Registration opens for programs starting Sept. 2019
Rudolf Steiner Centre
9100 Bathurst St. #4
Thornhill, ON L4J 8C7
Contact the Steiner Centre
Tel: 905 764 7570
Fax: 905-889-3336
info@rsct.ca
Current Events:
Bringing Spirit into Life
Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto facilitates cultural renewal. We offer workshops and trainings in Waldorf Teacher Education, Remedial Education, Foundation Studies in Anthroposophy, Biodynamic Agriculture and the Arts. Here research into the spiritual nature of the human being brings practical insights for work, play and community.
Waldorf Teacher Education
Foundation Studies in Anthroposophy
We offer internationally accredited programs for Waldorf teacher education. Focus on early childhood, grades, high school or specialty subjects. Click here for Waldorf Teacher Education
The RSCT's Waldorf Childcare Enterprise Director, Karen Weyler, has been hard at work, getting ready for the opening of the first "Star Seedlings Family and Child Care Centre" in Guelph in the spring of 2019. The house which the new centre will inhabit, has been previously used as a childcare centre, which should...
The RSCT's Waldorf Childcare Enterprise Director, Karen Weyler, has been hard at work, getting ready for the opening of the first "Star Seedlings Family and Child Care Centre" in Guelph in the spring of 2019. The house which the new centre will inhabit, has been previously used as a childcare centre, which should simplify compliance and approvals.
However, as you can see from the interior photos above, it's going to need some loving work to make it into a "Waldorf" childcare centre. Karen has sent the following list of things that are needed to get the new centre up and running for the spring of 2019.
If you have any of these items and you're willing to donate them to the Star Seedlings, please contact Karen directly at karen.weyler@yahoo.com
Donations & gifts for four rooms needed & gratefully accepted:
Heavy duty washer and dryer
Fridge
Indoor plants
Wool Carpets and any area rugs of all sizes, plain/solid colour preferred
Love seats and cushions
Window blinds of various sizes
Fabric!
Wooden hand rail for stairs
Bookshelves of all shapes and sizes, wooden for rooms but also metal for storage
Tables, of all shapes and sizes
Chests of drawers
Lamps
TOYS - traditional hand made Waldorf toys, blocks, dolls, play stands, play kitchens.......
Natural materials - shells, pinecones, acorns/chestnuts, etc.
Wooden stumps, dry branches and wooden discs
Wool blankets - preferably solid colour
Baskets
Brooms and dustpans
Vacuum cleaner and industrial mop
Candle holders and lanterns
Picture frames
3-ring binders
Printer and office desk
Household kitchen cooking materials such as bowls, measuring cups and mixing
spoons, baking dishes eg. Muffin tins
Tool box with screwdriver, hammer, pliers, selection of screws and nails etc.
Gardening tools
Snow shovels
Once again, if you have any of these items and you're willing to donate them to the new Star Seedlings Family and Childcare Centre, please contact Karen directly at karen.weyler@yahoo.com Thank you!
Photo above: Faculty and friends with this year's full-time Waldorf Teacher Professional Development students at the RSCT's Michaelmas festival on September 28th, 2018.
Dear Friends of the Rudolf Steiner Centre,
We have wonderful news to deliver!
We have successfully turned the challenges of the last two years into a renewal...
Photo above: Faculty and friends with this year's full-time Waldorf Teacher Professional Development students at the RSCT's Michaelmas festival on September 28th, 2018.
Dear Friends of the Rudolf Steiner Centre,
We have wonderful news to deliver!
We have successfully turned the challenges of the last two years into a renewal of the Rudolf Steiner Centre. We listened closely to extensive input from 50 members of the community in a visioning meeting, interviewed past and present students, and our committed board engaged in several extensive retreats. As a result, the Rudolf Steiner Centre is moving into the future with new confidence and purpose.
From this comprehensive review we have developed a strong, three-year strategic plan for our future which can be viewed through this link.
The results of these efforts have already begun to bear fruit. Our programs are attracting increased interest both nationally and internationally, while we are also developing an exciting partnership with the Canadian Indigenous community.
None of this would have been possible without your steadfast support. We thank you!
We continue our efforts to become an accredited Private Career College so that we will be able to accept more applicants into our Waldorf teacher education programs and build a platform for future vocational training initiatives.
To do this requires concerted effort and expenditure. As we continue to expand our programs, we ask you to give generously to fund this and our future work as we continue to develop the transformative resources of anthroposophy.
To make a donation:
Please go to the Canada Helps “Giving” button on RSCT’s website home page – you will receive a tax receipt immediately: https://www.rsct.ca/
Or visit our website’s “Giving” page to send a cheque.
Warmly,
James Brian, Executive Director
Jan Ney Patterson, Director of Early Childhood Education
Robert McKay, Chair of the Board of Directors
RSCT 2018 Successes
June
• The Early Childhood Education part-time program is at full capacity of 17 for the first time. The 2018-2020 cohort is a remarkably diverse and mature group. The Birth-to-Three program was developed by Jan Patterson, our director of Early Childhood Education, to meet the needs of childcare educators seeking what Waldorf education can offer in caring for the youngest and most vulnerable of our children.
July
• The Summer Festival was a great success with over 150 participants. Full-day grade intensives were offered and received positive feedback from teachers and students.
• Nine participants graduated from the Teacher Education part-time program who are now teaching at schools across Canada and in the United States. Currently there are 16 students in years 1 and 2.
• RSCT sponsored an intensive four-week Foundation Studies course in Hanoi, Vietnam, with 35 graduates.
August
• Foundation Studies Encounter, under the leadership of Elyse Pomeranz and Les Black, saw the graduation of 12 Indigenous participants. This course was held at the Everlasting Tree School on the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve.
September
• Two courses in Foundation Studies Encounter are being offered at RSCT in Thornhill: Saturday mornings and Wednesday mornings for Toronto Waldorf School parents, both under the leadership of Paul Hodgkins.
• A new course in Foundation Studies Encounter has started Monday evenings in Guelph at the Trillium Waldorf School under the leadership of George Ivanoff.
• RSCT was accepted last November as a Designated Learning Institute by Immigration Canada and currently has students from Korea, China and Mexico in the full-time Teacher Education program.
• To attract more Canadians and thus provide more teachers for Canadian schools, the Centre is now applying to become a private career college. We hope to be able to accept students starting in September, 2019.
November
• The Waldorf Development Conference, with the theme Working with Indigenous Cultural Material in the Waldorf School Setting, attracted 110 participants from Canada and the United States.
December
• We welcomed the return of Professor Fred Amrine for a well attended Sunday Afternoon at the Rudolf Steiner Centre.
• In the new year, RSCT will be opening a childcare centre in Guelph called the Star Seedlings Family and Childcare Centre. This will be under the leadership of Karen Weyler, our National Director of Childcare.In Memory of Gene Campbell
In Memory of Gene Campbell
Gene Campbell, the founder of the Foundation Studies Distance program, passed away this summer from cancer. She remained encouraging and dedicated to RSCT and played a big part in helping us implementing our new vision. A moving gathering in tribute to her memory was held at the Rudolf Steiner Centre in September.
We thank and acknowledge Gene Campbell for her dedicated role in helping RSCT expand our understanding of what is possible.
We send her on her journey:
May my love be the sheaths
That now surround you-
Cooling all warmth,
Warming all coldness-
Interwoven with sacrifice!
Live, borne by love-
Light endowed- upward!
Rudolf Steiner
Make Sure You Receive ALL the RSCT News and Updates
Subscribe to our new "RSCT Confirmed" email list. Start by clicking this link. Then fill out your name and email click the "Subscribe to List" button. Next you will receive an email asking for confirmation that you wish to subscribe. Once you click the link in that email you will be subscribed. We aim to publish an e-newsletter every two months at least. So let's stay in touch. Here's that link again. Thank you.
Long-time RSCT supporter and visiting teacher Julian Mulock has a long history in the dramatic arts and especially in community theatre. His latest production is now showing at the Curtain Club in Richmond Hill. The play he is directing, "Enchanted April"...
Long-time RSCT supporter and visiting teacher Julian Mulock has a long history in the dramatic arts and especially in community theatre. His latest production is now showing at the Curtain Club in Richmond Hill. The play he is directing, "Enchanted April" is on from Nov. 16th through Dec. 1.
Julian says he was nervous up until opening night when everything came together. He expects it will be sold out due to word of mouth so don't be disappointed. Order your tickets soon!
You can get tickets online or by calling the Curtain Club box office. If you order online please note that you must enter your address EXACTLY as shown on your credit card account statement.
Indigenous Waldorf Development Conference Follow-up
Earlier this month, the RSCT was pleased to welcome a record crowd of 120 teachers, parents and students to this year's Waldorf Development Conference which was about how to incorporate Indigenous cultural content into a Waldorf school setting.
In the photo above, Chandra Maracle from Everlasting Tree School presents the Haudenosaunee thankfulness prayer at the start of day on Saturday.
CBC Massey Lectures - "All Our Relations"
To learn more about the Indigenous experience in Canada you may want to listen to Tanya Talaga's CBC Massey Lectures, titled "All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward". You may also want to read this interview with Tanya which appeared recently in the Toronto Star.
You may remember that we mentioned in an earlier post that Tanya was going to give the Massey lectures but now she has given them. The lectures were recently broadcast on CBC Radio's "Ideas" program, Nov. 12th through 16th. They are currently available online at the CBC website.
Concert and Puppet Shows at the Advent Fair December 1st
The annual Christian Community Advent Fair which will take place December 1st at 901 Rutherford Rd, Thornhill will feature two performances of a marionette puppet show.
"The Shoemaker and the Elves", will be performed at 11:30 am and again at 1 pm. It is suitable for children three and older. Tickets are $5.
At 3 pm there will be a concert featuring Anne Marie Kopp, flute and Elisabeth Chomko, piano, performing Bach, Debussy, Calpert, and Poulenc.
Also there will be perormances by young musicians and a community carol sing.
The Advent Fair takes place Saturday, Dec. 1, from 10 am to 4 pm. at the Christian Community, 901 Rutherford Rd., Thornhill, L6A 1S2
There's Now a Coach Going to the Christkindl Market
Michael Schmidt and Elisa van der Hout of Glencolton Farms have arranged for a coach to take people up to the Christkindl Market Dec. 7th and 8th at their farm near Durham Ontario.
This is for people who'd like to go but don't want to drive two hours each way from Thornhill. The coach will leave Hesperus both days at 3 pm and return around 11 pm.
Cost for the coach is $60 and includes admission to the Market and to the Sing-along Messiah.
Tickets available at the Village Market on Saturday mornings or call Marta at Hesperus at 905-764-0840, ext 241. Limited places available. No refunds. The Christkindl Market is a fundraising project for the Edge Hill School.
Frederick Amrine Lecture a Success, Sunday November 18th
In her introduction Diana Hughes said she would have been satisfied with 30 people attending but actually there were more than 60 people who came out to hear Fred's two lectures on karma last Sunday. See photo below. This was the first time Fred Amrine had spoken at the RSCT since 2015.
In our last story about University of Michigan professor Frederick Amrine, who will be speaking tomorrow, Sunday Nov. 18th at the RSCT, at 2:30 pm, we mentioned that Diana Hughes, John Kettle and James Brian had helped persuade Canadian Indigenous architect, Douglas Cardinal, to write a forward for one...
In our last story about University of Michigan professor Frederick Amrine, who will be speaking tomorrow, Sunday Nov. 18th at the RSCT, at 2:30 pm, we mentioned that Diana Hughes, John Kettle and James Brian had helped persuade Canadian Indigenous architect, Douglas Cardinal, to write a forward for one of the three volumes of Rudolf Steiner's lectures on architecture which Frederick Amrine was translating into English, a few years ago.
Since then we've been in touch with Douglas Cardinal and he has kindly sent us a copy of that forward to the third volume of Steiner's architecture lectures which professor Amrine translated. That forward is reprinted below, with Douglas Cardinal's permission.
Above: Douglas Cardinal (right) at an exhibit of anthroposophical architecture in Ottawa in 2016 as part of an Anthroposophical Society conference.
Forward
Architecture is a powerful medium that defines our everyday lives. When I am in the city amid the buzz of its activity what I sense most is the human chaos it produces. Cities and buildings have become functional, mechanical, analytical entities geared toward a materialistic and linear productivity. Human elements of love, beauty and compassion are, if not void, isolated to hermetic isles. Compartmentalization, alienation, and disconnection are paramount to mechanical efficiency, but originate much of our social malaise.
In the late 1950s, when I was a young architecture student at the University of Texas in Austin, one of my mentors who supported me in developing my own approach to architecture was Hugo Leipziger-Pierce. I felt, and still feel, that the profession should be geared towards creating balance and harmony between people and the environment. I wanted to develop my own practice to truly serve the needs of people by respecting and caring for families living more in harmony with nature, and with their own nature.
For this, Professor Leipziger-Pierce felt that it was necessary for my development to introduce me to the work of Rudolf Steiner. We spent many hours together as he translated Steiner’s philosophy of architecture, which at the time was only published in his native German language. I studied Steiner’s organic approach to architecture, its inspiration from nature, and the people who would live, experience and function in its spaces. The strong sculptural forms that he shaped into buildings captured my imagination and inspired me to approach architecture in a fundamentally different way.
Above: Douglas Cardinal with anthroposophical conference attendees on Victoria Island in the Ottawa river, in 2016, where Douglas hopes to build an Asinabka Cultural Centre.
There is a strong spiritual emphasis throughout Steiner’s philosophy, which demonstrates a deep love and caring for all life, and a reverence and respect for everyone, particularly children. His philosophy is holistic and centered on multidisciplinary approaches to understanding the purpose and application of any single discipline. This understanding was reinforced by my own Anishnaabe elders who taught me that everything in the Universe is connected. Every action affects another.
The principles of organic architecture allow us to envision a building as an organic entity, where all stakeholders give shape to the form they will use and inhabit. It works with abstracted forms from within nature, as well as our own dynamic living forms, to create spaces that add drama to each function. Like an embryo, each cell or space is interconnected to each other. Placing that organism on the site, it evolves further to respect not only the internal forces that are shaping it, but the external forces as well, such as topography, landscaping, sun angles and wind patterns.
Many of these concepts, which I have come to apply throughout my architectural career, I learned through my study of Rudolf Steiner, who has remained a critical influence for me, along with others such as Francesco Borromini, Antonio Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright.
From Architecture to Education
In laying the foundation for the lives of our own children, my wife Idoia and I discovered Waldorf Education. Also based on Steiner’s insightful philosophy, Waldorf schools provide a similarly nurturing environment that connects discipline with the emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth of the child. This has confirmed for us both how important it is to share the work of Rudolf Steiner with as many people as possible.
I feel privileged to have been able to draw deeply from Steiner’s philosophy as an inspiration in my work and in my life, and believe that these translations will broaden his influence for the benefit of the architectural profession and society as a whole.
Douglas J. Cardinal
Once again, here's the Sunday afternoon program with professor Frederick Amrine at the RSCT, Nov. 18th:
The annual Christian Community Advent Fair which will take place December 1st at 901 Rutherford Rd, Thornhill will feature two performances of a marionette puppet show.
