Sunbridge Institute - Waldorf Teacher Education

Project Management: A Guide to Planning, Executing, and Evaluating Projects or Initiatives of Any Size or Scope
2019-04-26 19:00 - 2019-04-27 17:30 (America/New_York) | Sunbridge Institute, 285 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY, 10977, United States
A collaborative leadership workshop for anyone tasked with leading projects or initiatives and trying to ensure high performance collaboration.
Project management is a well-known tool of the business world and part of a management system that every business or organization needs in order to bring ideas into reality. Good project management defines whether or not you will be successful in your work.
The tools of project management are simple—the difficulty lies in implementing them into the culture of the organization.

Sunbridge’s latest collaborative leadership workshop is a crash course in understanding the project management mindset and the process for successfully carrying a project through from beginning to end.
In this very down-to-earth workshop, we will look at and touch upon:
• The seven most important tools inherent in project management (with time given to practice some of them)
• The role of direction, alignment, and commitment in the project management process
• How to instill a project management mindset and skills in both the practical habits of an organization as well as its social and ideal realms
• The project management steps essential for bringing ideas into fruition and completion
You are encouraged to bring with you a project or initiative that you are currently involved in or would like to bring to your community, to work on here.
Facilitators
Joachim Ziegler, PhD, has been working in the fields of organizational development and human resources development since 1994. A partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group, Joachim’s current list of American and international clients encompasses the banking, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing sectors, as well as anthroposophical institutions and Waldorf schools. Joachim is a member of the College of Social Sciences Section at the Goetheanum and the international Association for Social Development and has taught at the University of Muenster and at Germany’s first private university in Herdecke. He holds an MA in adult education and a PhD in medical education.
Jessica Heffernan Ziegler Jessica has been the executive director of Sunbridge Institute since 2008; previously, she taught collaboration and group dynamics in Sunbridge College’s Administration, Biography, and Elementary Teacher Education programs. Jessica has worked as an executive coach and organizational development consultant for Waldorf school administrators and teachers, as well as other professionals, in diverse institutions and schools in both the US and Germany. She served as the first administrator and as a board member at a Waldorf school she co-founded in Everswinkel, Germany; is a partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group; and sits on the boards of Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School and the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Jessica who holds a BS in business management, did her biography training with Karl-Heinz Finke and her executive coach training with SECA International. Her professional focus on leadership skills, governance issues, and personnel development are utilized in both her executive director position and in her work as co-instructor of Sunbridge’s Collaborative Leadership summer course and related workshops.
Artistic faculty TBA.

Those who took previous collaborative leadership offerings with Joachim and Jessica had this to say:
~ This exceeded my expectations!
~ The experience and dedication to the whole process that our facilitators brought to a very rich and full week was very, very satisfying.
~The professional material was exceptional. The clarity of the presentation was superb.
~ Excellent content, excellent presenters
~ The quality was incredibly rich and practical
~ I am working in a school, yet I know I can also apply this training to any business.
~ It’s always a pleasure to come to these workshops. Many thanks!

Schedule
Friday, April 26: Doors open at 6:30pm for check-in registration. Please arrive with enough time to register and get settled. Workshop begins promptly at 7pm and runs until 8:30pm.
Saturday, April 27: Workshop runs 9am-5:30pm, with times for breaks and lunch
Cost
$285 via online registration (includes Saturday breakfast, snacks, and lunch, and $25 non-refundable registration fee). Online registration is available through noon on Friday, April 26. If you haven’t registered in advance and wish to attend, walk-in registrations will be accepted space permitting; walk-in cost is $300. Check here before arriving for walk-in registration to make sure spaces remain.
Discount Options
Because it is beneficial for several members of a school to attend this workshop together, schools registering 4 attendees will receive a rebate for the cost of the 4th registration (rebates to be issued once the workshop has taken place). Please contact registrar Tamara Photiadis at registrar@sunbridge.edu / 845-425-0055 x16 for instructions.
Current Sunbridge program students receive $80 off and Sunbridge program graduates receive $40 off the workshop cost. Accounts must be in good standing. A discount code will appear on your registration form when you answer questions about your educational background.
Discounts may not be combined.

Questions?
Contact Penelope-Myles Voss, admissions, alumni, and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20.
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

Literacy in the Early Grades: Developing Your Skills to Teach Writing and Reading in Grades 1-3
2019-06-28 19:00 - 2019-06-30 13:00
For Waldorf teachers and homeschool parents
Explore the genius of the Waldorf approach to literacy as together we draw on current resources and practices to inform your teaching. You’ll discover ways to integrate treasures from Orton-Gillingham and Project Read into your Waldorf classroom while learning practical, effective, and imaginative techniques for teaching writing and reading in the early grades.
Incorporating speech, spelling, writing, and reading, this course covers:

Moving from oral to written tradition
Learning a structured, yet flexible, way to teach reading skills
Decoding and encoding the English language through a linguistic understanding
Using a multi-sensory approach for all
Developing scope and sequence of a literacy curriculum
Working with parents on literacy questions

In addition to grades 1-3 class teachers, Waldorf remedial and reading specialists, and homeschool parents working with a Waldorf curriculum, those who would also benefit from the information imparted in this course include Waldorf kindergarten teachers, upper grades class teachers, world language teachers, and pedagogical and faculty chairs. PLEASE NOTE: This is not an introductory course. Participants should have Waldorf training and/or experience as a Waldorf class teacher; exceptions will be made at the instructor’s discretion.
Lead Instructor
Margot Amrine teaches at the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1989 and has shepherded several lower school classes. She has also chaired her college of teachers and is a founding teacher of the high school, where she currently teaches history and humanities. A teacher of literacy skills to children from preschool to grade 12 since 1976, Margot was the director of the Waldorf Institute of Southeastern Michigan and mentors Waldorf teachers in the midwest area. She holds a BMA in music and art history from the University of Michigan School of Music and has been a member of the Anthroposophical Society since 1981. Margot has a particular interest in language arts and in working with parents, and enjoys traveling and playing the cello.
Artistic faculty TBA

Students who took this workshop previously with Margot had this to say:
~ Margot is a great presenter with wonderful knowledge to share.
~ A master of masters.
~ She knows everything about teaching grammar/writing/reading.
~ Margot had a complete grasp on the subject and had a breadth of experience to share. She made good time for questions and created an engaging workshop.
~ Ms. Amrine is a wonderful teacher and she inspires confidence to try new things.
~ Margot is an excellent teacher of teachers. She is knowledgeable, encouraging and funny!
~ The highlight was definitely the knowledge and energy of the instructor. The clean picture of Language Arts instruction was so helpful, and the way the instructors work together mainstream elements with Waldorf pedagogy was fantastic.
~ The entire course was excellent and just right. The topics covered, time allotted and Margot’s ability to stay on track (while also including levity here and there) were right on and what I needed!
~ This was likely the most impactful educational experience I’ve had as an adult.
~ I am going home brim full of ideas and excitement for the coming year.

Schedule
Friday, June 28: Check-in registration takes place 6:30-7pm. Orientation and your first class runs 7-9pm.
Saturday, June 29: Classes begin at 9am and run through 5:30, with time for lunch and short mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks.
Sunday, June 30: Classes begin at 9am and end at 1pm, with a mid-morning break.

Cost
$360 includes all materials and non-refundable $30 registration fee

Three Discount Options (Choose One! Discounts may not be combined.)
1. Friends and Family (Personal Discount): Currently enrolled Sunbridge program students receive a 30% discount and Sunbridge program graduates receive a 15% discount off one or more registrations. Discount instructions will appear on your registration form after you answer questions about your Sunbridge background in the Participant Profile section. Accounts must be in good standing.
2. Take Two and Save (Personal Discount): 10% discounts on subsequent registrations (of equal or lesser value) will automatically appear on your registration form when selecting more than one title. (Exception: Waldorf Weekend, which offers an $85 discount when selected as a subsequent registration.)
3. Send More/Save More (School Discount): Schools paying for five or more registrations will receive discounts in increasing amounts.
Make 5 registrations, receive 5% off the total cost
Make 6 registrations, receive 6% off the total cost
Make 7 registrations, receive 7% off the total cost
Make 8 registrations, receive 8% off the total cost
Make 9 registrations, receive 9% off the total cost
Make 10 or more registrations, receive 10% off the total cost
NOTE: When choosing this option, please be sure to check off “Invoice my School” on your registration form. To qualify for the Send More/Save More discount, registrations must be made by July 14.

Questions?
Please contact our summer office at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

Chalkboard Drawing for Class Teachers: Skill-Building and Inspiration for Teachers of Grades 1-8
2019-06-28 19:00 - 2019-06-30 13:00
This workshop has been cancelled.
For Waldorf teachers and homeschool parents and anyone interested in the medium of chalk drawing
In this highly practical workshop, teachers of grades 1-8 will receive instruction in the basics of how to create beautiful chalkboard drawings. Regardless of your artistic background, you’ll leave with valuable skills, new-found confidence, and ideas for your coming year’s drawings.
You will learn:

Techniques for drawing with chalk
How to approach chalkboard illustrations across the Waldorf lower and middle school curricula
Ways to model animal and human forms through the grades
Seasonal use of color

You are encouraged to bring your own pictures and ideas of what you want to focus on in the coming year, and get guidance and practice for how to bring your ideas into reality.

Lead Instructor
Brigitte Bley-Swinston has been teaching fine arts at Green Meadow Waldorf School for the past seven years. Previously, she taught at the Rudolf Steiner School in Manhattan and, from 1992-2004, served as the resident art teacher for all Sunbridge College programs. She also frequently taught courses at the Rudolf Steiner Institute and co-directed the Foundation Studies program at the Brooklyn Waldorf School. Brigitte earned her BA in art education in Berlin, Germany, her MS in Waldorf teacher education from Sunbridge College, and also studied at the Art Students League, The National Academy of Design, and the New York Botanical Garden
Students who studied with Brigitte in Summer Series 2018 had this to say:
~ Brigitte was able to bring out my inner artist I didn’t know I had.
~ Well-prepared and knowledgeable.
~ Brigitte was just wonderful.
~ Brigitte was a warm, inviting teacher who provided clear guidance.
~ Brigitte was the perfect art teacher. I always felt “seen” and respected, even when the art challenged my capacities.
~Brigitte has a very calm, easy way with student anxieties and feelings of inadequacy/frustration with art, and also met the experienced/advanced students in a meaningful way.
~ I loved everything about the class.

Your workshop also includes eurythmy with Sea-Anna Vasilas of Eurythmy Spring Valley.

Schedule
Friday, June 28: Check-in registration takes place 6:30-7pm. First class runs 7-9pm.
Saturday, June 29: Classes begin at 9am and run through 5:30, with time for lunch and short mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks.
Sunday, June 30: Classes begin at 9am and end at 1pm, with a mid-morning break.

Cost
$360 includes all materials and non-refundable $30 registration fee

Discount Options
Three Discount Options (Choose One! Discounts may not be combined.)
1. Friends and Family (Personal Discount): Currently enrolled Sunbridge program students receive a 30% discount and Sunbridge program graduates receive a 15% discount off one or more registrations. Discount instructions will appear on your registration form after you answer questions about your Sunbridge background in the Participant Profile section. Accounts must be in good standing.
2. Take Two and Save (Personal Discount): 10% discounts on subsequent registrations (of equal or lesser value) will automatically appear on your registration form when selecting more than one title. (Exception: Waldorf Weekend, which offers an $85 discount when selected as a subsequent registration.)
3. Send More/Save More (School Discount): Schools paying for five or more registrations will receive discounts in increasing amounts.
Make 5 registrations, receive 5% off the total cost
Make 6 registrations, receive 6% off the total cost
Make 7 registrations, receive 7% off the total cost
Make 8 registrations, receive 8% off the total cost
Make 9 registrations, receive 9% off the total cost
Make 10 or more registrations, receive 10% off the total cost
NOTE: When choosing this option, please be sure to check off “Invoice my School” on your registration form. To qualify for the Send More/Save More discount, registrations must be made by July 14.

Questions?
Please contact our summer office at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

The Foundational Teachers' Course of 2019: Experiencing Rudolf Steiner’s Seminal Three-Part Lecture Series in the Context of 21st Century North America
2019-07-08 - 2019-07-26
This summer, to mark the historic occasion of Waldorf Education’s 100th anniversary, Sunbridge Institute’s Waldorf Elementary Teacher Education program will be recreating Rudolf Steiner’s very first Waldorf teacher education course.
The Foundational Teachers’ Course of 2019: Experiencing Rudolf Steiner’s Seminal Three-Part Lecture Series in the Context of 21st Century North America will bring together Sunbridge faculty, students, and auditing program graduates for a festive fifteen days of lecture, discussion, and artistic activity (following the same schedule Rudolf Steiner and his original teacher education students—the first cohort of Waldorf educators—experienced in August-September 1919). From jointly reading and discussing his three main texts (Foundations of Human Experience, Practical Advice to Teachers, and Discussions with Teachers), to engaging in eurythmy, singing, speech, painting and drawing, we will celebrate a momentous century of Waldorf Education, exploring Steiner’s thoughts and methods and considering them through the lens of our current time and place.
In addition to comprising the summer 2019 curriculum for our currently enrolled elementary program students, this unique offering is also open to graduates of any full program offered by Sunbridge Institute or Sunbridge College who wish to participate by registering and paying an auditing fee. (Please note: Our specialized subject intensives do not qualify as full programs.)

Faculty
Faculty will include:
Jana Hawley, MSEd
George McWilliam
Stephen Sagarin, PhD
Elizabeth Hall, MA
plus artistic specialists

Schedule
Monday, July 8-Friday, July 12: 8am-6pm
Monday, July 15-Friday, July 19: 8am-6pm
Monday, July 22-Friday, July 26: 8am-6pm

Cost / Registration
This course is included in the regular tuition paid by Sunbridge Elementary program students. Sunbridge program graduates pay a $1,500 auditing fee to attend.

Questions?
To confirm your eligibility for attending as an auditing student, or for more information about this opportunity, please contact:
Linda Ogden-Wolgemuth, Director of Education and Advancement
logden@sunbridge.edu / 845-425-0055 x10

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

The Power of Traditional Country Dancing in Grades 1-8: How Dancing Together Can Enhance Learning, Enrich Your Teaching, and Bring Social Health to Your Classroom
2019-07-19 19:00 - 2019-07-21 13:00
For teachers and homeschool parents
Learn how to harness the power of traditional country dancing to benefit your teaching and your students!
Dancing can provide children with developmentally appropriate opportunities to work on basic coordination, left-right discrimination, and the foundation senses of rhythm, self-movement, and balance, all of which are necessary for healthy sensory-motor development. In groups, dancing fosters awareness of symmetry, patterns, and geometrical forms; facilitates awareness of others; and enhances social relationships. Most importantly, dancing brings joy!
In this experiential workshop, through presentation, articles and reference materials, and movement sessions, you will:

Receive an overview of traditional social dancing through the centuries
Discover how dance positively affects learning and social health
Explore how to determine which dances and music to bring to your group
Discuss specific dances that are geared to each grade
Practice ice breakers and warm-ups
Practice calling dances, and learn about dance courtesies and etiquette

Your takeaways will include handouts with a sample of dances for each grade, resources for age- and grade-appropriate dances, and ideas for curriculum integration. Please Note: While the focus of this workshop is on grades 1-6, grades 7 and 8 dances will also be touched upon and those teachers will also benefit from the information imparted.

Instructor
Patricia Campbell is traditional country dance teacher at Housatonic Valley Waldorf School, where she works with students in grades one through eight. A lifelong dancer, and a dance caller for 30 years, Patricia began her dance involvement at HVWS in 2000, when she “called” for a Harvest Dinner & Dance fundraiser for the third grade trip. In the years since, she created the Shining River Morris Team and took on more dance projects including leading the Maypole dancing, dances for the school’s annual Halloween event, Morris dances, and a sword dance performed by the HVWS Shining River Morris & Sword Team. Patricia’s repertoire of traditional country dancing encompasses a wide range of dance genres, including historical dance (Medieval, Renaissance, Revolutionary War, Civil War, etc.), singing games, international folk dances, contra dances, square dances, and English country dances. A caller and a member of the Board and Programming Committee for the NOMAD (Northeast Music, Art and Dance) Festival for most of its 20-year run, Patricia also leads workshops and residencies, along with dance programs for numerous community groups. Her advice is always for anyone to “get a group of people together and have a dance!”
Your workshop also includes singing with Patti Regan of Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School.

Students who took this workshop previously had this to say:
– Patricia was a wealth of information and provided a multitude of useful songs and dances for grades 1-6 and beyond.
– This course was helpful for learning new rhythms and different movements to use in my classes.
– The class was very satisfying. It provided lots of dances that I will use. Patricia was very knowledgeable.
– Very high quality. I loved being with other teachers, and the sharing that Patricia made room for.
– Patricia answered all of our questions and provided many resources to take home with us.

Schedule
Friday, July 19: Check-in registration takes place 6:30-7pm. Orientation and your first class run from 7-9pm.
Saturday, July 20: Classes begin at 9am and run through 5:30, with time for lunch and short mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks.
Sunday, July 21: Classes begin at 9am and end at 1pm, with a mid-morning break.

Cost
$360 includes all materials and a non-refundable $30 registration fee

Three Discount Options (Choose One! Discounts may not be combined.)
1. Friends and Family (Personal Discount): Currently enrolled Sunbridge program students receive a 30% discount and Sunbridge program graduates receive a 15% discount off one or more registrations. Discount instructions will appear on your registration form after you answer questions about your Sunbridge background in the Participant Profile section. Accounts must be in good standing.
2. Take Two and Save (Personal Discount): 10% discounts on subsequent registrations (of equal or lesser value) will automatically appear on your registration form when selecting more than one title. (Exception: Waldorf Weekend, which offers an $85 discount when selected as a subsequent registration.)
3. Send More/Save More (School Discount): Schools paying for five or more registrations will receive discounts in increasing amounts.
Make 5 registrations, receive 5% off the total cost
Make 6 registrations, receive 6% off the total cost
Make 7 registrations, receive 7% off the total cost
Make 8 registrations, receive 8% off the total cost
Make 9 registrations, receive 9% off the total cost
Make 10 or more registrations, receive 10% off the total cost
NOTE: When choosing this option, please be sure to check off “Invoice my School” on your registration form. To qualify for the Send More/Save More discount, registrations must be made by July 14.
.

Questions?
PPlease contact our summer office at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

Working with Parents: Developing and Sustaining Healthy Teacher-Parent Relationships
2019-07-19 19:00 - 2019-07-21 13:00
For Waldorf teachers of all levels
Behind every child stands a parent… or two, or three, or four! As teachers we tend to focus on our students, sometimes forgetting the fact that our relationships with parents are every bit as important. In this workshop we will explore the different facets of the teacher-parent relationship; discuss successful ways of sharing with parents the wonderful, challenging task of guiding their child through childhood; and do some hands-on activities to strengthen our powers of observation and compassion.
Topics we will cover include:

Navigating the (often tricky) parent/friend divide
Running effective and rewarding parent evenings
Creating an atmosphere of trust and collaboration
Writing tactful, informative year-end reports
Establishing guidelines for healthy communication
Preventing and managing crises

Instructor
Melissa Merkling is currently an educational support coordinator and extra lesson teacher at the Housatonic Valley Waldorf School in Newtown, Connecticut, the school she founded in 1989 and at which she has held virtually every position, including early childhood and grades teacher, administrator, enrollment director, and College and Board member. Melissa has attended and led anthroposophical classes and study groups for over twenty years. She currently serves as a pedagogical mentor for students in Sunbridge’s Waldorf Elementary Teacher Education program, and she is also a professional editor and proofreader. Melissa attended NYC’s Rudolf Steiner School from kindergarten through 12th grade, studied art at Bennington College, and earned a certificate in Waldorf early childhood education from Sunbridge College.
Students who previously took this workshop with Melissa had this to say:
~ It was great to hear from a teacher with so much experience and wisdom. She gave us a lot of tools and ideas on how to work with parents. What a gift!
~ The content was well delivered. Melissa was well prepared and added artistic activities, which helped the mood of the heavy topics but also the quality of the group dynamic.
~ I enjoyed the practical nature of the topic, the realistic and artistic quality of instruction, and the excellent resources provided.
~ Melissa was very prepared and had many great tips. She was funny, fun, and very wise. She facilitated very well.
~ Excellent balance of information and experiential activities.

Your workshop also includes singing with Patti Regan of Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School.

Schedule
Friday, July 19: Check-in registration takes place 6:30-7pm. First class runs 7-9pm.
Saturday, July 20: Classes begin at 9am and run through 5:30, with time for lunch and short mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks.
Sunday, July 21: Classes begin at 9am and end at 1pm, with a mid-morning break.

Cost
$360 includes all materials and non-refundable $30 registration fee

Three Discount Options (Choose One! Discounts may not be combined.)
1. Friends and Family (Personal Discount): Currently enrolled Sunbridge program students receive a 30% discount and Sunbridge program graduates receive a 15% discount off one or more registrations. Discount instructions will appear on your registration form after you answer questions about your Sunbridge background in the Participant Profile section. Accounts must be in good standing.
2. Take Two and Save (Personal Discount): 10% discounts on subsequent registrations (of equal or lesser value) will automatically appear on your registration form when selecting more than one title. (Exception: Waldorf Weekend, which offers an $85 discount when selected as a subsequent registration.)
3. Send More/Save More (School Discount): Schools paying for five or more registrations will receive discounts in increasing amounts.
Make 5 registrations, receive 5% off the total cost
Make 6 registrations, receive 6% off the total cost
Make 7 registrations, receive 7% off the total cost
Make 8 registrations, receive 8% off the total cost
Make 9 registrations, receive 9% off the total cost
Make 10 or more registrations, receive 10% off the total cost
NOTE: When choosing this option, please be sure to check off “Invoice my School” on your registration form. To qualify for the Send More/Save More discount, registrations must be made by July 14.

Questions?
Please contact our summer office at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

2019 Teachers Conference: Addressing Sensory Development in the School-Age Child
2019-11-08 19:00 - 2019-11-09 17:30
A conference on approaching the twelve senses as an essential tool for teachers
With keynote speaker Adam Blanning, MD
Walk-in registration will be accepted on Saturday morning. Come to the Main House at Sunbridge between 7:45-8:45. Walk-in cost is $330; cash or credit card.
The conference takes place in the Arts Building/Rose Hall on the Green Meadow Waldorf School campus.
Students struggling to be successful in their educational environment, whether in independent or public school classrooms, is a trend which shows no sign of abating. More and more, children are exhibiting difficulty paying attention in class, forming and remembering thoughts, expressing themselves and listening to others, and developing healthy social relationships.
Sunbridge Institute’s 2019 teachers conference offers an approach for educators seeking new and creative ways to engage—and engage with—these children, in order to help them feel more comfortable within themselves and find their place in the world.
Through the guidance of leading anthroposophical physician and Waldorf school consultant Adam Blanning, MD, our conference takes a close look at the school-age child through the lens of the twelve senses—understood by Rudolf Steiner to be the entryways through which each individual can relate to and make sense of the world around them—so we may learn how to better understand and serve the children in our care today.

Rudolf Steiner and the Twelve Senses
Steiner divided the twelve senses into three groups, directly tied to the first three life cycles of the developing human being during their first twenty-one years. Unfolding from birth to approximately age seven, the four foundational senses—life (health, vitality), touch, movement, and balance (also known as the lower or inner senses)—connect young children to their own bodies, anchoring them physically to the world and giving them their sense of self. From about ages 14-21, the development of the four upper (or outer) senses—hearing, language, concept, ego—serves to help adolescents find their connection to other human beings, expanding their sense of cognition and of relating to one another, along with their intellectual capacities.
Between these two stages lies the soul (or feeling) senses of smell, taste, sight, and warmth. It is through these middle senses that the school-age child of 7-14 establishes a connection with and relationship to the outer world. Focusing on this stage of sensory development, our conference will delve into what happens as children move between the lower and the upper senses during the grade school years—and what teachers can do to help facilitate a healthy transition.

Description
In this conference, we will:

Examine what it is already embedded in the Waldorf curriculum that helps children on their sensory journey
Share observations of where we see children getting off-track in their sensory development
Explore what concrete steps we can give to the school-age child so they can navigate their sensory journey in a more integrated and fluid manner

We will approach our topic from the general (How do children move between the senses?) to the specific (How is Waldorf Education serving children who live in an increasingly visual world, from screens to main lesson books?), using specific curricula as framework for our exploration. We will hone in on some common grades 1-8 subjects, both academic and artistic, and view the progression of how these subjects are taught through the lens of the twelve senses.

Through presentation, discussion, and small group work focusing on specific curricular approaches (for class and subject teaching and remedial support), among the questions we will address are:

How do we work with the twelve senses, taking children from developing themselves to developing a relationship to the world?
How do the four middle senses serve as an essential bridge between the lower and upper senses and move children from just seeing the world to being interested in the world?
Where are children getting “stuck” in one of the senses and how do we recognize and support those children?
How does working with the twelve senses affect diverse learners?
What changes can we make to our curriculum to effect healthy sensory development?

While our 2019 Teachers Conference is designed specifically for class and subject teachers, it is open to anyone interested in children and Waldorf Education.

Suggested background reading to familiarize you with the twelve senses before attending the conference:

Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms by Rudolf Steiner, Lecture III, August 8, 1920 (available at SteinerBooks, Amazon, etc.) or online at the Rudolf Steiner Archive)
Understanding Deeper Developmental Needs by Adam Blanning, MD, chapters 12 and 13 (available at SteinerBooks, WECAN, Amazon, etc.)

Keynote Speaker
Adam Blanning is currently serving as president of the Association for Anthroposophic Medicine and Therapies in America (AAMTA) and sits on the board of the Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic Medicine (PAAM), for which he directs the training courses for doctors. He is also a founding member and core faculty for the “Nurturing the Roots” course in Waldorf early childhood therapeutic education and is on the staff of the Denver Center for Anthroposophic Therapies, the medical practice he founded in 2003. In addition to his work as an educational and developmental consultant for Denver-area Waldorf schools, he lectures regularly about anthroposophic medicine and child development, including being a guest speaker for conferences in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Dr. Blanning attended the University of Colorado, both as an undergraduate studying English literature and for his medical degree, and taught family medicine at New York Medical College and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. His (proud) mother is Nancy Blanning, Sunbridge’s Early Childhood program co-director.
Your conference also includes presentations by Will Crane (Spacial Dynamics® movement educator) on subject teaching, Elizabeth Hall (class teacher at Green Meadow Waldorf school, and Sunbridge faculty member) on class teaching, and Jeanette Rodriguez (program director of the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY) on remedial support..

Schedule
Friday evening, November 8: Doors open at 6:00pm for check-in registration. Conference begins at 7pm and runs until 8:30pm.
Saturday, November 9: Conference runs 9am-5:30pm with time for breaks and lunch.

Housing
Campus housing is reserved directly through Threefold Educational Center.

Cost
$315 (includes Saturday breakfast, lunch, mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, and a $25 non-refundable registration fee).

Discount options
Only one discount may be applied:

Send More/Save More (School Discount):

For every three attendees a school registers/pays for, a fourth registrant attends for free.
Schools sending ten or more attendees receive an even higher discount (about 35% off the conference cost).
Schools interested in taking advantage of one of our volume discount opportunities should fill out a volume discount form, and then follow instructions provided in the form regarding having each attendee complete their individual registration. Requests for volume discounts must be submitted no later than one week prior to the conference date.

Friends and Family (Personal Discount): Currently enrolled Sunbridge program students receive a 30% discount and Sunbridge program graduates receive a 15% discount. Discount instructions will appear on your registration form after you answer questions about your Sunbridge background in the Participant Profile section. Accounts must be in good standing.

Registration
Online registration is open through noon on Friday, November 8. If you haven’t registered online by that day/time and still wish to attend, you may register as a walk-in, providing space is available (check this web page for updates). Walk-in cost is $330.
REGISTER

Questions?
Contact Admissions and Summer Coordinator Barbara Vitale at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20.
Sunbridge Institute reserves the right to cancel any offering at any time. If Sunbridge cancels, all registrants will be notified and will receive a full refund. If the registrant cancels, he or she will receive a full refund less the non-refundable registration fee. Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Decades of Talking about Social Change: An Evening with Christopher and Signe Schaefer
2019-11-22 19:30
For over 50 years Chris and Signe Schaefer have been discussing and working for social change. Their ongoing conversation—on whether change happens through systemic and structural transformation, through individual development, or is reliant on both—is reflected in their two new books:

This November, join the Schaefers for an evening of dialogue about human development, social transformation, and the struggles of our times, with short readings from their new books.

Date/Time/Place
Friday evening, November 22, at 7:30pm in Upper Brookside
This event is free and open to the public.
(Also check out Chris’s workshop the following Saturday morning.)

About the Schaefers
Chris and Signe Schaefer each have a long history of teaching, first at Emerson College in England and then, for many years, at Sunbridge College, where Signe directed the Foundation Studies and Biography programs and Chris directed the Waldorf School Administration and Community Development program; they also both served on the Sunbridge Board. In the years since, Signe co-founded the Center for Biography and Social Art, and Chris has facilitated organization and community development with Waldorf schools and other institutions; he is also co-director of the Center for Social Research at the Hawthorne Valley Association.
Signe is the author of Why on Earth? – Biography and the Practice of Human Becoming, as well as a co-author of Ariadne’s Awakening and co-editor of More Lifeways. Chris’s previous books include Partnerships of Hope: Building Waldorf School Communities and Vision in Action: Working with Soul and Spirit in Small Organizations.
Now retired from teaching, the couple lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Finding Hope and Re-Imagining America: A Workshop with Christopher Schaefer
2019-11-23 09:00 - 12:00
Working from his new book Re-Imagining America: Finding Hope in Difficult Times, Chris Schaefer will explore questions of how we can understand the corruption and decline of our nation and how we can become more effective advocates for a better America.
This workshop, which follows the Friday evening talk with Chris and his wife, Signe, consists of short talks, exercises, individual reflection, and small group conversations.

Date/Time/Place
Saturday, November 23, at 9am-12:00 noon in Upper Brookside
Cost
Contribution $30

About the Author
Christopher Schaefer, PhD, has been an adult educator and organization development adviser for most of his working life. He has taught at MIT and Tufts, in addition to his years teaching at Sunbridge College and England’s Emerson College. Chris is the author of Partnerships of Hope: Building Waldorf School Communities and co-author of Vision in Action, Working with Soul and Spirit in Small Organizations. He co-directs the Center for Social Research at the Hawthorne Valley Association and resides with Signe in the Berkshires.

Planning and Creating a Mixed-Age Waldorf Grade School: Methods and Strategies for Sustainability and Success
2020-01-24 19:00 - 2020-01-25 17:30
A pedagogical leadership workshop for school directors/administrators, faculty chairs, teachers, and board members interested in exploring the intentionality and the process of combining grades
With facilitator Jody Spanglet of Ashwood Waldorf School

Description
While a departure from typical Waldorf convention, mixed-age classrooms are a growing reality in many Waldorf schools today. Combining grades can strengthen a school and its pedagogy—and benefit students—by

Helping a school maintain a healthy student population
Requiring innovation and fresh thinking on the part of the teacher and the school
Creating class sizes that allow for a favorable social mix and opportunities for group work
Providing older students in need of remedial work opportunities to strengthen their skills
Providing capable younger students exposure to more challenging skills classes
Providing multi-age experiences that allow younger and older students to develop deep and lasting relationships

Jody Spanglet of Ashwood Waldorf School has seen the advantages students and schools realize when schools intentionally combine grades. In Planning and Creating a Mixed-Age Waldorf Grade School: Methods and Strategies for Sustainability and Success we will explore mixed-age Waldorf grade schools from a strategic planning and governance lens. Through presentation, discussion, and sharing, our focus will be on

The culture of your school: Does it support or undermine your multi-age classroom?

How to create and communicate a predictable and transparent strategic plan incorporating the multi-age model

How to manage expectations (for parents and others)

How to staff a mixed-age classroom and provide professional development for teachers as needed

How to conceive of and successfully work with a developmentally-based curriculum in a mixed-age classroom

How to evaluate the progress and outcome of combining grades

You will leave with a newfound appreciation of the benefits that can result when combining Waldorf grades, and the knowledge of how to plan, create, and sustain a mixed-age grade school.

Facilitator
Jody Spanglet has been director of Rockport, Maine’s Ashwood Waldorf School since 2005. Previously she was a grades 1-8 and 5-8 class teacher. Jody started her Waldorf career as after-care teacher at the Charlottesville Waldorf School when her daughter was a student there. She has since pursued 20 years of coursework in Waldorf Education and anthroposophical study at AWSNA-accredited institutions. Jody received a BA in sociology from SUNY Binghamton and her MSEd in Social Foundations of Education from the University of Virginia.

Schedule
Friday evening, January 24: Doors open at 6:30pm for check-in registration. Workshop begins at 7pm and runs until 8:30pm.
Saturday, January 25: Workshop runs 9am-5:30pm with time for breaks and lunch

Workshop Cost and Meal Plan
The workshop cost is $295 via online registration (cost includes Saturday mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks and a $25 non-refundable registration fee). Online registration is available through noon on Friday, January 24. If you haven’t registered by then and still wish to attend, walk-in registrations will be accepted at the walk-in cost of $310. Note: Meal plans are not an option for walk-in registrants.
For the convenience of workshop participants, we offer an optional meal plan consisting of Saturday breakfast (8-9am) and lunch (midday) served at the on-campus Threefold Cafe. You may sign up for the meal plan on your registration form. The $20 meal plan cost is non-refundable after 1/21/20.

Discount options

For every three registrations it makes, a school may send a fourth attendee for free (the fourth registration cost will be rebated after the workshop takes place). Schools should fill out a volume discount form.
Current Sunbridge program students receive 30% off the workshop cost and Sunbridge program alumni receive 15% off; a discount code will appear on your registration form once you provide identifying information. Only one discount option may be applied.

Housing
Campus housing and local accommodations are reserved directly through Threefold Educational Center.

REGISTER

Questions?
Contact Admissions and Summer Coordinator Barbara Vitale at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20.
Sunbridge Institute reserves the right to cancel any offering at any time. If Sunbridge cancels, all registrants will be notified and will receive a full refund. If the registrant cancels, he or she will receive a full refund less the non-refundable registration fee. Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Waldorf Weekend: Foundations and Fundamentals of Waldorf Education from Early Childhood through High School
2020-01-24 19:00 - 2020-01-25 17:30
Open to all lovers of education and especially relevant for new and prospective Waldorf community members (teachers, parents, grandparents, staff, and board members).
Our popular Waldorf Weekend workshop is designed to provide an in-depth and experiential survey of the basis and the basics of Waldorf Education. In addition to exploring the Waldorf curriculum, your workshop will include a discussion of Rudolf Steiner’s insights in human development and a look into the anthroposophical underpinnings of the Waldorf impulse. You’ll enjoy hands-on artistic activities such as music, movement, and drawing, and there’ll be plenty of time for questions and answers. Our Waldorf Weekends are a most memorable—and fun!—learning experience.

Instructors
Linda Ogden-Wolgemuth, PhD, (Lead; Anthroposophy and Elementary Curriculum) is Sunbridge Institute’s director of education and advancement. She joined the Sunbridge administration in 2018, after previously serving as a trustee on the Sunbridge Board. From 2006-2018 Linda was a class teacher at Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School, where she also sat on the Board of Trustees and College of Teachers and chaired the Community Education Committee; her background in education also includes teaching at the university level. A longtime student of anthroposophy, Linda earned her bachelor’s degree with honors in the field of German area studies from The Johns Hopkins University, her master’s and doctoral degrees in German languages and literatures from the University of Pennsylvania, and her certificate in elementary education from Sunbridge College.

Lisa Miccio, MSEd, (Early Childhood Curriculum) teaches kindergarten at The Waldorf School of Garden City and also sits on the Sunbridge Board of Trustees. Prior to joining the Garden City faculty in 2017, Lisa was on the faculty of Green Meadow Waldorf School for a dozen years; while there she taught kindergarten and parent and child classes, served as a co-chair of the early childhood section, director of early childhood admissions and family programs, and a member of the Collegium, the Collegium Committee and the Board of Trustees. Lisa’s teaching experience also includes working at Mountain Laurel Waldorf School, Dayspring Community School and, during her 2016-17 sabbatical, teaching and mentoring in the Kathmandu (Nepal) Waldorf Kindergarten. She holds a BA in English from the College of Charleston, an MS in Elementary Education from CW Post, Long Island University, and an MS in Waldorf Education from Sunbridge College.

Harlan Gilbert, PhD, (High School Curriculum) has been on the faculty of Green Meadow Waldorf School since 2002, teaching math in the high school and serving on the school’s math curriculum committee. He is the author of At the Source: the Incarnation of the Child and the Development of a Modern Pedagogy, (AWSNA Press, 2005) and has had several articles published in Lilipoh and the Waldorf Education Research Institute Bulletin. Harlan, who studied mathematics and natural science at Yale University and Reed College and eurythmy at the Eurythmeum Zuccoli in Dornach, received his Waldorf teaching certificate from Emerson College, England; his master’s in education from Sunbridge College; and his PhD in Transformative Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Your workshop also includes eurythmy with Elsa Macauley of Eurythmy Spring Valley.

Schedule
Friday, January 24: Doors open at 6:30pm for check-in registration. Please arrive with enough time to register and get settled. Workshop begins promptly at 7 and runs until 8:30.
Saturday, January 25: Workshop runs 9am-5:30pm, with times for breaks and lunch

Workshop Cost and Meal Plan
The workshop cost is $235 via online registration (cost includes Saturday mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks and a $25 non-refundable registration fee). Online registration is available through noon on Friday, January 24. If you haven’t registered by then and still wish to attend, walk-in registrations will be accepted, space permitting, at the walk-in cost of $250. Check this page to ensure spaces remain before arriving for walk-in registration.
For the convenience of workshop participants, we offer an optional meal plan consisting of Saturday breakfast (8-9am) and lunch (midday) served at the on-campus Threefold Cafe. You may sign up for the meal plan on your registration form. The $20 meal plan cost is non-refundable after 1/21/20.

Housing
Campus housing and local accommodations are reserved directly through Threefold Educational Center.

REGISTER

Questions?
Contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20.
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Subject Teachers Conference: Collaboration, Classroom Management, Child Development, and More--A Toolbox for Subject Teachers
2020-02-28 19:00 - 2020-02-29 17:30
A conference for subject teachers, faculty chairs, and pedagogical administrators. Class teachers and teachers-in-training are also encouraged to attend.

With Jeannine Davis of The Waldorf School of Garden City, Erin Fitzgerald of The Waldorf School of Garden City, and Jana Hawley of Sunbridge Institute and Green Meadow Waldorf School

Subject teachers play an essential role in the life of every Waldorf school and the experience of every Waldorf student. Their classes serve to enrich, balance, and support academic lessons. Children immersed in movement, artistic activities, and new language acquisition receive numerous social and emotional health benefits that will support them throughout their lives.
Bringing subject teachers from across all areas of specialization together to learn about and share with one another the challenges and opportunities inherent to subject teaching, Sunbridge’s 2020 Subject Teachers Conference builds on our 2018 conference in exploring the unique and multi-faceted task of the Waldorf subject teacher.
With a focused look at collaboration, classroom management, and child development, and through presentation, discussion, sharing, and role-playing led by master Waldorf subject teachers, this conference will address the following questions:

How can subject teachers best collaborate with both their fellow subject teachers and the class teachers with whom they work, and and how can they bring the curriculum forward based on this collaboration?
As indicated by Rudolf Steiner, what is the overarching gesture for each grade and how can subject teachers work with these themes in their curricula?
How can subject teachers design their classes to deepen the teaching and the experience of key main lesson blocks in each grade?
What are strategies for dealing with classroom management and disciplinary problems across subjects and grades?
When should subject teachers step into potentially sensitive conversations often overheard between students and what are effective ways of addressing these conversations?
How can subject teachers best share information concerning their students with class teachers and in faculty meetings?
How can subject teachers address the pragmatic aspects of their work, such as organization and timeliness?

Takeaways from this conference will include practical knowledge of the themes and child development of each elementary school grade, along with a toolbox of ideas and strategies to support your teaching.

Facilitators
Jeannine Davis, MSEd, teachers horticulture and gardening at The Waldorf School of Garden City, where she created, implemented, and teaches the organic gardening curriculum for grades one through eight; she is also a key figure in her school’s coming-of-age experience to honor the transition and challenges of entering adolescence. Jeannine was a featured panelist at a recent conference at Hofstra University, speaking on “Importance of Local Agriculture to Health and Education” and was also a curriculum panelist at Sunbridge’s 2018 teachers conference. She graduated from American University with a BA in public relations, earned her MS in Waldorf Education from Sunbridge College, and holds a certificate in Biodynamic Agriculture.

Erin Fitzgerald is the movement and dance teacher at The Waldorf School of Garden City. Previously, she served as administrator and movement/games teacher at Ithaca Waldorf School, and was part of the group of parents and teachers that founded the Brooklyn Waldorf School in 2004. She has also taught creative movement in NYC public and private elementary schools and was a professional dancer and choreographer. Erin received her BA from Bennington College and graduated from the Spacial Dynamics Movement Training Program.

Jana Hawley, MSEd, has served as director of Sunbridge’s Elementary Teacher Education program since 2009 and director of our specialized intensives in Elementary Music and Grades 1-12 World Language teaching since 2014. Since 2006, she has also been on the faculty of Green Meadow Waldorf School, where she has been a class teacher, music teacher, and member of the Teacher Development Committee; previously, she spent 14 years on the faculty of the Whidbey Island Waldorf School, teaching music and main lessons. Jana, who has been a visiting faculty member at several Waldorf teacher training institutes in the US as well as abroad, earned her BFA in Music from Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA, and her MSEd in Waldorf Elementary Teacher Education from Sunbridge College.
Plus eurythmy with Maria ver Eecke of The Waldorf School of Garden City

Schedule
Friday evening, February 28: Doors open at 6:30pm for check-in registration. Conference begins at 7pm and runs until 8:30pm.
Saturday, February 29: Conference runs 9am-5:30pm with time for breaks and lunch

Conference Cost
The conference cost is $295 via online registration (cost includes Saturday mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks and a $25 non-refundable registration fee). Online registration is available through noon on Friday, February 28. If you haven’t registered by then and still wish to attend, walk-in registrations will be accepted at the walk-in cost of $310. Check this page to ensure spaces remain before arriving for walk-in registration.
Meal Plan
For the convenience of workshop participants, we offer an optional meal plan consisting of Saturday breakfast (8-9am) and lunch (midday), served at the on-campus Threefold Cafe. You may sign up for the meal plan on your registration form. The $20 meal plan cost must be purchased by and is non-refundable after February 25.

Discount options

For every three registrations it makes, a school may send a fourth attendee for free (the fourth registration cost will be rebated after the conference takes place). Schools should fill out a volume discount form and submit it by Tuesday, February 25.
Current Sunbridge program students receive 30% off the conference cost and Sunbridge program alumni receive 15% off; a discount code will appear on your registration form once you provide identifying information.
Only one discount option may be applied.

Housing
Campus housing and local accommodations are reserved directly through Threefold Educational Center.

REGISTER

Questions?
Contact Admissions and Summer Coordinator Barbara Vitale at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20.
Sunbridge Institute reserves the right to cancel any offering at any time. If Sunbridge cancels, all registrants will be notified and will receive a full refund. If the registrant cancels, he or she will receive a full refund less the non-refundable registration fee. Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Foundations of Waldorf Education
2020-06-19 19:00 - 21:00
Registration is re-opened! Due to popular demand, we have expanded capacity and made room for additional registrants for this previously “sold out” June 19th event. The registration link for new registrants is below.
NOTE: If you had previously placed your name on the waitlist for a future webinar date, you are now automatically registered for this one (June 19th), so PLEASE DO NOT re-register. If you fall into this category, an email has been sent to you confirming your new registration status.
As a small offering to our community and a way to serve those looking for a brief introduction to Waldorf Education this summer, Sunbridge Director of Education Linda Ogden-Wolgemuth will be presenting Foundations of Waldorf Education, a free, interactive webinar on Friday evening, June 19, from 7-9pm. Discussing the background and highlights of Waldorf Education and especially helpful for new Waldorf teachers, staffers, and parents, Foundations of Waldorf Education will be open to anyone, whether as an add-on to your Summer Series 2020: Live From Home course or as a stand-alone experience.
Presenter
Linda Ogden-Wolgemuth, PhD, joined the Sunbridge administration in 2018, after previously serving as a trustee on the Sunbridge Board. From 2006-2018 Linda was a class teacher at Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School, where she also sat on the Board of Trustees and College of Teachers and chaired the Community Education Committee; her background in education also includes teaching at the university level. A longtime student of anthroposophy, Linda earned her bachelor’s degree with honors in the field of German area studies from The Johns Hopkins University, her master’s and doctoral degrees in German languages and literatures from the University of Pennsylvania, and her certificate in elementary education from Sunbridge College.

Schedule
Friday, June 19, 7-9pm.
Cost
This webinar is free, but advance registration is required. Space is limited.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Collaborative Leadership: Personalized Strategies for Becoming a More Effective Member of Your Leadership Team
2020-07-26 19:00 - 2020-07-31 12:00
This course will be taught remotely in real-time. Details here.
This course has reached maximum enrollment and is now filled. If you are interested in being contacted in the event of a cancellation, please add your name to our wait list.
Professional development for decision-makers—including administrators, directors, board and committee members, and faculty chairs—working in Waldorf schools or other workplace settings.
No matter what your position or title is, if you participate in a planning or problem-solving process in your school, business, or organization, you have leadership responsibilities. In this highly-useful course, our focus is on the practical work of being a leader and decision-maker. Through a process imbued with the anthroposophical understanding of the human being, and successfully applied in organizations from multi-million dollar nationals to Waldorf schools, Collaborative Leadership will help you learn how to improve your effectiveness as a member of your leadership team.
Each participant is asked to bring to the course his or her own organizational question, project, or challenge. Using your real-life cases, we will apply these four core models for collaborative leadership:

Three main leadership tasks: Maintaining and creating identity / Creating space for healthy, stable relationships / Assuring professional results
Diagnostic and planning tools: How to look at an organization as a whole and understand the dynamics of intersecting segments
How to create processes toward healthy decision-making
The balance between power and trust

Your course takeaway will be an individualized action plan for the question, project, or challenge you have brought with you, along with an understanding of the necessary skill set with which to execute it.
BONUS: Ongoing coaching support! To support you as you implement throughout the year what you have learned and practiced during the summer, this course includes conference calls facilitated by co-instructor Jessica Heffernan Ziegler scheduled from October through May. In these one-and-a-half-hour-long coaching conversations, you and your classmates will continue to hone your collaborative leadership skills, addressing and supporting one another’s progress and challenges—and so gain further insights, understanding, and expertise.
Instructors
Joachim Ziegler, PhD, has been working in the fields of organizational development and human resources development since 1994. A partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group, Joachim’s current list of American and international clients encompasses the banking, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing sectors, as well as anthroposophical institutions and Waldorf schools. Joachim is a member of the College of Social Sciences Section at the Goetheanum and the international Association for Social Development and has taught at the University of Muenster and at Germany’s first private university in Herdecke. He holds an MA in adult education and a PhD in medical education.
Jessica Heffernan Ziegler has been the executive director of Sunbridge Institute since 2008; previously, she taught collaboration and group dynamics in Sunbridge College’s Administration, Biography, and Elementary Teacher Education programs. Jessica has worked as an executive coach and organizational development consultant for Waldorf school administrators and teachers, as well as other professionals, in diverse institutions and schools in both the US and Germany. She served as the first administrator and as a board member at a Waldorf school she co-founded in Everswinkel, Germany; is a partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group; and sits on the boards of Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School and the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Jessica who holds a BS in business management, did her biography training with Karl-Heinz Finke and her executive coach training with SECA International. Her professional focus on leadership skills, governance issues, and personnel development are utilized in both her executive director position and in her work as co-instructor of Collaborative Leadership and its related workshops.

Students who took Collaborative Leadership in previous summers had this to say:
~ This course exceeded my expectations!
~ The experience and dedication to the whole process that our facilitators brought to a very rich and full week was very, very satisfying.
~The professional material was exceptional. The clarity of the presentation was superb.
~ Excellent content, excellent presenters.
~ There was a surprisingly beautiful balance of theory and artistic work that was completely relevant and complimentary.
~ I am working in a school, yet I know I can also apply this training to any business.
~ The coaching calls have been helpful on several levels… having a like-minded community of school leadership team members reflecting on the same topic at the same time deepens the quality of our leadership process (and keeps) our summer work focused and moving forward.
~ Thank you for one of the best weeks I have experienced here.

Schedule
This course runs Sunday evening, July 26-Friday noon, July 31, in a synchronous online classroom. See main summer page for times and format.

Cost
$600 includes all materials, and coaching sessions running from October through May. See main summer page for discount options.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

Seven Levels of an Organization: Understanding the Structure and Dynamics of Your Organization
2020-10-09 - 2020-10-10
The first of three virtual workshops in a series on Mindsets, Concepts, and Core Skills of Effective Collaborative Leadership for Waldorf administrators, Board members, faculty, and staff, plus those with decision-making responsibilities in other organizational and business settings. Each workshop may be taken separately.

This foundational workshop provides you with the blueprint for how to map and navigate the structure of your school (or other organization), recognize its intersecting parts, and assess its well-being.
In this workshop we will examine these seven organizational levels:
Identity / Spiritual Realm
• Vision & Mission
• Values & Principles
• Strategies & Goals
Social Realm
• People & Relationships
Performance / Economic Realm
• Functions & Structure
• Policies & Processes
• Resources & Finances
By defining and applying these levels (and their corresponding realms) to your school and understanding how they come together to fulfill its mission, you will acquire the means to diagnose your school’s health; pinpoint areas that need attention; and correct imbalances that can lead to unsustainable situations or crises.

For other workshops in the series, see also Dialogue: The Four Phases of Group Decision-Making and the Practice of Deep Listening and Balance Between Power and Trust: Creating Healthy Relationships Able to Withstand Tough Times

Facilitators
Jessica Heffernan Ziegler has been the executive director of Sunbridge Institute since 2008; previously, she taught collaboration and group dynamics in Sunbridge College’s Administration, Biography, and Elementary Teacher Education programs. Jessica has worked as an executive coach and organizational development consultant for Waldorf school administrators and teachers, as well as other professionals, in diverse institutions and schools in both the US and Germany. She served as the first administrator and as a board member at a Waldorf school she co-founded in Everswinkel, Germany; is a partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group; and sits on the boards of Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School and the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Jessica who holds a BS in business management, did her biography training with Karl-Heinz Finke and her executive coach training with SECA International. Her professional focus on leadership skills, governance issues, and personnel development are utilized in both her executive director position and in her work as co-instructor of Collaborative Leadership and its related workshops.
Joachim Ziegler, PhD, has been working in the fields of organizational development and human resources development since 1994. A partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group, Joachim’s current list of American and international clients encompasses the banking, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing sectors, as well as anthroposophical institutions and Waldorf schools. Joachim is a member of the College of Social Sciences Section at the Goetheanum and the international Association for Social Development and has taught at the University of Muenster and at Germany’s first private university in Herdecke. He holds an MA in adult education and a PhD in medical education.
Jessica and Joachim have been leading Sunbridge’s Collaborative Leadership week-long course and weekend workshops for the past ten years. Previous participants said this about their experiences:
~ Excellent! Highly practical, deeply insightful, clearly organized, masterfully executed.
~ This course was immensely useful in helping me to develop a more full and practical understanding of organizational structures, how to diagnose my organization, and to look at ways to bring about change. The diagnostic tool, the experiences of dialogue and decision making, and discussions about power and trust were so valuable.
~ The quality of the course was outstanding. Jessica and Joachim really made the information come alive and explained it in a way that was easy to digest.

Schedule
This workshop will take place in live Zoom sessions.

Sessions
Friday, October 9: 10:30am-12pm and 1:30pm-3pm
Saturday, October 10: 10:30am-12pm
ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN

Cost
$150
Discount Options

10% off discount will apply for

Those who register for all three workshops in this series (Use discount code MAXREG)
Those who have previously attended Sunbridge’s week-long Collaborative Leadership Summer Series course (Contact info@sunbridge.edu for discount code if it hasn’t already been sent to you.)
Schools sending two or more registrants (This discount is in the form of a rebate that will be issued to our sending schools following the conclusion of the series.)
Sunbridge program graduates (A discount code will appear on your registration form after you identify yourself.)

50% off discount will apply for current Sunbridge program students (A discount code will appear on your registration form after you identify yourself.)

One discount only may be applied

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

2020 Teachers Conference - Calling It Like It Is: Uncovering and Dismantling Racism in the Waldorf Movement
2020-11-13 - 2020-11-14
NEW DATE ADDED! This November 13-14 Teachers Conference is sold out. To accommodate all those who were unable to secure a spot in November, we will be presenting this event again—with identical content—on Friday-Saturday, January 29-30. Register here for the January date and/or add yourself to our wait list for November.
The protests that followed the killings of members of our Black communities this spring served to wake many people up to the realities of racism in America—realities to which the Waldorf movement is not immune. Accepting the fact that racism exists within Waldorf Education and taking on the work of recognizing and eradicating it from our classrooms is a goal to which we must commit ourselves if we are to truly educate our children (and ourselves) toward freedom.
To this end, Sunbridge’s 2020 Teachers Conference tackles the important task of uncovering racism in the Waldorf movement and identifying steps we must take to dismantle it.
Over the course of three one-and-a-half-hour sessions taking place Friday evening and Saturday, we will:

Define and articulate the ways in which the Waldorf curriculum centers whiteness and sets it up as an ideal, to the detriment of all;

Use the frameworks of racial identity formation and biography work to better understand how we become who we are in a racialized society and how that impacts our engagement with the children in our care;

Share practical tools, resources, and success stories with the goal of dismantling racism in Waldorf schools and communities.

Join us over Zoom for this real-time, virtual event.

Facilitators
Keelah Helwig (November and January dates) is currently an early childhood educator and chair of the Early Childhood program at The Waldorf School of Garden City (her alma mater). Keelah has served as chair of WSGS’s College of Teachers and is a founding member and chair of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She is proud to be a founding member of the Sunbridge Institute Diversity Scholarship Fund Committee and is also a Sunbridge Board trustee. A skilled facilitator, mentor, evaluator, and shepherd, Keelah is passionate about motivating school communities and inspiring lasting and meaningful change. Following her WSGS graduation, Keelah earned a BA in theatre from Spelman College and her masters in early childhood education from Sunbridge College.
Vicki Larson (November and January dates), director of communications and marketing at Green Meadow Waldorf School since 2011 and a founding member of Sunbridge’s Diversity Scholarship Fund Committee, has been involved in anti-racism initiatives and community organizing for social justice for more than 20 years. Vicki has held positions in publishing, resource development, translation and interpretation (English/Spanish), international women’s human rights, marketing, communications, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. A skilled trainer/facilitator, writer, and editor who loves working with young people and adults, she has been a consultant to Waldorf schools across the US since 2014. Vicki graduated with honors from the University of Florida in Gainesville with a major in English and minors in Religion and Women’s Studies.

Heather Scott (November date) is currently a high school humanities teacher at The Waldorf School of San Diego. Heather has taught at WSSD for 16 years, including graduating two eighth grade classes. Her teaching experience also includes a year spent at The Community School for Creative Education, a public, Waldorf-inspired charter in Oakland, CA. Heather’s interests are in diversifying Waldorf middle- and high-school curricula. She is passionate about supporting anti-racism through a grounding in history and biography and has a decades’ long interest in African-American culture and literature, especially attuned to Black women writers. Heather earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA from The University of New Hampshire, Durham.
Meggan Gill (January date) is currently lead toddler teacher at City of Lakes Waldorf School. Between 2009 and 2020, she taught in the early childhood section at the Brooklyn Waldorf School, leading parent-and-child and kindergarten classes and being active on the school’s Faculty Council and Board of Trustees; before that, she taught parent-and-child and nursery classes at NYC’s New Amsterdam School. Meggan, who first learned about Waldorf Education when she visited the Olympia Waldorf School as part of her “Arts and the Child” class at Evergreen State College and soon thereafter began working in their extended day and early childhood programs, earned her undergraduate degree in health sciences at Evergreen State and her certificate in Waldorf Early Childhood Education from Sunbridge.
Schedule
This conference will take place in live Zoom sessions.
Sessions
Friday, November 13: 7-8:30pm
Saturday, November 14: 10-11:30am and 12:30-2pm
All times are US EASTERN
Due to the sensitive nature of these discussions and because each builds on the next, we strongly encourage registrants to be able to attend all three sessions.

Cost
$150
Discount Options

10% off if you are a Sunbridge program alum OR for schools sending two or more registrants
50% off for current Sunbridge program students

Discount codes for Sunbridge program alumni and students will appear on your registration form once you identify yourself. Discounts for sending schools are in the form of rebates that will be issued after the conference takes place. Only one discount may be applied.

If you would like to be added to a wait list for November 13-14, should a space open up, please do so HERE.
REGISTER HERE FOR OUR ADDED DATE: JANUARY 29-30.
Zoom Sessions
Friday, January 29: 7-8:30pm ET
Saturday, January 30: 10-11:30am and 12:30-2pm ET

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Teachers Conference - Calling It Like It Is: Uncovering and Dismantling Racism in the Waldorf Movement
2021-01-29 - 2021-01-30
This event has sold out, but will be repeated on March 19-20.
The protests that followed the killings of members of our Black communities last spring served to wake many people up to the realities of racism in America—realities to which the Waldorf movement is not immune. Accepting the fact that racism exists within Waldorf Education and taking on the work of recognizing and eradicating it from our classrooms is a goal to which we must commit ourselves if we are to truly educate our children (and ourselves) toward freedom.
To this end, Sunbridge’s Teachers Conference tackles the important task of uncovering racism in the Waldorf movement and identifying steps we must take to dismantle it.
Over the course of three one-and-a-half-hour sessions taking place Friday evening and Saturday, we will:

Define and articulate the ways in which the Waldorf curriculum centers whiteness and sets it up as an ideal, to the detriment of all;

Use the frameworks of racial identity formation and biography work to better understand how we become who we are in a racialized society and how that impacts our engagement with the children in our care;

Share practical tools, resources, and success stories with the goal of dismantling racism in Waldorf schools and communities.

Join us over Zoom for this real-time, virtual event.

Facilitators
Keelah Helwig is currently an early childhood educator and chair of the Early Childhood program at The Waldorf School of Garden City (her alma mater). Keelah has served as chair of WSGS’s College of Teachers and is a founding member and chair of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She is proud to be a founding member of the Sunbridge Institute Diversity Scholarship Fund Committee and is also a Sunbridge Board trustee. A skilled facilitator, mentor, evaluator, and shepherd, Keelah is passionate about motivating school communities and inspiring lasting and meaningful change. Following her WSGS graduation, Keelah earned a BA in theatre from Spelman College and her masters in early childhood education from Sunbridge College.
Vicki Larson, director of communications and marketing at Green Meadow Waldorf School since 2011 and a founding member of Sunbridge’s Diversity Scholarship Fund Committee, has been involved in anti-racism initiatives and community organizing for social justice for more than 20 years. Vicki has held positions in publishing, resource development, translation and interpretation (English/Spanish), international women’s human rights, marketing, communications, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. A skilled trainer/facilitator, writer, and editor who loves working with young people and adults, she has been a consultant to Waldorf schools across the US since 2014. Vicki graduated with honors from the University of Florida in Gainesville with a major in English and minors in Religion and Women’s Studies.
Meggan Gill is currently lead toddler teacher at City of Lakes Waldorf School. Between 2009 and 2020, she was on the faculty of the Brooklyn Waldorf School, leading parent-and-child and kindergarten classes and being active on the school’s Faculty Council and Board of Trustees. Prior to joining BWS, she taught parent-and-child and nursery classes at NYC’s New Amsterdam School. Meggan, who is also an adjunct faculty member in Sunbridge’s teacher education programs, first learned about Waldorf Education when she visited the Olympia Waldorf School as part of her “Arts and the Child” class at Evergreen State College and soon thereafter began working in OWS’s extended day and early childhood programs. She earned her undergraduate degree in health sciences at Evergreen State and her certificate in Waldorf Early Childhood Education from Sunbridge.
Heather Scott is currently a high school humanities teacher at The Waldorf School of San Diego. Heather has taught at WSSD for 16 years, including graduating two eighth grade classes. Her teaching experience also includes a year spent at The Community School for Creative Education, a public, Waldorf-inspired charter in Oakland, CA. Heather’s interests are in diversifying Waldorf middle- and high-school curricula. She is passionate about supporting anti-racism through a grounding in history and biography and has a decades’ long interest in African-American culture and literature, especially attuned to Black women writers. Heather earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA from The University of New Hampshire, Durham.

Schedule
This conference will take place in live Zoom sessions.
Sessions
Friday, January 29: 7-8:30pm ET
Saturday, January 30: 10-11:30am and 12:30-2pm ET
NOTE: All times are US EASTERN
Due to the sensitive nature of these discussions and because each builds on the next, we strongly encourage registrants to be able to attend all three sessions.

Cost
$150
Discount Options

10% off if you are a Sunbridge program alum OR for schools sending two or more registrants
50% off for current Sunbridge program students

Discount codes for Sunbridge program alumni and students will appear on your registration form once you identify yourself. Use discount code VOLUME if your school is sending more than one registrant; qualification for coupon use will be verified when the workshop begins. Only one discount may be applied.

REGISTRATION IS NOW FULL. PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME TO OUR WAITLIST or sign up for our repeat showing on March 19-20.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Dialogue: The Four Phases of Group Decision-Making and the Practice of Deep Listening
2021-02-12 - 2021-02-13
The second of three virtual workshops in a series on Mindsets, Concepts, and Core Skills of Effective Collaborative Leadership for Waldorf administrators, Board members, faculty, and staff, plus those with decision-making responsibilities in other organizational and business settings. Each workshop may be taken separately.

Providing the ability to look critically at oneself and at one’s organization, dialogue is a mindset that lies at the very heart of the collaborative leadership process. As the method by which we create real engagement and transparency, and an essential element in building and maintaining trust, dialogue requires honest, non-violent interaction; appreciation and respect for differences; the ability to reflect; commitment to one another; and commitment to fulfilling shared purposes and goals.
By exploring the practice of deep listening, and utilizing these four phases of group decision-making

Warming Up and Planning
Exploration / Picture-Building
Creating Options and Coming to a Judgment / Conclusion
Making a Decision (Followed by Implementation and Review)

this workshop provides an opportunity to understand—and learn how to employ—dialogue as an essential mindset and skill that enables us to arrive at sustainable, equitable, and courageous decisions.

For other workshops in the series, see also Seven Levels: Understanding the Structure and Dynamics of Your Organization and Balance Between Power and Trust: Creating Healthy Relationships Able to Withstand Tough Times

Facilitators
Jessica Heffernan Ziegler has been the executive director of Sunbridge Institute since 2008; previously, she taught collaboration and group dynamics in Sunbridge College’s Administration, Biography, and Elementary Teacher Education programs. Jessica has worked as an executive coach and organizational development consultant for Waldorf school administrators and teachers, as well as other professionals, in diverse institutions and schools in both the US and Germany. She served as the first administrator and as a board member at a Waldorf school she co-founded in Everswinkel, Germany; is a partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group; and sits on the boards of Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School and the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Jessica who holds a BS in business management, did her biography training with Karl-Heinz Finke and her executive coach training with SECA International. Her professional focus on leadership skills, governance issues, and personnel development are utilized in both her executive director position and in her work as co-instructor of Collaborative Leadership and its related workshops.
Joachim Ziegler, PhD, has been working in the fields of organizational development and human resources development since 1994. A partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group, Joachim’s current list of American and international clients encompasses the banking, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing sectors, as well as anthroposophical institutions and Waldorf schools. Joachim is a member of the College of Social Sciences Section at the Goetheanum and the international Association for Social Development and has taught at the University of Muenster and at Germany’s first private university in Herdecke. He holds an MA in adult education and a PhD in medical education.
Jessica and Joachim have been leading Sunbridge’s Collaborative Leadership week-long course and weekend workshops for the past ten years. Previous participants said this about their experiences:
~ Excellent! Highly practical, deeply insightful, clearly organized, masterfully executed.
~ This course was immensely useful in helping me to develop a more full and practical understanding of organizational structures, how to diagnose my organization, and to look at ways to bring about change. The diagnostic tool, the experiences of dialogue and decision making, and discussions about power and trust were so valuable.
~ The quality of the course was outstanding. Jessica and Joachim really made the information come alive and explained it in a way that was easy to digest.

Schedule
This workshop will take place in live Zoom sessions.

Sessions
Friday, February 12: 10:30am-12pm and 1:30pm-3pm
Saturday, February 13: 10:30am-12pm
ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN

Cost
$150
Discount Options

10% off discount will apply for

Those who register for all three workshops in this series (Use discount code MAXREG)
Those who have previously attended Sunbridge’s week-long Collaborative Leadership Summer Series course (Contact info@sunbridge.edu for discount code if it hasn’t already been sent to you.)
Schools sending two or more registrants (Use discount code VOLUME. Qualification for coupon use will be verified when the workshop begins.)
Sunbridge program graduates (A discount code will appear on your registration form after you identify yourself.)

50% off discount will apply for current Sunbridge program students (A discount code will appear on your registration form after you identify yourself.)

One discount only may be applied

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

A Focus on Middle School Science: A Phenomenological Approach to Teaching Science in Grades 6-8
2021-02-19 19:00 - 2021-02-21 11:30
Professional development for middle school class and science teachers
This phenomenologically-based exploration into Waldorf middle school science will help Waldorf teachers approach science teaching with greater confidence. Through lecture, discussion, and demonstrations we will explore the practice of teaching science in a living way.

This weekend workshop with Gary Banks, held virtually over Zoom, includes:

An overview of the main science topics in middle school science, grades 6-8
Performing and observing a few key experiments from the many exciting topics in grades 6-8, thus giving participants a sense of how to create demonstrations and hands-on experiences that will serve the middle school student and to have a sense for how a topic develops over three years
Sharing ideas about how students may record the experiences they observe in class
Reviewing the experiences we observe together in the way a teacher would do with students, deepening the participant’s relationship to these topics and gaining confidence in how to conduct lessons in a two-day rhythm of observation and concept development
Discussions around the middle school student and how they are served by this method
Sharing ideas around how a phenomenological approach may be utilized in remote learning

Gary will lead participants through the following:

An overview of phenomenological approach drawing on many examples.
An overview of science subjects in middle school.
Direct experiences in physics and chemistry participants will do at home (see below), followed by a discussion of these experiences as a model for how a conversation around phenomena can happen and deepening our understanding of particular topics.

Physics

Color phenomena for grade 6
Mirror phenomena for grade 7
Triboelectric phenomena grade 6
Magnetism for grade 6
Electromagnetism for grade 8

Chemistry

Table candle phenomena for grade 7
Relationship of fire to air for grade 7

See the list of materials you will need to have on hand to participate in these at-home experiments.

Instructor
Gary Banks currently teaches high school math and science at the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, where he is also the high school faculty chair. Gary is also a presenter in the Teaching Sensible Science course and has taught in a number of teacher training programs and foundation studies courses. From 1993-2001, he took a class from first to eighth grade at the Denver Waldorf School, then worked as a high school science teacher at High Mowing School and a class teacher at Pine Hill Waldorf School before moving to Michigan. Gary earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering and worked as a research engineer on the NASA Space Station project before entering teaching. He completed his MEd at Antioch New England Graduate School.

Schedule
Friday, February 19, Zoom session: 7pm-8:30 pm Eastern Time
Saturday, February 20, Zoom sessions: 10-11:30am; 12:30-2pm Eastern Time
Sunday, February 21, Zoom session: 10-11:30am Eastern Time

Fee
$200
Discount Options

10% off if you are a Sunbridge program alum OR for schools sending two or more registrants
Discount codes for Sunbridge program alumni will appear on your registration form once you identify yourself. Use discount code VOLUME if your school is sending more than one registrant; qualification for coupon use will be verified when the workshop begins. Only one discount may be applied.
100% off if you are a current Sunbridge program student. Please register as soon as possible, while spaces are still available, using the code provided you

REGISTER

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Exploring the World of Birth to Three and Why It's So Important: Developmental Insights and Practices for Working With Infants and Toddlers
2021-03-05 19:00 - 2021-03-06 14:00
For educators and educators-in-training, administrators, parents, caregivers of infants and toddlers, and anyone interested in including this work in their practice or their school
We have reached maximum capacity for this event. If you wish to add your name to a waitlist should any openings occur, please do so here.
Birth to three is a critical period of child development. During this time, children experience extraordinary change and growth as they learn to navigate relationships with parents, family, and the world beyond. Adults have a special responsibility to properly and consciously support young children during this period, with a careful and kind approach that understands and values this time of life.
Dr. Emmi Pikler, a pediatrician who worked in Budapest during the mid-20th century, developed a groundbreaking approach to early childhood care and education. Her approach, widely practiced and recognized as an exemplar of high quality caregiving, emphasizes the importance of children’s autonomous play and movement, and the role of respectful caregiving in the development of young children’s personalities.
Applying Emmi Pikler’s main principles, as well as insights from Waldorf Education, participants in this workshop will deepen their skills and knowledge to provide peaceful and respectful care to very young children, while also learning how birth to three work fits into the bigger picture of Waldorf pedagogy and school organization.
Topics covered will include:

The sequence of natural motor development
The importance of self-initiated free play
Choreography of care – the dance of cooperative caregiving
How to support secure relationships between adults and infants
Creating an unhurried rhythm of the day
The inner work of the caregiver
Embracing birth to three in the Waldorf pedagogy

Presented over Zoom, this interactive workshop will include lecture, discussion, hands-on practice, video footage, and experiential activities.
Participants will leave with a basic theoretical foundation, as well as practical skills to care for very young children.

Instructors
Anna Ruth Myers, founder of The Nurtured Child in NYC, is an infant development specialist with over 15 years of experience supporting families and children. As a certified doula, childbirth, and breastfeeding educator, she has supported over 100 families through the pregnancy, birth, and postpartum periods. Anna Ruth is a certified RIE® Associate and highly trained Pikler® infant care specialist who has completed multiple trainings at the Pikler Institute® in Budapest. In addition to her diploma in Waldorf Early Childhood Education from Sunbridge, Anna Ruth holds 0-3 and 3-6 teaching diplomas from the American Montessori Society, a diploma from The Child in the First Three Years training course at Sophia’s Hearth Family Center, and an MA in human development with a specialization in early childhood development, and has completed study groups in the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education.

Meggan Gill is currently lead toddler teacher at City of Lakes Waldorf School. Between 2009 and 2020, she was on the faculty of the Brooklyn Waldorf School, leading parent-and-child and kindergarten classes and being active on the school’s Faculty Council and Board of Trustees. Prior to joining BWS, she taught parent-and-child and nursery classes at NYC’s New Amsterdam School. Meggan, who is also an adjunct faculty member in Sunbridge’s teacher education programs, first learned about Waldorf Education when she visited the Olympia Waldorf School as part of her “Arts and the Child” class at Evergreen State College and soon thereafter began working in OWS’s extended day and early childhood programs. She earned her undergraduate degree in health sciences at Evergreen State and her certificate in Waldorf Early Childhood Education from Sunbridge.

Schedule
Friday, March 5, Zoom session: 7pm-8:30pm Eastern Time
Saturday, March 6, Zoom sessions: 10am-11:30am and 12:30pm-2pm Eastern Time

Cost
$150
Discount Options

10% off if you are a Sunbridge program alum OR for schools sending two or more registrants
Discount codes for Sunbridge program alumni will appear on your registration form once you identify yourself. Use discount code VOLUME if your school is sending more than one registrant; qualification for coupon use will be verified when the workshop begins. Only one discount may be applied.
100% off if you are a current Sunbridge program student. Please register as soon as possible, while spaces are still available, using the code provided you.

REGISTER

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

SUNY Master's Info Session
2021-03-18 19:00 - 20:00
Sunbridge’s partnership with Empire State College of the State University of New York has recently expanded, making it easier than ever for our Early Childhood and Elementary teacher education students and graduates to apply their Sunbridge Institute diploma or Sunbridge College certificate toward earning a fully-accredited SUNY MEd or MALS degree with self-designed concentration in Waldorf Education.
Join us for a free virtual webinar in which Dr. Tina Wagle, Coordinator of the MEd in Curriculum & Instruction program (and original collaborator on the Sunbridge/SUNY Empire State partnership) will discuss this partnership and answer all your questions regarding this unique opportunity to earn a graduate degree with a focus in Waldorf Education and the specifics of these two master’s programs. Open to all adults who are current, past, or prospective Sunbridge Early Childhood or Elementary program students.
NOTE: While SUNY Empire State College MEd and MALS degrees are open to anyone, the concentration in Waldorf Education is available only to those who hold a Sunbridge diploma in Waldorf Early Childhood or Elementary Teacher Education. Learn more details here.

Schedule
Thursday, March 18, Zoom session 7pm-8pm (Eastern Time)

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Teachers Conference - Calling It Like It Is: Uncovering and Dismantling Racism in the Waldorf Movement
2021-03-19 - 2021-03-20
The protests that followed the killings of members of our Black communities last spring served to wake many people up to the realities of racism in America—realities to which the Waldorf movement is not immune. Accepting the fact that racism exists within Waldorf Education and taking on the work of recognizing and eradicating it from our classrooms is a goal to which we must commit ourselves if we are to truly educate our children (and ourselves) toward freedom.
To this end, Sunbridge’s Teachers Conference tackles the important task of uncovering racism in the Waldorf movement and identifying steps we must take to dismantle it.
Over the course of three one-and-a-half-hour sessions taking place Friday evening and Saturday, we will:

Define and articulate the ways many Waldorf school curricula center whiteness and set it up as an ideal, to the detriment of all;

Use the frameworks of racial identity formation and biography work to better understand how we become who we are in a racialized society and how that impacts our engagement with the children in our care;

Share practical tools, resources, and success stories with the goal of dismantling racism in Waldorf schools and communities.

Join us over Zoom for this real-time, virtual event.

Facilitators
Keelah Helwig is currently an early childhood educator and chair of the Early Childhood program at The Waldorf School of Garden City (her alma mater). Keelah has served as chair of WSGS’s College of Teachers and is a founding member and chair of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She is proud to be a founding member of the Sunbridge Institute Diversity Scholarship Fund Committee and is also a Sunbridge Board trustee as well as a new WECAN Board trustee. A skilled facilitator, mentor, evaluator, and shepherd, Keelah is passionate about motivating school communities and inspiring lasting and meaningful change. Following her WSGS graduation, Keelah earned a BA in theatre from Spelman College and her masters in early childhood education from Sunbridge College.
Vicki Larson, director of communications and marketing at Green Meadow Waldorf School since 2011 and a founding member of Sunbridge’s Diversity Scholarship Fund Committee, has been involved in anti-racism initiatives and community organizing for social justice for more than 20 years. Vicki has held positions in publishing, resource development, translation and interpretation (English/Spanish), international women’s human rights, marketing, communications, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. A skilled trainer/facilitator, writer, and editor who loves working with young people and adults, she has been a consultant to Waldorf schools across the US since 2014. Vicki graduated with honors from the University of Florida in Gainesville with a major in English and minors in Religion and Women’s Studies.
Meggan Gill is currently lead toddler teacher at City of Lakes Waldorf School. Between 2009 and 2020, she was on the faculty of the Brooklyn Waldorf School, leading parent-and-child and kindergarten classes and being active on the school’s Faculty Council and Board of Trustees. Prior to joining BWS, she taught parent-and-child and nursery classes at NYC’s New Amsterdam School. Meggan, who is also an adjunct faculty member in Sunbridge’s teacher education programs, first learned about Waldorf Education when she visited the Olympia Waldorf School as part of her “Arts and the Child” class at Evergreen State College and soon thereafter began working in OWS’s extended day and early childhood programs. She earned her undergraduate degree in health sciences at Evergreen State and her certificate in Waldorf Early Childhood Education from Sunbridge.
Heather Scott is currently a high school humanities teacher at The Waldorf School of San Diego. Heather has taught at WSSD for 16 years, including graduating two eighth grade classes. Her teaching experience also includes a year spent at The Community School for Creative Education, a public, Waldorf-inspired charter in Oakland, CA. Heather’s interests are in diversifying Waldorf middle- and high-school curricula. She is passionate about supporting anti-racism through a grounding in history and biography and has a decades’ long interest in African-American culture and literature, especially attuned to Black women writers. Heather earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA from The University of New Hampshire, Durham.

Schedule
This conference will take place in live Zoom sessions.
Sessions
Friday, March 19: 7-8:30pm ET
Saturday, March 20: 10-11:30am and 12:30-2pm ET
NOTE: All times are US EASTERN
Due to the sensitive nature of these discussions and because each builds on the next, we strongly encourage registrants to be able to attend all three sessions.

Cost
$150
Discount Options

10% off if you are a Sunbridge program alum OR for schools sending two or more registrants
Current Sunbridge program students: Contact us if you haven’t already made arrangements to attend (gratis)

Discount codes for Sunbridge program alumni and students will appear on your registration form once you identify yourself. Use discount code VOLUME if your school is sending more than one registrant; qualification for coupon use will be verified when the workshop begins. Only one discount may be applied.

NOTE: If this form does not work, it means the conference has sold out. If you wish to be added to the wait list, please do so here.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Balance Between Power and Trust: Creating Healthy Relationships Able to Withstand Tough Times
2021-03-19 - 2021-03-20
The third of three virtual workshops in a series on Mindsets, Concepts, and Core Skills of Effective Collaborative Leadership for Waldorf administrators, Board members, faculty, and staff, plus those with decision-making responsibilities in other organizational and business settings. Each workshop may be taken separately.

The (im)balance between power and trust is one of the most often observed phenomena in Waldorf schools and other organizations. While trust is highly rated, power is often looked at as highly suspicious.
In introducing the “Rights Scale,” presenting how to navigate the poles of power and trust, and discussing how to work with them practically in a creative and responsible way, this workshop will help you to:

Understand that power and trust are both needed in order to generate innovation, create healthy relationships, and ensure successful organizations;
Learn that power and trust are not to be looked at as adversaries but as necessary poles and complementary elements;
Overcome the fear of being under the thumb of power, as well as the illusion that trust can develop without clearly defined and agreed upon principles and boundaries.

For other workshops in the series, see also Seven Levels of an Organization: Understanding the Structure and Dynamics of Your Organization and Dialogue: The Four Phases of Decision-Making and the Practice of Deep Listening

Facilitators
Jessica Heffernan Ziegler has been the executive director of Sunbridge Institute since 2008; previously, she taught collaboration and group dynamics in Sunbridge College’s Administration, Biography, and Elementary Teacher Education programs. Jessica has worked as an executive coach and organizational development consultant for Waldorf school administrators and teachers, as well as other professionals, in diverse institutions and schools in both the US and Germany. She served as the first administrator and as a board member at a Waldorf school she co-founded in Everswinkel, Germany; is a partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group; and sits on the boards of Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School and the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Jessica who holds a BS in business management, did her biography training with Karl-Heinz Finke and her executive coach training with SECA International. Her professional focus on leadership skills, governance issues, and personnel development are utilized in both her executive director position and in her work as co-instructor of Collaborative Leadership and its related workshops.
Joachim Ziegler, PhD, has been working in the fields of organizational development and human resources development since 1994. A partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group, Joachim’s current list of American and international clients encompasses the banking, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing sectors, as well as anthroposophical institutions and Waldorf schools. Joachim is a member of the College of Social Sciences Section at the Goetheanum and the international Association for Social Development and has taught at the University of Muenster and at Germany’s first private university in Herdecke. He holds an MA in adult education and a PhD in medical education.
Jessica and Joachim have been leading Sunbridge’s Collaborative Leadership week-long course and weekend workshops for the past ten years. Previous participants said this about their experiences:
~ Excellent! Highly practical, deeply insightful, clearly organized, masterfully executed.
~ This course was immensely useful in helping me to develop a more full and practical understanding of organizational structures, how to diagnose my organization, and to look at ways to bring about change. The diagnostic tool, the experiences of dialogue and decision making, and discussions about power and trust were so valuable.
~ The quality of the course was outstanding. Jessica and Joachim really made the information come alive and explained it in a way that was easy to digest.

Schedule
This workshop will take place in live Zoom sessions.

Sessions
Friday, March 19: 10:30am-12pm and 1:30pm-3pm
Saturday, March 20: 10:30am-12pm
ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN

Cost
$150
Discount Options

10% off discount will apply for

Those who register for all three workshops in this series (Use discount code MAXREG)
Those who have previously attended Sunbridge’s week-long Collaborative Leadership Summer Series course (Contact info@sunbridge.edu for discount code if it hasn’t already been sent to you.)
Schools sending two or more registrants (Use discount code VOLUME. Qualification for coupon use will be verified when the workshop begins.)
Sunbridge program graduates (A discount code will appear on your registration form after you identify yourself.)

50% off discount will apply for current Sunbridge program students (A discount code will appear on your registration form after you identify yourself.)

One discount only may be applied

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20
Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

Open Day
2021-04-14 16:00 - 17:45
Join us for a virtual Open Day! Anyone interested in learning more about Waldorf teaching and teacher education is invited to attend and ask questions. On tap is a panel discussion with representatives from our teacher education programs, plus presentations on Sunbridge’s offerings, admissions, and financial aid. We invite you to join us with video and audio on so we can get to know one another.

Schedule
Zoom Session: Wednesday, April 14
4:00pm-5:45pm EASTERN TIME

For information, contact Admissions and Summer Coordinator Barbara Vitale at info@sunbridge.edu / 845-425-0055 x20

Introduction to Waldorf Early Childhood Education: An Immersion in the World of the Waldorf Nursery / Kindergarten
2021-06-20 19:00 - 2021-06-25 13:00
This course will be taught remotely in real-time. Details here.
NOTE: This course is now FILLED to capacity. To accommodate all those locked out, we have added an identical course for the following week (June 27-July 2). You may choose to register for that course or add your name to our waiting list for this week.
Open to everyone, including current and prospective early childhood educators, parents, grandparents, and caregivers.
Join us for a wondrous journey! In this comprehensive course, you’ll explore the essential elements of Waldorf early childhood education. Through the guidance of highly experienced Waldorf early childhood educators you’ll delve into child development; learn about rhythms, transitions, and the cycle of the year; explore the importance of play; examine the inner development of the teacher; experience circle time activities, lessons in handwork, art, and movement, and the essentials of a morning in a Waldorf early childhood setting; and develop a true practical understanding of Waldorf early childhood education. A perennial Sunbridge summer favorite, this rich and extensive course has launched many early childhood careers.
Instructors
Lisa Miccio (lead) teaches kindergarten at The Waldorf School of Garden City. She also chairs her school’s DEIJ committee and sits on the Sunbridge Board of Trustees. Prior to joining the Garden City faculty in 2017, Lisa was on the faculty of Green Meadow Waldorf School for a dozen years. At Green Meadow, she taught kindergarten and parent and child classes, served as a co-chair of the early childhood section, director of early childhood admissions and family programs, and was a member of the Collegium, the Collegium Committee, and the Board of Trustees. Lisa’s teaching experience also includes working at Mountain Laurel Waldorf School, Dayspring Community School, and, during her 2016-17 sabbatical, teaching and mentoring in the Kathmandu (Nepal) Waldorf Kindergarten. She holds a BA in English from the College of Charleston, an MS in Elementary Education from CW Post, Long Island University, and an MS in Waldorf Education from Sunbridge College.

Your course also includes artistic activities with Waldorf early childhood educators Motria Shuhan of Acorn Waldorf School, Meggan Gill of Sunbridge Institute, and Rie Seo of The Waldorf School of Garden City.

Students who took this course previously had this to say:
~ Lisa is one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever come into contact with.
~ Lisa’s just wonderful. Her way of guiding a group is so inspiring, as is her attention to detail and her respect for each individual experience.
~ Lisa has a beautiful presence and she models so well what we all aspire to.
~ Lisa is amazing. I want to provide some constructive criticism, but I just have nothing to offer.
~ I have never met a teacher who in five days would be able to change a group of strangers in such a profound way.
~ The entire course was so nourishing and fulfilling. It gave me more than I ever expected.
~ This course was fantastic!
~ I can’t pinpoint a highlight because it was all so perfectly planned and delivered.
~ An amazing mix of hands-on experience, interactive group work, and lecture content.
~ This course was a blessing. I will be becoming a lead this year. Not only am I walking away with tools in my pocket, but with a growth and awareness in myself that I was not expecting.
~ Amazing. This is one of the best courses I’ve taken in my life.
~ I am beyond grateful.

Schedule
This course takes place June 20-25 in a synchronous online classroom
Sunday evening: 7-7:30pm technical check-in; first session starts promptly at 7:30 and ends at 9
Monday-Thursday: About 4.25 hours of formal instruction delivered between 10-4:30
Friday morning: Last session runs 10-12
ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN (NY) TIME ZONE
NOTE: Additional (optional) sessions may take place late afternoons/evenings.

Cost
$570 includes online resources and a $25 non-refundable deposit. See main summer page for discount options.
NOTE: Participants will be expected to procure some materials to use during their course. A materials list will be sent out three weeks prior to your course start date.

NOTE: This course is now FILLED to capacity. To accommodate all those locked out, we have added an identical course for the following week (June 27-July 2). You may choose to register for that course or add your name to our waiting list for this week.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Continuing Explorations in Waldorf High School Teaching: Understanding and Applying Rudolf Steiner’s Principles, Methods, and Curriculum in 2021
2021-06-27 19:00 - 2021-07-02 12:00
This course will be taught remotely in real-time. Details here.
Professional development for high school educators, faculty chairs, and all those interested in Waldorf high school education
This course covers three key areas:
Foundations of Human Experience
How can Rudolf Steiner’s first lecture course for teachers, the fourteen lectures known as Foundations of Human Experience (formerly, Study of Man), inform high school teaching in a Waldorf school in 2021? How do we apply Steiner’s concepts of the human soul, spirit, and physical body to growing and developing adolescents today? How are humanities, arts, and sciences integrated healthfully, and how do they mutually support healthy human development? What principles underlie all of the subjects we teach, and how do we interpret and incorporate these for contemporary students? Through reading, brief written responses, pre-recorded introductory lecture, and conversation via videoconference, participants will engage with one of Steiner’s fundamental educational texts.
Thematic Connections 1: Human Development and Educational Method
How does Steiner’s image of a developing human being inform our methods, from day to day, course to course, block to block, and year to year? This section aims to be eminently practical, giving teachers examples and tools to use regardless of their subject areas. Then, through subject-specific breakout groups, participants will work on those aspects most relevant to their courses and teaching.
Thematic Connections 2: Integrating Courses, Block Schedule, Block Plan, Steiner Study
Continuing on work begun in the earlier section, participants will examine how their courses and subjects fit into the high school as a whole, then work collaboratively on practical aspects of their work, developing integrated, cross-grade curricula, and subject-specific block plans. This section also intends to address the palatable, open-minded, ongoing study of Steiner’s work as a foundation for Waldorf high school teaching.

NOTE: This course is useful for seasoned educators who are new to Waldorf teaching, specialists looking to become Waldorf high school teachers, current Waldorf high school teachers, and those looking to develop new Waldorf high schools. While it continues and builds on Dr. Sagarin’s past four Waldorf high school Sunbridge Summer Series courses, participation in one of these previous courses is not a requirement for attendance, as new registrants will get as much out of this week as those who have attended previously.

Instructor
Stephen Sagarin is co-founder and faculty chair at the Berkshire Waldorf High School, where he teaches history and art. He is also a core faculty member and co-director of Sunbridge’s Elementary Teacher Education program, where he has been teaching since 2000, and serves as a Sunbridge Board trustee. Steve is a former teacher and administrator at the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School and the Waldorf School of Garden City, the high school from which he graduated. He also taught history of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and human development at the City University of New York; is the former editor of the Research Bulletin of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education; and writes, lectures, mentors teachers, and consults with Waldorf schools on teaching and administration. The author of The History of Waldorf Education in the United States: Past, Present and Future, Steve has a PhD in history from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, and a bachelor’s degree in art history, with a certificate of proficiency in fine art, from Princeton University.
Those who took Steve’s Summer Series 2020 High School course had this to say:

The course has been excellent. I particularly appreciate Steve’s approach. He combines the practical with the inspirational and is always guided by what is coming from the participants. I also think his dogma-free style allows students to feel comfortable that all questions are welcomed, that everything is fair game.
Stephen was great. His balance of belief in Steiner coupled with his ability to crack jokes and not take himself or Steiner so seriously was refreshing.
The readings were short enough to absorb. Going over the content each day really helped to better understand Steiner’s lectures. The breakout groups were excellent and led to many thought provoking discussions with my peers.
I think he is an excellent instructor who provides deep insight and shares objective comments. He is not being judgmental when delivering lectures and contents.
Fantastic! Stephen bring a fresh, down to earth perspective.
This is my second course with Stephen and I appreciate his approach, his wealth of knowledge without being “all knowing.” His practical suggestions and his responsiveness to the classroom make you as the student feel heard. He is an inspiring teacher and facilitator and very personable and in touch with the world today as he has that connection with teenagers directly and not just as an academic. He knows when to talk and when to give space.
It is clear that Stephen is extremely knowledgeable on Steiner’s works. I found that he presented his deep understanding in a way that was accessible to me and that he placed context around some of the concepts that were otherwise very difficult to understand. I learned a great deal from Steve this week and truly walk away from this study more motivated to learn about Steiner’s work. Thank you!
Stephen Sagarin was an excellent teacher. He lived what he taught. His demeanor as a colleague rather than a teacher/mentor was very appealing as he made him extremely approachable. I have attended plenty of workshops and his approach to Steiner’s teaching was a very alive experience. I had many questions around this form of education, although it will be my fourth year teaching, and Stephen brought clarity the questions I had. His blog notes were very useful and every minute spent in his classroom was very much worth it. There were so many concrete ideas that I came back with in spite of this work being so much “esoteric.” I would love to come back to Stephen’s course every year if he offers one. Thanks so much, Stephen!

Your course also includes art with Brigitte Bley-Swinston.

Schedule
This course takes place June 27-July 2 in a synchronous online classroom

Sunday evening: 7-7:30pm technical check-in; first session starts promptly at 7:30 and ends at 9
Monday-Thursday: About 4.25 hours of formal instruction delivered between 10-4:30
Friday morning: Last session runs 10-12
ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN (NY) TIME ZONE
NOTE: Participants should be prepared to work on course-related assignments outside of their regularly scheduled instructional sessions (including some that may be assigned in advance), as well as to be available to attend late afternoon and/or evening facilitator-led discussions on topics that may arise during the course of the week.

Cost
$570 includes all resource materials and a $25 non-refundable deposit. See main summer page for discount options.
NOTE: Participants will be expected to procure some materials to use during their course. A materials list will be sent out three weeks prior to your course start date.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

Introduction to Waldorf Early Childhood Education: An Immersion in the World of the Waldorf Nursery / Kindergarten
2021-06-27 19:00 - 2021-07-02 12:00
This course will be taught remotely in real-time. Details here.
NOTE: Our original Intro to Waldorf Early Childhood Education course on June 20-25 filled to capacity. This (identical) course has been added to accommodate everyone shut out of that week. We anticipate this week also to fill, so register early!
Open to everyone, including current and prospective early childhood educators, parents, grandparents, and caregivers.
Join us for a wondrous journey! In this comprehensive course, you’ll explore the essential elements of Waldorf early childhood education. Through the guidance of highly experienced Waldorf early childhood educators you’ll delve into child development; learn about rhythms, transitions, and the cycle of the year; explore the importance of play; examine the inner development of the teacher; experience circle time activities, lessons in handwork, art, and movement, and the essentials of a morning in a Waldorf early childhood setting; and develop a true practical understanding of Waldorf early childhood education. A perennial Sunbridge summer favorite, this rich and extensive course has launched many early childhood careers.
Instructors
Lisa Miccio (lead) teaches kindergarten at The Waldorf School of Garden City. She also chairs her school’s DEIJ committee and sits on the Sunbridge Board of Trustees. Prior to joining the Garden City faculty in 2017, Lisa was on the faculty of Green Meadow Waldorf School for a dozen years. At Green Meadow, she taught kindergarten and parent and child classes, served as a co-chair of the early childhood section, director of early childhood admissions and family programs, and was a member of the Collegium, the Collegium Committee, and the Board of Trustees. Lisa’s teaching experience also includes working at Mountain Laurel Waldorf School, Dayspring Community School, and, during her 2016-17 sabbatical, teaching and mentoring in the Kathmandu (Nepal) Waldorf Kindergarten. She holds a BA in English from the College of Charleston, an MS in Elementary Education from CW Post, Long Island University, and an MS in Waldorf Education from Sunbridge College.

Your course also includes artistic activities with Waldorf early childhood educators Motria Shuhan of Acorn Waldorf School, Meggan Gill of Sunbridge Institute, and Rie Seo of The Waldorf School of Garden City.

Students who took this course previously had this to say:
~ Lisa is one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever come into contact with.
~ Lisa’s just wonderful. Her way of guiding a group is so inspiring, as is her attention to detail and her respect for each individual experience.
~ Lisa has a beautiful presence and she models so well what we all aspire to.
~ Lisa is amazing. I want to provide some constructive criticism, but I just have nothing to offer.
~ I have never met a teacher who in five days would be able to change a group of strangers in such a profound way.
~ The entire course was so nourishing and fulfilling. It gave me more than I ever expected.
~ This course was fantastic!
~ I can’t pinpoint a highlight because it was all so perfectly planned and delivered.
~ An amazing mix of hands-on experience, interactive group work, and lecture content.
~ This course was a blessing. I will be becoming a lead this year. Not only am I walking away with tools in my pocket, but with a growth and awareness in myself that I was not expecting.
~ Amazing. This is one of the best courses I’ve taken in my life.
~ I am beyond grateful.

Schedule
This course takes place June 27-July 2 in a synchronous online classroom
Sunday evening: 7-7:30pm technical check-in; first session starts promptly at 7:30 and ends at 9
Monday-Thursday: About 4.25 hours of formal instruction delivered between 10-4:30
Friday morning: Last session runs 10-12
ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN (NY) TIME ZONE
NOTE: Additional (optional) sessions may take place late afternoons/evenings.

Cost
$570 includes online resources and a $25 non-refundable deposit. See main summer page for discount options.
NOTE: Participants will be expected to procure some materials to use during their course. A materials list will be sent out three weeks prior to your course start date.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Collaborative Leadership: Personalized Strategies for Becoming a More Effective Member of Your Leadership Team
2021-07-18 19:00 - 2021-07-23 12:00
This course will be taught remotely in real-time. Details here.
Professional development for decision-makers—including administrators, directors, board and committee members, and faculty chairs—working in Waldorf schools or other workplace settings.

Are you consciously or unconsciously shaping your organizational and leadership culture? And do you have the skills necessary to recognize problems that might exist or arise within your workplace, help your leadership team prioritize these issues, and equip them (and yourself) with the tools to address them?

In this highly-useful course, our focus is on the practical work of being a leader and decision-maker. Through a process imbued with the anthroposophical understanding of the human being, and successfully applied in organizations from multi-million dollar nationals to Waldorf schools, Collaborative Leadership will help you learn how to improve your effectiveness as a member of your leadership team.
Each participant is asked to bring their own organizational question, project, or challenge. Using your real-life cases, we will apply these four core models for collaborative leadership:

Three main leadership tasks: Maintaining and creating identity / Creating space for healthy, stable relationships / Assuring professional results
Diagnostic and planning tools: How to look at an organization as a whole and understand the dynamics of intersecting segments
How to create processes toward healthy decision-making
The balance between power and trust

Your course takeaway will be an individualized action plan for the question, project, or challenge you have brought with you, along with an understanding of the necessary skill set with which to execute it.
BONUS: Ongoing coaching support! To support you as you implement throughout the year what you have learned and practiced during the summer, this course includes conference calls facilitated by co-instructor Jessica Heffernan Ziegler scheduled from October through May. In these coaching conversations, you and your classmates will continue to hone your collaborative leadership skills, addressing and supporting one another’s progress and challenges—and so gain further insights, understanding, and expertise.

Instructors
Joachim Ziegler, PhD, has been working in the fields of organizational development and human resources development since 1994. A partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group, Joachim’s current list of American and international clients encompasses the banking, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing sectors, as well as anthroposophical institutions and Waldorf schools. Joachim is a member of the College of Social Sciences Section at the Goetheanum and the international Association for Social Development and has taught at the University of Muenster and at Germany’s first private university in Herdecke. He holds an MA in adult education and a PhD in medical education.
Jessica Heffernan Ziegler has been the executive director of Sunbridge Institute since 2008; previously, she taught collaboration and group dynamics in Sunbridge College’s Administration, Biography, and Elementary Teacher Education programs. Jessica has worked as an executive coach and organizational development consultant for Waldorf school administrators and teachers, as well as other professionals, in diverse institutions and schools in both the US and Germany. She served as the first administrator and as a board member at a Waldorf school she co-founded in Everswinkel, Germany; is a partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group; and sits on the boards of Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School and the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Jessica who holds a BS in business management, did her biography training with Karl-Heinz Finke and her executive coach training with SECA International. Her professional focus on leadership skills, governance issues, and personnel development are utilized in both her executive director position and in her work as co-instructor of Collaborative Leadership and its related workshops.
For more than a decade, Collaborative Leadership has helped individuals with leadership responsibilities in their school, business, or organization improve their planning and problem-solving processes. Here’s what Summer Series 2020 Collaborative Leadership participants had to say about their experience:

The quality of the course was outstanding. Jessica and Joachim really made the information come alive and explained it in a way that was easy to digest, I really enjoyed when we had the opportunity to break out into smaller groups as it made for a more personal connection.
Jessica and Joachim just emanate warmth and knowledge in a space that is supportive, inclusive and cares about our continued success. The charts and written materials provided in concert with the lectures and experiential work created a good depth and breadth with which to digest the information.

I love how practical the information is. There are plenty of actionable models and steps I can take within my own school. The portion I’ve enjoyed most was the one-on-one time I had with my talking partner (which) gave me the opportunity to delve deeper into a relationship with someone I found to be so helpful with her advice and perspectives.

The content has been very useful. As a school leader with a background in public education and passion for personal development, I appreciated the weaving of Waldorf values partnered with practicality. I was able to apply the teachings in a faculty meeting the Thursday of our program and it went well, the difference was felt and experienced by all.

Very high quality. I found the lectures to be particularly helpful and insightful, especially when paired with colleague Q&As.

I found the pace and timing of each session – each a bit more intensive and deeper investigation of the collaborative leadership process – to be not only comfortable for my learning but also enlightening to me. It seemed like each day a new and brighter light shone on a concept I had experienced but never really seen before. Interspersing the break-out discussions in between each lecture was particularly satisfying to me because I find it helpful to learn in community, dialoguing is a way to construct new meanings with others.

I was extremely impressed with the intentions set to feel like a collaborative and connected classroom, even in a virtual world.

Excellent quality, creative facilitators, great tools

Your course also includes sessions on DEIJ work with Meggan Gill and in social eurythmy with Kirsten Grams.

Schedule
This course takes place July 18-23 in a synchronous online classroom
Sunday evening: 7-7:30pm technical check-in; first class starts promptly at 7:30 and ends at 9
Monday-Thursday: About 4.25 hours of formal instruction delivered between 10-4:30
Friday morning: Last session runs 10-12
NOTE: Additional (optional) sessions/forums will take place late afternoons/evenings
ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN (NY) TIME ZONE

Cost
$625 includes all materials, follow-up coaching calls, and a $25 non-refundable deposit. See main summer page for discount options.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at summer@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.

Teachers Conference - Calling It Like It Is: Uncovering and Dismantling Racism in the Waldorf Movement
2021-09-24 - 2021-09-25
THIS CONFERENCE IS NOW FULL. Please feel free to add your name to our waiting list or sign up for an encore presentation to take place January 21-22 (registration available shortly).
Background
The protests that followed the killings of members of our Black communities in spring 2020 served to wake many people up to the realities of racism in America—realities to which the Waldorf movement has not been immune. Accepting the fact that racism exists within Waldorf Education and taking on the work of recognizing and eradicating it from our classrooms is a goal to which we must commit ourselves if we are to truly educate our children (and ourselves) toward freedom.
Calling It Like It Is: Uncovering and Dismantling Racism in the Waldorf Movement was first presented by Sunbridge in September 2020. The need for this conference proved to be so widespread, and the event itself so well-received, it was repeated to new audiences that following January and March. Because interest in the topic remains high among many individuals who were unable to attend the conference last year, and because many teachers and administrators who did participate asked us for the opportunity to return to take up this work in greater depth, in 2021-22 we are serving the needs of both groups: We are repeating the original conference (aka “Part I”) on this September 24-25 date (as well as on January 21-22), and we are also presenting Part II for those who have attended Part I.
Conference Description (this event)
Over the course of three one-and-a-half-hour sessions taking place virtually in real-time on Friday evening and Saturday morning and afternoon, this conference will:

Define and articulate the ways many Waldorf school curricula center whiteness and set it up as an ideal, to the detriment of all;

Use the frameworks of racial identity formation and biography work to better understand how we become who we are in a racialized society and how that impacts our engagement with the children in our care;

Share practical tools, resources, and success stories with the goal of dismantling racism in Waldorf schools and communities.

Facilitators
Keelah Helwig is currently an early childhood educator and chair of the Early Childhood program at The Waldorf School of Garden City (her alma mater). Keelah has served as chair of WSGS’s College of Teachers and is a founding member and chair of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She is proud to be a founding member of the Sunbridge Diversity Fund Scholarship Committee and is also a Board trustee of Sunbridge, AWSNA, and WECAN. A skilled facilitator, mentor, evaluator, and shepherd, Keelah is passionate about motivating school communities and inspiring lasting and meaningful change. Following her WSGS graduation, Keelah earned a BA in theatre from Spelman College and her masters in early childhood education from Sunbridge College.
Vicki Larson served as director of communications and marketing at Green Meadow Waldorf School from 2011-2021 and is a founding member of Sunbridge’s Diversity Fund Scholarship Committee. Vicki, who has been involved in anti-racism initiatives and community organizing for social justice for more than 20 years, has been a consultant to Waldorf schools across the US since 2014; she has also held positions in publishing, resource development, translation and interpretation (English/Spanish), international women’s human rights, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She graduated with honors from the University of Florida in Gainesville with a major in English and minors in religion and women’s studies.
Meggan Gill became Sunbridge’s director of education and organizational culture in 2021. A specialist in diversity, equity, and inclusion, she is also a trained Waldorf early childhood educator and currently sits on the WECAN IDEA committee. Meggan’s teaching experience includes most recently serving as lead toddler teacher at City of Lakes Waldorf School and, from 2009 to 2020, serving on the faculty of the Brooklyn Waldorf School where she led parent-and-child and kindergarten classes and was active on the Faculty Council. Prior to joining BWS, Meggan taught kindergarten at the Olympia Waldorf School and parent-and-child and nursery classes at the New Amsterdam School. Meggan earned her undergraduate degree in health sciences from The Evergreen State College and her certificate in Waldorf early childhood education from Sunbridge.
Heather Scott is currently a high school humanities teacher at The Waldorf School of San Diego. Heather has taught at WSSD for 17 years, including graduating two eighth grade classes. Her teaching experience also includes a year spent at The Community School for Creative Education, a public, Waldorf-inspired charter in Oakland, CA. Heather’s interests are in diversifying Waldorf middle- and high-school curricula. She is passionate about supporting anti-racism through a grounding in history and biography and has a decades’ long interest in African-American culture and literature, especially attuned to Black women writers. Heather earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA from The University of New Hampshire, Durham.
All four presenters are members of Alma Partners.

Schedule
This conference will take place in live Zoom sessions. Sessions will not be recorded.
Sessions
Friday evening, September 24: 7:00pm-8:30pm ET
Saturday, September 25: 10:00-11:30am and 12:30-2:00pm ET
All times are US EASTERN

NOTE ON ATTENDANCE: Due to the sensitive nature of these discussions and because each builds on the next, we strongly encourage registrants be able to attend all three Zoom sessions. In order to receive a Certificate of Attendance, you must attend all three sessions.

Cost
$160 includes $25 non-refundable registration fee
Discount options
Volume Discount: 15% off for schools sending more than one participant
Sunbridge Alumni: 15% off for Sunbridge program graduates
Sunbridge Students: Free to students currently enrolled in a Sunbridge teacher education program
Discount codes will appear on your registration form. Discounts may not be combined.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.

Peer Group Strategies for Recognizing and Challenging Racism in Waldorf Classrooms & Communities: Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism
2021-10-06 19:30 - 21:00
In this Part II follow-up to Sunbridge’s conference, Calling It Like It Is: Uncovering and Dismantling Racism in the Waldorf Movement, trained teachers and facilitators from Alma Partners and Sunbridge Institute will guide participants in five 90-minute sessions focusing on individual aspects of DEI work related to topics from that conference.
Through questions and answers, small-group dialogue and activity, and exploring ways to turn concepts into practice, participants will have the opportunity to increase racial literacy, engage in community, and set personal goals for their teaching and/or administrative and board work. Open to any school personnel—faculty, staff, board members—looking to effect positive change in their classrooms and school communities.

IMPORTANT NOTE
Attendance at any 2020-21 or 2021-22 presentation of Calling It Like It Is: Uncovering and Dismantling Racism in the Waldorf Movement is a pre-requisite for attending this follow-up series. (NOTE: This series will be repeated in spring 2022).
Presented over Zoom, each session in the series may be attended separately. There is a cap of 22 participants per session.

Session Dates, Topics, and Facilitators

Wednesday, October 6
Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism. Facilitators: Joaquin Muñoz with Vicki Larson
The goal of this workshop is to allow participants to examine some of the definitions that serve as the pillars of our social justice conversations and offer access to a shared language for implementing change. Participants will have the opportunity to increase racial literacy, engage in community and set personal goals for their teaching or school environment.

Wednesday, October 20
Racial Identity Development. Facilitators: Joaquin Muñoz with Keelah Helwig
The goal of this workshop is to explore the framework that examines how our racial identities, as one of our many social identities, can shape who we are and how we move through the world. Participants will have the opportunity to explore various models that represent different identities and how to use biography as a tool for reflection and affinity or caucusing groups as a means of healing.

Wednesday November 3
Cultural Appropriation, Appreciation, and Assimilation. Facilitators: Joaquin Muñoz with Meggan Gill
The goal of this workshop is to explore how, as educators, we can continue to offer children diversity through our curriculum, festivals and heritage months while steering away from the pitfalls of tokenization or bringing a “tourist curriculum” in the name of multiculturalism. Participants will gain literacy in cultural competency, consider place-based education as a tool and explore some “best practices” for addressing your institutional goals.

Wednesday, November 17
Microaggressions. Facilitators: Joaquin Muñoz with Aiyana Masla
Sometimes the cultural norms in your place in your work or school environment may seem friendly and light, but unknowingly be causing harm to those in marginalized or targeted groups. Learning to recognize and interrupt microagressions can help to create the inclusive environment we all strive for.

Wednesday, December 1
Intersectionality. Facilitators: Joaquin Muñoz with Heather Scott
In the words of Audre Lorde- “There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” The goal of this workshop is to explore the complexity of our individual identities- or intersectionality- and how this informs our experiences as community members. This lens is useful when considering the relationships we form among ourselves as teachers, caregivers, parents, mentors and board members. Participants will learn concepts related to social identities, systems of privilege and power, bias and tools for bringing balance to social contexts.

Facilitators
Joaquin Muñoz is an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. His main focus is on helping people develop capacities for working with diverse student populations in culturally responsive and humanizing ways. Joaquin grew up on the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation in Arizona, where he learned early on about the complicated issues of race, culture, history, and oppression. Since then his continuous work to develop his understanding of being a mixed-race person (Pascua Yaqui Indian and Mexican-American) continues to inform all aspects of his professional career. During his time as a teacher in K-12 and post-secondary environments, Joaquin’s desire to support others in the development of their intercultural competency and their passion for social justice grew, and in addition to his work as a faculty member, he also consults for a number of groups and organizations both nationally and internationally, including in Canada, Germany, and Mexico. Joaquin earned his BS, MA, and PhD at the University of Arizona.

Vicki Larson served as director of communications and marketing at Green Meadow Waldorf School from 2011-2021 and is a founding member of Sunbridge’s Diversity Fund Scholarship Committee. Vicki, who has been involved in anti-racism initiatives and community organizing for social justice for more than 20 years, has been a consultant to Waldorf schools across the US since 2014; she has also held positions in publishing, resource development, translation and interpretation (English/Spanish), international women’s human rights, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She graduated with honors from the University of Florida in Gainesville with a major in English and minors in religion and women’s studies.

Keelah Helwig is currently an early childhood educator and chair of the Early Childhood program at The Waldorf School of Garden City (her alma mater). Keelah has served as chair of WSGS’s College of Teachers and is a founding member and chair of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She is proud to be a founding member of the Sunbridge Diversity Fund Scholarship Committee and is also a Board trustee of Sunbridge, WECAN, and AWSNA. A skilled facilitator, mentor, evaluator, and shepherd, Keelah is passionate about motivating school communities and inspiring lasting and meaningful change. Following her WSGS graduation, Keelah earned a BA in theatre from Spelman College and her masters in early childhood education from Sunbridge College.

Meggan Gill became Sunbridge’s director of education and organizational culture in 2021. A specialist in diversity, equity, and inclusion, she is also a trained Waldorf early childhood educator and currently sits on the WECAN IDEA committee. Meggan’s teaching experience includes most recently serving as lead toddler teacher at City of Lakes Waldorf School and, from 2009 to 2020, serving on the faculty of the Brooklyn Waldorf School where she led parent-and-child and kindergarten classes and was active on the Faculty Council. Prior to joining BWS, Meggan taught kindergarten at the Olympia Waldorf School and parent-and-child and nursery classes at the New Amsterdam School. Meggan earned her undergraduate degree in health sciences from The Evergreen State College and her certificate in Waldorf early childhood education from Sunbridge.

Aiyana Masla is a bilingual, interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator who recently served as the first social emotional learning and wellness teacher at the Brooklyn Waldorf School. She is a co-author and illustrator of the Liberatory Education Tool’s (LET’s) original curriculum, Teach Affirm Learn Know (T.A.L.K.) Gender, Consent and Sexuality for elementary school. Aiyana, who attended the Hartsbrook Waldorf School as a child, studied contemplative education and liberatory, anti-bias curriculum for early childhood at Naropa University, where she earned her BA. She believes in honoring the value of diversity, cross cultural exchange, and intersectionality and is passionate about exploring difference and belonging through education.

Heather Scott is currently a high school humanities teacher at The Waldorf School of San Diego. Heather has taught at WSSD for 17 years, including graduating two eighth grade classes. Her teaching experience also includes a year spent at The Community School for Creative Education, a public, Waldorf-inspired charter in Oakland, CA. Heather’s interests are in diversifying Waldorf middle- and high-school curricula. She is passionate about supporting anti-racism through a grounding in history and biography and has a decades’ long interest in African-American culture and literature, especially attuned to Black women writers. Heather earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA from The University of New Hampshire, Durham.

All six facilitators are members of Alma Partners.

Timing
Each session takes place 7:30pm-9:00pm, Eastern Time, over Zoom
Cost
$50 per session, includes non-refundable $10 registration fee
Discounts
15% off for Sunbridge program graduates and current program students
15% off for schools sending two or more registrants (per session; not across the series) NOTE: In order to equitably serve as many schools as possible, there is a limit of four (4) registrants per school for each session. Should you wish to exceed this cap, please contact Director of Admissions Linda Ogden-Wolgemuth at 845-425-0055 x10 or logden@sunbridge.edu.
Discount codes will appear on your registration form. Discounts may not be combined.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at info@sunbridge.edu or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary.
