Adult Education

Adult Education Opportunities at the Austin Waldorf School Through the Adult Education Program, the Austin Waldorf School endeavors to create and offer opportunities for parents and the wider community to increase their understanding of Waldorf education. Our lectures and workshops allow our faculty to share their expertise as well as engage the community in personal development. The program also hosts distinguished guest speakers from around the world. We are currently creating our schedule for the 2012-2013 school year.

SPRING FELTING, TUESDAY, APRIL 30TH 7:00-9:00 P.M.
Join Fonda Black and Susan Darcy for an evening of wet felting in the Handwork Room. Your $25 participation fee includes hands on instruction and all the materials necessary to make a beautiful felted vase and paper flowers just in time for May Day and Mother's Day celebrations.

SENSATIONAL SUMMER: CREATING A HEALTHY SENSORY DIET AT HOME, MAY 14TH 7:00-8:30 P.M.
Join us for health-promoting experiences for children ages 4-10, that can easily be recreated at home.   Learn about the sensory systems and how to lead your children in engaging activities that strengthen and integrate these systems.  Sensory systems addressed will include touch, balance, life, movement, proprioception, interhemispheric integration, auditory, and visual.
Please pre-register by May 7th ; space is limited.   Workshop fee: $20 per participant.
To RSVP contact Alex Abbott at alex@austinwaldorf.org or call (512) 439-0139.

Betty Jane Enno is a Waldorf Early Childhood Educator, Graduate of the Association for a Healing Education Training, and a Licensed Massage Therapist.

Carol Toole is a Waldorf Educator, Educational Therapist, and Dyslexia Specialist.

CHRISTIAN BREME FRIDAY, FEBRURARY 15TH 7:00-8:30 P.M. Adolescence is a time when students typically begin to form their own,private attitudes towards all things in life. Questions and concerns regarding gender, genetics, and the human reproductive process move to center stage. Modern science, even with its astounding technology and brilliant images of life’s processes, mostly bypasses the more intimate questions that arise in response to these topics. This gap challenges parents and teachers to provide a meaningful education that even touches on some of the more provocative issues in our time such as abortion, artificial insemination, and early diagnostic selective choices.

Having kept in mind that the inner life of the adolescent is awakening to an independent moral and spiritual field of consciousness that needs to be nourished with lawfulness and ideals, Christian Breme was motivated to develop a curriculum for “sex education”, so to speak, that remains true to the aesthetics of the Waldorf approach. He has designed a progression of exercises in clay modeling, from 6th through 12th grades that instills and appreciation for respectful relationships and allows for the ethical aspects to be freely illuminated in a healthy environment. The students are then sent on their way with wonderfully vivid and deeply satisfying experiences.

Christian Breme is married with two children and lives in Dornach, Switzerland. Before becoming a Waldorf teacher, he studied architecture and sculpture, and finished his diploma in City Planning. He has been teaching for 21 years as an Art Teacher at Rudolf Steiner School in Basel. Previously, he was a class teacher at the Waldorf School in Bonn, Germany for 12 years. His intensive study of embryology and creative insights into human development are highly regarded by therapists, teachers, and medical professionals indicates for "sex education" to Waldorf teachers throughout Switzerland, and taught child development and curriculum in Waldorf teacher training programs in various cities around Europe, Russia and America. This will be only his second visit to the United States and his first time in Texas!

Christian will meet with the AWS faculty and teacher trainees on Friday afternoon to share hi indications for working with 6th - 12th graders on gender and relationship issues. You are invited to join us that evening at 7:00 p.m. RSVP tickets are $10.00. Tickets will be $12.00 at the door. He will deliver a workshop on Embryology through clay modeling on Saturday for teachers, trainees, and pre-registered guests. Contact Kathryn King at kking003@austin.rr.com if you are interested in attending the workshop on Saturday, February 16th.

The First Four Years January 12th, 19st, 26th, 2013 This popular class, offered once a year, explores ways to support healthy movement and language development, as well as the child's budding cognitive growth in the early years. Various activities transport participants into the child's world. The class is highly recommended for future Waldorf families, parents-to-be, or anyone who wishes to better their understanding of the inner world of the young child.