The healthy social life is found
when in the mirror of each human soul
the whole community finds its reflection,
and when in the community
the virtue of each one is living.
This is the Motto of Social Ethic.
-Rudolf Steiner
“Verses & Meditations”
We also appreciate donation checks via mail:
Front Range Anthroposophical Café
780 Quince Circle, Boulder, CO 80304
Please join us for inspiring connection, community and conversation, in support and celebration of Anthroposophical themes. Our unique Café format features live Guest Speakers who present a glimpse of their work and offer leading thoughts for break-out conversation and community reflection.
< new recordings are posted after each session, within a week >
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This Friday, March 20th at 6:30 p.m. (MT), the Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
Douglas Gerwin
Sleep On It!
Awakening to the Importance of Sleep in Education–and in Life
From mainstream empirical studies, we know how much of our growing, our healing, and (according to recent research) our learning we undertake not during the waking day but while we are sleeping.
At the same time, we see today an alarming decline in the amount––and, perhaps more importantly, the quality––of sleep our students are getting. Some reasons for their shortened and disturbed sleep are familiar, such as their blending screentime with bedtime, “grazing” on snacks rather than “eating” prepared meals at regular hours, foregoing a steady regime of rhythmic exercise. Other more deep-seated reasons, however, go largely unrecognized, especially if we have an incomplete picture of what actually happens when we sleep.
In many of his lectures on education and other subjects, Rudolf Steiner builds up an elaborate multi-layered picture of how we spend our sleeping hours. Contrary to outward appearances, he suggests, students, as well as their teachers, are extraordinarily active during the night.
Perhaps unique among educational approaches, Waldorf education embraces the full circadian cycle of waking and sleeping. We will examine sleeping activity at three levels––physiological, psychological, and spiritual––and relate them to Waldorf school practices. As part of this investigation, we will explore specific steps to improving the quality and the rewards of the pedagogical night shift.
After all, in the final analysis, Waldorf schools are night schools!
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Himself a Waldorf graduate, Douglas Gerwin, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education (RIWE) and mentor of Waldorf high school teachers across North America. A teacher of history, literature, German, music, and life science at the university and Waldorf high school level since 1983, he is author/editor of eleven books, as well as numerous articles and webinars, on Waldorf education and anthroposophy. He received his Ph.D. in phenomenological depth psychology and literature from the Graduate School at the University of Dallas in 1984. In 1996 he launched a new training for Waldorf high school educators at the Center for Anthroposophy (CfA) in Wilton, NH, a program he directed for a quarter-century. For two decades he was also CfA’s Executive Director.
Currently a member of the Pedagogical Section Council (PSC) of the School for Spiritual Science of the Anthroposophical Society in America, Dr. Gerwin previously served on the Leadership Council of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) and as a member of the Hague Circle, an international leadership group of some 45 Waldorf teachers from around the world.
We are pleased to share our up-coming Café Guests:
*Please watch for our special first Saturday Cafés,
when we will periodically hear from our International Café Guests!
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March 27
Nancy Jewel Poer
April 3 & 4
Eastertide Café Pause
April 11
*Saturday Offering
Richard Steel
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