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Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility - these three forces are the very nerve of education.
- Rudolf Steiner
Sound Circle Cultural Consciousness Guiding Principles
Sound Circle Center recognizes cultural consciousness, anti-bias, and social justice work are necessarily integrated into all aspects of our teacher education programs. The vocabulary, content, and tools are ever evolving. We offer an outline of essential principles which can guide the planning of our cultural consciousness classes while remaining fluid and responsive. Our commitment to being responsive means each class will bring forward unique and living themes of our times.
While the guiding principles apply to all aspects of our curriculum, each summer we will dedicate two or three weeks of classes addressing the following themes:
Awareness and exposure to “isms” and how their influence shapes our work
Building vocabulary and understanding context
Developing tools for self-development, self-care, and self-awareness
Sharing practices and tools to take back to our school communities
Our cultural consciousness activities engage the head (awareness/vocabulary), the heart (biography/lived experience), and the will (building community, curriculum development, and examining and interrupting bias). Our faculty is committed to supporting students with questions they carry within their school communities. Students will be assigned preparatory readings for each summer session and are encouraged to offer topics which they wish to take up.
Important ways we integrate cultural consciousness into our work with students:
Offering explicit instruction around self-knowledge and self-care in inner development classes
Upholding respectful boundaries and confidentiality
Scheduling hosted listening spaces (individual or group) at designated times
Incorporating silence and review into class periods
Facilitating the building of bridges rather than walls
Important ways we integrate cultural consciousness into our collegial work:
Considering cultural bias in preparation and review of classes
Ongoing study in the Core Faculty
Hosting check-in dinner discussions with guest faculty during the intensives
Embracing conflicts and difficult conversations when they arise
Individual responsibility towards self-inquiry and self-development
Our cultural consciousness guiding principles are evolving and will continue to transform out of the Sound Circle community and its activities.
CC works under the AWSNA Principles for Waldorf Institutes
Non-Discrimination Policy
Sound Circle Center does not discriminate against students or potential students on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, sex, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, or the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability or the use of a trained guide dog or service animal by a person with a disability.
Accommodation of Disability
Sound Circle Center acknowledges that information pertaining to an applicant’s disability is voluntary and confidential. It is up to the individual applicant to make her/his need for an accommodation known in writing during the application process and verbally in the personal interview. If this information is presented, Sound Circle Center will reasonably attempt to provide an accommodation to overcome the effects of the limitation of the qualified applicant.
Association of Waldorf Schools of North America Statement of Equality:
Waldorf Schools espouse principles of respect for human rights and the diversity of human kind and believe that inclusivity and equality is a journey of both moral and educational importance. Our schools are in alignment with the Stuttgart Declaration, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the German Association of Waldorf Schools (Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen) in Stuttgart on October 28, 2007. This declaration was made to unequivocally clarify the intents of Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogical theories and work and to explicitly reject allegations that Waldorf schools in any way espouse racist or nationalistic views. An adapted translation of parts of the Stuttgart Declaration (as authorized by the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education - ECSWE) reads as follows:
Racist or discriminatory tendencies are not tolerated in Waldorf schools or Waldorf teacher training institutes. The Waldorf school movement explicitly rejects any attempt to misappropriate Waldorf pedagogy or Rudolf Steiner's work for racist or nationalistic purposes.
Waldorf schools have been working on the basis of these principles since the movement was founded in 1919. Institutions working out of Waldorf Education are today engaged in all parts of the world, including areas of social tension in Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.
Waldorf schools pursue their pedagogical tasks out of the spirit of human rights, thereby contributing to building a society founded upon mutual respect, tolerance and cooperation between all human beings.
Waldorf schools do not select, stratify or discriminate amongst their pupils, but consider all human beings to be free and equal in dignity and rights, independent of ethnicity, national or social origin, gender, language, religion, and political or other convictions.
Anthroposophy, upon which Waldorf Education is founded, stands firmly against all forms of racism and nationalism. Waldorf schools recognize that the richness inherent in a school community is built upon the synergy between both curriculum and students studying that curriculum. To this end, Waldorf schools not only aim to build school communities that are reflective of the larger community in which we are located, but also intentionally promote the synergistic interaction between the elements of the community.
Honoring the multiple perspectives that exist in our increasingly diverse communities, we heed the call for ongoing conversation in education and collectively.
