The Art of Administration in Waldorf Schools 100 Years On

Leading with Spirit’s 2019 Summer Art of Administration Seminars on Whidbey Island, WA and in Hawthorne Valley, NY (From Michael Soule)

Preparing for Leading with Spirit’s Summer Art of Administration Intensive retreats at the Whidbey Island and Hawthorne Valley Waldorf Schools in July, we have been pondering the current state and health of Waldorf School Administration on this continent. These are a few thoughts about the progress and health of schools as we continue to strive to understand and practice true collaborative spiritual organizational forms. Check out our offerings for this summer below - inspiring, insightful, transformative, professional development retreats.

The administrative life of a Waldorf school is a unique social organization in the world today. Over the last 100 years, Waldorf schools have managed to survive and thrive with a model of governance that eschews traditional forms and is built on attempts at true collaboration. In healthy Waldorf schools, groups (board, faculty, administration, parent assn.) work together to define the culture, agreements, and wholeness of the school. Collaborative negotiation among groups, striving for deeper insight, cultivating deeper honest and open personal relationships and finding ways to connect with the spiritual life, are the foundations of working together.

Does a collaborative form actually work? Does it help individuals and the whole school grow and develop? Can it be responsive to the trends, demographic shifts and financial uncertainties of the times?

There are no real answers to these essential questions. Honest open collaboration requires a deep commitment to understanding, practicing, and continually shaping new social skills and forms. The dynamics of collaborative community building, like other creative endeavors, may result at times in a sense of chaos, a perceived lack of focus, or questions of authority from less involved participants about “who is in charge here?”. While these may be some of the perceived or real downsides of honest attempts at collaboration, they do not define the success, effectiveness, or health of the organization.​

The benefits of striving towards real collaboration are many: collaboration fosters an environment that places a high value on individual growth and development, on individual initiative within the context of the whole, on learning from mistakes, on embracing life as it grows and changes, as people grow and change. When it is successful, it develops direct and human responses to conflicts, providing resolutions that heal, protect, and build stronger relationships all around.

The challenges of collaborative governance arrangements include a decision-making process that may overemphasize individual input and can be slow; planning that may give way to individual preferences; decisions that may be held captive to individual perspectives; and a community that may avoid conflicts, often causing unnecessary drama.

The success of a collaborative community requires these things:

• A high degree of trust among individuals;
• A deeper commitment to personal reflection and self-development;
• Extra time to form stronger relational bonds;
• Dedication to honest, open and compassionate communication; and
• An understanding and personal commitment to the idea of shared development (taking care of the self and other at the same time).

Over the years there have been numerous attempts to adopt management systems – especially Policy Governance, or head of school models that can make a school and community more efficient, more streamlined, more defined, and that can reduce the amount of drama through concentrating leadership in leading individuals. These systems have shown success, especially in faster paced, more competitive, and larger city environments and when the central positions are filled with highly capable individuals who have vision and are dedicated servant leaders.

For the future, none of these models or systems will take the place of what must live at the core of any successful collaborative organization – a deep and abiding love for each other, a commitment to service of the highest in the human being and the world, and a dedication to developing the capacity for working with our spiritual guides and companions.  Individuals worldwide are dedicated to these principles.

This work is the core of Leading with Spirit’s summer intensives and 2-year personal and professional development course. The core concepts of collaborative leadership, collaborative community building, and collaborative development are explored deeply in our summer intensives, and for those wanting to go further, by the mentoring, support and independent study of our 2-year training program.

This summer, at the Whidbey Island and Hawthorne Valley Waldorf schools, our exploration focuses on deeper aspects of Working Together in Community: The Heart of Healthy Collaboration, embracing the themes of:

• Dialogue in Human Encounter
• Group Roles and Team Development
• Decision-making, Consensus, and Facilitation
• Understanding and Managing Conflict
• Developing Community Dialogue Over Time

Using presentations, case studies, biography work, artistic practice, group study, and inner work, we provide experiences that lead to greater understanding, build stronger skills and develop deeper relationships with like-minded colleagues.

Working Together in Community: The Heart of Collaboration
Whidbey Island, WA, July 7-12, and
Alkion Center, Hawthorne Valley, NY, July 16-21

New participants welcome in either week.
Deadline for registration May 1

Does this approach speak to you?  We invite you to join us this year. For more information, visit www.leadingwithspirit.org or contact us at  [email protected]

Leading with Spirit is a program of Sound Circle Center for Arts and Anthroposophy and is the continuation of the Art of Administration course at Sunbridge College offered from 1990-2002 through which many of the leading administrative figures in the Waldorf movement developed their capacities. Moving into our seventh year, Leading with Spirit is growing – last year we had 26 participants in two offerings, one East and one West, and we have 7 students participating in the ongoing 2-year program.

The course is led by experienced administrators (our core faculty has over 150 years of combined experience at all levels of school organization!) who are deeply committed to healthy and transformative adult education in the light of anthroposophy, and who study and work together as a collegium, continually seeking the insight and understanding that comes through group exploration.

Core Faculty: Mara D. White, Marti Stewart, Lisa Mahar, Michael Soule, MA
Program Advisors: Christopher Schaefer, PhD, Sian Owen Cruise, PhD

Here is what participants said about last summer:

• The connection between Anthroposophy and the curriculum – I get it now.
• Bravo.
• The daily structure was excellent for learning.
• Thanks so much for your kind leadership and mentoring.
• This course had a very healthy balance – a wonderful daily balance.
• Three things were really valuable: connecting with other schools,  processes of working with real issues, and the time for guided self-exploration.
• Most valuable was the relationships that have begun to form, and the overall atmosphere of unconditional acceptance and expectation.
• The whole week was very renewing, Thank you for saving my sanity and enthusiasm.
• The balance was perfect for me –  I experienced and witnessed routines and devotions and got to see how they are part of the whole.
• I truly appreciate everything about the week. I seriously thought about not coming because there is so much to do at my school but the school and I will be so much better off because I did come.
• I feel that I have gained both practical tools and guidance with inner work necessary to be a better administrator.
• I really appreciated the variety of art, movement and out of doors time along with philosophy and teaching both high concepts and practical skills