Intersection of Health and Education - Meaghan Witri's Visit

From Wednesday to Friday last week (April 17 to 19, 2024), many of our community members, faculty, staff and students had the opportunity to connect as a group or individually with Meaghan Witri of Developing the Self - Developing the World. She brought us her knowledge, insights, wisdom and over 12 years of experience working in Waldorf Schools with the Social Understanding, Gender and Sexuality Program.

There are perhaps as many take aways from the three days with Meaghan as there were individuals who interacted with her in one capacity or another. A key highlight for many of the adults was perhaps understanding how we need to become aware of the social, personal, cultural conditioning that exists within us as it greatly impacts the child's conditioning before the age of 6. In the faculty meeting, we were able to go into this deeper through an artistic activity working with clay.

As an educator, I appreciated getting a deeper understanding of the growth forces at work at different stages from birth to 21, and how the content of this program aligns in age appropriate ways with the picture of the child development that already exists within the Waldorf curriculum.  Another highlight was that the program approaches the content and the child largely from the perspective of understanding for oneself what feels healthy and appropriate, for where one is at in their stage of growth. 

After working with the individual classes, Meaghan also made herself available for confidential conversations with the students, and it was wonderful to see the students making use of that time to ask individual and/or group questions. 

We extend our gratitude to Meaghan Witri for her visit and to the Administration and planning team that made the arrangements for bringing her to us! We certainly hope it was a beneficial time of sharing, and learning together for everyone!