The Orchard Valley Waldorf School would like to announce the formation of our Collegial Circle. What, you may ask, is our Collegial Circle?
For over a year, beginning in the time of the school closure during the pandemic, our staff began seeking to understand the significance of forming “a College.” Waldorf Schools are intended to be governed collaboratively and by consensus, by teachers with the students at the heart of all decision making. Following our initial inquiries, the Board hired a Pedagogical Director to support us in understanding and developing a College. Last year, Lynn Rappaport supported our school in forming our Collegial Circle. We ended last year with a completed mandate welcoming staff members to consider joining after the completion of one year of employment at OVWS.
The forming of a Collegial Circle, in addition to collaborative child focused decision making, acknowledges our growing consciousness that our endeavor in teaching the rising generation is a spiritual one. Our learning environment welcomes the whole human being: body, mind and soul. When we come together in collaboration we engage in the formation of spirited human activity, supported by unseen spiritual beings including the spiritual being of the Orchard Valley Waldorf School. Every person in our community contributes to the strength of our connection with the unseen force that is our school.
Of primary importance to the Collegial Circle is caring and tending the delicate fabric of this relationship alongside our relationships with one another through which this being flows and becomes present. You are always warmly welcomed to contact any member of our Collegial Circle and in particular our Pedagogical Chair, with your questions or concerns.
On Tuesday October 18th at 4:15 pm , the Collegial Circle consecrated the formation of our Circle with a ceremony. Each member of the circle brought an offering of a song, a reading, and a stone. We lit a candle and shared the verse that has become associated with the College, offered by Rudolf Steiner for the first College of teachers. Teachers and mentors near and far joined us in spirit for the reading of this verse:
We wish to form our thoughts in such a way that we may be conscious that: Behind each of us stands their angel, gently laying their hands on the heads of each. This Angel gives you the strength which you need. Above your heads there sweep the circling Archangels. They carry from one to the other what each has to give the other. They unite your souls. Thereby you are given the courage of which you stand in need. Out of this courage the Archangels form a chalice. The light of wisdom is given to us by the exalted beings of the Archai, who are not limited to the circling movements, but who, coming forth from primal beginnings, manifest themselves and disappear into primal distances. They reveal themselves only in the form of a drop of light in this place. Into the chalice of courage there falls a drop of light, enlightening our times, bestowed by the ruling Spirit of our Age.
Following the offerings, we participated in a group painting process where all members of the group shared in contributing to nine paintings which are on display in the hallway of the Grades building. We closed the ceremony with a sound meditation using chimes and lyres in the Apple Tree Classroom. We created a book of verses gathered by members of the Collegial Circle. Collegial Circle members parted in the glory of an amazing autumn sunset over the beautiful lands of Orchard Valley.
Collaborative leadership is part of an evolutionary step forward that is still forming. We must now learn to work together more closely and effectively as companions holding shared responsibility and accountability for the work of education for the rising generation. We welcome your interest and engagement in this exciting new milestone in the development of our school.
With gratitude for the contribution of each person in our community in coming to this important moment for our school’s development,
Hannah Kraskow
Nolwenn Renault
Jada Berg
Michelle Gullage
Christa Young
Lottie Maker
Meg Scherbatskoy
Madelief Becherer
Marianne Perchlik
