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Waldorf News

Glasgow Steiner School Building Destroyed by Fire

April 11, 2013

GLASGOW — Plumes of smoke billowed out of the towering Victorian building in Glasgow's West End as children as young as three watched, horrified. Evacuated in just their indoor clothes and tiny slippers, the snow fell on pupils of the Steiner School while chaos ensued all around them. Ten fire engines screamed to the scene, effectively shutting down the densely populated area of Yorkhill as 55 firefighters tackled the inferno at around 11:30am on Tuesday, March 26. A saving grace was that the fire started in the attic space, far removed from where children laughed and sang and learned. It is presumed the cause was electrical. Standing to face the media as the beloved B listed building burned, shell shocked school manager Kathryn Turner could barely speak. Words like ‘devastated’ and ‘heartbroken’ didn’t seem to quite encapsulate the scale of the tragedy for the close knit school community. Now, just over a week on, the exhausted leader knows the full magnitude of the fire still hasn’t sunk in. "The reality of it kicks in but you still wait to wake up and find that it’s not happened," she said. "It has been a really busy time for us, we’ve made a lot of progress in a week but, I don’t think it will sink in for a long time yet. At 3am on Wednesday morning, I was still counting in my head to make sure we’d got everyone out. I knew, logically, that everyone was out but still, you keep counting." Thankfully, a total of 65 children - aged between three and 12 - and 20 staff did make their way out of the Lumsden Street school as the fire alarm sounded at 11.30am. More »

Chalk Art - Brian Wolfe

April 8, 2013

Waldorf teacher Brian Wolfe in action with chalk again! Brian is a teacher at the Davis Waldorf School. The music accompanying the video is "Bron-Yr-Aur" by Jimmy Page, performed by Brian Wolfe himself. Enjoy! More »

Co-existence or a Crime? Jewish-Arab Waldorf education earns parents a court date

March 18, 2013

Parents at Ein Bustan, a Waldorf school in the lower Galilee where first and second grade classes don't yet have Education Ministry approval, are summoned to court for breaking the Compulsory Education Law, which requires students to be enrolled in an accredited school. Five couples whose children attend Ein Bustan, a Jewish-Arab school that follows the Waldorf method of teaching, have been summoned to the Court of Local Affairs in Kiryat Bialik and accused of breaking the Compulsory Education Law. The law requires parents to send their children to accredited educational institutions from the age of 5 up through 12th grade, and Ein Bustan, the Ministry says, does not qualify. But this low-level court and the indictment against the parents conceal a far greater matter: The Education Ministry has decided to prosecute the parents for wanting to send their children to an Arab-Jewish Waldorf school that has not received the recognition required by law. The prosecution of parents whose children attend a school unrecognized by the Education Ministry is a fairly common occurrence. Usually, the Education Ministry and local authorities try to talk with the parents to reach a compromise that will prevent legal action. The hard line taken against the Ein Bustan school in the Lower Galilee is unusual. A Waldorf school is one thing, but a school where Jewish and Arab children study together? It seems that the Education Ministry had difficulty dealing with so complex a situation. More »

Celebrate Easter Naturally: Dyeing Eggs with Plants and Spices

March 10, 2013

When I was very little, my Grandmother had a Greek friend who would bring by the brightest red Easter eggs I had ever seen. I’ve always remembered those eggs because every single year we would dye our eggs with the store kits and never came out with a color anywhere close. Even when we tried using plain food coloring, it still didn’t work. What was the secret of that old-fashioned Greek way of dying bright red Easter eggs? There are also so many other colors that can be found from plants and vegetables in the kitchen. Before you start you will need to have on hand: a few stainless steel or enamel saucepans, vinegar, white eggs, and dye materials. Dyeing Easter eggs the natural way is a lovely way to experience the joy of finding colors from nature. More »

Best Food Money Can't Buy: While most poor families get the world's leftovers, WHOA Farm grows organic food specifically to be given away

March 4, 2013

Our mission is to produce the best and healthiest food possible and deliver it free of charge to people who cannot afford the high price of organic food commanded by retail outlets. Work Horse Organic Agriculture, Inc. (WHOA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was established to promote the use of draft horse farming to support sustainable and organic agriculture in Sonoma County. All food grown by WHOA is given away to organizations in Sonoma County that serve people who do not have access to fresh organic produce. At the Santa Rosa Health Center in Roseland, 50 percent of Dr. Patricia Kulawiak's adolescent patients are obese. "There is an epidemic of diabetes in this area," Kulawiak tells me over the phone, "and since good, healthy food is expensive, poverty severely limits your options." Thanks to the Work Horse Organic Agriculture (WHOA) Farm, dozens of these families receive bags of fresh, organic produce every week—for free. Started two years ago by Eddie and Wendy Gelsman, WHOA Farm's motto is "The best food money can't buy," a tidy summation of their mission to provide fresh, organically grown food to those who can't afford it. "It's not a crime to be poor," says Eddie. "Everyone has the right to eat well." More »

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