College of Teacher Report from 2/6/07 meeting

The College of Teachers was asked to discuss three issues and present its thinking to the community. It is the College of Teachers hope that members of the NBWS community will read the following thoughts and feel inspired to work with these issues as part of their own spiritual journeys. We are particularly concerned that people not feel personally criticized or attacked. These are the conclusions we have come to upon consideration. There may be other points of view, and we hope to hear from some of you if you have come to other conclusions.

1. Fundraising policy/alcohol policy: The question was raised as to whether the school would be interested in supporting the development of a micro-brewery as a means of raising funds to support the school's programming.

It seems to us that there are really two questions here. The first is whether the school has the funds to help a business go through a start up phase. The second is whether we can philosophically support the type of business being proposed.

The unequivocal answer to question one is that we have no extra funds to support another business at this time. If we were to be dependent upon tuition for our funding, we would be deeply in debt. We are lucky to have another source of funding through a private grant foundation. That funding is provided to us to provide educational opportunities for children. It would be a misuse of funds for us to use any of that money for any other purpose, no matter how much it might benefit us in the long run.

The second question is more difficult to answer. While many Waldorf Schools have "school stores" that are tacitly supported by the school, we don't know of any other Waldorf School which supports a restaurant much less a brewery. We also have to ask about Steiner's attitude to alcohol. Our reading in the Anthroposophical literature, and Waldorf culture, would tend towards the feeling that alcohol interferes with clarity, balance, and health. And as such, the regular drinking of alcohol does not support a spiritual journey.

Having reached that point in the discussion, most of us agreed that we like a glass of beer at the end of the day, and that it would be nice to have a well-run, well-behaved micro-brewery in town. So, while the school can't support the creation of a micro-brewery using school funds, we sincerely hope that Junior will seek out a small business loan, and open a micro-brewery. If it is successful, then we hope that he will donate a fair amount of money to the school.


Nutrition policy: The question, as we understand it, centers around whether holding a parent meeting on Nutrition (the parent meeting subject for February) in which the chief subject of presentation is chocolate is really a parent meeting about nutrition. Having discussed this issue for some time, we have come to the following conclusions:

a. The Kindergarten Parent Meeting was a well-run and thoughtful presentation on the anti-oxidant qualities of chocolate.
b. It was not really what we had in mind when we agreed upon Nutrition as a subject important to discuss with parents.
c. However, the Kindergartens had an almost 100% turn out for the parent meeting which indicates that something was happening that was important and good.
d. See the above section on alcohol and spiritual journeys. Some of us felt that chocolate could also be considered as detrimental to a spiritual journey. Some of us felt otherwise.

Interior Decoration of the Bathrooms
The question as we understand it is whether it is acceptable to cover the toilet paper rolls with crocheted toilet roll covers. We had very little time to discuss this question, but came up with the following concerns.
a. Waldorf Education prescribes natural materials. The sample toilet paper roll cover we were given is made of acrylic yarn. This seemed unfortunate to us. However, it was pointed out that the toilet paper roll covers will no doubt need to be washed on a regular basis, and that regular wool will felt, and that acrylic covers can go in a washing machine.
b. Someone wondered whether the Kindergartens would be willing to take on the task of washing wool covers. Someone else wondered whether the second grade could be taught to make covers so that they could feel pride that their handwork efforts were being used in the school.

We have referred these questions to the Kindergarten teachers, the second grade teachers, and the Handwork teachers.