Reverence, Enthusiasm, and Guardianship
“Reverence, enthusiasm, and a sense of guardianship: these three are actually the panacea, the magical remedy, in the soul of the educator and teacher.”
Rudolf Steiner
“You will not be good teachers if you focus only on what you do and not upon who you are.”
Rudolf Steiner
Dear Members of The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara Community,
Outside the Rosemary Kindergarten, the cherry tree has just touched off with bloom. Inside the classroom, Ms. Cathleen cooks beans and rice for the children and Ms. Angela leads them in song and movements. It is circle time on a Thursday morning at The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara. Tacked to the wall is a garland of dried roses.Awake, awake and greet the day!Ms. Angela and the class exclaim.
Ms. Angela’s manner is at once sturdy and sincere, playful and loving; reverent, enthusiastic, and imbued with a sense of guardianship. It’s clear she has spent much of her time on planet earth heeding Steiner who said, “You will not be good teachers if you focus only on what you do and not upon who you are.” It’s also clear her grasp of verses and songs is encyclopedic.
Soon the children are dancing -- sashaying, bowing, and doing the do-si-do. One student asks, “Can I be your partner, Ms. Angela?”
***
This morning Grades students met Max (pictured above), a twenty-seven-year-old Great Horned Owl who lives at the Natural History Museum. Max -- who is under the care of “Eyes in the Sky,” the nonprofit our upcoming Hike-a-Thon will benefit -- fell out of his nest when he was young and was unable to be returned to his family. Since then (barring one ten-day stint when Max went missing), Max has lived under the care of humans. This morning the students learned about Max’s extra eyelid (for flying in inclement weather); about his sight (Max can see with great power and precision and can detect ultra-violet light); about his dexterous fourteen-boned neck; about his hollow bones; and his great hearing (we learned that an owl, when hunting, can hear a mouse’s heartbeat!). The children were also reminded that it is important for us humans to not poison rodents in our homes as the raptors eat the poisoned rodents and, consequently, can die. Delighted by the visit, the children asked great questions (“Does the owl feel overwhelmed right now by all the stimulation?”) and made great comments (“Once I saw a quail fly right into our trampoline.”). It was a precious, deepening experience. Thank you, Hannah Atkinson of Eyes in the Sky!
Sincerely,
The Admin Team
The Poem of the Day is by Robinson Jeffers:
RETURN
A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
So that they cannot strike, hardly can fly.
Things are the hawk's food and noble is the mountain,
Oh noble Pico Blanco, steep sea-wave of marble.