Schools face many challenges today. If one “peels the onion” one finds that behind the external issues of deficits, low salaries, interpersonal conflict, and lack of support for leadership there is often an underlying need to rekindle the sources of inspiration and find a more collaborative approach. By bringing together the various groups represented in a typical school, this course attempts to model new ways of working together. Our classrooms feature the magic of seeing the “whole child”; can our organizations learn to embrace whole-systems thinking?

This course is for parents, teachers, administrators, and board members interested in school renewal. Some of the topics to be covered include: group dynamics, leadership styles, the wisdom of human physiology and the planets, working with conflict, communication, mediation, artistic practice, and finding the balance between personal and professional demands. These themes will be supported through exercises from Eurythmy in the Workplace. Participants will take up some of the current issues facing our schools and design strategies to work toward closer collaboration.

Suggested texts:
School Renewal and Organizational Integrity, both by Torin Finser.

Leonore Russell has been an educator for over 35 years. She is teacher and mentor to eurythmists at both the elementary and high school levels, as well as Director of the Winkler Center for Adult Education near the Waldorf School of Garden City. Leonore serves as consultant to schools, teaches at Adelphi University, and acts as co-facilitator of Collaborative Leadership Institutes sponsored by Antioch University.

Torin M. Finser is Director of Waldorf Teacher Training and the Collaborative Leadership Program at Antioch University New England. A former Waldorf class teacher and founding member of the Center for Anthroposophy, he currently serves as Co-General Secretary for the Anthroposophical Society in America. He is the author of five books, including Organizational Integrity, published in 2007.

Siegfried Finser has been a Waldorf teacher, a line manager with Xerox and Director of Executive Development at ITT Worldwide, consultant to other large corporations, President of the Threefold Educational Foundation, Treasurer of the Anthroposophical Society, and founder of the Rudolf Steiner Foundation. He is the author of Money Can Heal.

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