Waldorf News

Fostering Entrepreneurship in Waldorf Schools Tempus 2015 Conference “Stepping Stones to Entrepreneurship” in Kimberton, PA – March 20 & 21

By Clemens Pietzner and Lauren Blood

If we listen to the issues and methods contemporary businesses are addressing; if we hear what business coaches, high level executive coaches and life coaches are saying, we can connect the dots and recognize that today’s leaders need balance, creativity, personal skills, drive, vision, empathy and fortitude. Looking at the national and global trends that are taking place in sustainability and triple bottom line values of people, planet and prosperity, the indicators are pointing to the fact that the future business leaders of tomorrow or even of today requires a lively, integrated combination of creativity, social skills, emotional intelligence and also a world view. Young leaders will need an experience of context about themselves, their community, and the world they live in.  These are qualities that Waldorf graduates can, and very often do possess due to the rich, holistic learning experience that the Waldorf curriculum offers. Waldorf school students bring particular qualities that can be useful for the future business and entrepreneurial leadership of today and tomorrow. Yet, unfortunately, most Waldorf schools at the moment largely overlook this potential and do not bring focus to this arena of learning and experience.

On a local, national, and international scale, the world “conversation” is primarily around world economy or world finance and its collateral damage or positive change. If there aren’t enough leaders who have been imbued with this holistic approach to the world, and have perspectives of social conscience, environmental consciousness and vision as well as a dimension of spirituality, the conversation will invariably largely bypass those who aren’t involved and can’t participate in a discussion from the vantage point of real experience. The negative, extreme elements of capitalism will prevail if not tempered by a broader set of nuance and sensitivities. From a very practical perspective, it seems that Waldorf Schools could do much more in regard to working specifically in experiential ways with young people around building a relationship to money, basic financial and investment literacy, skill building and entrepreneurialism. If more Waldorf graduates would start their own businesses, or even non profits, the positive backflow could be Waldorf alums who would have more money to give; could serve on school boards, and could express their appreciation for what they have learned in high school in a multidimensional way. These considerations and others served as the inspiration for Triskeles to intitiate the “Tempus” conference in conjunction with Kimberton Waldorf School.

It is our hypothesis that Waldorf Schools could, in a practical way, distinguish themselves from other independent schools, whether from a student recruitment perspective or from a financial sustainability perspective, by focusing on the natural creative will of students and to encourage their entrepreneurial spirit and holistic business skill development through experiences and training. Schools could develop, and use, the current Waldorf curriculum in creative ways to make this a hallmark part of the “brand” of what Waldorf schools do: which could be generating and creating opportunities for young entrepreneurs of all kinds to be nourished. The Tempus conference is and could be a distinguishing brand for Waldorf Schools to celebrate and explore this topic.

Triskeles had worked with the Kimberton Waldorf School around the idea of entrepreneurship in relationship to class offerings, internship placements, and exposure to local leaders. In 2013 Triskeles incubated the idea to develop and manage the Tempus Conference, which as far as we know is the only high school focused entrepreneurship conference in the country. There are a lot of college/university incubators working with entrepreneurship; Kimberton Waldorf School was interested in the idea, and was willing to host the conference.

The support for this youth entrepreneur conference came from a number of sources; among these the Waldorf Educational Foundation (WEF) which is interested in this topic for the school movement. Support also came through a number of sponsors, with the primary one being the Rudolf Steiner Foundation (RSF). The leadership team at RSF has also been interested in and active about this topic, and affirmed that the conference is relevant to the ongoing conversation around entrepreneurship and triple bottom line issues. Among other national thought leaders, Don Shaffer (CEO of RSF) gave a keynote talk at last years’ conference to over 100 high school students.

On March 20 and 21, 2015, Triskeles and Kimberton Waldorf School will host the third Tempus conference. The first conference was one partial day, the breakout sessions were almost as big as the plenum sessions. We brought in a number of national and local speakers, and had participants on the panels that were inspiring and could address the conference themes from a personal perspective. The conference participants, “walk their talk”, making the presentations quite compelling. For the Tempus Conference in 2014, we adjusted the conference topics to more closely align with the high school student experience. We chose the theme of “Stepping Stones” and focused on smaller group work, using a workshop model. We had panels and workshops with national level speakers giving the opportunity for young people to have a more participatory experience in these smaller settings. The conference will take this approach again in 2015 and we hope to have the small group experience be even more relevant to the high school student. Speakers who can speak authentically about their own experience in the entrepreneurship space are key; Tempus brings in young entrepreneurs-so there is a peer-to-peer learning exposure. These are individuals (some of them in their late teens or early 20s) have participated either in entrepreneurial training or have already created a business or major event on their own. Examples of topics in 2014 were: Networking for Success, Food Entrepreneurship, Getting Your Company Right and International Social Entrepreneurship.

The conference has drawn students from a number of Waldorf Schools, but also seeks students from local (to the Kimberton area) high schools and colleges. Some of the at risk youth that have participated in Triskeles youth programs also joined the conference. This diversity of youth allows young people of different backgrounds to go through a similar, shared conference experience and through that process, meet each other. The Tempus conference has attracted Waldorf students from as far north as New England, and as far south as Washington DC. Our goal in 2015 is to have 200 students and we are working on the agenda and program: it will feature national level speakers and local leaders who will share their inspirational stories, as well as a lot of how-to experiences/advice.

There is more and more interest, also on a college level, in entrepreneurship, project incubation and on experiential learning that is project based. The existing Waldorf curriculum has a multitude of opportunities to adapt or augment it to encourage entrepreneurship. Senior projects or junior electives could be focused on holistic entrepreneurial experiences. There could be a whole track of academic electives and Waldorf schools could get much more engaged with their business communities by creating participatory teaching and learning experiences, and through that, potentially garner added positive neighborly relations and additional economic resources. We are not suggesting that focusing on business is the only approach for Waldorf high school students, but it is an area that is often left to chance or to random personal discovery.  It could be an area of emphasis, outreach, engagement, learning and experimentation that could be much more formed and focused in Waldorf Schools, thus creating a “branding element” for the schools beyond those that we already loosely attribute to the Waldorf School movement. And it can also be a compelling pathway for creativity.

The Tempus Conference is one avenue for exploring the topic and for collaborating with schools, professionals, and leaders and students from many backgrounds. Please check the Tempus website, www.tempusconference.org and encourage attendance. We hope to attract many students, some faculty and possibly even some parents from Waldorf schools, at least from the eastern seaboard. Past evaluations have rated the Tempus conference experience very highly. We expect that the March 20-21, 2015 event at the Kimberton Waldorf School will be of an equally high standard.  If you know young people who would be interested in the Tempus Conference, please feel free to contact us for more information.

Tempus is sponsored by RSF Social Finance, National Penn Bank, and others. Cost for the entire conference, including breakfast and lunch on Saturday, is only $20.

Clemens Pietzner and Lauren Blood
Triskeles
www.triskelesprograms.org