An Alumni Reflects

Dear Otto Specht School Community,

As the scent of autumn fills the air and leaves dance in shades of auburn and ochre, I'm reminded of the cherished memories from my formative years spent within the nurturing walls of the Otto Specht School. It seems like a distant past, yet the reverberations of those invaluable experiences are palpable in my life every day.

Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Henry Stutman, once a curious student of Otto Specht, and now embarking on a new academic venture as a master's student in Cybersecurity. The journey from Otto Specht's classrooms to the intricate realm of cybersecurity might seem long and winding, but the connection, for me, is profound.

The Otto Specht School, for those fortunate enough to experience it, isn't merely an institution of learning; it's a cradle of character building, creativity, and camaraderie. Each faculty member, with their unwavering commitment and unparalleled dedication, instilled in me values that went beyond academic pursuits. The support system I found in my peers, the safe environment to explore, fail, and learn, have all been instrumental in shaping my confidence and determination.

Today, as I delve deep into the world of cybersecurity, safeguarding digital realms and ensuring a safer virtual environment, I often draw parallels with the protective and nurturing aura of Otto Specht. The school taught me to value each individual's unique strengths, respect diversity, and always work towards the collective good. These are not just essential traits for a cybersecurity professional but are life skills that resonate in every sphere.

For the young minds currently experiencing the magic of Otto Specht, know that the lessons you imbibe here will resonate in myriad unexpected ways in your future endeavors. Cherish every moment, embrace every challenge, and remember, every experience is preparing you for the vast world that awaits.

In the spirit of gratitude, I want to extend my sincerest appreciation to the entire Otto Specht community. The foundation you provided has enabled me to dream big, work hard, and continuously aspire for excellence. Though I am now immersed in codes and algorithms, the heart of Otto Specht beats within me, reminding me of my roots and the journey ahead.

With heartfelt thanks and best wishes for the future,

Henry Stutman

Sam Leopold 7/24/1948 - 1/4/2023

I've have been tasked and I'm honored to share with you now, the biography of my father's life.

Samuel Cooklyn Leopold was born to his parents, Bernice and Herb on July 24th in 1948. It's worth noting that his mother's father passed away on the day of his birth and she always said that he had come to her in a vision as Sam was coming into the world.

The youngest of three siblings, he grew up in a suburban neighborhood of Philadelphia with his two sisters, Marjorie and Bobby.

At 8 years old, Sam began attending a two month sleep away camp every summer in Algonquin Park, in Ontario Canada. This was likely, where he first developed his love of being outdoors as well as feeling the joys of living as part of a community. He told me many stories of week-long canoe trips, rowing all day, portaging from lake to lake and sleeping in tents at night or sometimes right out under the stars. Singing camp songs whenever the opportunity arose and working together preparing for meals and cleaning up afterwards, he talked about Camp Arowhon with great fondness and referred to his time there as formative.

In the summer of 1960, when Sam was 12, his family moved to Evanston Illinois, a suburb of Chicago where his father had become president of a prominent camera company. That year, instead of heading home to Philly, Sam returned from camp to a new environment and to what would wind up being a very tough year ahead. A year fraught with a myriad of challenges, both at school and at home.

In the classroom, Sam suffered from learning challenges and, at the time, he was simply labeled a bad student. His academic struggles along with several schoolyard fights eventually led his parents to sending him off to St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin at the age of 13.

His time in the military academy was not happy. He didn't fit in and he paid the price in disciplinary measures and social confrontations. He was expelled within about a year and he was headed back home to Evanston.

It was upon his return home that Sam met Ernestine. His parents had hired her as a live-in housekeeper and her influence on Sam's life would forever change him. Ernestine was from New Orleans, around 45 or 50. She cooked and cleaned for the family and when she wasn’t working, she played her guitar and listened to her music. Often, Sam and his sisters were allowed to listen in. She would become Sam’s first guitar teacher and by the time he was fourteen, he knew all about the Chicago blues scene and was playing the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonsy and Lead Belly in his bedroom at night. It was during this time that he also developed an interest in poetry and in particular, the work of Walt Whitman.

Sam spent 9th and 10th grade attending Evanston high School in Illinois but mostly, focusing on practicing his guitar and on his growing interest in the civil rights movement.

By junior year, still disinterested in schoolwork, Sam was sent to the Stockbridge School, a progressive boarding school for kids more like Sam, kids who were struggling with big, competitive public schools. Stockbridge had small classes and a lot of attention to humanities and the arts. Sam was comfortable there…over the years he spoke to me a lot about his time and experiences there.

Sam graduated from Stockbridge in ’67.  At graduation, Sam was asked if he would like a summer job -- accompanying a group of younger Stockbridge School girls on their trip around Europe for two months. He took the gig. His responsibility was to keep them out of trouble – which was no easy task. It was Sam’s first taste of major European cities, and the “travelin’ man’ he later wrote and sang about was born that summer. 

He tried his hand at college for a short period, enrolling himself at Franconia, but after a few months, Sam found himself at a crossroads. The Vietnam conflict was underway and the draft was upon him. An existential dilemma for a man with a fundamental distaste for war. A student deferment seemed like the best way to avoid the draft.

Sam wanted to write music, sing, play his guitar and travel.  That was his ambition. In early spring of 1968, with a one way plane ticket, Sam flew off to Europe.  He had some money that would last him until he could figure out how to earn his own way. He flew out the same day Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

I don’t know how long Sam stayed in Europe, earning food money and shelter by street singing and passing the hat. I do know that he eventually made his way to Greece. It was there that he cracked open a book by Nikos Kazenakis, entitled St Francis, about the early Christian Saint known for his commitment to peace, kindness and service towards all living beings.  He read all 600 pages sitting on a roof in The Placa in Athans across from the Acropolis.

From Greece, Sam made his way to an Israeli Kibbutz which offered him a way to support himself and explore the idea of community life. He worked as a cowherd.  Picture him – long legged Sam, eighteen or nineteen, long hair, thin face, playing his guitar whenever he had time. He wrote a love song many of you may have heard, ultimately entitled “The Widow of Aqaba,” about an Israeli man and a Palestinian woman who fall in love.

In the years from 1968 through 1973, Sam spent much of his time traveling Europe and the world. It was through the experience of playing on street corners and small music venues that he developed his "performance persona".

He followed the tourists. Summers on the Mediterranean in France, Italy, Spain and Israel. Travelling up north in Holland and Scandinavia; Winters at the ski areas in Switzerland and Germany. In geneva, he worked the cafes of the old city. In Paris, he sang in the cafes of the West Bank and Momatre. Those years were "earn-as-you-learn" and every time he opened his guitar case, he felt stage fright, wondering if he could raise a crowd and if any of them would throw money into his open guitar case. In Jerusalem, 1973, he met a piano player named Jeff Labes who had been touring and performing with Van Morrison during the Moondance era. They traveled and played together until Sam moved back to the States at 22. Jeff would ultimately become Sam's producer once he signed with Mercury Records.

Sam returned stateside to a thriving music scene in Chicago and he had the chops to play some of the best clubs in town by that point. One night, he was approached by two A&R executives from Mercury Records and this meeting led to him signing a record deal and hitting the road once again. Now, well established as a professional musician, he played concerts and clubs on bills with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Vassar Clemens, Pete Seeger, Charles Mingus, Steve Martin and the list goes on. Sam continued to pursue his music career over the coming years although I believe his character led him to seek a different life at that time and he wound up moving away from that world when it came time to raise a family.

In 1976, Sam met my mother, Lesley in NYC through a mutual friend in the music agency world. Lesley was a career actress and Sam was still playing out on tour with his album signed through Mercury Records, on the road a lot. Within 3 years the two had moved to Brooklyn, were married and had baby Ben.

In 1986, the three of us moved to Garnerville, a working class neighborhood in North Rockland so they could put me in the Waldorf School here. Over the next decade, he was commuting daily to midtown Manhattan where he had carved out a niche in the advertising space within the magazine industry. This new career path was a natural fit for Sam, as a song writer and a poet, his artistic abilities transferred easily into the commercial world of marketing. He was driven by the impulse to provide for his new, young family and had the background of a wordsmith to help him through the initial learning curve. By his second year at Woman's Day Magazine, Sam was put in charge of creating and producing original stage productions for the annual trade shows, typical to the add world at that time.

In the summer of 1991 Sam and Lesley were separated and a new chapter began in Sam's life. Moving from North Rockland to Chestnut Ridge, I could now walk to Green Meadow and HE entered a period of SHARED custody and responsibility for me. This, in part allowed space for Sam to consider what he now wanted to fill his time with. Starting slowly and building organically, he began volunteering and taking on responsibilities, here at the Fellowship Community.

We moved to the Fellowship sometime around 1992. For the first time in many years, Sam had the opportunity to rebuild a life centered around service and community. He absolutely loved it and would often tell me how lucky he felt for having found such an ideal environment to raise a son in and to fulfill his deep need to serve something bigger than himself. As a young teenager, I'll admit that I was not too happy about the work schedule or having to cope with the vulnerability of being part of a community and everyone seeming to know our business. That said, I am endlessly grateful for his efforts to put me in the best possible situation he could figure. To this day, I draw so much from the experiences I had growing up here for that time. Indeed, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence but his intention in exposing me to the real life skills I learned here have carried me through many turbulent times.

I remember the first time I saw him with Nancy. They were sitting "hand in hand" on a little bench in front of the Mercury Press and as I watched, that relationship blossomed into a marriage over the course of the following 4 years. I remember him telling me about dancing with her on New Years and being awestruck when he watched her listen to music. "You should see how she digs it" he would say. I knew he had found a soulmate and although it was his thing and not mine, I felt a sense of relief.

Dad lived and worked at the fellowship with sincere joy for many years to come. When he told me one day that he and Nancy were planning a move to Japan with Niko, my step brother, I was surprised but also excited for him. It was the first time in my life that I saw that traveler's spirit come out and be allowed to shine.

For 3 years, Sam, Nancy and Niko lived on the Northern island of Hokkaido, Japan. He performed in bars till 4:00 a.m. all weekend and slowly nursed back to life, the performer within…while immersing himself entirely during the week, in helping to start  an intentional community in the small village they lived in. This is where he discovered his love of teaching and working with those whom his presence would be most helpful for.

They then moved to Australia where Sam spent a year and a half fine-tuning his act for an English speaking audience and recording an album again after so many years. I remember him telling me stories of rowing his canoe to a Friday night gig, keeping an eye out for deadly spiders, developing relationships with previously unknown, far flung relatives and overall…living a fulfilling life in the Australian Outback.   

Upon returning once again to the states, Sam performed regularly as a part of the Songwriters Guild of America. He played writer's showcases at the Red Lion Restaurant On Bleecker Street, held regular gigs at The Black Whale and The Starving Artist in City Island and continued to find his way into the world of music therapy.

As he began to work at different types of venues, schools and elderly care facilities, an authentic love for the service was cultivated and flourished. When he began his work at the Otto Schpekt School, the meaning of his life's work came very clearly into focus. Those who knew him, both personally and professionally will always remember him as a teacher and a caregiver. This is his legacy.

Sam was a complicated man. I had the great honor of knowing him on so many different levels. The greatest gift he ever gave me was to show through example that one not only could, but should continue to do the work on and with themselves for the duration. He taught me to put one foot in front of the next and to never settle for the bologna. He helped me understand that being present is a choice we make every moment and that living in fantasy will never quite do the trick…although it may feel good. He met every man , woman and child squarely at eye level and gave us all the gift of his sincere and committed presence.

In closing, I'd like to thank you all for being here to honor the memory and passing of Sam Leopold. I want to do a quick version of "The Exercise" Sam held so close to his heart and taught so many of us.

Begin by closing your eyes. Let the head be upright as if hanging from a string. Feel the weight of your body in the chair. Feel the play of the air on your face and your feet on the ground. Listen to the farthest sound you can possibly hear. Sit in that peace and presence for a moment.

Farm + Garden: Reality? There's No App for That

With another winter behind us and spring fully upon us, the level of activity on the farm and in the garden spaces is in high gear.  The bursting energy seen in the pinks and whites of blooming fruit trees, and yellow specks of dandelion, is but a part of the manifest vitality surging through the Earth from the soil up, as it reawakens from its wintry rest.  Students have joined in the procession of erupting life as they work together to turn over beds planted last fall with rye and pea cover crops, plant trays of the season’s flowers, vegetables and herbs, and prepare the greenhouse for summer crops.  Maple syruping already seems ages ago and the summer of cultivating, trellising and harvesting is but a blink of the eye away.  As I oversee and work alongside the students, who are busily engaged in digging in groundhog proof fencing along OSS North’s new field, directly seeding sugar snap peas and favas, and improving the fencing around a small multi-species orchard, I see a glimpse into the future.  

I observe and note that they are not just planting seeds for this year's crops or securing a fence.  There is a much bigger picture to their endeavors and collective efforts; a greater cause they are working towards and working for.  In their work and their learning, through the tasks they take on in Farm and Garden, they are planting the seeds for a healthier and more consciously caring future of humanity.  By exploring and engaging in the protection and preservation of our natural resources and learning techniques with that goal in mind, they are creating a reality  that not just them or their family and friends are dependent upon, but that all of humanity depends upon. 

A reality that is thoughtful and caring.  A reality that is far reaching, expansive and lasting.  An unpackaged reality that does not come from a box, screen or app; one that is both tangible in the moment and one that bears fruit in time.  A reality that is not just about them and their wants, but one that is for us all.  The students practice patience, resilience, fortitude, cooperation and inclusion.  Every student, regardless of ability, is depended upon and important.  They gather together in community around the one thing that unites all humans, regardless of race, religion, creed, geographic location, age, sex, or identification- food.  Through all the multitude of tasks from seed to harvest, including the monotonous, tedious, back breaking, finger bleeding to the bone jobs that Mr. Bosch sets them to - it is all for this one objective, to see themselves in the whole and the whole within themselves.  Farm and Garden is merely the backdrop for these ever important lessons in humanity.  Within the sharing of tools, working together to carry heavy loads, awareness of others while using large or heavy tools, are embedded the true lessons that will last beyond their schooling years.

Let's Come to Rest

Let's come to rest. 

Feel your feet on the ground. 

Feel the weight of your body in the chair. 

Feel the hands on the lap.

Feel the clothes against your body. 

Feel the subtle play of the air against your skin.

Now, open up your listening… 

Mr. Leopold’s love and dedication for the children inspired and transformed every child and every individual he worked with. He was a man of integrity, a solid presence at the Otto Specht School. He brought love, wisdom, a great sense of humor, fun, and lots of exquisite music. 

It was Mr. Leopold and his guitar and Banjo that for years now, serenaded each Otto Specht School cultural activity. From our mug exchange to Michaelmas, all school hikes, Maypole, Thanksgiving, and so much more, Mr. Leopold and his guitar and banjo were the soundtrack to our times together.

It was Mr. Leopold and his guitar and banjo and an array of other instruments that accompanied our school plays. From the enchanted forests of of a Midsummer's Night’s Dream to the interplanetary travels of the Little Prince, Mr. Leopold oriented students to the time and space of each changing scene.

When school shut down in March 2020, families of students with Special Needs faced a unique crisis amidst a world in crisis. But Mr. Leopold, and his guitar and Banjo and a maybe half joking idea, was able to keep our students connected as the unabashed star of Mr. Leopold’s Neighborhood and through his daily meditations.

Mr. Leopold was a student of the School of Practical Philosophy - and I believe that the Otto Specht School provided the perfect place to practice, to teach, and to continue his studies. 

Sam came to my office once with an idea for a class he wanted to teach to our then 8th graders - “We’re going to oil the wood in the whole auditorium,” he told me. I thought he was crazy to try and spend 45 minutes oiling wood with these three rather high energy young teenagers. That’s great! I told him and entered “Philosophy 101” into their schedules two days per week. The project was never finished. There was a large discussion after one student was found, matches and oiled cloth in hand, and then the Pandemic hit. In that student's semester report, Sam wrote “Self knowledge, though difficult at times, helps everyone.” 

No lesson of Mr. Leopold’s was temporal or temporary. In his own words, even his third grade music class was “A forty-five minute music period with a long-range goal in mind”. He wanted to get to know each student and to prepare them - for life, the ultimate final exam. Last year, a  student asked, “What is the meaning of life?” Sam said he would have to ask Evan, an elderly member at the Fellowship Community. When the student followed up, Sam reported that Evan had, indeed, told him. “He wouldn’t tell me what he said, though!” the student said to me, “Instead, he said something like - In order to grow you need to come up with questions. You have many questions, and that is good. Now you need to go pursue them.” 

Sam had many questions himself. He was an avid learner, fully immersed, patiently hungry to learn, and eager to share. He was excited by ideas, by knowledge, and by debate, and carried an unwavering belief that we can make a difference. In late October, as the pain was becoming harder to bear, I received a text lamenting the fact that he would not make it to meditation with the students. He wrote:  “Actually, probably won’t make it today… Please feel free to visit any time. We can have tea and solve the world's problems.  “

When one student, very dear to Mr. Leopold heard that he had passed away, he said - “can we come to rest?” The family sat and did a brief meditation, then the student got up, and said - “that was great!” 

“Rest in the listening.

This peace, and this stillness - this feeling of wellbeing, this is yourself. This is who you are.  And this can be available to you at any time. Any time during the day, you can say to yourself, come to rest.”

To Infinity and Beyond

I first met Mr. Leopold in the fall of 2018 when I was invited to attend a “parent’s evening” at the Garden House.  It was our son, Jake’s, first year at Otto Specht and I really didn’t have much of a sense yet of what went on at school.  I just knew that Jake was happier to go to school than he had been for many years.  That night, we parents participated in “morning greeting” just as the students did every morning.  That was my first exposure to Sam’s “listening meditation,” his exhortation to the children to “come to rest” and “open up to the listening.”  My first reaction was “Jake actually sits still for this whole thing?” The answer was a resounding yes. 

Jake always responded with joy to Sam’s music, begging him over and over to play “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or “Happy Birthday,” but Jake’s love of music was not new.  The listening meditation was entirely new to Jake and to me. 

In March 2020, when school closed because of the pandemic, our family, like many others, was having a very difficult time.  Jake could not access remote learning, except for thirty minutes of Zoom with Mr. Leopold for “Music and Meditation” at 9:00 am each weekday morning.  For weeks, I sat next to Jake while Sam encouraged the students to open-up to the listening.  Sam was the only person outside of our family that Jake and I saw regularly for weeks. At the end of the meditation, he would tell the children that “this feeling of well-being, this sense of calm, this rough sense of fun,” “it’s your true nature; it’s your birthright, and you can have that feeling any time you want.”  We were all so raw during those weeks, I used to get choked up every time I thought of him saying that.  I still do. The last thing we felt during those days was a sense of well-being, calm or any kind of fun, rough or otherwise. I still remember how sad Sam was when John Prine died from COVID. But even on those days when he was sad, Sam’s voice was just what we needed.  His rendition of “What a wonderful world” then was so poignant. But much more often than sad, I saw the fun, as the boys sang and danced to his eclectic musical selections. It was during those months that I really understood why Jake was so connected to Sam’s music and to the listening meditation.

Sam had a curious mind.  He really wanted to know how the kids’ minds work.  He genuinely wanted to understand so that he could meet them where they were, whether through music or song writing or movement.  The song he and the students in Garden House wrote called “Scratching and Yawning” still makes me and anyone who knows Jake smile. I loved Sam’s spirit of optimism about what the kids were capable of learning.  Jake has had and continues to have many wonderful teachers.  But I don’t think anyone has reached Jake on as deep a level as Mr. Leopold.  For that, we are so very grateful. 

As Sam grew sicker, I still stayed in contact with him by text. At the celebration of his life, our family shared with him how much he meant to us all and I told him how Jake would still watch his music and meditation videos at home from time to time. He was happy to hear that. When I told him that we learned from him that “we can come to rest whenever we want” he said “Isn’t that terrific! I’ve found that too.  In my life the introduction of that exercise brought a complete paradigm shift after which I never looked back.” I feel that way too. The last thing Sam wrote me, in a text in mid-October, was “Thank you Jake for bringing us all together. This is your service, and you perform it perfectly! Rest as often as you can.”

When I heard the sad news from Jeanette, I immediately shared it with Jake and the rest of the family.  I didn’t know how much Jake would understand or how he would react.  He often reacts in atypical ways. He was quiet at first and I wasn’t sure if he had taken in what I said. Then, almost immediately, he asked if we could come to rest and open-up to the listening, open all the way out . . .to infinity and beyond.   Truly, Sam’s was a life well-lived.  We miss him but are comforted by our memories of him, including wonderful videos of “music and meditation” class. I’m smiling thinking of him resting forever with a sense of well-being, calm and rough sense of fun. 

A Palate for Imagination

"If you are a parent or just spend time around kids, you have probably noticed how children’s games evolve as they play freely. One minute, they will be playing King and Queen, and marching in knitted crowns. In the next, they are wild animals digging up the ground to make a nest. Then they become astronauts exploring the moon. Their play continuously flows with bursts of imaginations!" According to Fiber Craft Artist and Otto Specht parent Nao Motomatsu, the environment and materials children are provided with in the Waldorf Early Childhood and younger grades invite all the possibilities of a child’s imagination. "This is one of the reasons Waldorf dolls do not have facial features,” she explains. "A doll with a fixed, usually smiling face may take away an opportunity for a child to imagine a play of minding and taking care of an unhappy, hungry baby, and the subsequent feeling of confidence when the baby is soothed." An expressionless doll, on the other hand, Nao says, "can be sleeping, smiling, or crying depending on their play. Similarly, in the Waldorf Early Childhood and Younger Grades, it is often requested that families avoid characters on clothing that may distract or inhibit one’s own imaginations."

Delving into this principle, Nao created a palate for imagination in curating and creating her child’s wardrobe. “Simply finding a wardrobe that is all natural and chemical-free, without cartoons or logos emblazoned across them might seem close to impossible in today’s world, but an outfit or two is where it starts,” Nao says, noting that there are many mainstream brands that have started to sell organic and/or Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified environmentally friendly clothes which tend to be simple in color and design. Beginning with these basics, Nao engages her child in the addition of natural, creative clothing alterations such as plant dying. “Onion skins can be used for yellows and oranges. Avocado pits and skins create light earthy pinks. It can be more challenging, but if you can get a hold of or grow fresh indigo, you can even achieve emerald and aqua greens.” 

The natural dyes used are not just valued for their beautiful colors, but for their healing and cleansing properties. “In the West, the most familiar way to take a medicine is orally,” Nao says, “but in our culture in Japan, people used to apply medicines through fabrics that had direct contact with our skin, including clothing.” The process, she says, is a wonderful way to introduce to children how colors can come from nature, and experiment with tie dyes and other dyeing techniques. For older children, the process can be a scientific experiment; adjust the pH level of a dye bath and rinsing water to achieve different warmth and tones.

For Nao, the art of children’s clothing is not just about the aesthetic. It is functional and reflects, for her family, a way of life. Just as we may choose decor to create the mood of a room, clothing can be chosen or created to encourage learning, promote health, and allow children to live freely into their imaginative play.  

Farm & Garden Update: A Practical and Radical Experiment

As American Novelist Wendell Berry wrote, “the true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment, the size of its income or even the statistics of its productivity but the good health of the land.”  Healthy topsoil in which healthy food can be produced and fed to people to promote health, takes hundreds of years to build and create, but in just a few years can be destroyed.  One would think humans would have learned these lessons by now, especially here in the States, having gone through the Dust Bowl about a century ago. Agriculture, with its advanced technological knowledge, mostly in the field of genetic research, is taking a radical shift in food production, but it is not towards more preservation and protection of our planet's resources.  With these shifts, one might think more technology will fix our environmental and health crises.  But what if it does not? What would the alternative look like or be?  What would be the fix?  How will  humanity continue to feed an ever-growing population with rapidly depleting topsoil, increasing droughts, increasing air and water pollutants, decreasing biodiversity and decreasing ecological habitats? 

OSS North is an exploration of these questions. The project began in 2020 with the purpose of creating a self-sufficient micro-farm combining Biodynamic practices with permaculture methods to explore non-traditional agricultural techniques as possible solutions to the current worldwide environmental crisis humans are facing. At the same time, it provided a complete farm and garden educational experience, bringing the Otto Specht students into this practical and radical experiment.

During the 2019-2020 school year, in the months before Covid closed down the schools, OSS students in all grades took the first of many steps. They began by observing the land, taking note of the many unique characteristics of this space. In autumn, the students noticed the slope of the land and how the rain flowed from the upper to lower parts. They looked at the contours of the space during winter when all the vegetation was dormant and the skin of the Earth covering the space was bare. In spring, the students took inventory of the various species of plants living in the space, vying for ground and light, creeping up the hillside and transforming what was once opened and cleared land back into forest. High school seniors explored key-line principles based on topographic lines as well as concepts like desertification and edge effect. Other High School and Middle School students focused on forest growth stages and which plants are present in each age of development, as well as the 7 levels of plant strata from tubers to vines. Lower grades concentrated on the movement of the Sun through the cardinal directions and the effects on plant growth through each from North to South. All this learning supplemented their respective curriculum and development.

At last, with their will directing their hands and feet, armed with nippers and small pruning saws, the students peeled the pioneer plants and shrubs back to the edge of the well established forest. Proudly, they had reclaimed the land and the birth of OSS North was witnessed. A point was then found in the contours of this new space where the decline of the hill meets the leveling off of the flat ground.  That point and the topographic contour line that lies along it formed the point from which all the beds in this new garden would align themselves with, and in doing so, rain water and surface erosion of precious topsoil could be trapped and held on the new growing space for years to come.

OSS is now embarking on its fourth year creating this small example of what agriculture could look like even in the midst of our technocratic, immediate gratification world.  After nearly three growing seasons, many things are unfinished— we still need a fence secured with a proper gates, there are fruit trees and berry trees to plant, medicinal herbs to intersperse among perennial and annual plants, a root cellar, a pond for holding water and providing  an aquatic habitat and goats to help in weed management. But in the weeks to come, students will help thresh the rye they harvested in the summer and dig the potatoes they hilled.  They will measure top soil consistency and they will continue to observe the radical changes in the land. In the end, there will be no grade or test. Students will hold the rich soil in their hands, taste the fruits of their labors. The natural resources and their overall wealth and health will be judges of our practices.

Faculty Spotlight: An Interview with Deb Renna

Deb Renna joins the faculty as Head teacher of our Early Childhood program. She comes to Otto Specht with a lifetime of teaching experience: first as a preschool teacher for children with Special Needs in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and then as a kindergarten teacher at Green Meadow Waldorf School (GMWS). Through her years at GMWS, Deb worked collaboratively with the Otto Specht School and helped pioneer the Student Support programs for children in the Green Meadow elementary grades. Deb was the Early Childhood Chair at the Rudolf Steiner School in Manhattan before leaving that position to care for her elderly parents in their home.  We spoke to Deb about early childhood education, Waldorf style, and her vision for the upcoming school year!

In a former newsletter, “Radical Reimagining” was used and this has emerged as one of the themes of this newsletter. When you hear this phrase, what does it inspire? 

”Radical reimagining," to me, is an opportunity to 'clean house' and toss out what hasn't worked or old expectations, and try new things: new activities, new ways of speaking and being present with children.

How is a Waldorf kindergarten different from your typical mainstream kindergarten? 

I've never taught in a mainstream kindergarten, but because I come from a family of teachers, I know that Kindergarten has become very much like the Grade 1 I attended: reading instruction, "special subjects' classes, less time outside, very little free play.  In my view, Waldorf early childhood education includes a few very important features: long periods of self- directed play (inside and outside); clear boundaries so that children can feel safe and know what to expect during the school day and from their teachers; and conversations about how to be good citizens in the world. No topic is off limits, and we talk about differences and feelings, and how to make something right if we have hurt another person's feelings. 

How is the Waldorf approach specifically suited for children with developmental delays, learning challenges and sensory imbalances?

The strong rhythm allows children to relax into the day. The long periods of play allow for fewer transitions which can be difficult for many children.  The artistic activities are meaningful and the materials we use are natural and beautiful.  Our artistic activities include: painting, bread baking, eurythmy, and coloring. Children can participate as they choose within the parameters of the activity.

How do you adapt the methods of Waldorf education to meet the unique needs of our youngest Otto Specht community members?  

We have pared down the number of activities and transitions so that there is plenty of time in the day and children do not feel rushed to move along into the next activity.  We are more interactive with the children, and are more explicit in our expectations of them.  The young child need teachers who are grounded, warm, kind, and firm.

Considering this unique moment in history (what some might call post-peak or post-pandemic), what do children, families and communities need— perhaps now more than ever?  

It feels like children need form, and we all need community.  During the pandemic, we were all doing whatever we needed to do to get through the days.  Now children are back in school and members of a class. The children need to learn how it is to be in community again: sharing, waiting for a turn, helping one another, following the teacher, eating together, working and playing together.

What do you look forward to most about the upcoming school year? 

Seeing the children grow and develop is always a gift.  Noticing that something has become easier for a child, or for the group, brings joy. Preparing for and celebrating the festivals together adds 'spice' to our school days. The joyfulness of the children is a delightful experience, especially since my own children are now grown.  

Other thoughts? 

The Early Childhood classroom is like a sonnet. Although there is a certain form that must be followed, there is beauty and freedom in the expression within the form.

A Parent's Perspective

“As a toddler, Gabriel was meeting most of his milestones, but we were worried about his speech. He was saying a few words but then he kind of stopped. He was not picking up more and not using the words that he had.” Gabriel’s mother, Paulina is a certified Special Education teacher who worked in the schools as well as in homes providing SETS (Special Education Teacher Support) services. The agency Paulina worked for offered early intervention so she was more prepared than many parents, knowing what was available and how to access it. When Gabriel began Early Intervention, however, the providers struggled to connect to her son. "Whenever the therapists would come in. he’d gently push them back out the door. Just give them back their bag and jacket and wave them bye bye," Paulina says. When the therapist would return, Gabriel would spend the session clinging to his mother and crying. Before he could acclimate to the therapists, "Covid hit, and everything stopped, including the services. Then he aged out.”

Re-entering a social world that Gabriel had never had the opportunity to be accustomed to was the next challenge and his parents knew they had to find a way that was not filled with sensory overwhelm or too many demands, academic or otherwise. Gabriel’s parents found a nature-based playgroup and from there were told about the Otto Specht School.

“At first, we didn’t know what to expect,” Paulina says. “Gabriel has always been very sensory. As a baby, he never wanted to play in dirt or snow. His fists were always clenched.” When Gabriel began kindergarten last March, Paulina recalled that it was still very cold and sometimes snowy, and Gabriel would not put on gloves so his mother bought an oversized coat that covered his hands - and brought him day after day, at first for just an hour or two at a time. “Since coming here, he’s started picking up leaves, and hugging trees. Before, he wouldn’t pick up a fork! Now, he is becoming more and more independent. And he’s verbalizing more. His teachers say they have heard Gabriel say ‘Go!’ and count.” In the beginning, Gabriel would not join the group and showed little interest in the other children. “Now,” his mother says, “he is interacting more and more. He still doesn’t speak with them, but they’re working together. The last time I saw them, the children had a big pot and all of them were working on filling it with sand. And Gabriel was in there, too, taking his turn.”

“At my son’s age, social emotional skills and life skills are more important than letters and numbers,” Paulina concludes. “Here, everything is allowed to happen at its own pace. This is a school that respects children as the humans they are. They believe, as I do, that children are born with knowledge and inner guidance. They are already their own little people and we have only to help them grow into who they’re meant to be— not who we want them to be. I know that when Gabriel’s ready for something, that’s when it happens. Of course, you have to give your child the opportunity. That’s why I was searching for something—anything. Thank goodness we found Otto Specht.” 

Waldorf 101: The Essentials Part 2, A Living Curriculum

“Forest health has been defined by the production of forest conditions which directly satisfy human needs and by resilience, recurrence, persistence, and biophysical processes which lead to sustainable ecological conditions.” - Nationalforests.org

The COVID-19 Pandemic shocked our educational systems much the way a natural disaster shocks and alters a landscape. This moment in education history, marked by inevitable change and potential for renewal, sparked a conversation, a “radical reimagining” of what school is. Ideas and opinions, like seeds, sought to populate the marred landscape, to regrow the forests of our educational system with something new, maybe better, but every article I read seemed somehow to be missing the point. More equitable distribution of resources and inter-district collaborations seemed like great ideas, clear improvements to the status quo, and made me excited about the new energy and enthusiasm around education but still, I wanted more. It wasn’t enough to know more information and to teach more information and to find different ways to share more information. Could this approach ever answer the imperative question being asked of us all: How can education save our fractured world? The education itself seemed fractured. The developing child was absent from the conversation. It reminded me of another trend arising from the time of quarantine, that of the backyard gardener. Overwhelmingly, an increase in backyard gardening is filled with positivity - mental, emotional, and physical health all benefit from the practice, and these are laudable and necessary goals for our society. However, this does little to address the concerns that sparked the trend, namely, the overall health of our food supply or the cracks in our supply chain exacerbated by the pandemic, leading to fears of food insecurity for some and real food insecurity for many others. Here, on our campus, the farm and gardens thrived, and as we returned to in person schooling, I noted as well the overall health of our educational ecology, allowing us to survive, to regenerate, to grow stronger. 

“Typically, species that regenerate by re-sprouting after they’ve burned have an extensive root system. Dormant buds are protected underground, and nutrients stored in the root system allow quick sprouting after the fire.” - Nationalforests.org

Waldorf Education, rooted in human development, is now in its 101st year, but these strong roots support a living curriculum that is perpetually new and necessarily future oriented. Even as mainstream educational systems strive to create process- and learner- based curriculums, to provide individualized instruction, and to meet the diverse learners coming towards us, education policy is still overwhelmingly driven by data, an amalgam of numbers that provide a relative picture of performance based upon a variety of demographic information. Even utilizing data better and even with increased collaboration, these systems will always rely on incomplete information and never be in real time to say nothing of meeting future needs. New curriculums will continue to be written to respond to the newest information and still it will be lagging. A curriculum that seeks to know, fully, the human being, however, a curriculum kept alive by teachers who see lifetimes of possibility in each student’s eyes, will always be relevant and will always work in the present and for the future. The Waldorf Curriculum, not determined by external factors, was said by Steiner to be an education for everyone. But it is essential that the curriculum be allowed to live, to hold its truth and relevance by each teacher meeting each student.

“May the love of putting into practice what is willed to become a way of teaching for all human beings be turned into light that shines for those who feel it their duty to care for the education of all humankind!” - Rudolf Steiner