Kaleidoscope
A newsletter from the youth initiative high school in Viroqua, Wisconsin
Volume 10
Number 2
SUMMER 2007
Editor:
Conrad Rehbach
"There are only three effective educational methods — fear, ambition, and love.
We do without the first two."
—Rudolf Steiner (founder of Waldorf
Education)
Matching Grants
By Liz Cox
We’ve been looking at our by-laws, guiding principles and policies lately, and one of the values we see expressed often is “freedom”: We want to provide an education that develops free human beings. We want to assist students in becoming free thinkers. The high school years are a time when, ideally, young people move from outwardly imposed authority towards individual freedom and personal responsibility.
In thinking about freedom, I keep thinking about its opposite, and, to illustrate that, I keep coming back to our Spring play, Tartuffe. Yes it’s about hypocrisy and gullibility and blind acceptance and con men. In the play, obsequious Orgon ultimately deeds his house and offers his daughter in marriage to the insincere and conniving Tartuffe. He sees the awful truth only when his own name is besmirched.
But the gullible Orgon lacks the breadth of perspective to act out of freedom. His own self-absorption prevents him from seeing when or how he is being manipulated. So, part of educating towards freedom includes developing an awareness of the many forces, both internal and external, that influence us at a given moment.
It’s dangerous work, though, for as we recognize how many things affect us and the decisions we make, it’s easy to become cynical. Orgon’s reaction to the truth about Tartuffe was to renounce “all pious people,” and to vow to treat them worse “than the very devil”. To assure that he’d not be duped again, he moved to an opposite extreme. But cynicism is perhaps a greater threat to true freedom than naiveté.
So, at the Youth Initiative, if we are to educate towards freedom, we need to help students recognize what influences them without succumbing to cynicism.
The first part is easy. Rules and guidelines are everywhere. Organizations are no less influenced by external forces than individuals. But, as to the second part, to counteract disillusionment and cynicism, our approach is to give students an active role and a voice in decision making processes. If a stated rule seems outdated or inappropriate, students have avenues through which to effect change.
Part of the students’ role is, as it has been from the school’s beginning, to be fundraisers for the school. Our local community shows great enthusiasm in this realm: through our Matching Gift Program, they stand alongside the students who are making the school their own.
This past year, students brought in over $11,000. Our Matching Gift donors will contribute an additional $18,500 to our income. We are very grateful to:
Accounting & Tax Service of Viroqua
Anonymous
Blue River Enterprises
Driftless Organics
Paper, Scissors, Stone
Quality of Life Chiropractic
Read’s Creek Nursery
Rudolf Steiner Fund
Westby Co-op Credit Union
We’d all love to see this list grow. If you would like to join our students in their fundraising work, please contact me directly.
YIHS Graduating Class of 2007
by Conrad Rehbach
Twelve seniors graduated this summer from the Youth Initiative High School, pushing the total number of YIHS graduates past the 70 students mark. Included in this year’s graduating class were the following wonderful young people. Lumen Hobbins, who plans to attend culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu School of Cooking and Hospitality in Chicago. Emily Colacino: “I’m planning to go to school next year, hopefully at either Northland College, College of the Atlantic or Earlham College, but I don’t know what I want to go for. If I could create the perfect major it would be something along the lines of environmental-photojournalist-farmer. But we’ll see. Beyond school, I don’t know. I want to continue learning and traveling, working hard for the many things I believe in and having lots of adventures along the way.” Frances Knapp, who says she will “plant myself on a small liberal arts campus in the Midwest, to continue my fruitful education …“ Anna Chotzen, who wants “to go to college next year, to study foreign languages, writing and photography, travel the world, and immerse myself in the many cultures I encounter as I want to be a bridge between diverse people, advocating peace and good communication. Eventually, I will have a beautiful family and a house by the sea, with a luscious garden that provides me with healthy food.” Moira Koons: “After high school I plan on spending the summer wonderfully carefree. Then it is off to UW-Madison to study a yet unknown profession in the medical field. After that ... there is a world of options.” Gaelan Treacy: “My journey through this world is going to lead me to the other side of the country, to Olympia, WA. There I hope to learn a lot of different stuff. Currently I would like to take my career into law.” Molly Heberlein has the plan “next year to pursue my education at a small university in the Midwest with the hope that the coming years will provide me with ample opportunity to continue my world travels.” Helen Beutler: “I plan on attending a private college somewhere in the Midwest, although I’m not yet sure which college. I would like to study literature and Spanish. While I’m in college I hope to travel to Ireland. And, no matter where I am off to next, I will continue to write, as writing is a great love of mine.” Tobias Staffanson: “After high school I plan on attending UW Milwaukee pursuing an active career in film production. After that I might attend the American Film Institute or The Vancouver Film School. Nothing is truly decided.” Emily Valentine-Grimm’s future plans include “to attend the University of Minnesota for my undergraduate, and to receive a degree in either political science, history, or social psychology. I then plan to attend law school, in an exotic place.” Daniel Kennedy will “pursue a Masters in Politics/International Relations at a liberal arts college. After joining the Peace Corps for 1 year to then become an international venture capitalist.” Nathaniel Baumgardner, last but not least, “is keeping his future plans a secret.”
YIHS Trip To Guatemala
by Emily Colacino
In early March of this year, while the people of Vernon County were buried beneath four feet of ice and snow, 14 YIHS students were basking in the warm sunshine of Guatemala. Students from the Youth Initiative have the opportunity to go to Guatemala every other year, mostly to do service work but also to attend a language school. This year we went for three and a half weeks, and the trip was divided into three parts.
On March 22, after many many hours of travel in vans, a bus, a plane, and more vans, we arrived at our first destination, San Lucas. We did a lot of traveling on the trip via vans and chicken buses, which is quite an adventure with 16 people. We got pretty good at running from bus to bus with our packs on and sitting for hours on a seat with 3 or 4 other people. That first day in San Lucas though, when we were not at all used to it, we were all exhausted from traveling and quite happy to wander the town and sit by the lake in the sun. We went to San Lucas to work via a mission doing service for the community. We did a lot of hauling dirt and rocks up and down mountain sides and bending rebar into support columns for houses. That sort of thing. We also worked at a reforestation project, and some students worked in the local school and in the mission kitchen.
Our days there were wonderful, carefree days. We woke up, sometimes in time to drink fresh coffee while watching the sun rise over the mountains, ate a breakfast of beans and oatmeal, accompanied by the same fantastic, fresh coffee, then we went and worked for most of the day, speaking in Spanish and enjoying the sunshine. In the evenings we explored the town, made friends, ate ice cream, watched the occasional game of fútbol and played a lot of pool. The town was so sweet, and people so amiable, you never passed someone without a “buenos tardes” or “buenos dias”. It was hard to leave it at the end of the week.
But we did. After several hours in a van, we arrived in Xela, where we were to attend a language school. Xela was a culture shock from the small, rather quiet San Lucas. Xela is about 2.5 million people, and is very modern. Women wore American clothing instead of the traditional skirts we were used to from San Lucas, and people our age were still in school instead of having a job and a family to support. There was more of everything; cars, people, noise, restaurants, markets and shops. We stayed in pairs with host families, so we split up right when we arrived to meet them and to go to our houses. It was a little intimidating at first, to go with a stranger to a new home where they don’t speak English, but almost right away we all settled in.
We went to school 5 hours a day, and spoke only in Spanish. We then had until dinner time to wander the city, go shopping in the markets, go to a cafe for some cafe con leche, or just sit around in the town square, people-watching. We had all our meals with our families, so everyone split up for dinner. After dinner we usually met up again, to go to a disco or maybe a cafe. It was exciting to be among so many people, speaking in Spanish and getting a feel for the liberating sense of being able to speak the language of involving ourselves in the culture.
Xela was the part of the trip when we were most focused on learning Spanish, both because of being in school and because we were in small groups which made it much less tempting to speak in English. Also while we were in Xela we went to a professional fútbol game in the huge stadium. It was the Xela Super Chivos vs. the Guatemala City team, who are rivals, so it made for the quite the exciting game. There were fireworks and bottle rockets to be shot onto the field, a loud brass band to play when the home team scored, people selling snacks and hot beverages, scarves, banners, noisemakers, and hats. And so many people. The crowd was fairly insane, alternating between shouting cheers and profanities in Spanish so loud and fast it was sometimes hard to understand. But we got the gist of it for the most part. That was definitely one of the most exciting nights in Xela. At the end of the week, after successfully graduating from the language school, we said our somewhat tearful good-byes to our families and headed for Chacuala.
The ride to Chacula was too long to make in one day, so after a long walk to the bus station and 5 hours in a bus, we arrived in Huehuetenago where we stayed for the night. The next day we had another 6 hours on a bus before we finally arrived in Chacula. Chacula is a retuned refugee village which members of the Viroqua community have been visiting for the past 20 years. We stayed all together in our own house, and ate every meal with a different family. We visited the school where we played fútbol with the kids, sat in on classes and painted two of their classrooms.
Chacula is only about 500 people, and the houses are all cinder block with cement or dirt floors. There were no markets, and only a few shops where you could buy food. It was interesting to eat in families’ homes, and get to know the kids because we were the only gringos in the town. In San Lucas there were many Americans and in Xela there were people from all over the world, but in Chacula, everyone knew who we were because we stuck out so much. It was a short visit, but it was great because it was so distinctly different than the other places. Learning the history of the town and hearing the people’s stories made it very complete.
The last place we went was Antigua. We traveled from Chacula to Antigua on a series of vans and buses, portaging on foot past a protest which had blocked the road along the way. The trip was about 10 hours, and rather tiring. But Antigua was so beautiful and relaxing it was very worth the hot, bumpy ride. We all enjoyed our first hot showers in a very long time, and spent our last day and night wandering the town and enjoying our last glimpse of Guatemala. Our last night was set off by dancing to a live Cuban band and watching a nearby (or near enough to see, but far enough away not to be dangerous) volcano erupting through the night.
The whole trip was such an adventure, we met so many people, ate so much great food, and danced to so much great music. Coming home was hard, and it took all of us awhile to get over the disappointment of snow and slush, and the absence of beans and eggs and tortillas, and get back into normal life. Many of us are planning to return, but I’m pretty sure that this trip will be hard to top.
Just say YES!
By Charlene Elderkin
In July of 1996, a small group of high school students and their parents that had been meeting over the summer made a decision. YES, we will start a high school. We will open in the fall – less than 60 days away.
They say fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I’m sure there were a number of people who raised their eyebrows and shook their heads at what we were attempting. But we were much too busy to take notice. There were so many decisions to be made. Who would be our students, who would be our teachers? How would we finance the school? How would we govern the school? What would our curriculum be? What did we imagine our school to be like in the future and how would we get there? After many, many hours of meetings, we did open our school in September with eleven students, ten young men (including my two eldest sons) and one(!) young woman. There was much work ahead of us. I often felt like we were building the ship while we were sailing it.
The students were an integral part of creating the school. Because of this, a different organizational structure emerged – with students actively participating in all aspects of the school. Students serve on nearly all the school committees, elect student reps to serve on the school board, and vote for school board candidates. They raise significant funds for the operation of the school, are responsible to clean the school each day, and have a voice in who their teachers will be. Parents and teachers work along side students toward a common goal – creating a school that is uniquely ours, “creating an environment which encourages and assists students in becoming free thinkers, and in maturing into active response-able, empowered participants in the greater society.”
The early years were chaotic, no doubt about it. I think people who work together to create something new have to be comfortable with chaos. Creation arises out of chaos, and to work formlessness into form requires faith, vision, patience and perseverance. I was grateful and amazed that those first students and their parents were willing to join together in this experiment. For there were no guarantees, no track record. We had a willingness to trust each other and keep working at it.
Now, ten years later, we can be proud of what we started and look forward to the years ahead. Hundreds of people’s lives have been positively influenced by their experience with Youth Initiative High School: students, alumni, teachers, parents, and community members. We now graduate our tenth class of 12 seniors.
But the work of creation continues; thus so does the chaos. There are always new challenges and improvements to be made: clarifying our roles and decision making processes, creating a financially sustainable school and actively envisioning our next ten years.
But none of it would be happening without that first group of students, parents and teachers who were willing to say YES.
Boarding Students at the YIHS
by Mara Winningham
The YIHS does not have an official boarding student program. However over the years YIHS parents have hosted a number of students from as far away as Bulgaria and Mexico, but also from closer to home. Sometimes students are led by their destiny to join the YIHS, even though their parents are living too far away to commute to Viroqua. That’s when host families in the YIHS community (or Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School parents) have come forward to host boarding students. Mara Winningham’s daughter Talia attended grade 11 this past school year and stayed with host families in Viroqua. (Ed.)
This past year our daughter Talia was a boarding student at Youth Initiative. If someone had told us in May of 2006 that come August, our youngest child would be living in a town we hadn’t heard of with a family we’d never met, in order to attend a school we knew nothing about, we’d have said, “No way.” Then in June, Talia announced her decision to leave her old school. It had not been an enjoyable year for her so we understood her wanting to make a change. We thought perhaps some form of homeschooling was what she needed, but Talia had other ideas. Turning to the Internet, we discovered Youth Initiative’s web site and were intrigued. It wasn’t a boarding school, but we decided that if it was the right school, we would figure out a way to make it work. Many emails, numerous phone calls and several visits later, Talia was convinced this was the place for her. Since we had experience hosting a boarding student, (Owen, the son of old friends lived with us during the school year for four years) we asked Jacob Hundt what he thought of the idea. He explained about the school’s exchange programs and although this would be somewhat different, he was confident we’d be able to find a family for Talia.
At this point, I was still hoping Talia would change her mind. Talia’s older brother and sister were attending the university in our town, and I was counting on one more year of having the whole family together. Although I was impressed with many aspects of the program at Youth Initiative, I wasn’t sure it was the right school for Talia or that she was ready for such a big change. However, my husband Dave and I saw that Talia had considered this choice carefully. Despite our doubts, we knew we had to pursue this with her.
So there I was calling up strangers trying to find someone to take my daughter in. I called one woman whose number I’d gotten from Jacob and her son answered the phone. Since he had just graduated, I asked him what he thought of his experience at Youth Initiative. The first thing he said really got my attention. He said, “I loved every minute of it.” Hoping that one day Talia would say the same thing, we kept making calls. Eventually we met the Karlstads, who kindly offered to be her host family for the first semester. >
Everything was falling into place. Talia was excited and eager to begin this new phase of her education. While happy for her, I dreaded the moment I’d pull out of the Karlstad’s driveway, knowing how little I was going to see Talia over the next nine months. I thought about Owen’s parents, the longing in their voices during our phone calls, and the events in their son’s life we got to witness which they did not. This was how it was going to be for us.
Fast forward one year. Talia is home in Fairfield now. When I came to get her at the Rehbach’s, where she lived second semester, I saw the full effect that the experience had on her. She was relaxed, happy and very much at home among her new friends. On the ride back to Iowa, she spoke with great appreciation and enthusiasm about her host families, her teachers, her schoolmates, their parents – the whole community of which she had become a part. I reflected on the skills and confidence she’d gained and the values that the school reinforced, and felt very fortunate that Talia had led us on this journey.
As fulfilling as this year was, it was not always easy. We missed Talia of course, and she had to cope with being away from her family and the friends she’d gone to school with since kindergarten. She has had to postpone or give up doing certain things which are not possible in Viroqua. Also, adjusting to households different from her own was a challenge at times. For all these reasons, we’ve had some emotional moments. We knew going from the start that more would be expected of her in terms of school work, but hoped, somewhat naively, that greater enjoyment of her studies would be enough to get her through. While she tried harder and, cared more about the quality of her work, she struggled with a few subjects. We were able to arrange some excellent tutoring, (Thank you Deborah!) but far away, it was harder to make sure Talia kept on top of her assignments. Still, no matter what the difficulty was, Talia never expressed moment’s regret about her decision.
A number of things made the boarding situation easier. We thought the school’s attention to each student’s needs was extraordinary, as was communication between the teachers and administrators and parents. We looked forward to each issue of The Weekender and the short reports from Talia’s teachers. Telephone conferences and detailed reports about all of the school meetings helped us feel connected. Unfortunately, with our work schedules and other commitments, it was difficult to visit as often as we would have liked. Not being able to give more of our time to the school was definitely our biggest regret.
Talia will not be a boarding student at Youth Initiative next year. With our older children and Owen either graduating and/or moving out, we’ve decided to get a place in Viroqua so that Talia can live at home and we can be more involved.
Many, many thanks to the Karlstad and Rehbach families, to Jacob and Conrad, to all of Talia’s teachers and to the all the people who invited Talia into their homes, fed her, supported her and made this year a most rewarding and life-changing experience.
Youth Initiative High School Foreign Student Exchange Program
Our foreign student exchange program has been active since 2000 when the first foreign student exchange between the Youth Initiative High School and the Freie Waldorfschule Chiemgau located in Prien am Chiemsee in Germany was arranged by YIHS school coordinator/administrator Conrad Rehbach and FWC English teacher Dorothea Hahmann. Ben Caldwell reports:
Germany, home of the happy people in leather pants! Well, I should clarify one thing; when I say Germany I am actually speaking of Bavaria, an area in southern Germany. And even more specifically about a little town called Bad Aibling. Nestled between Munich and the Alps, Bad Aibling is a bustling little town that is home to about eighteen thousand people. It was catapulted into world fame after the discovery of natural mineral water hot springs, and an abundance of a special healing moss of some kind.
The culture is extremely rich, and there is always a reason to party. It seems not a week goes by before they (the Bad Aiblinger) take off work to celebrate yet another day of eating pretzels and drinking cold beer, often hiking into the Alps for 3 hours to find a beer garden with a nice view.
It has been wonderful taking part in this exchange, and I hope many future generations (that’s you fellow Sophomores, and you Freshman too!) of students have the chance to do the same. My last three months have really changed my life, and I seriously recommend this experience to anyone who wants to learn a lot and have a good time!
(From: Ben Caldwell’s German Adventures)
YIHS Theme Week 2007
by Anna Chotzen
Every year—usually during the spring semester—YIHS students put their pencils and Waldorf-style Main Lesson Books away, and for one week engage in Theme Week. Theme Week is a time honored tradition at the YIHS and means that we have a week of theme-based all day workshops instead of the regular courses and classes.
Who would have thought that five short days of intense creative brainstorming could produce a result so fabulous that people would talk about it for days to come? I can tell you. Annajo Doerr and Shawn Lavoie, along with the Youth Initiative High School students, never once doubted the possibility but if they did, they kept it quiet.
YIHS 2007 Theme Week went under the label of “Performance Arts”. With that as our framework, we spent the week discovering our talent in music, dance, stilt-walking, acrobatics, clowning, juggling, acting and even cooking. Each student found his or her niche in one or more of these mediums and we set about creating a performance to pull them all together. This performance is now famously known as, “Two Spoons”.
During the week, one observing the goings-on at YIHS would see students in one room jammin’ on their instruments while others marched on wooden stilts and still others jumped and flipped, put on their dancing shoes, juggled, uni-cycled and sang. And throughout the week, there was a constant waft of good smelling odors coming from the kitchen, where Chef Frank made scrumptious dishes to be served to the royal family the night of the performance. There was never a moment of rest. We all hustled and bustled to get everything ready. Annajo and Shawn were a ceaseless source of enthusiasm, wisdom and creative impulses that held it all together.
Yet, at show time, they were able to sit back and see what we’d do. There is only so much in the way of rehearsal that can be accomplished in five days so there was no guarantee that anything would go as planned. That was the beauty of it.
“Two Spoons” will go down in the history of YIHS as a beacon of inspiration. Stick an audience in the seats, and a positive attitude in the performers, and anything is possible!
What are the essential elements of Waldorf Education?
This past January, the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America held one of its customary two annual delegates' meetings. Representatives from all member schools, the leaders of the Association, members of its board of trustees, and a few miscellaneous personalities gathered at the Pasadena Waldorf School in California. One of the questions the meeting considered was: What are the essential elements of Waldorf Education—those things that make a school a Waldorf school and without which a school is not "Waldorf"? Many excellent suggestions were made and fashioned into a list:
· a recognition of the child as a being of "hands, heart, and head," that is, a being of will, feeling, and intellect
· a view of the child as also a moral, social, and spiritual being
· an aspiration to educate and develop in a healthy manner each of these aspects of the child: physical, emotional, artistic, intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual
· an understanding of the teacher as an educator, responsible for and committed to the healthy development of the whole child
· an appreciation of the stages of child development and, hence, a pedagogy that brings content and skills to children at the appropriate times
· a curriculum that presents the whole wonderful panorama of human history, literature, science, technology, mathematics, art, and music to the child and adolescent in an accessible, imaginative, and inspiring way
· a belief in the importance of the arts and handcrafts in the development of the child and young adult and the integration of those arts into the curriculum
· a belief that any and every child can and should learn to sing, play a musical instrument, paint, draw, sculpt, move with grace and awareness, write and recite poetry, act in a play, knit and sew, work with wood and metal and clay, and know how to make a garden and care for animals
· a belief that education, as part of the cultural and spiritual life, functions best when it is free from the control of the political and economic powers in society
· a commitment to the ideal of a human being who is able to think clearly and independently, who is creative and compassionate, who sees meaning and beauty in the world, and who wants to make the world a better place
· a realization that the right education of the child requires a close, mutually respectful working together of parents, teachers, staff, and others in the community, and (among the faculty and staff) a knowledge of and appreciation for each of the following: Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf Education's founder; Anthroposophy, the worldview that he presented; and the other practical movements that have grown out of Anthroposophy, such as biodynamic agriculture and anthroposophically extended medicine.
(Reprinted from Renewal Magazine/Summer 2007)