Executive Director Update Winter 2025

 

 

The first Monday in December the Grade School children entered in their noisy joyful way. Soon their teachers settled them down to quietly enter the first of a special series of assemblies in Dakin Hall. After all the children had entered, with the mood set by lovely music and a wreathed candle at the center, a caped storyteller leaning on his walking stick appeared. Mr. Williams told them the Shoshone tale of the time when the Great Grizzly Bear made his way to the Sky World. There, in the Milky Way, the Great Grizzly Bear guides us to this day.

The same Monday, at the High School, students spilled into the gym after their Main Lesson. They clustered on the bleachers with some visiting 8th graders in their midst. After some student announcements, the guest of honor took the floor. Frack Marchis, Senior Planetary Astronomer at the SETI Institute, told the students what it would take to have life on another planet. It would have to be a very temperate planet, and, by the way, there are as many as 300 million in our galaxy alone! Bacteria found in ancient rocks show that it is possible, even likely, that life is there.

At San Francisco Waldorf School, there are many moments like this when awe is nurtured. When students connect to the rhythms of the earth through their own sense and imagination, we are building something lasting. This open hearted education stimulates, motivates, and sustains. Instead of cynicism there is curiosity. Instead of apathy there is action.

Even the little ones walk in the wonder of the darkness of this cold and quiet season. Last week, the preschoolers made colorful lanterns with their parents. When darkness fell one evening, they lit their candles, and, like a glowworm, wound their way through the forest singing.

I saw what this kind of education looks like in full grown adult San Francisco Waldorf School graduates at the Winter Faire. Alumni from here in San Francisco and as far as Washington, DC, stopped in the curriculum room to admire the lesson books they remembered so well. One who was a mom-to-be told me she had come to SFWHS in 9th grade so she had missed doing the lower grades work on display. She hoped her baby would be a Waldorf student from the start!

Just last Friday at the High School Winter Concert, I wondered if that mom-to-be had taken her first music lesson as a 9th grader. Perhaps she picked up a guitar or a drum like so many students performing that night. She may have been in the chorus, the orchestra or the jazz band. What an amazing array of music filled Bushnell Center, looking much more like a concert hall than a basketball court that night. It made me happy to know that these students would always have a creative way to join in with friends and create something joyful, poignant, or even sad. They would know how to connect and express themselves in community. They would know how to build joy into their lives.

One thing the Waldorf parents and alumni parents have told me is how much they value this community for what it has given their families. Through those childhood years, the parents too found creative expression and a third space to nurture their children together. How else could we create events like the Winter Faire? How else could we build this school from a kindergarten classroom to a preK to a grade twelve school serving students from all over the Bay Area? The dedication of parents and teachers working together has built this school for children of the future as much as their own children. 

As you find some time for reflections and memories this season, I hope you will remember what values you have found and created in this community. Consider helping us grow together this year with a gift to our annual Community Fund. When we come together in this way the school is stronger, and we have the satisfaction of seeing our values in action -- creating something special that will always be remembered.

We are wishing you all the blessings of this season. And while you sit by a fire under the starts or in a circle of friends, get out your guitar or your recorder. I'm sure you will find a song. 

Happy holidays,

 

Lauren Smith, Executive Director