, is truly a
young.)
motivator for me, as it allows one to rise above the daily grind and focus on the
future of humanity. For isn’t this what education is really all about?
After spending a year travelling and working in Europe and Asia,
In addition to the sense of the ideal which pervades the curriculum, I am
I returned to the University of Toronto and a BSc programme the
inspired by the working conditions that motivate the faculty. The striving
following year and promptly flunked out. As I entered my twentyfor authentic, supportive collegial relationships, inclusive decision-making
first year, I realised that perhaps the mainstream wasn’t for me,
processes, and a shared philosophy of education combine to create a sense
and I moved away from home into a communal house in Riverdale,
of mutual responsibility and ownership amongst the faculty. This, in my
worked part-time as a school-bus driver for deaf and handicapped
experience, is a working condition unparalleled in other educational forms,
students, enrolled in an alternative high school, and took a part-time
and one which makes the Toronto Waldorf School a wonderful place to work
Bob Pickering '73
course in Environmental Issues at Innis College, University of Toronto.
This year was a turning point in my life, as I became aware that there
were other ways of learning and living, and that my life’s path was to be
Bob in Grade 12
determined not by the expectations of others, but by my own aspirations.
BOB’S CHEMISTRY ROOM COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE
The following summer, while working for C.I.D.A. (the Canadian
International Development Organisation) in Costa Rica establishing
communities for abandoned street children, I was made painfully aware that
the social, economic and environmental problems of developing nations had
their roots in the economic policies and attitudes of developed nations, and
I returned to Canada convinced that the road to enlightenment lay through
and learn. And of course, there is the simple fact that the architecture
education - first my own, and then, the education of others. Through my
of the school is novel and beautiful. Who wouldn’t want to work in
subsequent studies in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at the University
a building that simply inspires freedom and creativity by its very
of Waterloo, I was able to confirm this intuition, and began to explore teaching
design?
in a school system that would allow me the opportunity to teach out of
inspiration, purpose and a real connection to the world. It was only a matter
In short, working at the Toronto Waldorf School has provided
of time before I found my way to Waldorf education, although it helped that
me with an opportunity to maintain my idealism about making a
my girlfriend at the time was at Emerson College, England, studying to be a
difference, about having an avenue for creative expression in the
Waldorf teacher.
bringing together of my love for academics, music and outdoor
And so, as the folk-song goes, I married that girl, settled down on a farm
education (including beekeeping!), as well as the pleasure of
outside Unionville, began a family, and eventually started to work at the Toronto
working together with colleagues of like mind. Upon reflection,
Waldorf School. My early mentors were Renate Kurth, Gerhard Rudolph, Niek
when I meet with students as a guidance counsellor, these
Wit and Marty Levin, and I am forever grateful for the leadership and inspiration
are the questions I often ask when planning their future life
that these great teachers were to provide so freely. Twenty years have gone by,
path. Will your work make a difference? Will you be able to
although it still seems like yesterday. Those far-away ideals of freedom, purpose
be expressive? Will you have supportive colleagues? These
and reality still hold true for me, and are the inspiration that continue to motivate
questions, arising from my own experience, are true, I think,
me through the routine of timetables, discipline and endless meetings. I guess to a
of working life in general. Any of you who are able to say yes
very real extent, I am still just a hopeless romantic, with an unshakeable conviction
to all three may be as happy in your professional life as I am
in the “power of one,” a belief that, as an individual, I might be able to make a
in mine. If so, I have great faith in the future of humanity. ■
difference in another person’s life. Why should I be so presumptuous as to assume
that?
Bob Pickering bpickering@torontowaldorfschool.com
Well, for starters, working in a Waldorf school demands something more than a day-
20
34 outofbounds
years at the school !
outofbounds 35
married in April of 1962.
For a year, Elisabeth taught the piano to inner-city kids at Toronto’s King
Edward School. Then she became pregnant with Mary Anne. The young family
moved from downtown up to Unionville, which “was still a lovely, sleepy
village, no commercialism whatsoever. By fluke we found a beautiful house
and that’s where I have my love of old Victorian houses. Alexander was born.
And then we moved to Westwood Lane, near the present school.”
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - TWS STUDENTS, EARLY ‘70s
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - CLASS OF ‘81, EARLY ‘70s
Elisabeth Koekebakker '57
L
32
years at the school !
ittle Elisabeth had no idea that the Canadian soldiers who
liberated her Dutch city at the end of WW II in 1945 would one
day be her compatriots. Nor that the horrible little recorder she was
meant to play at the age of six – she had her heart set on
the piano – would one day be an important part of her
music lessons at the Toronto Waldorf School.
But otherwise, her life’s path unfolded in a way that never
surprised her. “I wanted to become either a farmer or a
pianist. And isn’t it interesting. I became both.”
And, besides being a pianist, she also wanted to become
a school music teacher. And this, too, would be fulfilled.
Elisabeth was amongst the first teachers who stood in front of
the first Waldorf students in Canada thirty-five years ago.
Elisabeth was born in Zeist, the Netherlands, in 1939 and
so had her first taste of life during the war. There were
some terrifying experiences. But she remembers a happy
childhood.
After completing Grade 12 in 1957, Elisabeth went straight to the Royal
Conservatory of Music in Rotterdam to study piano. To begin with she
felt out of place there. “The first year that I was there I felt totally alien.
Totally. People just looked at me and thought where does she come
from? I went to one of my beloved Waldorf teachers and I said to him,
I feel so alone and so misunderstood. People are so different. And he
said, yes this is the case for many people who leave the school. For
me to know that I was not a strange phenomenon but that other people
struggled too really helped. The trouble was that I looked for depth in
people. I was too direct. I was talking about things that most people
wouldn’t talk about. Anyway, the second year people started to notice me
for who I was, and then it became a different picture.
I became very involved. I loved playing together in
groups and accompanying people.”
Elisabeth had known Aedsgard Koekebakker all her
life. Their families were closely connected.
“In the second year of my studies, in 1959, Aedsgard
came back from Canada, where he’d gone to seek
opportunities. We had started a correspondence and I
knew for me that this was the man. By November we
were unofficially engaged. But then in April he went
back to Canada as he’d become the head gardener
first for the Banff hotel and then for the Lake Louise
hotel.”
Elisabeth was determined to go to Canada, too, and
not just to follow her love. “When I was fifteen
Elisabeth in Grade 5
years
old
I
knew
I
would go to North America. I was going to Canada
Elisabeth’s father founded the Waldorf school in Rotterdam
regardless
of
whether
Aedsgard was there or not. I organized it all by
with a friend of his, but Elisabeth was too old to attend, as it only went up
myself.
As
soon
as
I
finished
my degree, I left. It was 1961.”
to Grade 4 at the time. So, after attending the Dalton school in Rotterdam,
she was sent to the Waldorf school in The Hague from Grade 7 to
graduation. She remembers a long bicycle and train ride to get there every
day, but she loved the school. “It gave me tremendously rich experiences,
and I feel that was a total blessing. I still have friends from that time whom
I see.”
36 outofbounds
Her first apartment was on Huron Street in Toronto and her first job at
Canada Life. “God knows what I was supposed to do there. I received
thirty-five dollars a week and lived for the weekends. But I was in
Canada and I felt liberated. It was wonderful.” She and Aedsgard were
During this time, a Waldorf Education Committee had been formed and a target
date for the opening of the school had been established. It was September,
1968. Elisabeth was at the right place at the right time when this moment
finally arrived. “I was asked to become the music teacher and I said yes, but I
was scared because I had to create the whole music programme. There wasn’t
any resource anywhere that I could draw on.
And I still remember asking Werner Glas
about it and he said, just sing some pentatonic
songs. And Alan Howard came on the scene
and said, don’t worry about it, just play the
harpsichord and show them a bit about the
harpsichord. Ya, well!! We had three kids in
Grade 2. I’d rather have thirty than three. But
it was a special time. A very special time. It
all worked out very well in the end. I was very
happy in my job. I loved being at the school.
It was a wonderful atmosphere. We started off
with seven teachers and the fun we had! The
laughter - with Alan and Mary and, of course,
Diana! It was very special.”
Music has always been integral to Elisabeth’s
life and from early on she had a great passion
for singing and for the piano. “I was always
singing. I drove my parents wacky. And then
I was six and my parents felt that I should
learn to play the recorder and I didn’t want
to, I wanted to play the piano. It took three
years until I was finally allowed to play the
piano. I never learned to play the recorder
because I always had excuses and resisted it
because I just didn’t like it.” I ask Elisabeth
when she finally learned to play. “Well, when
I was asked to become the music teacher at
the Toronto Waldorf School I had to learn. So
I was a week ahead of the kids in teaching myself how to play.”
(Katja: “Little did we know.”
Elisabeth: “Yes, little did you know. Little did you know.” She laughs.)
I ask her also whether she ever learned to like the recorder. Elisabeth says
yes. “Definitely. I think it’s a wonderful instrument when it’s played well. Of
course, being played well is important. But it’s a good instrument for children.
It’s a wind instrument so you bring the music that you have inside yourself –
coming out of your own musical instrument, your body, your breath and
your vocal chords - outside of yourself so it becomes a little bit more
objective. When you are able to have three- or four-part music pieces it
can be so rewarding. The students can really learn to listen.”
As Elisabeth explains it to me, cultivating the ability to listen is at the
heart of her music lessons at the school. “Music is a social art. Along
with drama, Eurythmy and dance, it is the most important social art.” In
order to create music together, one has to learn to listen to each other,
and that is one of the most essential social skills a child can learn for
the future. “Listening is a spiritual quality. Listening to the sound of
another person’s singing voice and listening to what another person is
really saying require the same openness, and the same inner stillness.”
For Elisabeth, music and stillness are closely connected. Music gets its
shape from the stillness that punctuates
it, but music is also most alive when
one is listening to one’s own inner
state. “All music – jazz, rock, classical,
and so on – makes possible the inner
expression of joy and sorrow that can
become a healing element in one’s life.
Through the interplay between sound
and stillness, one can learn to listen
to oneself and to others and find one’s
centre in the world.” It is not simply
a skill that is nice to have, but it is an
experience that brings people closer
together in a respectful and dynamic
way. “My hope is that this will help
students to make a difference in the
world.”
In 1975, Elisabeth and Aedsgard
bought a farm near Cookstown. A year
later, Jessica was born and Elisabeth
took some time off from teaching to be
at home with her youngest child. But
she missed the school and several years
later she was back again.
I ask Elisabeth what may be next for
her as she approaches the “Golden
Age.” She says that she’s thinking
about it, but for now she’s still happy
right where she is, even if the first students she stood before are now
in their forties. “The school has become my second home. It was
such an incredible experience when Aedsgard died, how this whole
community embraced me. It was such a profound experience. There is
an underlying bond that is so strong. And I love working with the kids.
Teaching is something one creates together with them – it’s a give-andtake. Really, we’re collaborators. And this is a great gift.” ■
Katja Rudolph katjarudolph@aol.com
outofbounds 37
by Geoff Chan '89
gwchan@yahoo.com
If you’ve visited the Toronto Waldorf School in the last three
years, you’ve probably passed by the greenhouse or seen
it from the outside. You might even have had the luck, as I
did recently, of getting a tour of the normally out-of-bounds
facility and experiencing its quietness, its lush plant-life and
the gentle sounds of flowing water.
If so, you would have seen the tall Norfolk Pine, surrounded by palm trees,
creeping toward the ceiling. Or the radiant ferns sprouting beneath. No
doubt you would have parked yourself on the bench by the window to soak
up the sun’s rays and listened to the comforting sound of a babbling brook.
After a few moments of peace, you would
have left the greenhouse a contented soul
ready to tackle the noisy world again.
As the writer of this article, I had the good
fortune of getting a guided tour of the
greenhouse, courtesy of Paul Sheardown,
TWS’s building superintendent. To my
surprise, he pointed out that not only was
this greenhouse a laboratory for plants, it
was also a water treatment facility for the
school. That’s because hidden among the
vegetation is a unique machine that cleans
TWS’s wastewater using environmentally
sound technology.
One of only four being used in Ontario,
the Eco Rem Wastewater Reclamation
System applies principles borrowed
from nature to treat water without
the use of synthetic and harmful
chemicals. Designed by the Woodbridge,
Ontario-based EcoWerks Technologies
Corporation, the “living machine” is
inspired by the work of John Todd, an
American biologist who has pioneered
the adoption of ecological processes in
engineering to solve waste and energy
problems. His organization, Ocean Arks
International, conducts research exploring
linkages between ecology and economics
to protect the environment and restore
damaged habitats.
38 outofbounds
In fact, you might say it was Todd who unwittingly inspired the school to
install EcoWerks’ water-treatment technology. Three years ago he gave a
talk in Toronto on his work and several Waldorf parents attended.
Paul Sheardown was one of them. He tells me how the community
decided to choose the “ecological way.” “Our septic system was thirty
years old and nearing its maximum capacity. It would have a cost a lot
to replace so we were open to other alternatives. John Todd happened to
give a lecture in Toronto and several of us went. It got us excited about
new ideas and possibilities,” he says.
That’s when the group asked Ecowerks to give a presentation to the
school community and the rest, as they say, is history.
By all accounts, it’s proven to be a wise investment. To date, the Eco
Rem system has reused over one million litres of water since it began
operating. That translates into roughly sixty to seventy per-cent less water
used in the past three years, Paul says. “Just in terms of water use in the
toilets, we had been wasting 770,000 litres of water a year simply by
using urinals that automatically flushed en masse at set times. Now we’ve
switched to urinals which flush only after they’re individually activated,”
he says.
Since installing Eco Rem, TWS has
reduced the flow of treated effluent to its
existing septic systems by seventy percent, and cut down the use of chemicals
for removing phosphorus build-up by
up to ninety per-cent, according to
the Ontario Centre for Environmental
Technology Advancement, which
profiled the facility on its website.
Paul says the school’s wastewater is
treated in a simple step-by-step process
involving the use of microscopic
organisms, or bacteria, and aquatic
plants. “Eco Rem draws wastewater
from the school’s existing septic tank
overflow and funnels it into a flow
balancing tank,” he explains. The water
then passes continuously through three
different aeration tanks containing
aerobic microbes (tiny bacteria), which
digest nutrients and break down organic
contaminants.
Along the way, air is piped into the
tanks to draw off odours emitted by the
decomposing material. In the final phase,
water is passed through an ultraviolet
filter which kills all remaining bacteria
(including E. coli) and voila, you have
water clean enough to be reused for nonpotable (i.e. non-drinkable) purposes,
such as for flushing toilets. The whole
process takes about a day and half to
produce reusable water. At the final stage of TWS’s
system is a water-fall “flow form” (pictured on page
38). It’s the most beautiful part, visually and aurally.
ECO REM AND PAUL SHEARDOWN, TWS GROUNDS & BUILDING SUPERINTENDENT - COURTESY OF GEOFF CHAN, 2003
building
innovation
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - WALLS ARE ERECTED, 1972, WITH CLASS OF ‘81 LOOKING ON
Aside from the energy saving benefits that come
with Eco Rem, there’s also an important educational
component, Paul points out. The greenhouse serves as
an enclosed demonstration area for the school’s farmgarden programme, in which students from Grade
3 onwards learn how to grow fruits and vegetables.
Through the programme, students are made aware of
where their water comes from and where they dump
their waste, Paul adds.
Other grades use the facility as a convenient laboratory
for microbiology classes, where they can see firsthand
how biological processes work in water treatment.
Students are shown how the Eco Rem machine works
and witness the whole treatment process from start to
finish. “Students learn that waste isn’t just someone
else’s problem and that everything they consume has
consequences down the road,” Paul says.
Don’t they get a bit, shall we say, grossed out when
they see the wastewater in front of them and realize
where it comes from? “They get used to it,” Paul says
with a smile. “The important message we’re sending
out is that this school doesn’t just talk about respecting
the environment.” ■
why did we do
that anyway?
that,
(it turns out that those particularly “Waldorfian”
aspects of our education, which we sometimes
thought were just plain strange, were not thought
up just to torture us. They are based on real educational principles...editor)
by Anne Greer
Renate Krause
Heidi Strahm
The Handshake: When your class teacher or high school advisor greeted you each morning
with a handshake, they were saying “hi” to you. But they were also establishing a quick
understanding of how things had been with you since last you met. Is the hand hot or cold?
Limp or firm? Is there joy in the greeting or reluctance? Is there nervousness in the eyes? Has
sleep been refreshing or troubled? Did something upsetting happen on the way to school?
Steiner was clear that each time we meet another person, even someone we have known for a
long time, we are meeting a new person and that we ourselves are new at each meeting. The
handshake reminds the teacher to really look at each student at the beginning and end of the day
and to recognize the changed individuality in every one.
Morning Verses: Human beings thrive on a certain amount of predictable, rhythmical activity.
When the teacher asks the class to stand for the morning verse, this is a clear indication that
school has begun. Besides clearing the space between the outside world and the school world,
saying the same verse together as a group for a period of years allows a brief time each day for a
small meditation that unites the class with each other and the teacher in a common purpose. The
words spoken remind teachers and students alike of the reverence that lives in all of us for the
wonder of the universe and how we each connect with it.
Main Lessons: An uninterrupted ninety-minute main lesson at the beginning of each day is a
central feature of Waldorf education. This facilitates an intensification of the learning experience
for both students and teachers. One subject can be systematically focused upon every day for
three or four weeks. Students can commit themselves to a deeper understanding while teachers
have artistic scope to introduce a variety of activities. Canadian folk songs enhance a Grade 5
geography lesson. A medieval market in Grade 7 combines history and arithmetic, with a scene
from Chaucer added for dramatic flair. Watching a delicate surgical process in a local hospital
makes physiology real for Grade 10. Late in the 20th Century, public educators such as Jerome
Bruner and Howard Gardiner began to see the value of interdisciplinary thematic teaching
involving “multiple intelligences,” something that Waldorf schools have been doing for decades.
Main Lesson Books: Most Waldorf alumni/ae, or their parents, have probably kept main
lesson books created during their time at Waldorf. There is an understandable pride in those
books with their drawings, compositions, observations, and diagrams, all done to the best
THE SCHOOL, 2003 - COURTESY OF ERIC ROBI
outofbounds 39
of the student’s ability, in full and colourful detail. The
concept behind the main lesson book is that until a student
“reworks” the material with their own head and hands, they
will not have made the material truly their own or even
fully understood it. Having to create a main lesson book
makes it harder to get away with “in one ear and out the
other.” The main lesson book is a concrete, comprehensive
and creative manifestation of the hours of learning that take
place in the classroom. In the ideal classroom, the main
lesson book allows students to excel at their strengths and
to work on their weaknesses.
Recitation: Through lower school and high school,
Waldorf students learn poems and short pieces of prose by
heart and deliver them aloud in choral speech. Recitation
was once very common in public schools but went out
of fashion in the 1950s. Waldorf continued the practice
because teachers saw great value in the skills that could
be practised: attention to the spoken word, increased
memory, increased group awareness, and, of course, a rich
storehouse of great literature to draw on in moments of
need.
De-emphasis on Early Reading: By Grade 2 in Waldorf
schools, many parents are beginning to panic that their
bright, curious child has not yet learned to read. Steiner
recognized that until around the age of nine or ten,
most children are not developmentally ready to read. In
Waldorf schools, playing with friends, inventing magical
40 outofbounds
TWO BOTTOM PHOTOS COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE
Handwork and Woodwork: From the very first knitted
pot-holder in Grade 1, through years of recorder cases,
gym bags, hats, mitts, wooden spoons, bowls, stools, tables
and guitars, copper jewellery, bound books, weavings, and
pottery, Waldorf students learn to make beautiful, useful
objects. Waldorf educators believe that it is as important
to educate the hands as it is the heart and the mind. Steiner
asserted that finger dexterity at a young age helps prepare
the brain for later dexterity of thought. That the brain
is physiologically built through this kind of stimulation
is an understanding now widely held by doctors and
physiotherapists. The ability to sit still and concentrate
for long periods of time, to bring a project to completion,
to appreciate what it takes to make something by hand
from scratch are all important aspects of handwork and
woodwork. Since the beginning, Waldorf schools have gone
against the historically gendered approach to this kind of
work – where boys found themselves in Shop and girls in
Home Ec. Since the first school was founded in 1919, boys
and girls have done handwork and woodwork together,
creating an environment where it is accepted that men can
sew and knit and women can use power tools.
worlds and running about with a ball are considered vital
activities in early childhood development. Many modern
educational experts such as Frank Smith and Jonathan
Kozol have come to the same conclusions and suggest that
much psychological damage can be done by the increased
anxiety surrounding early reading. Steiner felt that even the
physical body could be harmed in such ways as weakened
eyesight and respiratory problems, not to mention through
lack of exercise, and that such problems might not surface
until many years later. Waldorf educators hold fast to the
principle that young children see the world in a special
way. By learning to read early, children lose the ability to
see the world without the overlay of a “concept,” hence
robbing them of a way of perceiving the world that will
no longer be available to them later on (when they’ll have
plenty of time to read). As studies of pre-literate societies
have revealed, learning to read also has a direct co-relation
to diminished memory and listening skills. Reading is a
finite skill, like learning to ride a bicycle. Once a student
has mastered reading, there is no measurable difference
in their ability and that of a student who learned to read
earlier. The idea of a “race to read,” where the first one
out of the block stays ahead forever, makes no sense. Late
readers can easily become better readers than early readers.
Since books written for three-year olds are generally none
too memorable, there is no worry in Waldorf circles about
waiting to read more substantial books at a later age. Waldorf
schools, however, make sure that when reading becomes
essential and appropriate all students learn to read at a high
level. With a class teacher taking students from Grade 1 to
Grade 4 or 8, there is less chance of “falling through the
cracks” in terms of ability to read than in other systems. ■
and we perceive the tone of the speaker’s voice,
high-pitched or low, fast or slow, shrill or soft. In
music, we hear tones and intervals and the mood
of the piece. This is all audible to us. In Eurythmy
we do not only hear, but we try consciously to
enter a different world, a world that underlies or
penetrates our physical world, and make it visible
through movement. This world lives in every
sound we utter, in every tone we hear. It penetrates
our language inaudibly, invisibly, just as invisible
growing forces penetrate every cell in our body.
Anthroposophy calls this invisible world the world
of life, or the etheric world.
Without knowing the eurythmic gestures we
can become conscious of the tendency of the
movements that live in an “ah” (star), “ee” (queen),
or “oo” (root) sound. Just by speaking these vowels
and by experiencing where they are located in our
mouth we can hear and feel the difference between
them. It is an expression of emotions and moods
that live in vowels.
What do the consonants tell us? They aren’t as
musical as the vowels. Say, “T,” “K,” or “M.” They
have form and contour. Their gestures are like
sculptures that give us pictures of the world. For
example, “W” in water, wave, wind; “B” in barrel,
bear, bud. Besides the movements that live in
each sound the rhythm, the metre, the rhyme, etc.,
are made visible. When stories are told or poetry
is recited one word follows another. So do the
eurythmic gestures follow each other in constant
flow. We experience something like sculptures
that have left their stillness and have become fluid
movement expressed by the human body. This is
true also of music – its tones, intervals, major and
minor moods become fluid movement that are
manifest by flowing outward into human
gesture.
Eurythmy can touch the whole human being
because our life-organism is beneficially affected
by expressing - or even by seeing the expression
of - the world of life (the etheric) through physical
movement. For children, doing Eurythmy helps
them gain a sense of themselves in physical space.
■
Renate Krause
Painting - wet-on-wet: The living being of colour
permeates the world and at the same time is a
means by which the soul can give expression.
This is especially true for the young child, who,
when painting with colour, is totally immersed
in its inner experience. The purest appearance of
colour is in the rainbow - in light and air. As it is
not possible to paint with light and air, the next
most flexible medium is water. In the early years,
the child paints with wet colour on wet paper
within which colour can flow freely and can retain
its transparent nature. Using this method also
offers children the experience of discovering for
themselves how mixing colours can create “new”
colours and encourages their imaginative abilities.
The stories or “main lesson themes” throughout
grade school can evoke inner images and emotions
in the child and again find expressive outlet in
their painting. For instance, the drama of the Old
Anne Greer greerwhite@ns.sympatico.ca
Testament stories told in Grade 3 may lead to
painting exercises with red and blue (for Moses’
anger, and the reaction of those towards whom
the anger is directed).
Painting geographical maps when the children
are a bit older helps them understand the
different general characteristics of different
countries or continents . Mountain ranges in
Europe or northern Africa tend to be in a more
east-west direction, in America more northsouth. Or, for example, in painting the country
of Greece, children can notice through their
brush strokes how it is to form such a place
with its undulating coast line and many inlets
in contrast to painting Spain, which has another
form altogether. The painting of seasons, also,
awakens in the child the strong poetic feeling of
those seasons, which is more important at this
stage than their realist representation.
People often wonder why the art produced in the
lower grades seems so uniform, in contrast to
the individual creativity that Waldorf education
intends to foster. The reason for this is that
painting in the younger grades is not intended to
be an “art lesson,” in which particular art skills
are conveyed and then practised. Rather, it is
intended as an experience, just as telling a story
or relating an aspect of history is an experience
conveyed in common to the whole class. It is
the experience of a certain colour or a certain
combination of colours that is intended, and
this experience is one in which the whole class
shares. ■
Heidi Strahm heidestrahm@hotmail.com
Eurythmy: In Greek, Eurythmy means “harmonious
movement.” What kind of movement is it? Why do we do
Eurythmy in the Waldorf school? A real understanding of
Eurythmy is only possible by either seeing it or by doing it.
Therefore the following can just be an attempt at an
answer.
Eurythmy is visible speech and visible song. In that it differs
from dance. In dance you move to music, or in rare cases, to
the spoken word, expressing the emotions that they raise in
you. However, in Eurythmy, rather than being motivated by
one’s emotional response to the sound, the tones, intervals,
and major and minor moods in music (and the vowels and
consonants in speech) themselves motivate the movement.
Each element of music and speech has a gesture unique to it
that can make it visible to the eye through human
gesture.
In ordinary conversation we hear vowels and consonants
PAINTING BY ARTIST LEO KLEIN - IT HANGS IN THE HALLWAY BETWEEN THE OFFICE AND THE FACULTY ROOM
outofbounds 41
Main Lesson, Kaunas, Lithuania - COURTESY OF FREUNDE DER ERZIEHUNGSKUNST RUDOLF STEINERS E.V.
wondering what to tell your friends
about Waldorf? maybe this will
help....a little..
there in the human being.” He wanted an “education which does not aim merely
at dispensing knowledge, but which tries to call forth capacities; an education
which does not merely sharpen the intellect, but which works toward the
strengthening of the will... stimulating and developing real initiative.” What
does this mean in practice? Essentially, Steiner believed that how something
is taught is at least as important as what is taught. Whether the subject is
mathematics, history, or physics, it must be presented in a way that makes a
living connection between the teacher, the student and the subject. In other
words, education must have soul. What is alive in the teacher meets what is alive
in the student meets what is alive in the material! To meet what is most alive in
a group of children requires the ability to clearly observe and compassionately
understand each individual child (this is the art of it) while at the same time
remaining sensitive to the general development of all children and to the
requirements of the subject being taught.
Stages of Development:
(Of course, we know what
it felt like to be at TWS - we know what we
learned and how we learned it - but since the
school does not teach its pedagogical philosophy
(no school does), we are often not clear about
the principles that stand behind the practice.
I think it’s always better to know than not to
know...editor)
Waldorf Education: Basic Principles
by Anne Greer greerwhite@ns.sympatico.ca
Introduction
Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire.
William Butler Yeats
All parents want a school in which their child will be safe and happy while
receiving a solid education: academically, artistically, physically, and
morally. All good schools offer such programmes.
Beyond the basics, however, lies a deeper question: what view of childhood
does the school have?
Historically, there are two basic positions. The first assumes that when
babies are born they are essentially empty. Using a current metaphor, the
mind of a newborn child could be viewed as a computer without software.
The task of adults is clear: to design and install programmes that will enable
children to do very specific tasks – compute, process, and sort. According to
this position, skills acquisition is everything.
Waldorf pedagogy takes the second position. The word “education” comes
from the Latin; translated literally, it means “to lead forth.” Often described
as “education from the inside out,” Waldorf education is based on the belief
42 outofbounds
that each child comes into the world as a
fully formed and distinctive personality with a remarkable complexity
of talents, abilities and ways of engaging with the world. While
teaching children “how to do things” is a part of any education, the
underlying intent of Waldorf education is to assist children in following
the path of who they are to become, in uncovering the wisdom and
igniting the creativity that already reside within themselves.
Steiner’s Concept of the Human Being:
Point Three: The concept of development is key to Waldorf education. Whereas
most school systems determine their curricula according to the cognitive
capacity of children at a certain age and the particular requirements of a society
at a particular time in history (algebra is too hard for a seven-year-old; See
Jane Run is too easy for a twelve-year-old; skilled labourers were required
in post-WW II Ontario so vocational schools were opened; IT specialists are
required in the last decade of the 20th Century and beyond so computer studies
and the sciences are promoted in schools), the Waldorf
Point One: Recognizing the spirituality of the child is the foundation
upon which the whole of Waldorf education rests.
Rudolf Steiner based his educational work on his recognition that the
human is more than a physical being, but rather a bridge between the
material world and the spiritual world, fully capable of experiencing
both. There is nothing radical about this in itself – there are many
educational systems that are founded on a religious or spiritual
presupposition – but Steiner’s account of spirituality was, and still is,
not quite main-stream in that the spiritual for him is not “up there”
or “after death” or about “heaven and hell” but is right here in the
everyday world. Rudolf Steiner wrote: “Make use of an ancient
principle: spirit is never without matter, matter never without spirit.”
(From a lecture on the social question, Stuttgart, 1919)
Education as an Art
Point Two: Education should be an art, for both the teacher and the
student. Teachers should be able to compassionately observe students
(as artists do their subject) in order to fully and deeply connect with
them. Each subject should be presented as though it is an art, allowing
students to experience subjects with all of their faculties: practical,
emotional and intellectual.
From the beginning, Steiner insisted, “Waldorf education is not a
pedagogical system but an art - the art of awakening what is actually
In Waldorf education we see human development in successive
seven-year phases. Young children are imitators, they learn by doing:
their eagerness and confidence is strengthened through a careful
balance of “hands-on” free-play and group activity. Children from
birth to around seven are busy growing physically and becoming
acquainted with the physical world; they drink in the world through
their senses. Before any learning can occur children must encounter
the world (empirical knowledge).
Grade school children make steady intellectual gains, inspired to
learn through feeling: painting, drama, movement, and music bring
traditional subjects to life. From around seven through fourteen,
children are active thinkers but they think with their feelings, as it
were: concepts are understood through an emotional and imaginative
engagement in the stories that surround them and the feelings of awe
and wonder that arise from them. To have compassion for the world
students must experience it in their hearts (intuitive knowledge).
High school students take hold of the world with a rapidly developing
intellect; analytical and critical thinking sharpens, while the need
to exercise the emotions and engage the body continues. At the
onset of puberty, the young person begins to use and hone a strictly
conceptual, abstract, and analytical cognitive capacity. To make sense
of the world students have to be able to conceptualize it in their minds
(theoretical knowledge).
The theory is that if these distinct “ways of knowing” are nurtured at
the right time, when students are most open to them, then the adult
will be able to harmonize them all into a powerful, many-layered
engagement with the world.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - TWS ALUMNI/AE FROM THE EARLY ‘70s TO THE EARLY ‘90s
curriculum is designed according to what it determines that students need to
experience at certain stages in their physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual
development so that when they are adults they have full access to every aspect
of their being. With this, they will be ready to meet any social need while freely
exercising their individual talents.
A three year-old takes in the world very differently from a nine-year-old or a
sixteen-year-old. As young people grow and change, what is taught and how it is
taught grows and changes with them. In Waldorf schools this difference is not
calculated simply by degree of difficulty. At each stage children are exercising
a particular human capacity as they grow into their bodies: willing, feeling,
thinking. These capacities ultimately build one upon the other to work together
in harmony in the fully-grown adult.
Curriculum
Point four: The curriculum is carefully and wholly geared to
children’s development, as described above.
Intellectual instruction takes a back seat to the encouragement of
physical and emotional stability in Kindergarten. Young children are
encouraged in free, imaginative play both inside and outside. Physical
competence grows as they cook soup or make bread, polish shoes,
create simple handwork and woodwork projects, paint, perform
puppet plays or experience the laws of nature through general play.
Confidence within a group strengthens during the stories and songs
continued on page 44
outofbounds 43
GRADE 3 STUDENTS SOWING WHEAT, TARTU, ESTONIA - COURTESY OF FREUNDE DER ERZIEHUNGSKUNST RUDOLF STEINERS E.V.
of circle time or snacks and meals together.
Emphasizing the rhythms of the day, the week,
and the seasons creates security and a gratitude
for the richness of the world.
Security and stability continue as the child
moves through the lower school
under the “loving authority” of
the class teacher for the next eight
years. Each year the curriculum
underscores the psychological and
physiological development of the
growing child. The earliest lessons
in learning letters as they emerge
from board drawings of mountains
and swans, or the imaginative
stories told to introduce arithmetic,
evolve eventually into complex
mathematical processes. Science
begins with nature study and
differentiates, as the children mature,
into botany, biology, geology,
physics and chemistry and the
exciting technologies of the modern
world. History begins with fables
and mythologies and differentiates
into the study of many cultures throughout
recorded time. This movement from an
emotional/intuitive to an intellectual/analytical
connection to each subject allows students to
strengthen all ways of knowing the world as
they grow.
In high school, every attempt is made to
provide a broad and varied education rather
than the specialization so common in most
secondary schools. Each subject is taught by
a teacher who specializes in that subject, but
students take every subject across a full range
of arts, humanities and sciences, and they take
these subjects together as a class. In the high
school, students revisit the curriculum that they
encountered in the lower school, but this time
in a rigorously analytical, conceptual manner.
Narrative gives way to concept and theory, and
students are challenged to approach subjects
with their critical faculties.
Rhythms:
Point five: What occurs when in the day, the
week, the month, the year is important for
children. Waldorf pedagogy is sensitive to
44 outofbounds
the “time” environment, and attempts to create
rhythms in children’s lives that build an awareness
of, put most simply, “how things change and how
they stay the same.” This builds a sense of trust,
security, anticipation and wonder.
The daily rhythm in Waldorf schools is attuned
to the practical reality of students’ concentration
levels. The first two hours of each day when
students and teachers are most alert are devoted to
the main lesson, always a blend of the practical,
the artistic and the academic. The next few lessons
are skill lessons: languages or math. The later
lessons in the day are given over to art or physical
activities, as students become mentally tired. Each
day follows this pattern; yet each day is subtly
different as subjects vary from day to day and
from the beginning of the week to the end of the
week.
There is rhythm as well within each lesson. Lower
school students in Waldorf schools rarely sit
still. In most lessons, they are busy doing things:
clapping, stamping, drawing, painting, playing
music, singing, as well as taking in the day’s
academic content, which teachers prepare in the
rhythm of review, presentation and practice.
Woven into the content of each lesson is the
rhythm of the year. It is reflected in the literature
that is read, the poems that are recited and the
plays that are performed. It is experienced through
celebration of festivals when the whole school
comes together in recognition of the changing
seasons.
The Waldorf Environment:
Point six: The physical environment is
important in the education of children and
adolescents.
Sociologists recognize the
powerful impact of architectural
space on social relations and
psychological well-being. Urban
planners, political thinkers,
artist and the great dictators of
the world (diabolically) have
all given this much thought.
Different “spaces” make us feel
quite differently about ourselves
and about the world around us.
Waldorf schools are built
expressly to facilitate the learning
and growing of their students.
As much as possible, every
detail is given over to this goal.
Taking inspiration from “organic
architecture,” Waldorf schools try
to use forms that can be found in
the natural world, hence fewer
right angles and round designs. But Steiner’s
architectural designs went further than this
in that he saw nature as being infused with
spirituality, which is another way of saying it
is infused with movement. His architectural
designs were therefore “metamorphic.” Waldorf
schools try to incorporate spaces that show
a metamorphosis, and therefore are like the
children themselves, whose little bodies grow
and change following a particular trajectory
of the human form. This conveys a sense of
familiarity and comfort, as though the building
is their organic outer shell.
Besides this grand theory, the school
environment is intended to be “human-scaled”
and non-institutional. Every school hopes to
have a natural space for children to play in.
Each classroom reflects the curriculum of
that grade and is made friendly and personal
with plants, blackboard drawings and student
artwork. The materials that students use in
lessons are natural, as much as possible, to
circumvent the problem of toxic elements in
markers, paints, and crayons and to provide a
close semblance to materials used by real artists
and artisans. ■
ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE PRIESTLY FOR
OUTOFBOUNDS, 2003
outofbounds 45
events 03/04
ALUMNI/AE AND
TORONTO WALDORF
SCHOOL
phone: 905 881-1611
e-mail:
general@torontowaldorfschool.com
Alumni/ae, you are welcome at all
of these events!! Times and dates
may change, so call ahead...
where times are missing it’s because they have not yet
been established...
tuesday, sept 2, 9:00am
Beginning-of-year assembly
monday, sept 29
Michaelmas
saturday, nov 15 - 11am to 4pm
Candlelight Fair (formerly Christmas Fair)
alumni/ae café
monday, dec 1, 8, 15 - 9am
Advent assemblies
wednesday, dec 17 - 7:30pm
Shepherd’s Plays
friday, dec 19 Christmas Party hosted by Grade 12
friday jan 23, saturday jan 24 - 8pm
Just Desserts Theatre
saturday, jan 31
Open House
alumni/ae presence
46 outofbounds
friday apr 16, saturday apr 17
Gateways Conference (an education
conference - open to educators and the
public - call for more info)
sunday, may 23 - 12:00pm to 4pm
Mayfest
September 2003
Sun
February 2004
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
1
2
7
8
14
X
3
4
5
9
X
10
11
12
15
16
X
17
18
19
21
22
23
X
24
25
26
28
29
30
X
X
X
Fri
X
Sat
6
13
X
20
27
Mon
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
x
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
x
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
x
25
26
27
28
x
Fri
Sat
29
March 2004
October 2003
Sun
Sun
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
1
2
3
4
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
1
2
3
4
5
6
friday may 28, saturday may 29
Grade 12 Play
5
6
7
X
8
9
10
11
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
12
13
14
X
15
16
17
18
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
friday, june 11 - 7:30pm
Grade 12 graduation
19
20
21
X
22
23
24
25
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
26
27
28
X
29
30
31
28
29
30
31
Tue
Wed
alumni/ae presenting
friday, june 18 - 9am
End-of-year assembly
Sun
Mon
Tue
3
4
june - days to be determined
9
10
11
20th and 25th
graduation reunions
(class of '84 and class of '79)
16
17
24
phone: 905 764-7570
e-mail: info@rsct.ca
friday, sept 5 - 9:30am RSC Open
Morning - Coffee and watercolour
painting
wednesday, sept 17 - 7:30pm
Foundation Studies Introductory Evening,
RSC
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
1
2
RUDOLF STEINER CENTRE,
TORONTO
located in the school building
Wed
23
30
X
5
6
7
8
X
12
13
14
15
18
X
19
20
21
25
X
26
27
28
Mon
6
7
8
9
11
12
13
14
15
16
22
18
19
20
21
22
23
29
25
26
27
28
29
30
Tue
Wed
Thu
X
17
X
24
X
May 2004
Wed
Thu
Fri
3
4
5
6
13
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
20
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
27
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23 X
30
24
25
26
27
28
Tue
Wed
Thu
1
2
3
4
1
X
7
8
X
9
10
11
12
14
15
X
16
17
18
19
21
22
23
24
25
26
28
29
30
31
X
Sat
Sun
Mon
Fri
Sat
1
January 2004
Mon
10
5
X
Sat
3
Tue
2
Sun
Fri
2
4
December 2003
Sun
Thu
1
31
X
29
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Fri
5
2
3
7
8
9
10
6
7
8
9
10
11
X
12
17
13
14
15
16
17
18
X
19
24
25
4
5
6
11
12
13
x
14
15
16
18
19
20
x
21
22
23
25
26
27
x
28
29
30
X
24
X
20
21
22
23
31
X
27
28
29
30
26
saturday, jan 31 - 10:00am
Teacher Education Open House,
RSC
saturday, apr 24 - 7:30pm
Salute to Spring - Sheridan
Nurseries, Unionville
Check out RSC programmes at
www.rsct.ca
2) This alumni/ae magazine is an annual - it
will come out every year in September. This is a
substantive magazine, containing school and alumni/ae
events schedules, alumni/ae, TWS, and international
Waldorf news and histories, features on alumni/ae and
faculty, articles on innovative aspects of the school
building, archive and current photographs, alumni/ae artwork, and other themes to be developed by alumni/ae.
To help raise funds, a few pages are being set aside for
advertising and messages.
about NEXT YEAR’S EDITION OF outofbounds
X
Sat
1
friday, jan 16 - 9:30am
Free Introductory Morning on Spirit
Speech, RSC
1) The alumni/ae database is being updated in a
rigorous and systematic way. This is an extremely
labour intensive endeavour since there is no recorded
information about many alumni/ae other than their
names. But since work was started, an alumni/ae group
e-mail list of about 350 has been compiled and there
has been personal contact with many of these. This
represents not even half of all TWS alumni/ae, but it’s
a good start. Once the database is completely up-todate, and is maintained on an ongoing basis, it will be
an invaluable resource not only for alumni/ae work
but also for the school. For the alumni/ae it means that
we can keep in touch with each other and build our
community. For the school it gives access to all kinds of
statistical information about alumni/ae: how many years
they attended the school, their post-secondary degrees,
diplomas, certificates, their occupation, their special
interests, and much more. This information will help
the school to build its sense of history and to confirm its
accomplishment in providing a place where students are
prepared to meet the world.
continued on page 49
June 2004
Tue
friday, sept 19 - 9:30am
Free Morning on the Heart Chakra,
RSC
saturday, nov 15 - 10:00am
RSC Coffee House at TWS
Candlelight Fair
April 2004
November 2003
tuesday lectures - sept 16 to nov
25; jan 13 to feb 24
Free Fall and Winter Lectures on
Tuesday evenings
- 6 St. Joseph St., 1 block north
of Wellesley subway, just west of
Yonge St.
The contributors to this edition have been amazing. I think we all had fun putting this
together. Again, a big thank you from me to all of you!
For next year’s edition, I would like to add new contributors to our list. I will need:
►WRITERS to write features on alumni/ae, faculty, the school, or...pitch me an idea...
► ARTISTS who want to be featured or who are willing to create an original piece for the
magazine...
►PHOTOGRAPHERS with a digital camera...
►a PROFESSIONAL to prepare photo images for print...
WORK IS ON A VOLUNTEER BASIS IN SUPPORT OF OUR MAGAZINE
please contact Katja at 416 538-9536 katjarudolph@aol.com
outofbounds 47
WELCOME to the alumni/ae
community....
3) Alumni/ae pages are being developed in conjunction
with the upcoming official Toronto Waldorf School
Web site: www.torontowaldorfschool.com. These will
include a password protected e-mail and phone-number
directory, events schedules (on-line registration for events
eventually), news about alumni/ae, news about the school,
as well as many other features (bulletin board, chat room,
archive and current photo-gallery) whereby alumni/ae can
interact with each other and the school.
4) Annual events are being programmed for the years
to come. Events will fall into two categories: those that
are integrated into the life of the school and the festivals,
celebrations and events that take place there already; those
that are planned solely for alumni/ae, including class
reunions - with invited faculty. The endeavour will be to
create an alumni/ae tradition in which events and activities
become regular features in the calendar, occurring
unfailingly from year to year.
5) A service programme is being developed: Alumni/ae
represent a wealth of talent, expertise and experience. This
they can share with the school in many ways, including as
guest speakers in the classroom, as consultants/specialists
addressing other school needs, and by offering feedback
to teachers regarding readiness for post-secondary
programmes and work. The alumni/ae will also, in the
future, be a support for present TWS students through
mentorship and award/financial assistance programmes.
Adam McCluggage
Nicolas Bergeron
Nathaniel Anderson-Frank
Allison La Sorda
Alina Iannovskaia
Marni Salkovitch
Rebecaa Rappaport
Suzanne Ballah
Rhys Machold
Spencer Evoy
Katie Main
Ilyas Searon
Sasha Sefter
Dennis Cheng
Francesca Small
Maya Kamo
Nadia Tan
Laren Joyce
Melinda Myles
Darius Djawadi
Ingmar Buchwietz
Brendan Beckett
Alexei Guerra
Sylvia chomko
Christopher Tsimbidis
Andrew Herz
Zachariah Tatham
Sunni Anne Ball
Amanda Wright
...Class of 2003
48 outofbounds
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - MEMBERS OF THE HIGH SCHOOL FACULTY, 1985
6) A volunteer base is being built. Volunteers are crucial
to the success of events and activities and to the building
of our community. Do call, if you are interested. ■
Katja Rudolph
messages from your former
teachers...
Keep making music!
To all my former students,
Love, Elisabeth
Koekebakker
I would be delighted to meet
you again at school or to hear
from you via e-mail!
Best wishes from Gerhard
Rudolph
Gerhard_Rudolph@hotmail.com
Dear Class of '00,
22 kisses when you wake,
22 candles on your cake.
Happy 22nd Birthdays!
Dear Class of '88,
Love, Kathryn (Ms.) H
Happiness and Peace to you
all.
kvjh@ca.inter.net
Love, Elisabeth Hoffman
Chomko
kechomko@immediadesign.ca
Dear Class of '90,
Viva Mandela! Viva!
Please stop by to visit
sometime. I’d love to
catch up with you
again.
Much love, Helene
helenegross@yahoo.ca
Remember those copper rods?
Greetings to all my former students!
Renate Krause
Hello my dear friends of
'83, '87, '88 and '92!
Come back and visit.
Close the circle!
Best wishes,
Mrs. R
To all my former students,
I hope you’re still using the
subjunctive mood and reading
“Miller’s Tale” to your children.
Cheers, Mr. A
weymouth@ptdprolog.net
rumaxe@hotmail.com
THANKS FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THIS MAGAZINE
outofbounds 49
Why is Waldorf Education
Still Unique?
Is it time to find out more?
Visit us at the
Rudolf Steiner Centre
Toronto
(on the TWS campus)
www.rsct.ca
905-764-7570
if you discover an error,
know a photo credit or
have some information
that is missing here,
please contact Katja
Rudolph at 416 5389536 or
katjarudolph@aol.com
contributions to
the magazine are
very welcome payable to the
Toronto Waldorf
School send to: Katja
Rudolph,
52 Rusholme
Road,
Toronto, ON,
M6J 3H5
The magazine name
outofbounds won out
over the runners-up,
Walflower and Beeswax,
from a list of around
fifty contributed by
TWS alumni/ae over
the last eight months.
We all know what
outofbounds
means: off school
property...where
we find ourselves
permanently these
days!! We were not
allowed out of bounds
for two reasons - for
our safety and to protect
the delicate ecosystem
around the school. We
went out there (only rarely,
of course) to test the nature
of this boundary - the line
that divides “the school”
and “the world” - and to
look in at the school from
another vantage point.
Whereas our safety “out
here” is no longer an issue,
we’re still, it is hoped, conscious of the various social,
cultural, and natural “ecosystems” in which we now
live. We are also uniquely
positioned to look in at
the school from another
vantage point. The school
can benefit greatly from
this critical and affectionate
gaze, and we get to reflect
upon our early friendships,
the content and form of our
early formal education, and
how these have affected
who we are today.
Full-time Painting Study
Programme
Lay Courses
for painting enthusiasts
Part-time and personally
tailored programmes
Sekretariat
Geotheanumstr. 16
Ch-4143 Dornach
Tel: 0041-61-701-4877
Antony Christopher Hassell, Class
of ‘85, owner
Hilton Francis Hassell, Customer
Relations baby-face (and Chris’s
son)
thanks to Mark Klein (TWS parent)
and In-House Printing Services
416 667-0088 ext. 223
1 800 259-0945
mklein@inhouse.ca
50 outofbounds
THANKS FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THIS MAGAZINE
outofbounds 51
inbounds
52 outofbounds
COURTESY OF TWS ARCHIVE - TWS STUDENTS IN PLAYGROUND, LATE 1990s