Engaged Community: The Challenge of Self-Governance Waldorf Education in Bloomington, MN

Based on many years working with anthroposophy and in Waldorf schools, and drawing extensively on Rudolf Steiner's own words, Jon McAlice's radical, thought-provoking book opens the field for a new vision of the collaborative possibilities available in schools that are established and sustained by parents and teachers for the sake of students. Seeking to shift the conversation concerning school governance from a structural to a dynamic approach, McAlice emphasizes learning as a mulrileveled process of becoming. As he puts it, "a school is a working community dedicated to the art of becoming"-a community in which students and adults participate in the difficult task of creating a free, self-governing ecology of learning. For this, the adults must learn to trust one another, to develop confidence in collegiality. Understanding the guidance of their common task, they must find the humility and honesty to listen without judgment and speak with authenticity. To create a context in which "children can practice the art of self-education," adults must themselves become examples of self-governing, creative, responsible human beings, committed to learning and self-development through encounters in which content and process merge in an experience of absolute freedom-and something new becomes possible. McAlice shows how such an ideal can become a reality, providing all those involved in Waldorf education with the appropriate tools and language to take the hard work of dialog and conversation a step further.