News

Winter Concert 2009 DVD now available for purchase

The Winter Concert this year was a great success! We are happy to announce the sale of the performance DVD online at Kunaki.com. The cost is $10 plus shipping. You will receive a sealed DVD case with a DVD showcasing the performances of the San Francisco Waldorf High School guitar ensemble, concert choir, drumming ensemble, jazz band, orchestra, and world music group. The proceeds will fund the production of the DVD with the surplus going to the music department.

PURCHASE HERE

You may also preview 3 of the performances below! Contact the school office at (415) 431-2736 with any questions.

Drum Ensemble

Guitar Ensemble

Jazz Band

Officer Steve DeWarns talks to SFWHS students about internet safety for high school students

SFWHS says "thank you" to officer Steve DeWarns for his recent presentation on staying stafe with computers and technology in a digital age. Officer DeWarns discussed many aspects of high tech threats including cyber bullying and allowing too much personal information out online.

Officer DeWarns reminds students to "Think before you Post," and when the internet is involved there's "No such thing as privacy."

Please read more about internet safety at Officer DeWarns' website here.

Celebrate Fair Trade Month and Support Our 12th Grade

Fair trade certifier TransFair USA has designated October as Fair Trade Month. Check out their website at http://www.fairtrademonth.org/ for tips on how you can join the fair trade movement to support farmers worldwide. One easy way to participate is to purchase fair trade coffees, teas, chocolates and other treats from our 12th grade. Our products are from Equal Exchange, a worker owned coop that is the first fair trade product provider in the US. Please use the order form, attach your check, and your order will be sent home with your student. School offices also carry a limited supply of these items for sale.

 

Tim Flannery, Environmental Author, to Speak at SFWHS

Tim Flannery, author of the young adult book We are the Weather Makers: The History of Climate Change (Candlewick Press) and Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future (Grove/Atlantic) - both books are being published in Oct. 2009 - has agreed to speak at our school on Wed., Oct. 21st at 11:05 AM (period 2). Books Inc. will be selling copies of his book. He will discuss the practical steps that students can take for living a greener lifestyle. He will also talk about people whose livelihoods have been directly affected by climate change, as well as individuals who make new technology and renewable resources a part of daily life.

The SFWHS Environmental Club members will be introducing the speaker.

Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s leading thinkers and writers. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, Tim’s books include the definitive ecological histories of Australia (The Future Eaters) and North America (The Eternal Frontier). He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and is a regular contributor to The New York Review of books and The Times Literary Supplement. In Australia he is a leading member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, which reports independently to government on sustainability issues. Tim Flannery was named Australian of the Year the day before Australia Day on 25th January 2007.
 

 

Welcome to the 2009-2010 School Year

From Head of Administration, Dan Ingoglia

September 4, 2009

I want to especially thank all of the new families for joining our school community this year. We are grateful for the opportunity to educate your children and help guide them toward healthy and happy lives.

As we embark on our thirtieth year in San Francisco, many Waldorf traditions (some stretching back ninety years) remain, and many changes continue to take us in new and exciting directions. No better example exists of change encountering tradition than in our talented faculty.

David Weber, a Waldorf master teacher in both the grades and high school, teams with Phillip Greenlief, an innovative young composer-musician, to teach the high school choral and jazz groups, respectively. Hannah Lemberg, a graduate of Seattle Waldorf School, Macalester College, and the University of Birmingham (UK), works with Paul Gierlach, a twenty-five year Waldorf veteran, to help ninth graders navigate grammar in their Humanities classes. Over at the grade school, First grade teacher and founding parent Corinne Fendell will be assisted by Rhián David, a 2003 graduate of the high school and Waldorf “lifer.” Rhián and Corinne will together guide the new first graders (born in 2002/2003) through their initial school experience.

These partnerships reflect an evolution in Waldorf education that stretches beyond our community. As the pioneers of many North American Waldorf schools in the 1970s and 80s mature, the X Generation that followed them assumes more leadership roles. Their children (the Y Generation) come of age in an era where traditional Waldorf values and approaches merge, and sometimes collide, with the values of the 21st century digital revolution. An essential question we need to ask at this juncture is: how do we at SFWS maintain our core mission and vision—one rooted in a spiritual view of the evolving human being—while embracing the technological evolution occurring across the world, one that will strongly shape the children born in the 1990s and this century?

Some values of this Y Generation fit squarely within traditional Waldorf culture: global consciousness rooted in local awareness, ecologic sustainability, community collaboration, and openness to alternatives to the status quo. Other by-products of our modern culture seem more at odds with traditional Waldorf culture: the ease and volume of electronic communication can diminish our ability to distinguish meaningful exchanges from white noise; the accessibility of information reduces the significance of having to discover it; the emphasis on splashy visuals obscures the need to create our own inner pictures and processes. It is our challenge as parents and teachers together to navigate that sometimes slippery slope and to guide and protect our children at each stage of their development in a manner that is age appropriate.

We are strongly committed to engaging the community in conversations about these issues and can only succeed if this is a collaborative process. I mentioned above the strength of our skilled and committed faculty. The second pillar of strength that supports us is you—our incredible body of dedicated, talented parents who help us carry our mission and vision. Waldorf education continues to offer one of the few “whole mind” approaches to enabling the Y Generation to confront and process the challenges ahead—but we cannot be successful without your input.

In that spirit, over the course of this year as a community we will be conducting a conversation in the form of a Strategic Planning process to address the needs of the school—programs, facilities, development, finances, enrollment, and community—for the next three to ten years. These conversations will provide an opportunity for all community members to wrestle with and contribute to the school’s deliberations about these larger questions as we look with hope and enthusiasm into the future.

Our first Town Hall meeting will introduce the Strategic Planning process, in addition to presenting a “state of the school.” It will take place on the evening of October 28th, 2009 at our high school campus, and you are all cordially invited. More details will follow in upcoming newsletters.

On a smaller scale, I look forward to meeting personally with each of you—student, parent, grandparent, alumnus, etc—to chat about what’s on your mind, whether a big issue or small. Although I may not be able to resolve or address your particular need or concern, I will certainly do my best.
I will be keeping regular “office hours” for drop-in conversations as follows*:

High School:
Mondays, 10:30am-11:30am
Tuesdays, 10:30am-11:30am

Grade School:
Thursdays, 9:00am-10:00am
Fridays, 9:00am-10:00am

I will also be available for appointments outside of those times; please email me at dingoglia@sfwaldorf.org (preferred) or call 415-213-6124.

With best wishes for a wonderful school year,

Dan Ingoglia
Head of Administration

 

Summer Reading for All

The “all-school” book for the high school this summer will be Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.  Gladwell is an exceptional essayist and social critic whose work often delves into the intersection between science and culture.  Gladwell’s previous book, The Tipping Point, was an international bestseller, and his current work Outliers is already inspiring new approaches in fields as various as sports, teaching, music and business.  All students and teachers at SFWHS should have read Blink by the time we return to school in August and should be prepared for evaluation of the reading in classes and discussion groups.

In addition to this book, students will be responsible for reading one assigned book per grade. Click here for more details.

Parents are encouraged to join in on the summer reading. Malcolm Gladwell’s book is both a great read and a fascinating study in the power and process of thinking.  In addition, San Francisco Waldorf School as a whole will join together for "One School, One Book" this summer in reading A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future by Daniel H. Pink.  This book will be the focus of the "Learning in the 21st Century" study group led by Joan Caldarera in the Fall of 2009.

Book Inc. (Laurel Village) is offering SFWS parents a 20% discount on the Daniel Pink book.

Winter 2009 Issue of HS Literary Magazine is now online

Leaves of Winter: A Literary and Artistic Magazine, published in March 2009 by the HS Literary Magazine Club, is now available online here.

The entire magazine is ready for viewing and/or downloading; each page is stored as a PDF.