Waldorf News

Remembering Else Göttgens

Else Göttgens

By BONNIE HOLDEN, Waldorf School of San Diego (WSSD)

Back when WSSD could not afford to put much mentoring or teacher support in its budget, the school was blessed with the best ever mentor. Else Göttgens, a master teacher  from Holland, made it her mission in her “retirement” to help English-speaking schools grow strong by providing assistance to teachers through annual mentoring visits.

For more than 9 years, Else visited WSSD. Her services were all we could afford in those days, but what we got was beyond priceless. She rarely missed her mark with child observations and classroom management.  For those of us lucky enough to experience her help—which struck both terror and evoked elation in our hearts—we will always remember her directness: “All right, you do this, this, and this very well; now let’s get down to work!”  We will always carry a little of Else within us.

Now Else is on the other side of life-helping us still, I am sure.  Else crossed the threshold of death on June 30, 2013, at the age of 92.

Join me in inwardly giving thanks and celebrating her life.

Thank you, Else. Bon Voyage!

Born in 1921 in Indonesia to a successful Dutch commercial lawyer and his flamboyant wife, Else’ first trips across the world began at the age of one, aboard the great steam-powered ocean-liners of the time. Largely raised by nannies and having not lived in one place for longer than two years until the age of 24, she first encountered Anthroposophy during the chance visit of a Waldorf school in Den Haag (NL) in 1939. She immediately and passionately espoused the education and took on her first class at the Zeist Steiner School in 1941.

This began her remarkable 41-year vocation as class teacher at a number of schools in the Netherlands and the UK. In 1972, and while on this journey, she pioneered the Eindhoven Steiner School in Holland, a thriving school to this day. She spent her last four years there as a foreign language and remedial teacher before “retiring”…

At 61, Else launched her new career as a full-time mentor and traveling “Master Teacher.” For the next twenty years, she spent eight months a year “on the road,” visiting schools on a regular circuit which included the UK, Hawaii, the US west coast (spring), the US east coast (fall) as well as schools closer to home in the Netherlands.

As mentor to dozens of teachers, new and old, Else actively observed children of all ages in the classroom; she advised individual teachers as well as faculties and parent groups, offering on-going counseling and countless courses, lectures and workshops every year.

A bit of a rebel at heart and always reluctant to take anything on authority, Else laughingly admitted that what helped her most in her mentoring work was the fact that she herself had made so many of the mistakes she saw along the way.

Remembering Else

By LAURA SELLECK, Housatonic Valley Waldorf School (HVWS)

From Michaelmas onward, when fall displays its brightest colors and there is a snap in the air, many faculty members think of the semi-annual arrival of Else Göttgens, HVWS’ beloved teacher mentor and international master Waldorf teacher. Else left us on June 30, 2013 following a brief illness.

Else came from her home in Eindhoven, Netherlands, for a visit lasting a week or two almost every fall and spring. Here she observed several teachers (often the newest faculty members), and offered them feedback that would have lasting impact on the teachers’ careers as well as on the HVWS children. She had great affection for children and a deep knowledge about human development as viewed by Rudolf Steiner.

In her 92 years on earth, Else was a Waldorf teacher, founder of a Waldorf school, worldwide mentor, author, lecturer, and an opinionated woman of the highest moral sensibilities, who, in her later years, befriended many Waldorf school communities as she guided the teachers. Her peripatetic path took her from the East coast to the West and back while visiting the United States for months at a time twice a year. She was in such great demand that she was finally persuaded to write down her thoughts on teaching in a Waldorf school. Waldorf Education in Practice (available online at Barnes & Noble or Amazon) presents, in her own exacting but charming style, the essence of Waldorf teaching.

Here at HVWS, Else provided lasting guidance, many nuggets of wisdom, and great friendships with teachers who willingly signed up to take Else on excursions that involved viewing running water, the splendid landscape (“Slow down, please, I want to see, not just look.”), Thai food, chocolate, and perhaps a small snooze in the midday sun. She was always welcomed into the homes of willing hosts (this writer included), where she made wonderful company, kept up her steady habits of drinking tea and eating biscuits in the late afternoon, and after supper, playing card games with the host, who would regularly admit defeat.

MaryBeth Thomas, former HVWS Grades teacher, remembered Else with great affection. “I truly felt like I was in the presence of a sage or saint because Else had such an amazing presence, offered deep wisdom with practical advice, and could see right through me! But she looked with love, so I never felt judged; I knew that she always had my students’ and my best interests at heart and that her goal was to serve and guide.” MaryBeth said she felt Else, “was leading me to find my true Self, my higher Self.”

We will always remember Else’s gifts of knowledge, vision, compassion and deep understanding. We’ll also find her in falling water, tea biscuits, and lavender-hued woolens. Else will live on in those who learned from her and loved her. In the future, her formidable wisdom will often appear at the moment a lesson is truly working, or accompanying a realization about a child’s learning style.

“Exactly!” as Else might say.

The photo is of Else Göttgens and her friend Butter