News
San Francisco Waldorf High School is still accepting applications for the freshman class of 2008.
Due to our current growth phase we still have limited spaces available for the incoming freshman class this fall. We will continue to accept applications until these spaces are filled. Please email us or call (415) 213-6139 for further information.
Founders’ Night has a New Format!
This year’s Founders’ Night on Thursday, May 15,
will be presented in a new format. Instead of
exploring student displays and then sitting down
altogether for a concert, the six music ensembles
will each present three performances in the Eurythmy
Hall and Herbst Hall throughout the evening. When
you arrive, timed tickets will be handed out to help
divide the audience evenly between the performances.
Student work will be on display and refreshments
will be available throughout the evening in
classrooms. To enjoy all aspects of the evening you
can expect to spend about 50 minutes each in the two
performance venues and additional time before, after
or in between exploring the displays in classrooms.
Students from the grade school are encouraged to
come and see this wonderful display of high school
artistic and academic work.
We strongly suggest carpooling and use of public
transportation due to our limited parking options
for large crowds. If you are driving, please
consider finding neighborhood parking. Please also
remember that once you pull up to the school, if the
lot is full, you will be forced to turn right on
Sloat Avenue and the parking options are more
limited and remote. Attendants will be present with
signs to let you know when our lot is full.
Founders’ Night will begin at 5:30pm, with
performances beginning promptly at 6, 7 and 8pm.
Dr Abby Medcalf to Work with Faculty and Parents
The Parent Council in collaboration with the high school faculty is very pleased to bring Dr. Abby Medcalf, a gifted therapist, consultant, and educator in adolescent issues, to the high school campus this spring. In addition to consulting with the faculty Dr. Medcalf will present a workshop for parents, "Know Our Teens, Know Their World" on Monday, April 28, 7:00-9:30pm. It is hoped that every high school student will be represented by a parent or guardian at this workshop as a community wide understanding of adolescent issues is the best route to handling them well.
Stones
and Flowers
The San Francisco Youth Eurythmy Troupe in Egypt,
February 2008
Click here for article
and photos (pdf).
San francisco waldorf high school recognized for "green" achievements
In the February 2008 issue of School Construction News, a feature article focuses on our school's pending Gold LEED Certification and highlights the ways in which the school has achieved this certification. The common ground between environmental consciousness and the underlying philosophy of Waldorf education is discussed.
Click here to read the entire article.
“Awakening” -- Eurythmy Performance February 16
The San Francisco Youth Eurythmy Troupe will present its 13th annual performance, “Awakening”, at the Cowell Theater. This group of 22 high school students will tour to Cairo, Egypt, and the performance is designed by Artistic Director Astrid Thiersch to feature Egyptian themes. The program includes music from Verdi’s “Aïda”, poetry by Akhenaton, Rumi, and Gibran, a fairy tale “Princess Sinhold”, and more. Come see true poetry in movement—with color, light, and sound! With special guest Frank Chester, Geometric Artist, who will demonstrate his findings of the “seventh space”. The program is appropriate for all ages, and children are especially welcome.
Two performances at the Cowell Theater on February
16th, at 3:00 and 8:00 pm.
Tickets: $15/children; $20/adults.
Varsity Volleyballers Clinch Third League Title in a Row
Undefeated in 12 games of regular play this season, the varsity high school volleyball team handily clinched
the championship of the Bay Counties League-East for the third year in a row. The junior varsity volleyball
team also was undefeated this year in each of its regular season games. The varsity team last week beat Gateway
High School 3-0 in the semi-finals of the league playoffs and then toppled Bay School by 3-1 to take top honors.
The league championship qualified Waldorf to play in the area-wide tournament of champions from 11 other
leagues, but the squad coached by Kurtis Wong narrowly lost to University High School on a controversial call
in the deciding fifth game after winning two of the four earlier matches. For the last three seasons, the
Waldorf team lost only 1 of 36 regular season games for an astounding .972 record. The team also had a perfect
record of 6-0 in the playoffs for each of the last three seasons.
SFWHS at 470 West Portal makes News!!
Monday, September 17 at 8:00 AM, our new high school campus held a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially welcome everyone. Our impending Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification is generating quite a bit of buzz and we are proud to be able to share it with the community at large. We were delighted to have extensive news media coverage and invite you to explore the links below for audio and video footage as well as other web postings.
united nations Program continues to gain steam
San Francisco Waldorf High juniors and seniors may be interns with a San Francisco-based United Nations non-governmental organization (NGO) specializing in human rights and humanitarian law. Interns generally assist in research on key issues before the United Nations Human Rights Council, and have the opportunity to draft written statements submitted to the Council for publication as official documents. At least one student is invited to attend the Council's Spring three-week session in Geneva, Switzerland as part of a senior internship. The students who attend receive full credentials and have opportunities to meet UN staff, Ambassadors and other country representatives, other NGO representatives, and people working to solve the world's most serious problems. Now in its sixth year, our UN program is unique in California.
Dr. Burket Receives Herbst Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence
Prior to teaching at Waldorf, Mr. Burket received his Ph.D. in soil science from Oregon State University, his MS in biology from the University of Oregon and his BA in geology from the University of Vermont. After graduating from college, Mr. Burket took over the ownership of his family’s farm in Pennsylvania, converting it to an organic grain and livestock operation. During this time he also earned his teaching certificate in biology and general science and taught science for two years in a public high school. He completed his Foundation Year at the Eugene Waldorf Teacher Training Program and taught math and science blocks in the eighth grade at the Eugene Waldorf School. Mr. Burket completed the High School Teaching Program through Rudolf Steiner College in 2000.
Walkathon Supports The Inkanyezi Project
Every May the high school students participate in our annual Walkathon, the proceeds of which support The Inkanyezi Waldorf School near Johannesburg, South Africa. Students ask donors to support them by pledging a dollar amount per mile on this 5-mile walk through Golden Gate Park.
For the past 10 years, students have also been offering their own contributions of extra change at their class meetings each week, which the Student Council collects and deposits into the Inkanyezi Fund. The following is an article that talks about our history of involvement with this school and how we are now sponsoring students who have graduated from the Inkanyezi Waldorf School to attend SF Waldorf High School.
The Inkanyezi Waldorf School in South Africa
The San Francisco Waldorf School has been supporting the Inkanyezi Waldorf School in South Africa for a decade. We have fundraised money, donated art supplies, and personally sponsored high school students to come and study at our school and experience teenage life in urban America. There are many ways that we have fundraised including the Penny Wars and our annual Walkathon.
Truus Geraets
When Truus Geraets, a Dutch eurythmist, came to our school, we were still on the piers at Fort Mason. She brought a slide show presentation of the Inkanyezi Waldorf School project and told us how it had started in a garage in the middle of a very difficult area in the poorest part of South Africa, near Johannesburg.
The pioneer students at SF Waldorf wanted to help, and so we began to find ways to send a substantial amount of money to the school each year. Together with the money, we now send them art supplies that all Waldorf students grow up using, such as beeswax, crayons, colored pencils, watercolor paint, play cloths, and more
Everything we send to the African school helps and we are making a big difference in their lives, but there are many children who are still on the wrong side of the fence. It is our thoughts and help that allow them to learn at the Waldorf School that has been created in the midst of such poor living conditions.
Inkanyezi Children's Garden and Waldorf School
When Truus and others began the Inkanyezi Waldorf School, the children came from different tribes, around the area, that did not always get a long. The parents would stay and hang their heads into the classroom through the windows as the children learned their letters because the parents could not read and write either.
Many of the children lived in tiny metal houses, or buildings made from whatever scraps could be found. The families are very poor, so the school had to build a big fence to prevent it from being robbed. Now the school has real buildings and full eight grades. Together with our help they have created a haven of peace and creative learning for many children. However, the people around the school are still very poor and need help to cross the fence where they can be safe and become the educated individuals that they can be.
Petros and Phillemon
Although the Inkanyezi Waldorf School is getting help from other schools and organizations, the SF Waldorf School has been personally sponsoring certain students through their education, and finally last year we were able to host 19-year-old Petros for three months. When Petros visited us last year, he talked about how much the Inkanyezi School meant to him and how he loved his community, even with its poverty and violence. He appreciated the experience we had given him in the U.S., and told us that he wished his friend, Phillemon, could also come experience our life.
We have taken on Petros’s wish and have raised enough money to pay for Phillemon’s air fair and stay in San Francisco with the family of a student at our school. Every dollar we send over helps people like Petros become influential individuals.
Please support
The Inkanyezi Project
at
San Francisco
Waldorf High School
With your donation to our
Walkathon!
If you have any questions or wish to help us support the Inkanyezi Waldorf School in South Africa please call the high school office: 415.431.2736.
San Francisco Youth Eurythmy Group Tours Italy
“Remember the three ‘Ls’ of Renaissance Italy”, our tour guide crowed, “Lorenzo, Ludovico, and Leonardo!” We were in the falconry, high up in the Castello Sforzesco, where Leonardo da Vinci came often to muse over art, machinery, and entertainments for the ruling family of Milan. This moment occurred between a performance at the Escuola Rudolf Steiner in Milan, and a train ride to the fabled city of Florence. On our eight-day tour of these two cities, art, culture and eurythmy were mingled in a magical way.
The tour was the highlight of the year for the twenty-one students in the eurythmy performing group— tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade students who rehearse five hours a week with Astrid Thiersch, high school eurythmy teacher and the group’s director. She had crafted a performance with Italy in mind: the program included a selection from Dante’s “Inferno”, an Italian poem, and a thought from Michaelangelo, in addition to the fairy tale “Snow White”, a piano trio by Mendelssohn, modern music, humor and solos. After well-received performances at the Cowell Theater, San Francisco (twelfth annual!) and the Western Waldorf Teachers’ Conference in Fair Oaks in February, we were breathlessly ready for our Italian adventure.
We were met at Milan’s central station by a school parent, Augusto Calderoni, who was soon revealed to be a Milanese guardian angel. Hands full of maps and tram tickets, he radiated goodwill as he headed up a posse of welcoming parents, who had all traveled to meet us by public transportation, as it was a ‘spare the air’ day. The students were whisked off to their homes for grand Italian Sunday lunches and naps. We met later in a drizzle for a tour of the famous Duomo, a wander through the Galleria, and a peek inside La Scala, with its beautiful museum. Many students viewed their time with Italian host families as a great highlight of the trip.
Monday morning we gathered at the Escuola Rudolf Steiner, the oldest of the three Waldorf schools in Milan, and watched a grand parade of Italian students, kindergarten through high school, enter the building. It wasn’t immediately clear that we were expected, but the office staff showed us to the hall where we settled into the familiar round of lighting cues, ironing, and rehearsal. School was resuming after a vacation, and we heard various rumors about the audience for our performances— the high school was coming, the high school wasn’t coming, some classes were coming, no one seemed to know. We performed for an enthusiastic group of adults including our host families that night; it seemed the buzz was good, as the next day we were told the whole school was coming to our second performance. They did, in Italian fashion, with about 450 students and teachers packed into a space designed for many fewer, sitting, standing, sprawling anywhere and everywhere, with everyone talking and enjoying themselves immensely. Their response to the program was prolonged and generous!
That evening, the students met with peers from the high school, exchanging thoughts about school, life, and perceptions of Europe, Italy, and America. This is a crucial aspect of our tours abroad: we are always regarded, at first, as “the Americans”, and must work to dispel preconceptions of brashness, arrogance, and support for our country’s aggressive foreign policy. Finding common ground in the realm of the universal human is one of the most important and lasting aspects of the work. The next morning brought a visit to Michelangelo’s last “Pietà”, the massive Castello, and a view of the Alps from the top of the Duomo before our wonderful hosts packed us onto the train with bags of panini— arrividerci, Milano!
Arriving in Florence, we negotiated our way with maps and city buses to our quaint and lovely hotel, where we were welcomed in inimitable Italian style by a second immaculate host, Roberto Calosi, of the Scuola Waldorf Firenze. The beautiful city of Florence can be explored by foot, and the students set off eagerly to find pizza, gelato and other delights while we teachers welcomed relatives and friends from Rome, Stuttgart and England who had come to share the experience of Florence and our performance with us. A chamber concert in a local church rounded out the evening.
A visit to the school the next day involved a breathtakingly beautiful excursion by bus into the Tuscan countryside south of Florence— who would not want to live here? The kindergarten is perched on top of a hill near the little town of Romola in an ancient stone farmhouse. We tiptoed into the lovely classroom as the children were singing a grace, and we responded with a quiet round. The atmosphere was truly magical. A short bus ride into town brought us to the building housing grades one through five. The children were at recess, with the usual sounds and activities, and we had a chance to see familiar classrooms festooned with paintings and drawings. The students sang beautifully for us as we said our goodbyes.
Back in Florence, a walk up the Via Roma helped orient us, and we dispersed to explore before meeting at the Academmia to see Michelangelo’s splendid “David” and other works. Lalla Carini, teacher, chaperone, and art historian, helped us learn what to look for. Later, she guided us through the Duomo and the Uffizi Gallery, where we were stunned by the originals of many paintings by the great masters that we had only seen in books. Many students found the art of Florence another highlight of the tour.
The school had rented a theater for our performance, and we saw posters around the city with our picture! After a full day of rehearsal and preparation, the curtain finally went up on our last performance—to a full house! The performance was full of energy and excitement, and the audience most enthusiastic. As we left for a reception at the second small kindergarten in Florence, we discovered that friends, relatives, and teachers had traveled from Rome, Bologna, and Milan to see the show!
A grand Tuscan feast concluded our stay, and each participant expressed thanks and memories of highlights from the tour. We are most grateful to the parents of the students, our school, our many sponsors far and near, and the students themselves, for helping make this possible— and, of course, to Ms. Thiersch, for her vision and artistry. Our outlook has certainly broadened as we were able to exchange rare and lasting gifts of art, culture and friendship in this most beautiful country.
--David Weber
San Francisco Youth Eurythmy Group Performs at Cowell Theater
Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate, speaks about Dante’s Inferno
Robert Pinsky makes poetry come alive through his dynamic readings and the Favorite Poem Project.
On February 13th, our high school students, faculty, and parents were not disappointed when Mr. Pinsky spoke about his best-selling translation of The Inferno of Dante. Mr. Pinsky immediately developed a warm rapport with the students and spoke about his own high school experiences, the process of translation of The Inferno, and warned teachers to “do no harm” as they guided their students through the high school experience. He spoke one of his poems and left everyone feeling inspired and exhilarated about experiencing the spoken words of poetry.
Mr. Pinsky’s translation received the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Howard Morton Landon Prize for translation.
Madeline Levine Addresses Crowd of 300: The Price of Privilege
On January 22, Dr. Madeline Levine addressed a gathering of the Bay Area Parents Coalition at San Francisco Waldorf High School to discuss her highly popular national bestseller The Price of Privilege.
She spoke from her 25 years of experience as a therapist about how a new phenomenon has arisen among upper middle class students as they travel through there teenage years. Students who are high achievers with good social skills and loving families are experiencing overwhelming feelings of emptiness in their sense of self. The resulting disconnection leads these students into depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Her message for over 300 parents and high school representatives who attended her lecture was to become aware of the unhealthy practices that exist in our culture driven toward success, and, then, consciously work to support healthy emotional and psychological development in our adolescent children.
2007 HOBY Leadership Seminar Student Selected
SFWHS sophomore Ilianah Pemberton has been selected to attend the Northern California HOBY (Hugh O’Brian Youth) Leadership Seminar to be held this June in Nevada City.
Each year SFWHS identifies a Tenth Grader with outstanding leadership qualities to attend the HOBY conferences. We recognize the worthy goals of the HOBY organization that states: “…we bring together the A-list of entrepreneurs, educators, civic leaders, innovators and government representatives to work one-on-one with the ambassadors – answering tough questions and helping to shape the future of these young leaders of tomorrow. HOBY has been a prime influential force for hundreds of thousands of students who have experienced it around the United States and world since its inception in 1958.” Our HOBY alumni are unanimous that their participation in these seminars was an outstanding opportunity and experience for them at the end of their sophomore year.
The Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Organization has as its vision: “To motivate and empower individuals to make a positive difference within our global society through understanding and action based on effective and compassionate leadership.” The HOBY mission is to provide “…lifelong leadership development opportunities that empower individuals to achieve their highest potential.” Learn more about HOBY at www.hoby.org.
Stolen Voices editors talk with SFWHS Students
On January 23, 2007, San Francisco Waldorf High School had the honor of hosting Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger, editors of Stolen Voices, an anthology of diaries written by young people during wars and violent conflicts of the past century.
The compilation includes firsthand accounts of fourteen adolescents coping with war from the first and second world wars, the Vietnam War, the Balkan War, the Second Intifada, and the current war in Iraq.
Their collection, the first of its kind to expose the shared experience of conflict by young people, includes published, unpublished, forgotten, and archived diaries of noncombatants as well as the journals of young soldiers. The diaries record the gritty realities of life during wartime and provide an historical record of war that is powerful, personal, and human. Journal entries contain the words of the time and convey the nature of war with an unforgettable immediacy.
The voices of these young diarists give a profound insight into the ways in which the horrors of war destroy the innocence of youth.
Zlata Filipovic whose own diary of wartime Bosnia stunned the world when it a appeared in 1993, has become a globally recognized spokesperson for children affected by conflict.
Melanie Challenger is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose.
Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz Speaks at SFWHS
On October 12, 2006, Joseph Stiglitz spoke at San Francisco Waldorf High School on Making Globalization Work, the subject of his most recent book.
We invite you to listen to his presentation. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics and University Professor at Columbia University, was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-95, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-97. He then became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000. His book, Globalization and Its Discontents, was translated into 35 languages and has sold more than one million copies worldwide.
Audio recordings of Stiglitz's talk:
| 1. Introduction | 5. Questions part 3 |
| 2. Lecture | 6. Questions part 4 |
| 3. Questions part 1 | 7. Questions part 5 |
| 4. Questions part 2 | 8. Conclusion |
New High School Campus Opening September 2007: LEED Certification in Progress
San Francisco Waldorf High School will move into its new, permanent home at 470 West Portal Avenue in summer 2007.
The new site at 470 West Portal Avenue is located in a vibrant natural setting and provides ample space for the various educational activities that take place during the school day. In addition to nine classrooms, the high school has three state-of-the-art science labs, two dedicated art studios, and a media center with computers for student use.
The school is applying for a Gold LEED Certification, which is the second highest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certificate offered through the Green Building Rating System™. Because environmental awareness and concern about sustainability live strongly in the high school community, it was a natural and well-supported decision to build the new campus with this whole-building approach. It is our hope that the campus will become a dynamic teaching tool for environmental studies for both our students and the community. SFWHS will be the first LEED certified high school in San Francisco.
The new campus is within easy walking distance of local West Portal businesses and is easily accessible by car or public transportation. San Francisco Waldorf High School’s new location gives us a permanent home and enhanced facility to continue to guide intelligent, imaginative and inquisitive students toward lives of conscience, creativity and consequence.
Publications
2005-2006 Annual Report (PDF)
