Have you been looking for a way to help your family and friends understand how wonderful Waldorf Education is? Are you interested in an artistic and joyful activity to brighten a winter morning? Do you wish you had a plane ticket to Venice for Carnevale in February?

If you replied yes to any of the above questions, we welcome you to attend this special 2012 Waldorf Institute fundraiser! Online Registration Form

Mirrors, Masks, Mysteries: Venice and Identity

Saturday, February 11th, 2012 from 9 am to 12:30 pm

9:00 – 9:15           Registration

9:15 – 10:30         Slide lecture with Margot Amrine: Merchants, Musicians, Lovers, Carnevale:

Old Venice Reflected

10:30 – 10:45        Break

10:45 – 12:30        Drawing with Elena Efimova: Masks and Mysteries

Location
Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, High School   2230 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI 48105

Cost
$40.00

Register

Email us at info@waldorf semi.org, call 734 635-4143 or
register online using the Online Registration Form

Contact Us with any questions

We are delighted to present a public conference on literacy, the first of a three-part series

Friday, April 20, 7:30-9:00 pm and Saturday, April 21, 8:15 am – 1:00 pm, 2012

At the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, Lower School, 2775 Newport Rd

Link to Register Online

Join us for this 2012 literacy conference focusing on joyful and effective methods of increasing phonemic awareness as a necessary foundation for reading. Learn how cultivating children’s sense of language with singing, movement and music has a direct correlation with the ability to read as they get older. Children live into these skills totally unaware they are developing important capacities needed for reading comprehension, for reading with understanding. They learn naturally and joyfully using the powerful tools of imagination and artistic activity that are the natural avenues of learning for young school children!

Conference Schedule

Please note, due to the high traffic associated with sporting events in Detroit on Friday evenings and Ann Arbor on Saturdays, we have adjusted the location of where classes are held on Friday, 9/23 and 9/30. All WISM classes for both Fridays, 9/23 and 9/30, will be held at the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, High School (2230 Pontiac Trail Ann Arbor MI 48105) at the same class time. We encourage students traveling from outside Ann Arbor who also attend Saturday classes to spend the night in the Ann Arbor area. This will also make it easier to arrive with the traffic from the UM football games on Saturday, 9/24 and 10/1. Reasonably priced rooms ($35/single) are available at the Steiner House (1923 Geddes) through the Anthroposophical Society. Please contact Cynthia Chelius at 734 662-9355 to make a room reservation. All WISM students attending classes on Saturday at the RSSAA, lower school (no location change) should allow extra travel time and be prepared for heavy traffic on 9/24 and 10/1 due to UM football games.

Due to ongoing construction at RSSAA, lower school, the August WISM teacher continuing education sessions will be held at the RSSAA High School. The address for the high school is 2230 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI 48105.

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For details about the early childhood session with Ann Rainville

Complete Registration Online

The development of a Waldorf teacher includes an understanding of the arts and their impact on culture and civilization: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry/literature and eurythmy. Our students have the opportunity to be exposed to these arts, practice these arts – developing new capacities, and deepen their experience and understanding of education through the lens of the arts.

The arts transform our way of looking at the world. They change our way of seeing the world. The practice of the arts, with the necessary discipline to develop artistically, is a key step of developing as a Waldorf teacher – to understand the philosophy of Waldorf education and the developing human being – and to develop the capacity to teach through the arts as a class teacher. The best Waldorf teachers, the ones who create and sustain their Waldorf schools, are those who have deepened themselves in an art, and who continually practice an art.

The Waldorf Institute of Southeastern Michigan has teachers who are master Waldorf teachers who are trained in the anthroposophical arts and who are able to teach them to adults. The students are introduced carefully in every artistic realm and then encouraged to hone their skills, rub off their rough edges and become more harmonious, well-rounded human beings. These are the very skills that will make empathetic, observant, artistic teachers who will be able to create and develop the art of education.

If you are an artist and would like to explore how you can grow and develop to become a Waldorf teacher contact us, we welcome your inquiry.

“Waldorf education is not simply about teaching art. It is about teaching all subjects artistically and creatively. Education as an art is the goal of every Waldorf teacher.”
–Jack Petrash, Understanding Waldorf Education

Until MRIs and other sophisticated measures of the brain were developed, we had no way to prove or disprove any of Steiner’s theories, at least not with the kind of precision and accuracy we can now. An overwhelming body of evidence from the last 20 years of neuroscientific inquiry supports Steiner’s theories, including some of the most fundamental foci of Waldorf Education. Dr Reggie Melrose is interviewed on this subject in an excellent piece published in The Magic Onion, October 7, 2010.

How Handwriting Trains the Brain – Forming Letters is Key to Learning, Memory, and Ideas

In many schools, handwriting is hardly taught any more. At Waldorf schools it is a mainstay of the curriculum throughout the elementary grades. New research shows that the fading art of handwriting can benefit children’s motor skills and their ability to compose ideas and achieve goals throughout life. An article in the Wall Street Journal describes how, by using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers are finding that writing by hand helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development. Another recent study demonstrated that in grades two, four and six, children wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard. Read more Wall Street Journal October 5, 2010