It took all of a 5-minute conversation with a Waldorf teacher to convince me to pack up everything I owned and move from Johannesburg to Cape Town. This is where I could study to become a Waldorf Teacher at the only training college in Southern Africa. This life-changing event happened in 1998. I was twenty years old and had been living on an eco-village in the South African bushveld, a few hours from Johannesburg. It was called Tlholego Ecovillage ( which is still there to this day by the way). I was there as a volunteer, learning about sustainable living and building, and in a post-high-school phase of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. This phase was combined with a good dose of activism, idealism, and hope while toeing the dark edges of dismay and hopelessness at the state of the world that I was meant to be growing up into. It all didnt make sense. What did make sense to me, though, was to learn practical things and do work that was part of being of the solution.

One day, a group of high school students arrived in a dusty bus up the long sand and stone driveway. They were to stay for a week and from somewhere in Europe, travelling with their teacher, Jane, who was South African. I learned that they were in a Waldorf High school. I had only heard about this kind of school two or three times before and it was from my best friend in our last year of high school. She had left a Waldorf school to go to a “normal” school because it was too hippy or something. Her father said it wouldn’t teach her about the “real” world, and “there weren’t even computers there!” she had told me disapprovingly. She also said there was a saying the kids joked about there, that they were ‘We-All-Doff'"‘ students. ( Doff being a South African slang word for stupid or dumb).

Back to this chatty, sun-kissed cheeked, backpack-carrying group of European teenagers. They were only two years younger than me. They had been given a few countries to choose from, to travel to with thier teacher for a learning tour, and had chosen South Africa because she was from there. My job was to make sure they had fresh bedding and towels and help out where I could. I ended up spending a lot of time with them. I gradually noticed how different they were from the kids I had been in high school with. In themselves and with each other. I was struck by their high level of curiosity, confidence, and kindness. They also had a genuine sense of community and respect with each other. On our outings and workshops, they were really engaged and full of questions. On the last night, around the fire, under the stars, some of them pulled out instruments and played music together. Granted this was the time before cell phones and social media. This one girl, who was carrying alot of extra weight on her, and in my memories of school would be the girl with the least confidence, was in the centre, standing tall and smiling, in the golden glow of the flames, leading with her voice and violin.

These days left my heart filled with awe, admiration, and also sadness all at once. How would I have turned out at this age if I had received an education like this? To say I felt let down by my education and my family was an understatement, it was a deep pain point. I may have needed this kind of nurturing growing up ( I still did need this) but I could also clearly see that the world needed this.

The next morning, as they all gathered for breakfast before getting onto the bus, I asked Jane for a chat. I had an intuitive pull that wasn’t entirely clear and I also had some questions. What is this kind of education? And how could I become a teacher in this? We spoke on a bench in the morning sunshine. She told me a little about the Waldorf principles, something about honouring the individual, connection to nature, learning about the world through direct hands-on experiences, social responsibility, the importance of the arts and creativity, and the Head, Hands, and Heart approach to learning. This, combined with my recent experience with these students, was all I needed to know, I was sold. On a tiny torn piece of paper, she wrote down the number of the college in Cape Town where she had studied. It was called the Centre for Creative Education. That was the 5 minutes that changed the course of my life. I was going to learn this way of education and this way of supporting childhood, if not to become a teacher then at the very least know better when I, one day, had my own children. I did really love kids and had a natural way with them, yet I hadn’t thought about being a teacher until I realized I could be this kind of teacher.

I called the college from the office phone. One of those chunky button curly cord phones we had back then. I scheduled a phone call interview appointment with the head lecturer Karen Rootenberg, because I couldn’t be there in person of course. During the interview, Karen said that I was quite young for the course and they preferred to accept people with more life experience and who were, ideally, over twenty-eight years old. But my enthusiasm, and the fact I did have a lot of real-world life experience already, led her to agree that I could join the next intake the following year. Plans to move to Cape Town were then set in motion. Side note: Alot has changed since then and now students may join straight after high school.

An Education for a Lifetime

In that initial week at college, I heard the name Rudolf Steiner for the very first time and also the word Anthroposophy. Anthro what? I soon realized I made this massive life-changing move based on knowing very little but this ‘little’ was enough to draw me with magnetic accuracy to the exact place I needed to be. I spent the next three and a half years at this incredible college. The first year was all about self-development. Turns out teachers need to be on a journey of learning and self-awareness to be good teachers and role models to children. Surprise surprise. This foundation year was also about getting a broader and deeper understanding of the principles, the curriculum, child development, and a rich training in the classical arts, as well as spiritual and philosophical studies.

For the second year, we needed to choose between training as a Kindergarten Teacher or becoming a Primary School Teacher. I wanted to do both! It made sense that the place to start with was the early foundational years and I’m so glad I did this because this is where I ended up specializing. There wasn’t a day in my training that I dreaded or wanted to miss a class. It was always fascinating and enriching and our experienced lecturers were passionate and highly skilled. In my second year there, I added the Eurythmy training ( an art of movement) to this transformational learning journey of mine.

From Teacher to Mother

When I graduated as a Waldorf Kindergarten Teacher I was twenty-four years old. Looking back as a forty-six-year-old now, I seem like such a baby yet this time of my life marked enormous leaps of growth and maturing. Most of this was a result of the time I spent, and the people I was surrounded by, at the Centre for Creative Education.

My very first job as a teacher was in a small seaside community-based school called Sunflower in Scarborough, an outskirt suburb of Cape Town, surrounded by wild oceans and mountains. There were only ever 12 to 14 children in the school. The children walked to their little school, often barefoot, and the school building was a whole little house and had a sweet home-like feeling. Experiencing this kind of school set me on a distinct path and since then, I’ve found myself always teaching in small or pioneering community schools. Two of which I started myself (that’s for a story for another time).

I left this school after a year and a half, eight months pregnant, and ready to become a Mama myself. Luca was basically born into Waldorf. Curled up in my belly, he experienced each day in the classroom with me. He’d wriggle in response to the children’s voices and kick when hearing the daily rhymes and songs. He was born just one week after I finished. I soon realized that even with all my training and experience I wasn’t quite prepared for this massive initiation into parenthood. I was hit with a year-long post-natal depression but as a new Mother, I embodied much of what I had learned as a Waldorf Teacher and this was a saving grace we could both rest in.

As soon as Luca turned two years old, I started a mixed Playgroup and Kindergarten in our home in Muizenberg. It was called Rosy Cave and was a result of me and a small group of committed parents, coming together with a need and a vision. Every day, Luca had friends coming over to play with him and he loved his little school at home but he also found it quite tough and often traumatic to share his Mama. This came to a head a few years later and I knew he needed a teacher that wasn’t his Mama. So when he was nearly five years old I moved him to another Waldorf school. I would say that from that point on, he never really loved school but he still got so much out of it being in a Waldorf school rather than any other school. Because of this, and what I practiced at home, he had a pretty wholesome and enriched childhood in all the important ways! One that was filled with play, friends, nature, wonder, creativity, imagination, rituals, rhythm, storytimes, learning life skills, time to be bored, and innovate, and, most of all, time to just be a child. Which is becoming increasingly rare these days. This is the ground he will stand on and draw nourishment from for the rest of his life.

Waldorf is not for everyone

Yet, another thing I’ve learned, after all these years working with families and children, and with my own child, is that Waldorf is not for everyone. And not every Waldorf school or Waldorf teacher is right for every child. What’s the most important thing in a child’s development, and future, is his or her primary caregivers and home life, and the values these are grounded in. Second to this is finding schooling with teachers who are passionate, aware, and grounded in solid and updated knowledge of Child Development, and unfortunately, most mainstream education systems and government policies are just not. So you have to choose wisely and find the places and people that are trying to do better. I do believe though, and can state with absolute confidence, and if you have the choice, that any child would benefit enormously from Waldorf Schooling in the foundational years. By this, I mean from playgroup to seven or even nine years old.

Supporting parents

Now, as I write this, I’m a mother to a gorgeous 19-year-old son and my work has expanded and evolved from working with children to working with adults around children. I’m a Certified Parent Coach, I’ve designed and offer the Holistic Nanny Programme for childcare professionals, I mentor teachers and homeschooling parents and I host various workshops, talks, and webinars. One of these offerings is the Introduction to Waldorf Education for Parents; a webinar series that I’ve co-created and co-host with a good friend and fellow Waldorf teacher, Linda Veitch. So if you want to learn more about Waldorf Education or want to find out if this is a good fit for you and your child, please read the info below and click the Link to join the waiting list to be the first to know about the next events.

Parents have also often asked me to share more info and resources, so here are 3 books I recommend. The first one, ‘You are your child’s first Teacher’, gives you all you need to know in terms of the child at home in the early years.