Weekly Update from the MN Waldorf School

Your Weekly Update

News from the Minnesota Waldorf School

March 30, 2010

The On-line Auction is open for bidding!

Go to www.thefrolic.com and click on On-line Auction to be taken to the Frolic on-line auction. Many great items are available including gift certificates to area restaurants and theatres, services such as homeopathic consultations, massage and manicures and fun items galore -- all just waiting for your bid! Check back often as we will be adding items as the auction progresses.

Have you noticed the Green Hat??

Look for our ticket sales volunteers in the hard to miss green hat! They would love to sell you a seat at the Frolic or tickets for one of our raffles:

Golden Ticket Wine Raffle:It's a wine adventure, led by Dave at Bright Wines in North St. Paul. Dave specializes in undervalued wines, only buying wines that are very special values and exceptional wines. Win this raffle, and you'll be picking up a new case of surprises at Bright Wines every month! Donated by MWS Board Members and parents. Minimum value $1,500. Why do we call it the Golden Ticket Raffle? Because your chances are golden -- only 100 tickets are sold! $50 per ticket.

Choose Your MWS Parking Spot: Imagine how life will change when you win the Choose Your MWS Parking Spot raffle! The prime First Fool's parking spot will be in the Live Auction this year but we are also raffling a spot--any spot of your choosing--in our main parking lot. The winner of this raffle will designate a reserved spot in the main lot for use from April 18th through the date of the 2011 Frolic Gala. Only $5 per ticket or 5 for $20!

The Ticks are Back

With the warmer temperatures, we've begun seeing ticks again.
Please check your child carefully.

Benefit Concert a Resounding Success

The March 12th Solo and Ensemble Concert provided the community with a delightful evening of music AND brought in a total of $781.00 for earthquake relief in Haiti. Thanks to all participants: musicians, bakers and bake sale organizers, coffee brewers, parents, private lesson teachers and especially to our generous donors! Money collected will go to the American Red Cross Earthquake Relief Fund.

AWSNA April Inform Available on Website

Inform is a publication sent by the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) to all the affiliated Waldorf schools in its membership to keep parents, teachers, board members, alumni, and all those interested in Waldorf Education informed of the current events affecting Waldorf schools nationally and internationally. The April issue is available on our website.

A Report from the AWSNA Great Lakes Regional Conference

by Kristi Fackel, MWS Handwork Teacher

I returned from the Toronto Waldorf School-sponsored Great Lakes Regional AWSNA conference Saturday evening, and I am still impacted by my experiences there. Not only did I see a few familiar faces, I met many people who do fascinating work on behalf of children everywhere. The keynote speaker was Michael D'Aleo, a high school science teacher at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs, NY. He reminded us that certain events and ways of understanding are particular to each place. For example, Canada is an ideal place to discuss collaboration because collaboration is a cornerstone of Canadian First Nation cultures. It begged the question: What does this time and place ask of us at the Minnesota Waldorf School, and of our sister schools, City of Lakes and Spring Hill?

We had a transformative experience with Michael, one that demonstrated to participants, how to practice mindfulness or, as he called it, "coming back to our senses," so that we can begin to undertake a new kind of thinking. Rather than using the kind of thinking where the outcome is already predicted, this New Thinking will enable us to perceive what needs to be accomplished in the world and then to do it. He called on all of us to practice "coming back to our senses" in the service of the children we teach, because it will help us to see who they are and where they are in their development. As Waldorf teachers, believe me, we practice this already, but it was an enlivening reminder.

And for ourselves, Michael said that "if we are true to who we are, we will be in harmony with the world; we should never advocate for uniformity, rather work for true individuality. To be truly human [and individual,] we must come back to where we are and come back to our senses."

Michael infused his lectures and our discussions with poetry, and I'd like to share with you a poem he brought to us when we talked about the working together that must happen between faculty, parents and the board at a Waldorf School. The poem is by David Whyte, himself a Waldorf parent. Enjoy it.

Working Together

We shape our self

to fit this world

and by the world

are shaped again.

The visible

and the invisible

working together

in common cause,

to produce

the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way

the intangible air

passed at speed

round a shaped wing

easily

holds our weight.

So may we in this life

trust

to those elements

we have yet to see

or imagine,

and look for the true

shape of our own self,

by forming it well

to the great

intangibles about us.

--from the House of Belonging

copyrighted 1996 Many Rivers Press

www.davidwhyte.com

The Frolic Needs Wine!

Thanks a case to these wonderful Board members and parents who donated wine for last year's Golden Ticket Wine Raffle. The raffle, which is limited to 100 tickets sold for $50 each, brings in $5,000 to MWS if we sell all our tickets!

Cecile & Chris Alper-Leroux

Would you like to donate a case this year? Add your name to this growing list of 2010 donors from our Board of Trustees. How does it work? You donate $131 to MWS as a tax deductible contribution, and Dave of Bright Wines selects the themes and readies the wine for pickup by the raffle winner. Easy, and you play a significant role in bringing in $5,000 for MWS.

Thanks to the 2010 donors to date... We still need 5 more to get us to 12 cases!

Sue Campbell

Tom Halverson

Melinda Lopes

Kevin McGrath

Lael Nelson

Ben Richards

Peter Schmit

Contact Liz Lacey Gotz if you're willing to donate a case of wine for a fine cause.

Photography, Videotape and Audio Recording Reminder from the College

Play season is upon us and in the next few months, each grade will present a class play. Performances by students are multifaceted events for them, full of living, inner experiences. These special experiences can live vividly in the memory if nurtured. Participants in the audience; parents, grandparents, other relatives, and friends, can help a performance stay alive in the students' engaged memory by allowing the child to speak and share their experience of the event directly. Memories nurtured in this way will remain strong and rich over time.

A recording of an event, be it audio or video, is merely a material rendering and does not capture truly the inner experience. Because of the discrepancy between the "reality" as recorded and the student's inner sense of memory of the event, a tape is often disappointing and robs the student of the richness of his or her participation. This "frozen" version of the event can counteract the transformation of the event to memory.

To help protect the quality of these types of student experiences, we ask you to refrain from photographing or recording, either audio or video, during all school performances, festivals and event.

Parent Council Media Awareness Project

Many parents in our school have received at some time an article called "Strangers in our Homes: TV and Our Children's Minds" by Susan R. Johnson, MD. The article is wonderfully written and contains not only information about the effects of television on our children but also ways we can, in the author's words, "help our children's brains develop." It addresses many questions that we as parents often find ourselves asking, such as "what about watching Sesame Street? Isn't it educational for our children?" and "what's wrong with using television as just entertainment?" The answers Dr. Johnson gives to these questions provide a startling look into the development of a child's brain. For instance, "Children watching TV do not dilate their pupils, show little to no movement (i.e., stare at the screen), and lack the normal saccadic movements of the eyes (a jumping from one line of print to the next) that is critical for reading. The lack of eye movement when watching television is a problem because reading requires the eyes to continually move from left to right across the page. The weakening of eye muscles from lack of use can't help but negatively impact the ability and effort required to read." (Johnson 2000.)

Copies of this article are on the information table in the lobby. You can also ask Brenda Haak for a copy.

For additional reading materials check out the following books:

· Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think and What We Can Do About It by Jane Healy

· Your Child's Growing Mind: Brain Development and Learning from Birth to Adolescence by Jane Healy

· Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorderby Richard Louv

· The Genius of Play: Celebrating the Spirit of Childhood by Sally Jenkinson

David Maier, 7^th grade teacher, will be at our next Parent Council meeting on April 22^nd to lead a discussion on media awareness. We invite everyone to attend.

7th Grade to Take Over Pizza Days

After Spring Break, the current 7th grade (Class of 2011) will take charge of Pizza Days. Orders are due Monday, April 12th. This ordering period will take us to the end of the school year and you should make checks payable to The Class of 2011.

Thank you for supporting the 8th grade's fundraising efforts this year. Proceeds from Pizza Days help to fund the 8th Grade Class Trip each year. This year's 8th grade will travel to Hawk Circle in May. The 7th grade looks forward to "taking over the business" to fund their own class trip next spring.

Adult Eurythmy Class

An Adult Eurythmy class will be offered every Wednesday from 6:30 to 8 pm, beginning on April 14 and ending May 19. Our visiting eurythmist, Claudia Fontana, will teach these classes in the Festival Hall. The cost is $90 and payment will be due the first class. Please register with Amy Stephens or by calling 651/487-6700. A larger group means a richer experience for all attendees. Please join us.

Farewell, We'll Miss You!

We bid a fond farewell to and send best wishes along with the Fiorito family (Anthony, Gr. 2) as they move this week to Kimberton Hills, PA. They have been eager volunteers in so many school activities. Their enthusiasm, help and smiling faces will be missed.

Donor Omissions

We apologize to following families who were inadvertently omitted from the list of donors in the 08-09 Annual Report:

Bobbe Cooper Mann & Justin Mann

Darcie & Andy Tatham

Nancy & Gregory West

Alliance for Childhood: Rethink the "Core Standards"

Take Action by April 2, 2010

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, the Alliance for Childhood is gravely concerned about the newly proposed "common core standards" for children in kindergarten and the early grades. Hundreds of early childhood health and education professionals have signed the Alliance's joint statement on the K-3 standards calling for their withdrawal. Now is the time for each of you to take action on this critical issue.

After months of drafting in secrecy, the final proposed version of the K-12 standards was released by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) on March 10. Some aspects of this version are better than the draft that was leaked to the press in January; some are worse. But overall we are sure these standards will intensify an already inappropriate emphasis on cognitive development of young children that is divorced from social-emotional and physical development. Current practices are already causing enormous stress in children's lives. These new standards will add to that.

The NGA and CCSSO have announced that the proposed standards are "available for comment" until April 2, after which they will revise the standards and issue the final version. Unfortunately, this is not a true public comment process, such as would be required for an important piece of legislation moving through Congress. Yet the federal government has announced that billions of tax dollars-including "Race to the Top" and Title I education funds-will be tied to states' adopting these standards. We are deeply troubled by this entire process.

The NGA and CCSSO have set up an online survey to collect comments. The survey is rather confusing. Here are the steps you need to take to ask that the early childhood standards be withdrawn and reconsidered:

1.      Go to www.corestandards.org.
2.      Scroll to the bottom of the home page and click on the link to the questionnaire.
3.      At the "Section 2-Feedback" page, choose the third option, "English Language Arts and Mathematics Standards."
4.      The next page asks you to "select the level of feedback you would like to give." Choose the second option, "General Feedback and Feedback on Specific Sections."
5.      On the "Specific Feedback-English Language Arts" page, check the four boxes for K-5 (Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language). This will enable you to select "Remove or entirely rewrite" as your preference if you agree with our position.
6.      On the "Specific Feedback-Mathematics" page, check the four boxes for Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3. This will enable you to select "Remove or entirely rewrite."

It is vital that you submit comments and get friends and colleagues to do the same. It's a small window of time between now and April 2, but the biggest one Americans have had yet to speak out about the need for strong, experiential, play-based approaches to early education. Use the boxes for "additional comments" in the questionnaire to inform policymakers about your own experiences and concerns about early education.

See the Alliance web site, www.allianceforchildhood.org, to read our statement on the standards, the comments of many of the signers, and more details on how you can respond. Policymakers need to hear from us all, especially parents and teachers. Their voices are rarely heard on educational issues. It's time to act.

With warm regards,

Joan Almon and Ed Miller

Spring at the School Store

The school store carries several wonderful products from Purple Prairie Botanicals. Stop in and try a sample of Purple Prairie sunscreen and bug repellent. Purple Prairie Sunscreen made the 2009 Environmental Working Group's list of top ten safe sunscreens (http://www.ewg.org/cosmetics/report/sunscreen09/Beach-Sunscreens). Also, try their delicious soaps and lotions: Honey Oatmeal, Cinnamon Clove, Sandalwood Sage, etc.

There's an egg-stravaganza going on-- wooden eggs, felted eggs, gem eggs and ukranian eggs!! Planning to decorate blown eggs this spring? Pick up a "Blas-Fix" to quickly and easily empty your eggs. It has been the spring savior of many an MWS family. Also available: colored dyes, bleeding tissue paper, and ukranian egg decorating tools.

Brighten your spring nature table with felted chicks, bumblebees, sheep or pigs. Hang a butterfly ornament. Choose from a selection of egg-shaped beeswax candles or roll your own in spring colors of blue, green or yellow! Choose a bunny or flower for your candle ring. Page through some of the new books in the store and get inspired!

Here comes the sun! Spring into outdoor fun with a new pair of gardening gloves or a brightly colored kite! Keep your eyes open for rakes and tools...they'll be arriving soon! Hang a Japanese wind bell outside or find the perfect vase for spring's first flowers.

And finally, if you're looking for a special chocolate for your easter basket or anytime, may we suggest the new peanut butter or coconut pavé from B.T. McElrath's spring collection!

Alumni News

Congratulations to Isaac Maier (MWS Class of '08), who was awarded a rating of Superior, by the Minnesota State High School League,

during a recent State-Section Music Contest, for a piece he played on his cello. Isaac was also awarded an academic letter from Forest Lake High School.

Do you have news to share about a Minnesota Waldorf School alum? We always love to hear about our graduates.

Contact: Liz Lacey-Gotz

Community News

Christian Community Services Sunday April 11-- Services of The Christian Community, also known as the Movement for Religious Renewal, a church inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner, will be held on Sunday April 11 at the Minnesota Waldorf School. The Act of Consecration of Man for Adults will be at 10:30, preceded by a Children's Service for grades 1-8 and followed by a presentation on the Easter Season by Rev. Gisela Wielki and a potluck lunch. Contact Louise Ludford 952-238-0603 for details.

The service will also be held at Camphill Viilage Minnesota near Sauk Centre on Saturday April 10. See flyer on the school bulletin board for details. Note: The Christian Community, also known as The Movement for Religious Renewal, although inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner, is not affiliated with the Anthroposophical Society or the local Twin Cities Branch. Posting of Christian Community events is provided as a courtesy to the local Christian Community congregation.

City of Lakes Waldorf School Dance for 7^th & 8^th Grades

You're invited! Saturday, April 17 from 7-10 pm. DJ and dancing at CLWS for 7th and 8^th graders. $10 admission at the door. City of Lakes Waldorf School is located at 2344 Nicollet Ave. S. Minneapolis 55404. Submit music requests to cbmcenery@yahoo.com. They will be forwarded to the DJ before the dance.

In This Issue