Voices of Waldorf Elders

Roel op 't Ende
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Education
  • Updated Weekly

Voices of Waldorf Elders is an oral-history podcast preserving the stories, experiences, and wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Through personal conversations about their lives and work, the series offers insight and companionship to younger and future generations of Waldorf teachers. Hosted by Roel op ’t Ende.

  1. 5d ago

    Thesa Callinicos: The Secret to Staying Joyful as a Teacher

    What keeps a good teacher from becoming exhausted, rigid, or even “sour”? Thesa Callinicos has spent more than fifty years in Waldorf education as a teacher, artist, school founder, mentor, and teacher educator. In this deeply personal conversation, she reflects on the experiences that shaped her and on what allows a teacher to struggle without losing creativity, humanity, or joy. Her story begins in a Greek family in Johannesburg and leads through Emerson College, communal life in America, motherhood, the founding of a pioneering school in rural Colorado, teaching in Hawaii, and decades of mentoring younger educators. We also discuss: • Growing up amid South African inequality• Language, poetry, music, Theosophy, and Thesa’s first spiritual questions• Why Waldorf education felt more alive and humane than conventional schooling• Founding a school while raising a young family• The balance between structure, freedom, discipline, and inspiration• Teacher relationships, criticism, courage, and healthy school culture• The fourfold understanding of the human being• Nature, rhythm, safety, imagination, and children’s development• Art and creativity as essential parts of education• Protecting teachers’ health, family life, and long-term vitality• Avoiding burnout, spiritual competition, and becoming “sour”• Why human connection matters in the age of artificial intelligence• Reflection, meditation, and reviewing the day backwards• Struggle as part of teaching and joy as a gift Voices of Waldorf Elders is an independent oral-history project preserving the life stories and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Created and hosted by Roel op ’t Ende, a Waldorf class teacher, teacher mentor, and teacher educator with Gradalis Waldorf Teacher Education. Roel is also a student in the Kairos Institute’s Art Therapy training program. Support the project:https://ko-fi.com/voicesofwaldorfelders

  2. Oct 12

    Nana Göbel: Who Really Built Waldorf Education? | Episode 14

    What do we misunderstand when the history of Waldorf education is told only through Rudolf Steiner? Nana Göbel has devoted nearly fifty years to the worldwide Waldorf movement. Through the Friends of Waldorf Education, her work has brought her into contact with schools, kindergartens, teacher-training initiatives, and social projects across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. She is also the author of an extensive history of Waldorf education and the people who shaped it from 1919 to 2019. In this conversation, Nana takes us back to the founding of the first Waldorf school. She introduces the teachers and individuals who carried the movement, explores the school’s original social mission, and speaks candidly about the struggles, compromises, and unresolved questions that shaped its development. We also discuss: • The people behind the founding of the first Waldorf school• Why highly educated teachers chose to teach factory workers’ children• The disagreements and imperfections within the first generation• How Waldorf education became associated with the educated middle class• Courage, compromise, and self-protection during National Socialism• How Waldorf history looks from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe• The opportunities and dangers of international educational support• What established Waldorf schools can learn from teachers working under extraordinarily difficult conditions• What Nana would change before handing the movement to the next generation This episode reveals Waldorf education as a living, worldwide movement shaped not only by ideas, but by individual people responding to the needs of their time. Voices of Waldorf Elders is an independent oral-history project preserving the life stories and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Created and hosted by Roel op ’t Ende, a Waldorf class teacher, teacher mentor, and teacher educator with Gradalis Waldorf Teacher Education. Roel is also a student in the Kairos Institute’s Art Therapy training program. Watch the complete video collection: https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofWaldorfElders Support the project: https://ko-fi.com/voicesofwaldorfelders Contact: roeloptende@gmail.com

  3. Oct 10

    Roberto Trostli: Why Great Teachers Say “I Don’t Know”

    What if the most important quality in a teacher is not certainty, but the willingness to keep learning? Roberto Trostli has worked in Waldorf education since 1981 as a class teacher, high school teacher, teacher educator, author, lecturer, and educational leader. A Waldorf graduate himself, he later returned to teach at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City, carried a class at the Hartsbrook School, and became the founder and director of Hartsbrook High School. In this deeply reflective conversation, Roberto traces his path from childhood experiences with Old Norse, farming, and woodworking to Columbia, Cambridge, violin making, and his eventual vocation as a teacher. At the heart of the conversation is a striking idea: learning to teach is really learning to remain a learner. Roberto explains why “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” can be one of a teacher’s most valuable responses. He speaks about mistakes, wonder, spiritual practice, institutional life, and why young teachers need time and protection from premature judgment. We also explore: • How education forms a child’s way of seeing• Why childhood experiences may bear fruit decades later• How support and structure make genuine freedom possible• What violin making taught Roberto about attention and form• Why science should begin with observation and wonder• The image of the rose and the trellis in education• What makes a College of Teachers truly alive• Why schools must protect individuality• What Roberto has learned through more than four decades in Waldorf education Voices of Waldorf Elders is an independent oral-history project preserving the life stories and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Created and hosted by Roel op ’t Ende, a Waldorf class teacher, teacher mentor, and teacher educator with Gradalis Waldorf Teacher Education. Roel is also a student in the Kairos Institute’s Art Therapy training program. Watch the complete video series:https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofWaldorfElders Support the project:https://ko-fi.com/voicesofwaldorfelders

  4. Oct 4

    Douglas Gerwin: What Waldorf Education Is Really Trying to Awaken | Episode 12

    What if education is not primarily about giving young people information, but about helping them learn how to see, think, imagine, and become fully themselves? Douglas Gerwin has experienced Waldorf education from nearly every angle: as a student, journalist, high-school teacher, teacher educator, researcher, author, and longtime leader in the international Waldorf movement. His journey began in an extraordinary place. As a child in Ottawa, Douglas walked from his bedroom to a small Waldorf classroom inside his family’s home, where his mother was the teacher. After school, he recreated her lessons for his teddy bears. His path later led through the Waldorf School of Garden City, philosophy and early computer studies, journalism in Cold War Europe, graduate work in phenomenology, and eventually a return to Waldorf education as a teacher at High Mowing School. In this conversation, Douglas explores: • Storytelling, imagination, and the child’s inner life• What children may learn and process during sleep• Phenomenology and observing before explaining• Goethe’s ideas of polarity, intensification, and metamorphosis• Why journalism became a bridge back to teaching• What makes a Waldorf high school distinctive• The developmental questions of grades 9 through 12: What, How, Why, and Who• Why students need to feel genuinely seen by their teachers• David Mitchell’s influence on Waldorf education• What research reveals about Waldorf graduates• Access, diversity, and the financial future of Waldorf schools• Trauma and emergency pedagogy• Artificial intelligence, discernment, and firsthand experience• What younger teachers should preserve, question, and transform This episode is part of Voices of Waldorf Elders, an independent oral-history project preserving the life stories and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Created and hosted by Roel op ’t Ende, a Waldorf class teacher, teacher mentor, and teacher educator with Gradalis Waldorf Teacher Education. Roel is also a student in the Kairos Institute’s Art Therapy training program. Watch the video conversation:https://youtu.be/KgzZ_iOcHyo Support Voices of Waldorf Elders:https://ko-fi.com/voicesofwaldorfelders Your contribution helps cover recording, editing, and publishing costs while keeping every conversation freely available.

  5. Oct 1

    Bonnie River: What 50 Years of Waldorf Teaching Revealed About Children

    What changes when we stop asking, “How do we fix this behavior?” and begin asking, “Who is this child, and what are they trying to show us?” Bonnie River has devoted more than fifty years to Waldorf education as a kindergarten teacher, class teacher, school founder, therapeutic educator, mentor, and teacher educator. She also played an important role in the development of public Waldorf education and the teacher-training work that eventually became part of Gradalis. In this conversation, Bonnie reflects on what it means to truly see the individual child. She speaks about the teacher’s inner life, the importance of presence, and how rhythm, movement, storytelling, and artistic work can help children find greater steadiness and engagement. The conversation also explores attention-related challenges, assessment, public Waldorf education, teacher preparation, and the curiosity and sense of purpose that have sustained Bonnie through more than five decades of work. Voices of Waldorf Elders is an independent oral-history project preserving the life stories and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Created and hosted by Roel op ’t Ende, a Waldorf class teacher, teacher mentor, and teacher educator with Gradalis Waldorf Teacher Education. Roel is also a student in the Kairos Institute’s Art Therapy training program. Watch the complete video archive: https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofWaldorfElders Contact: roeloptende@gmail.com

  6. Sep 26

    Frans Lutters: Inner Freedom and the Art of Teaching | Voices of Waldorf Elders #10

    Frans Lutters is a Dutch Waldorf educator, author, and teacher educator who has worked within the Waldorf movement for more than forty years. In this biographical conversation, Frans reflects on his path into Waldorf education, his life in the classroom, and the inner freedom a teacher needs to keep education alive. We speak about meeting the child as an unfolding riddle, the deeper purpose of the main lesson, and why memory, sleep, artistic work, and returning to a subject over several days are essential parts of learning. Frans also discusses anthroposophy as a working hypothesis rather than a required belief, the seven liberal arts, the importance of collegial life, and the role of parents in forming a living social circle around the school. Our conversation moves from projective geometry and Camphill to Harry Potter, moral imagination, and the question of how education can help young people remain inwardly strong and good in a confusing world. Recommended works by Frans include Immersion Learning: A Travelogue, The Grail Mystery and the Seven Liberal Arts, Who Is Harry Potter?, and Man with a Mission: Bernard Lievegoed in His Own Words. Voices of Waldorf Elders is an independent oral-history project preserving the stories, experiences, and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Created and hosted by Roel op ’t Ende YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofWaldorfElders Contact: roeloptende@gmail.com

  7. Sep 19

    Christof Wiechert: Waldorf Education as a Living Question | Voices of Waldorf Elders #9

    Christof Wiechert has spent much of his life asking what keeps Waldorf education alive. After attending the Waldorf school in The Hague, he returned as a teacher and remained in the classroom for roughly thirty years. He later co-founded a Waldorf teacher-training seminar in the Netherlands and served as leader of the Pedagogical Section at the Goetheanum from 2001 through 2010. In this biographical conversation, Christof reflects on his path from Waldorf student to teacher and international educational leader. He discusses child study as a way of understanding the teacher as well as the child, the need to examine our assumptions, and the danger of repeating Waldorf traditions without understanding the educational impulse behind them. He also speaks about anthroposophy as a living worldview rather than a collection of methods, Waldorf education’s responsibility to the wider community, and the possibility that renewal may come from emerging Waldorf communities outside the movement’s traditional European centers. For Christof, the ultimate question is whether a school helps children become more capable of learning and teachers become more awake, strong, and alive. Voices of Waldorf Elders is an independent oral-history project preserving the stories and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Created and hosted by Roel op ’t Ende Watch the conversations on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofWaldorfElders Contact: roeloptende@gmail.com

  8. Sep 13

    Jack Petrash: Teaching, Inner Work, and the Art of Waldorf Education | Voices of Waldorf Elders #8

    Jack Petrash has spent decades as a Waldorf class teacher, teacher educator, author, parent, and advocate for bringing Waldorf education into conversation with the wider educational world. In this biographical conversation, Jack reflects on his early connection to education, his spiritual searching, and the path that led him from teaching in New York public schools to anthroposophy and Waldorf teacher training. He remembers the mentors who helped shape his vocation, especially Sheldon Stoff and John Gardner. We explore the quiet craft beneath good teaching: building classroom culture and healthy habits, preparing carefully, practicing patience, and remaining flexible enough to meet what children need in the moment. Jack speaks about inner work, authenticity, reflective practice, and the importance of developing a spiritual life that is genuinely one’s own. Jack also reflects on the paradoxes teachers must learn to carry: protection and independence, form and freedom, idealism and reality. He considers how teaching changes from the early grades through adolescence, how Waldorf literacy can retain beauty while adapting to students’ needs, and how his work with the Nova Institute has helped build bridges between Waldorf and mainstream education. The conversation also touches on fatherhood, family life, child development, and the sources of energy that have sustained Jack throughout a long career. He explains why Waldorf education—with its emphasis on art, meaning, careful observation, and scientific precision—may be especially important for the future. Finally, Jack offers heartfelt advice to younger teachers: cultivate an authentic spiritual practice, ask for help, remain responsive to the children before you, and resist the temptation to overwork. Voices of Waldorf Elders is an independent oral-history project preserving the stories and hard-earned wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators for teachers, families, and future generations. Watch the conversations on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofWaldorfElders Contact: roeloptende@gmail.com

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About

Voices of Waldorf Elders is an oral-history podcast preserving the stories, experiences, and wisdom of longtime Waldorf educators. Through personal conversations about their lives and work, the series offers insight and companionship to younger and future generations of Waldorf teachers. Hosted by Roel op ’t Ende.

Information

  • Creator
    Roel op 't Ende
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    15
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Roel op 't Ende
  • Show Website
    Voices of Waldorf Elders

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