MaGazine - Green Meadow Waldorf School
MaGazine - Green Meadow Waldorf School
MaGazine - Green Meadow Waldorf School
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<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
<strong>Waldorf</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
A l u m n i<br />
<strong>MaGazine</strong><br />
S p r i n g 07<br />
Spring 2007 |
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
Alumni Magazine<br />
Spring 2007<br />
Director of Development<br />
Tony Cirone<br />
(845) 356-2514 x 311<br />
tcirone@gmws.org<br />
Associate Director of<br />
Development<br />
Chris Delaney<br />
845-356-2514 x 304<br />
cdelaney@gmws.org<br />
Alumni Coordinator<br />
Ivy <strong>Green</strong>stein<br />
(845) 356-2514 x 330<br />
igreenstein@gmws.org<br />
Alumni Magazine Editor<br />
Candace Stern<br />
(201) 264-8100<br />
cstern@gmws.org<br />
Design/Production Manager<br />
Jan Melchior<br />
jhmelchior@optonline.net<br />
Photographers<br />
Heather Duke, Frederic Gilbert,<br />
Ray Manacas, Jim Morgan,<br />
Candace Stern<br />
Editorial Office<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> <strong>Waldorf</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
307 Hungry Hollow Road<br />
Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> <strong>Waldorf</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
publishes the GM Alumni<br />
Magazine two times a year in<br />
Fall and Spring.<br />
Editorial Committee<br />
Jennie Abbott ‘91<br />
Jennifer Brooks-Quinn<br />
Ivy <strong>Green</strong>stein<br />
Jan Melchior<br />
Ann Stahl<br />
Alexis Starkey ’91<br />
Candace Stern<br />
2 | Alumni Magazine<br />
Exploring the new world<br />
Last summer, when the temperature was easily 60 degrees warmer than it<br />
is now, I began thinking about this issue. At the time, I was immersed in<br />
the process of assembling the Fall 2006 issue out of Class Reps’ columns<br />
filled with news: Milestone events such as graduations, engagements,<br />
weddings and babies, were interspersed with news about work and careers.<br />
Reading about the diverse ways <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>’s alumni are engaging with the<br />
world gave me insights into your lives and stirred my imagination for this and future<br />
issues of the Alumni Magazine. Strange as it may sound, the more I worked on the<br />
Fall issue, the more this issue began to take form in my mind’s eye. Reading the<br />
Alumni News was just the beginning: my curiosity grew. I contacted a few alumni<br />
and from those conversations came the realization that an issue devoted to alumni<br />
pursuing diverse initiatives would be fascinating.<br />
One by one, the authors of the articles published here developed their themes:<br />
Social Finance, Global Warming, Architecture as Art, Humanitarian Service. As each<br />
essay arrived, I was struck by the combination of dedication, knowledge and passion<br />
that enlivened their work and their writing about it. These themes appear in the<br />
news daily, BUT what a different experience to read contemporary accounts written<br />
by <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> alumni who are actually living these stories. We are fortunate,<br />
indeed, to be ably guided by these modern day explorers into realms at once familiar<br />
and strikingly new.<br />
Now, as I make finishing edits and rewrites for this issue, visions of the next issues<br />
insinuate themselves into my consciousness. Very soon I will email your indefatigable<br />
Class Reps to initiate the annual collection of Class News for the Fall 2007<br />
Alumni Magazine. Your friends and classmates look forward to hearing what you<br />
are doing and so does the extended <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> community. So please, support<br />
your Class Rep and fill him/her in on all your doings. As fascinating and inspiring<br />
as the authors who wrote for this issue are, they are only the tip of the iceberg. As<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> alumni, you and they belong to a community of vibrant, engaged and<br />
dedicated souls. The possibilities for future issues of the Alumni Magazine are rich<br />
with promise and are guaranteed to make fascinating reading. So take a moment to<br />
sit down with a cup of tea and read all about the exciting ways your fellow alumni are<br />
navigating and exploring the new world of the twenty-first century.<br />
~Candace Stern, Editor<br />
Our thanks go to Seventh Grade class teacher Karl Schurman and High <strong>School</strong> crafts teacher<br />
Sandy Volpe who drew the amazing chalk drawing seen on the front cover of the magazine.<br />
You will catch tantalizing glimpses of Seventh Grade art work by Laila Younis (inside front<br />
cover) and Nina Kornberg (page 3) depicting the global explorations conducted by Portuguese<br />
navigator Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) and English explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912).<br />
On the back cover is a spring bloom for you: a watercolor painting by Hasan Oswald ’07.
Contents<br />
f e a t u r e s<br />
d e p a r t m e n t s<br />
13 More Than Tea<br />
16 Teacher FeaTure: Jane Wulsin<br />
19 service: The BesT DevoTion<br />
25 caseros Prison DeMoliTion ProJecT<br />
28 GloBal cliMaTe chanGe<br />
4 coMMuniTy neWs<br />
8 aluMni neWs<br />
31 WhaT WoulD sTeiner say?<br />
32 conTriBuTors<br />
Spring 2007 |
Community News<br />
| Alumni Magazine<br />
faculty green meadow waldorf<br />
school sunbridge college<br />
fellowship community threefold<br />
educational foundation pfeiffer<br />
center eurythmy spring valley<br />
Fa c u l t y n e w s<br />
Jim & leah Henderson<br />
on Sabbatical ’07-’08<br />
Jim and Leah Henderson are<br />
all smiles these days: next<br />
year they will be on sabbatical<br />
and they can’t wait. They were<br />
bitten by the travel bug years<br />
ago, but children, teaching and<br />
the responsibilities of their middle<br />
years, contrived to keep them<br />
close to home and family. now,<br />
as card-carrying Baby Boomers,<br />
they are looking forward to traveling<br />
around the world.<br />
Before they leave, however,<br />
they will host the marriage celebration<br />
of their daughter, ariel<br />
’99, to Josh Gleich, on august 18.<br />
Jim and Leah will leave on their<br />
second honeymoon immediately<br />
following ariel’s and Josh’s nup-<br />
Above: Leah and Jim Henderson<br />
tials. With backpacks filled with<br />
clothes, books and a T-Mobile<br />
international phone, they are<br />
looking forward to traveling<br />
where their curiosity and interest<br />
take them. no tight schedules<br />
for these veteran teachers<br />
who have been on the job every<br />
morning at 8 am and who have<br />
sat through countless meetings<br />
over their combined 47 years at<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>.<br />
Jim and Leah will fly first to<br />
Hong Kong; from there, they will<br />
travel by train into southwest<br />
China where they plan to spend<br />
two months hiking and visiting<br />
sites. During the next two<br />
months they will explore their<br />
way through Thailand and Vietnam,<br />
where Jim was once stationed<br />
with the US navy. They<br />
will then fly to new Delhi, traveling<br />
again by train to the southwest<br />
of the indian Subcontinent.<br />
Their next stop is nairobi, Kenya<br />
where they plan to set out on a<br />
safari. On their trip home, Jim<br />
and Leah will stop off in Rome to<br />
see the cleaned frescoes in the<br />
Sistine Chapel at Vatican City.<br />
They expect to return to the<br />
States in mid-May 2008, just in<br />
time to attend ariel’s graduation<br />
from the University of Michigan<br />
Law <strong>School</strong>. e<br />
Alumna will Teach<br />
Biology in 2007-08<br />
Deborah Schaeffer ‘01 will<br />
stand in for Jim Henderson<br />
during the 2007-2008 school<br />
year teaching biology and math<br />
at GMWS High <strong>School</strong>. Deborah<br />
graduated from Bowdoin College<br />
in ’05 with a double major in environmental<br />
Studies and Biology<br />
and a Government minor. Since<br />
graduation she has lived and<br />
worked in Brooklyn. She spent<br />
a year working with City Year,<br />
a national organization that recruits<br />
young people of diverse<br />
backgrounds to perform a year<br />
of full-time community service<br />
in low-income, urban neighborhoods.<br />
Deborah then worked<br />
with a public school team in<br />
Queens assisting a 5th grade<br />
teacher, tutoring, and running<br />
after-school programs. Since the<br />
summer of 2006, she has been<br />
working at a community center<br />
in Queensbridge, the largest<br />
public housing project in the<br />
city. Deborah’s long-term plans<br />
are to become a public elementary<br />
school science teacher. e<br />
S c h o o l n e w s<br />
What Does the World<br />
Need from Us?<br />
This year during High <strong>School</strong><br />
Week, our activities revolved<br />
around the question, What Does<br />
the World Need from Us? We<br />
viewed it from many angles and<br />
approached it through a number<br />
of different activities.<br />
Our week started off with a<br />
presentation from our keynote<br />
speaker David Goodman (par-
ent of Jacob ’01 and ivan ’04). He<br />
took us on an engaging journey<br />
of graphs, diagrams and statistics<br />
regarding the anthropogenic<br />
world and the natural world. He<br />
also gave us a glimpse into our<br />
economic future, as well as the<br />
alternative energy projects he is<br />
involved in. This laid the foundation<br />
for our week and grounded<br />
us in our theme question.<br />
Then we moved on to our various<br />
workshop activities. if you<br />
had walked into the High <strong>School</strong><br />
at this time, you would have<br />
seen students doing salsa dancing,<br />
yoga or Tai Chi. You would<br />
have heard lively music and business<br />
discussions. You might have<br />
caught a glimpse of recycled art<br />
creations, solar energy contraptions,<br />
or smelled (or better yet,<br />
tasted!) bread baking at the<br />
Pfeif-fer Gardens. each of these<br />
workshops fully engaged the students,<br />
while expanding subtly on<br />
our theme question. We continued<br />
them throughout the week.<br />
The next day we had the opportunity<br />
to hear a varied and illuminating<br />
group of panelists: Mac<br />
Mead, formerly the farmer at the<br />
Fellowship Community and incoming<br />
Director of Threefold’s<br />
Pfeiffer Center; Behzad Yaghmaian,<br />
professor of economics<br />
and author of Embracing the Infidel,<br />
who spoke about the perceptions<br />
held of americans by people<br />
from other countries; William<br />
Spencer, a consultant dealing<br />
with over-use of technology and<br />
the effect it has on the human<br />
being; and Dr. John Giudice, an<br />
holistic chiropractor concerned<br />
with the future of health care.<br />
They were eager to tell us what<br />
they were passionate about and<br />
to give us advice in light of their<br />
own life journeys. Whether it was<br />
biodynamic farming, chiropractic<br />
healing, the wonders/dangers<br />
of technology, or the war in<br />
iraq, each panelist spoke about<br />
his subject with sincerity and<br />
intelligence. a question and answer<br />
session followed in which<br />
we delved deeper into their presentations.<br />
Wednesday saw an empty<br />
high school as we were all on<br />
field trips exploring our theme<br />
beyond the school’s borders.<br />
Some went to the stock market<br />
to experience the fast-paced<br />
world that is relevant to our<br />
future. Others visited the natural<br />
history museum where they<br />
looked back to look forward.<br />
Some viewed the modern art of<br />
the future while others learned<br />
dance steps or stayed home<br />
on the range. We returned to<br />
school Thursday ready to sit<br />
down to al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient<br />
Truth.<br />
We all gathered together Friday<br />
afternoon to close our week<br />
with workshop presentations<br />
and discussions. We realized, as<br />
Mrs. Christofides pointed out,<br />
that there are two ways to approach<br />
the daunting idea of a<br />
troubled future. We can be overwhelmed<br />
and thus discouraged<br />
from action, or we can take it all<br />
in with a deep breath and begin<br />
with the small changes around<br />
us. “Think globally, act locally”<br />
was a phrase uttered many times<br />
this week. The workshop presentations<br />
were interesting and very<br />
amusing. each workshop was<br />
a success. With the closing discussions<br />
we realized all we had<br />
learned in the past week, whether<br />
it was positive or negative.<br />
The week definitely broadened<br />
our horizons and perhaps even<br />
cleared the air regarding our fu-<br />
ture. Thank you to everyone who<br />
helped with this week: it would<br />
not have been possible without<br />
you. e<br />
~DanieLLe SCHeReR ‘07<br />
new Service learning<br />
group at green meadow<br />
Last week, a group of twentyfive<br />
students and three teachers<br />
got together to form the Service<br />
initiative Group at <strong>Green</strong><br />
<strong>Meadow</strong>. Part of the impulse that<br />
led us to start a group was the<br />
subject of this year’s high school<br />
week, What Does the World Need<br />
From Us? Partly, the students<br />
and teachers were driven by their<br />
desire to heal nature and pass on<br />
our knowledge and good fortune<br />
to those in need.<br />
it is our hope that the Service<br />
initiative can work in three areas:<br />
the school, the community, and<br />
the world. in our first meeting, the<br />
students expressed their desire<br />
to help <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> students<br />
reach out to the community and<br />
to help our school become more<br />
awake and active in response to<br />
important environmental issues.<br />
The Service initiative Group also<br />
plans to work in the community,<br />
building relationships with other<br />
local service groups, and helping<br />
both the people and the environment<br />
that surrounds us. Lastly,<br />
the students hope to help the<br />
world through environmental<br />
work, and also by financially aiding<br />
distant peoples. The students<br />
also hope to travel and lend their<br />
own hands to the service of people<br />
abroad.<br />
. . .<br />
We are in need of ideas. We are<br />
also in need of opportunities. if<br />
you have any helpful input, please<br />
email me at defnecaldwell@opt<br />
online.net. e<br />
~ DeFne CaLDWeLL ’87<br />
Community News<br />
Spring 2007 |
Community News<br />
6 | Alumni Magazine<br />
S u n b r i d g e<br />
Co l l e g e n e ws<br />
On the 21st of October, Sunbridge<br />
College inaugurated<br />
Robert Schiappacasse as the first<br />
President of Sunbridge College.<br />
This moment marked a shift in<br />
our college culture, which is developing<br />
into an accredited, anthroposophical<br />
graduate center<br />
with strong professional development<br />
and continuing education<br />
programs that educate and renew<br />
<strong>Waldorf</strong> teachers, school administrators,<br />
remedial educators,<br />
handwork teachers, and educational<br />
and community leaders. as<br />
our first College President, Robert<br />
will help Sunbridge further<br />
strengthen and grow its master’s<br />
degree program offerings, such<br />
as the new Liberal Studies M.a.<br />
offered by The Barfield <strong>School</strong> of<br />
Sunbridge College. His role, and<br />
the resources produced through<br />
in-depth research projects of<br />
our graduate students, will allow<br />
us to participate in mainstream<br />
dialogues about education and<br />
healthy child development, putting<br />
<strong>Waldorf</strong> education in a new<br />
and broader context.<br />
as we begin a new chapter in our<br />
biography, we also say farewell to<br />
Christopher and Signe Schaefer<br />
(GMWS parents of Karin ’87 and<br />
Stefan ’89). Chris and Signe have<br />
been instrumental in the development<br />
of Sunbridge, and after over<br />
20 years, they are retiring from<br />
their full-time involvement with<br />
the College. However, as they will<br />
both continue to direct part-time<br />
programs, their work with Sunbridge<br />
College will continue in a<br />
fresh way as part of a new and exciting<br />
future! e<br />
~JULiKa STaCKeLBeRG-aDDO<br />
H u n g r y H o l l o w<br />
Co - o p : Plus ca<br />
Change, Plus C’est la<br />
Meme Chose<br />
Change is probably the word<br />
that pops up most often when<br />
talking about the Co-op these<br />
days. and how could it be otherwise<br />
in a year that, before it is<br />
over, will have encompassed the<br />
departure of three of the founders—Barbara<br />
Johnson, nancy<br />
Kossowsky, and later this spring,<br />
Christine Sloan; a longtime department<br />
manager—Simon Hilgerdt<br />
’97; and several faithful staff<br />
members. They are all leaving to<br />
pursue exciting new paths. each<br />
of these individuals is unique and<br />
irreplaceable. The particular talents<br />
and interests they brought<br />
have become part of the fabric of<br />
the Co-op. They will certainly be<br />
missed. Their selfless dedication<br />
to the ideals of community service,<br />
sustainable agriculture and<br />
educational outreach has made it<br />
possible for the Co-op to become<br />
an independent being with a life<br />
and a destiny of its own. e<br />
~PeTeR WieSneR, reprinted from<br />
the Hungry Holler, Volume XX,<br />
issue i, Winter 2007<br />
T h r e e f o l d : news<br />
from Threefold Educational<br />
Foundation &<br />
The pfeiffer Center<br />
This summer, Gunther Hauk,<br />
founding director of the Pfeiffer<br />
Center for Biodynamics & the<br />
environment, Threefold’s youngest<br />
offspring, will move to the<br />
Midwest to begin a biodynamic<br />
research center. We are happy<br />
that his dream will be realized<br />
and equally happy to announce<br />
that he will be succeeded by Mac<br />
Mead, who, for over 20 years,<br />
was the farmer at the Fellowship<br />
Community. During this year the<br />
Pfeiffer Center has flourished<br />
under the joint leadership of Mac<br />
and Gunther while Mac has also<br />
turned his talented hand to the<br />
Left to right: Nancy Kossowsky,<br />
Christine Sloan, Barbara Johnson.<br />
Left to right : Robert Schiappacasse, Signe Schaefer, Chris Schaefer
care of the landscaping. The success<br />
of the Pfeiffer Center garden<br />
has allowed us to begin to address<br />
the larger landscape with an approach<br />
that brings the insights of<br />
biodynamics to ecology.<br />
after some initial skepticism<br />
from local authorities, we obtained<br />
permission to use an innovative<br />
method to control storm<br />
water run-off on the grounds of<br />
the Hungry Hollow Co-op. The<br />
landscaping mimics natural systems<br />
by using native wildflower<br />
plantings and created wet-lands<br />
and has many environmental benefits.<br />
With the interest and en-<br />
thusiasm of our interns, and the<br />
direction of Rafael Manaças and<br />
Mac Mead, the native plantings<br />
are becoming a viable example<br />
for like-minded organizations to<br />
introduce. in the two years since<br />
they were planted, these plantings<br />
have survived drought, hurricanes<br />
and intensive calcium<br />
chloride run-off. They have even<br />
survived the derision of neighbors<br />
who thought it would never<br />
work! We are proud to be one<br />
of the first places in Rockland<br />
County to set this example. e<br />
~MiMi SaTRianO<br />
E u r y t h m y<br />
S p r i n g<br />
Va l l e y<br />
…and listens at the<br />
shores of the great<br />
silence…<br />
This past February 3rd, a<br />
unique, first-of-its-kind collaboration<br />
took place between<br />
John Wulsin, <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
teacher, and Barbara Schneider-<br />
Serio, Christina Beck and Jennifer<br />
Kleinbach, faculty of eurythmy<br />
Spring Valley.<br />
The workshop opened with<br />
John Wulsin leading us into the<br />
origins of western drama and<br />
toward Shakespeare and the<br />
characters of Macbeth. Through<br />
John’s insights we began to see<br />
ourselves in the inner conflicts<br />
and choices of these characters.<br />
The eurythmists brought a short<br />
performance in which the questions<br />
of Lady Macbeth and Lady<br />
Macduff came to life, reminding<br />
us of those moments in our own<br />
lives when we cannot change<br />
what we have done or what is irreversibly<br />
coming toward us.<br />
This workshop will travel<br />
across the country over the next<br />
year to <strong>Waldorf</strong> teacher trainings<br />
and school communities.<br />
its interactive format is meant<br />
to stimulate new answers to the<br />
question, “Why do <strong>Waldorf</strong> students<br />
do eurythmy?” We are interested<br />
in kindling a direct experience<br />
of what a tremendous<br />
resource eurythmy is to any<br />
process of inquiry. We will continue<br />
our work on these themes<br />
and anyone interested in joining<br />
us for future workshops should<br />
look on the eurythmy Spring Valley<br />
website for details at www.<br />
eurythmy.org. e<br />
BeTH DUnn-FOX<br />
Fe l l o w s h i p<br />
Co m m u n i t y<br />
The <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> Kindergarten<br />
class still takes place<br />
within the community setting,<br />
on the ground floor of <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
Wood Lodge. <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
Third Graders make regular visits<br />
to the Fellowship when they<br />
have their farming block. new<br />
this year is a metal-working<br />
class for <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> High<br />
<strong>School</strong> students. a rebirth of<br />
Otto Specht classes here in the<br />
Fellowship has been headed by<br />
Jeanette Rodriguez. The Otto<br />
Specht classes are offered to a<br />
small number of children and<br />
young adults who have souls in<br />
need of special care—who often<br />
need work-based and special educational<br />
activities. in our setting,<br />
we call this activity home<br />
schooling in a community. The<br />
planned interplay of the ages is<br />
therapeutic for young and old<br />
alike. This interaction supports<br />
what Rudolf Steiner has called<br />
the greatest “act of fellowship,”<br />
that is, when the very young and<br />
the very old meet.<br />
a geothermal system has been<br />
installed in Hill Top House. The<br />
system is up and running, reducing<br />
our expenses for utilities by<br />
about 40%. in addition, we have<br />
been able to take another step<br />
with “green technology,” installing<br />
solar panels on the roof of the<br />
barn at the farm for the production<br />
of electricity. This installation<br />
was facilitated by a gift from<br />
David Goodman, who has a conservation<br />
business, and a grant<br />
from the new York State energy<br />
Renewal Development agency.<br />
This same agency gave us a grant<br />
for the geothermal system. e<br />
Fall ’06 Fellowship Newsletter<br />
Community News<br />
Spring 2007 | 7
Alumni<br />
News<br />
Below Right:<br />
Class of 1976<br />
(left to right)<br />
Scott Kemmer,<br />
Bill Smith,<br />
Neil Gordon,<br />
Andrea Singer,<br />
Chris Scharff<br />
opposite page:<br />
Class of 1976<br />
(first column)<br />
Barabara and<br />
Bill Smith,<br />
Neil Gordon<br />
and Alla Spiegel,<br />
Scott and<br />
Maureen<br />
Kemmer,<br />
Andrea and<br />
Paul Singer,<br />
Chris Scharff<br />
opposite page:<br />
Class of 1991<br />
(third column)<br />
1 | Evan Palazzo<br />
2 | Alexis Starkey &<br />
partner Scott Nova<br />
3 | Marlow Grayson,<br />
Alana Bond &<br />
Sachio Ko-Yin<br />
(Oliver Coe)<br />
4 | Phil Brigouleix’s<br />
fiance, Maria, &<br />
,<br />
wife of<br />
Sachio Ko-Yin<br />
5 | Severin Hiller<br />
& Jennie Abbott<br />
| Alumni Magazine<br />
ClASS oF 1976<br />
30th Reunion Gathering<br />
Six members of the class of 1976—Scott<br />
Kemmer, Bill Smith, neil Gordon, Chris<br />
Scharff, Fatima Deen and andrea Singer<br />
—celebrated their 30th class reunion over<br />
the weekend of the Fall Fair. We gathered at<br />
the Fall Fair where we were joined by Fatima<br />
Deen, who came down from Kingston for the<br />
day, but could not stay for dinner. We stopped<br />
by the all alumni Gathering in the High <strong>School</strong><br />
and enjoyed seeing so many alumni from other<br />
classes. We then went to andrea Singer’s<br />
house for dinner. Joining us were Maureen<br />
Kemmer, Barbara Smith, alla Spiegel and Paul<br />
Singer. That we were able to muster six of our<br />
class of eleven—just better than a fifty percent<br />
turnout—was wonderful! it seems somehow<br />
inadequate to comment about how fast time<br />
has gone by, and yet that is exactly how we all<br />
felt. The evening provided a wonderful opportunity<br />
to talk about what we’ve all been up to<br />
and catch up on family news and events.<br />
neil, Bill, Scott and andrea are living in<br />
Rockland County with their families. neil is<br />
busy with his decorating business and raising<br />
his two sons. Bill continues with his law practice,<br />
is a local judge, and he and Barbara are<br />
active in the community and with their three<br />
children. Scott and Maureen are working and<br />
raising their lovely daughter, who was the only<br />
one of our collective children to join us for dinner.<br />
Chris is still living in Boston with his wife,<br />
Fay, and daughter. He is working as an engi-
neer and supports his wife’s african relief work.<br />
Fatima is self-employed and living upstate in<br />
Kingston. earlier in the summer, we received<br />
an email from Richard Brinton. Richard and<br />
his wife, Maia, have four children (ages 10-20).<br />
They have lived abroad for twenty-five years<br />
and in england for the past ten years. Melissa<br />
Denehy Swain sent regards from north Carolina,<br />
where she works as a nurse in a local hospital<br />
and lives with her husband, Rob. Her two<br />
grown children live nearby and she is enjoying<br />
her first grandchild. and for those of you who<br />
were not able to join or send word—Mo, amy,<br />
Jacqui, Barbara, Mark and James—we’d love<br />
to hear from you! e<br />
—Andrea Singer ‘76<br />
g R e e N M e a d o w<br />
waldoRf school<br />
welcoMes<br />
t h e 2 0 0 7<br />
R e u N i o N<br />
c l a s s e s<br />
• 2002<br />
• 1977 •<br />
• 1992<br />
• 1997<br />
1982 • 1987<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
10 quick and easy tips<br />
on throwing a<br />
successful reunion<br />
AlExIS STARKEY ‘91<br />
1) Gather your forces; do not try to do it<br />
all alone. Ask several people from your<br />
class to help. Consider all areas of their<br />
strengths and talents (see #5), and then<br />
divide the tasks accordingly.<br />
2) Think about what kind of reunion the people<br />
in your class would like to have. Do<br />
you want to involve the <strong>School</strong> or would<br />
you rather do something off campus? Do<br />
you want to invite only your graduating<br />
class or those from first grade on?<br />
3) If you choose to invite everyone you<br />
need to find them first. This means you<br />
will need to turn into a bit of a creative<br />
sleuth. First, remember the Internet is<br />
your friend. Start by Googling the person<br />
and see what comes up. Check MySpace.<br />
com, Friendster.com, and Class Reunions.<br />
com. While people may have left the<br />
school, many often maintain strong ties<br />
to the community. So, put out the word<br />
that you are looking for someone in par-<br />
ticular and you will be surprised by what<br />
you find. I was able to locate a missing<br />
classmate through a friend who was in<br />
the class above me, only because he had<br />
an email for the missing person’s ex-girl-<br />
friend; and yes, I felt a little silly sending<br />
an email to a woman I didn’t know, but<br />
the pay off was worth it!<br />
4) Once you have located people start the<br />
real planning. First choose a date and a<br />
venue. If you want to involve the <strong>School</strong><br />
this is the time to talk with Ivy <strong>Green</strong>stein<br />
about what would work for GMWS. Think<br />
about where your classmates are living.<br />
Which classmates still have families liv-<br />
ing in the GMWS area? Would it be better<br />
to hold the reunion around a holiday or<br />
closer to the summer? Would people be<br />
more interested in having a day at the Fall<br />
Fair or just spending time alone? Choose<br />
two or three dates that are available with<br />
the <strong>School</strong> and canvas your classmates.<br />
We have done this with evite.com and by<br />
sending out cards and asking people to<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
Alumni News<br />
Spring 2007 |
Alumni News<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
6<br />
0 | Alumni Magazine<br />
check off dates on a postcard and mail it<br />
back. Email is of course easiest.<br />
5) Call on your classmates to help get the<br />
word out about your reunion. Do you<br />
7<br />
have a graphic artist in your midst who<br />
would be very happy to design an invitation?<br />
Or perhaps a computer wiz who<br />
could set up a web page. Maybe someone<br />
is a videographer or a caterer. Ask<br />
around and let people help you. It is so<br />
rewarding when people have an opportunity<br />
to showcase their knowledge.<br />
6) Make your plan. It is best to structure your<br />
reunion with a good balance of planned<br />
activities and plenty of free time. For our<br />
10th Reunion, we met at the <strong>School</strong> and<br />
participated in some <strong>Waldorf</strong> activities.<br />
John Wulsin was kind enough to come<br />
and start the day off with voice exercis-<br />
es and his famous tongue twisters. We<br />
followed this with a lecture by Eugene<br />
Schwartz, lunch at the Main House, painting<br />
or drama hours, and a tea where we<br />
invited all teachers and our parents. We<br />
ended our day with a BBQ at the <strong>School</strong>.<br />
It was wonderful to reconnect with the<br />
<strong>School</strong> by reawakening those dormant<br />
<strong>Waldorf</strong> memories. And I know the par-<br />
ents were just as happy seeing each oth-<br />
er and the teachers as they were seeing<br />
us. We chose to hold our 15th Reunion<br />
during the Fall Fair. This time, those of us<br />
who could meet on Friday evening gath-<br />
ered in the back room at Di Vinci’s Pizza<br />
to spend some time alone. The next<br />
day, at the Fair, we organized a hayride<br />
for the class, and after a day of greeting<br />
old friends, we had a dinner together<br />
with invited faculty and parents at a par-<br />
ent/friend’s house. Sunday morning we<br />
hiked to Indian Rock with a backpacked<br />
picnic lunch.<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
15<br />
7) Encourage people to bring photos and<br />
samples of what they have been working<br />
on, or albums of their recent trips or<br />
anything else they would like to share.<br />
Most importantly, bring any of your old<br />
school photos, or a particular main lesson<br />
book, or even an old report card. You’ll be<br />
amazed at how insightful, not spiteful as<br />
we thought then, our teachers were.<br />
8) If you choose to cook the main meal ask<br />
for volunteers to come over early and<br />
help prep, or do something like a BBQ<br />
where everyone can pitch in at that moment.<br />
You will be surprised by how easily<br />
you will all fall back into the mode of<br />
working well together again.<br />
9) Finances can be a big hindrance for people<br />
wanting to attend a reunion. For our<br />
first reunion we asked those who could<br />
contribute a little extra to do so and we<br />
set up a fund where those who were less<br />
financially secure could still make the<br />
trip. Food costs can be divided out, but<br />
up front money is needed for pre-prep<br />
purchases. Housing is another consideration.<br />
Some families may have moved<br />
away and hotels in Rockland can be pricey<br />
and/or far away from your gathering<br />
place. Ask around and see who needs<br />
housing and who can offer housing.<br />
Some people might need transportation<br />
from trains, planes or buses. Channel local<br />
high school classmates who have<br />
available cars and would be willing to<br />
give rides.<br />
10) Remember: Whatever you and your classmates<br />
choose to do will be fun. Whether<br />
you plan a lot of activities or a nice, quiet<br />
evening, you’re bound to have a wonderful<br />
time. The most important part of a<br />
reunion is just spending time with each<br />
other. Enjoy yourself! e<br />
8
m u s i c • c r a f t s • g a m e s • a r t i s a n s • g r i l l<br />
G r e e n M e a d o w<br />
F a M i l y M u s i c<br />
F e s t i v a l<br />
s ta r r i n G t o M c h a p i n<br />
a n d o t h e r s p e c i a l G u e s t s<br />
M a y 2 6 , 1 0 a M - 6 p M<br />
i c e c r e a m • t i e - d y e • b e a d i n g • p o n y r i d e s<br />
Ca l e n d a r o f Eve nts<br />
Senior projects<br />
april 16 – 20<br />
gmWS Family<br />
music Festival<br />
May 26th 10am-6pm<br />
Mary Dailey Field<br />
Headliners include Tom Chapin<br />
25% off Admission for all<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> Alumni.<br />
For updates and information<br />
visit the <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
website: www.gmws.org<br />
High <strong>School</strong><br />
graduation<br />
sunday, June 17<br />
GMWS Gymnasium<br />
Fall Fair & Alumni<br />
gathering 2007<br />
saturday, october 20<br />
faiR<br />
10 am – 5 pm<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> Courtyard<br />
aluMNi gatheRiNg<br />
4 pm in the High <strong>School</strong><br />
Class of 1991, 15th reunion, photos taken by Alexis Starkey, Fall Fair 2006<br />
(pages 9 & 10): 1 | Ariana Daner Falerni, Alana Bond Franklin, Alexis Starkey;<br />
2 | Krista and Nicole <strong>School</strong>craft; 3 | Jeff and Ariana Daner Falerni, and Phil<br />
Brigouleix; 4 | Anind Dey holding Kavi & Jennifer Mankoff holding Elena;<br />
5 | Tony and Jennifer Grant Horler; 6 | (in the corner) Sachio Ko-yin and<br />
John Wulsin; 7 | Standing: , Sachio Ko-Yin, Nico (son<br />
of ) Ramona Ruud, Marlow Grayson, Severin Hiller, Ariana Daner Falerni,<br />
Alana Bond Franklin, Phil Brigouleix and fiance, Maria. In front, Jennifer<br />
Abbott and Alexis Starkey; 8 | Evan Palazzo, Alexis Starkey, Scott Nova<br />
from the alumni office<br />
In the summer of 2005, Candace Stern<br />
joined the Development Office in the<br />
role of Alumni Coordinator, responsible<br />
for the Alumni Committee, publications,<br />
events/reunions, and Alumni Giving.<br />
This May, Richard Stern will retire and<br />
he is taking Candace with him. Their<br />
plan is to spend summers in Maine and<br />
winters in Texas. While Richard enjoys<br />
his well-deserved retirement, computers<br />
and telecommunications will allow Candace<br />
to continue as editor of the Alumni<br />
Magazine. “As it is, I rely upon phone<br />
and email to stay in touch with GMWS<br />
Alumni. As for planning and producing<br />
the Magazine, Jan Melchior, our graphic<br />
designer, lives 50 miles north of <strong>Green</strong><br />
<strong>Meadow</strong> and we have always phoned,<br />
emailed and sent documents back and<br />
forth. Nothing much is really going to<br />
change—except for the location of my<br />
computer and telephone. Wherever I<br />
am, you can always reach me by email<br />
at cstern@gmws.org.” We at <strong>Green</strong><br />
<strong>Meadow</strong> gratefully acknowledge the innumerable<br />
contributions Candace has<br />
made to the Alumni program. We wish<br />
her and Richard safe travels and much<br />
happiness in their new life.<br />
Anticipating Candace’s new role, in<br />
January Ivy <strong>Green</strong>stein joined the Development<br />
Office to become the <strong>School</strong>’s<br />
new Alumni Coordinator and in-house<br />
Alumni contact person. In addition to<br />
facilitating class reunions – take note<br />
classes of ’77, ’82, ’87, ’92, ’97, ’02! - Ivy<br />
will support and coordinate Alumni Giving<br />
with David Bosch and is gearing up<br />
to produce the next Alumni Directory.<br />
Her email address is igreenstein@gmws.<br />
org. During the “changeover” months of<br />
February and March, Ivy and Candace are<br />
sharing a desk, a computer and a phone,<br />
working closely to ensure a smooth transition.<br />
You can reach the Alumni Office<br />
by calling 845-356-2514, ext. 330, where<br />
the current or future (and sometimes<br />
both!) Alumni Coordinators are always<br />
happy to hear from you. e<br />
tony cirone, development director<br />
Alumni News<br />
Spring 2007 |
Pictured below,<br />
left to right:<br />
Ivy <strong>Green</strong>stein,<br />
Candace Stern<br />
2 | Alumni Magazine<br />
Alumni Directory ’07<br />
I am delighted to become the newest<br />
member of GMWS’s Development team.<br />
I bring with me many years of administrative<br />
experience in a variety of educational<br />
settings, as well as the personal interest<br />
and perspective of a current GMWS parent.<br />
I look forward to connecting with as<br />
many of you as possible and hope to do<br />
justice to the wonderful legacy Candace<br />
is leaving behind.<br />
The 2007 edition of the Alumni Directory<br />
will be one of my first projects. The<br />
new directory will be a valuable resource<br />
for all of us and with your support we<br />
hope to produce it in time to include<br />
with the Summer issue of the Alumni<br />
Magazine.<br />
When class reps contact you this spring<br />
to gather news for this next issue, they<br />
will be asking you to verify the snail and<br />
email addresses we have on file. You can<br />
help them by giving us your updates in<br />
advance. If your contact information has<br />
changed in the last year or so, please send<br />
your update via email to igreenstein@<br />
gmws.org. Simply write “Alumni Directory”<br />
on the subject line and list your name,<br />
class year, current address, email address<br />
and phone number. This way, I can begin<br />
what will undoubtedly be a cumbersome<br />
process and help to ensure the timeliness<br />
and accuracy of our finished product.<br />
If you have any comments/thoughts/<br />
ideas as to how the GMWS Alumni Office<br />
may best serve you, please feel free<br />
to send them along also. I’m very happy<br />
to be working here on your behalf and I<br />
truly welcome your suggestions. e<br />
ivy greenstein, alumni coordinator<br />
alumni fundraising: Mid-Year Update<br />
am happy to report that the 2006i<br />
2007 Alumni Annual Giving campaign<br />
has gotten off to a good start.<br />
Tim Burger ’86 and I kicked things<br />
off with an Annual Appeal letter enclosed<br />
with the Fall 06 Alumni Magazine.<br />
We followed up with a personal<br />
appeal made to the hundred or so<br />
Alumni who attended the 2006 All<br />
Alumni Reunion at the Fall Fair. My<br />
message was short and to the point:<br />
We are seeking to increase both the<br />
number of Alumni donations, from<br />
76 to 115, and the amount of money<br />
raised from $10,000 to $15,000 this<br />
fiscal year, 2006-2007. As always, the<br />
Fall Fair generated lots of alumni enthusiasm<br />
and appreciation for <strong>Green</strong><br />
<strong>Meadow</strong>. From conversations I had<br />
over the course of the All Alumni<br />
Reunion party, our goals for this year<br />
resonated with many of you.<br />
In the months since the Fall Fair,<br />
we’ve received thirty-four donations<br />
totaling $5,063. This is the best start<br />
ever, and on behalf of <strong>Green</strong> Mead-<br />
david Bosch ‘85<br />
Alumni News<br />
ow we thank all of you who have donated.<br />
However, we still have a way to go<br />
to reach the goals of 115 donations<br />
and $15,000 dollars. To get to where<br />
we need to be we’ll be relying in large<br />
part on newly minted Class Agents,<br />
who will undertake to contact all<br />
of their class members on behalf of<br />
the school. We found last year that<br />
reaching out personally to alumni really<br />
helped, and we’ll be tracking our<br />
progress with this initiative.<br />
As the size and number of alumni<br />
donations increase, we as alumni<br />
can ensure that <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> <strong>Waldorf</strong><br />
<strong>School</strong> will continue to provide<br />
a quality education to the next generations<br />
of students. A hearty thanks<br />
to those of you who have already<br />
made your donation to the <strong>School</strong><br />
this year. For those of you waiting for<br />
a more auspicious moment to make<br />
your gift, please consider doing so<br />
by the close of the <strong>School</strong>’s fiscal<br />
year, June 30, 2007. e<br />
Every gift makes a big<br />
difference for gmWS<br />
THrEE EASy WAyS To giVE:<br />
pHonE: Tony CironE 845-356-2514, x 311<br />
onlinE: www.gmws.org/giving<br />
mAil: gmWS Development office<br />
307 Hungry Hollow road • Chestnut ridge, ny 10977
More<br />
than<br />
Tea<br />
Mark Finser<br />
Class of 7<br />
As I sipped my morning tea on a recent<br />
chilly morning, I looked at the attractive<br />
Numi Tea package and thought about<br />
the individuals who made it possible for<br />
me to enjoy this particular way of waking<br />
up. Warming my hands on the mug, I considered<br />
this socially responsible company and the values<br />
it holds—values closely aligned with those of RSF<br />
Social Finance, the organization I lead as president<br />
and CEO. Some of those values include environmental<br />
stewardship, compassion, interdependence,<br />
collaboration, and innovation. As a social finance<br />
organization, it’s a given that RSF ensures there is<br />
alignment of values with our clients before we make<br />
a grant, a gift, or a loan. As with all our other clients,<br />
Numi’s values proved to be a match.<br />
After guiding RSF for 22 years, I look back now<br />
on my journey to this point and see how marked by<br />
significant moments it has been. A particularly large<br />
“signpost” was the 7 <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> student<br />
conference Meeting the Future and Ourselves.<br />
This was my early and exciting introduction to the<br />
world of philanthropy and a foreshadowing of my<br />
life’s work with RSF.<br />
RSF Social Finance<br />
i<br />
joined RSF in 1984 and, along<br />
with other visionaries and dedicated<br />
staff, shaped its present<br />
incarnation as a leading social finance<br />
non-profit organization in<br />
San Francisco. From the beginning,<br />
RSF’s mission was to “transform<br />
the way the world worked with<br />
money.” RSF’s vision for the future<br />
is one where a new consciousness<br />
is brought to financial transactions,<br />
a future where profit is determined<br />
by social and environmental benefit,<br />
as well as by financial return. We<br />
work towards this by attracting and<br />
developing a community of philanthropists<br />
and socially responsible<br />
investors; by putting donor and investor<br />
intentions to work through<br />
grants, loans, and investments in<br />
organizations that foster economic,<br />
environmental, and social responsibility;<br />
and by developing the capacity<br />
of individuals and organizations<br />
to explore the social implications of<br />
financial practices.<br />
My work at RSF is exciting. Just<br />
imagine—through the vehicle of<br />
social finance, we get to support the<br />
future through the present moment.<br />
People have the power, through<br />
their thoughtful financial transactions,<br />
to create the world we want<br />
to see. Gift and investment money<br />
moves throughout philanthropic,<br />
investment, and lending programs<br />
to provide funding for a variety of<br />
new initiatives. For example, funds<br />
Alumni profile<br />
Spring 2007 |
Alumni profile<br />
1: Three tea<br />
pickers at<br />
Koslanda tea<br />
garden;<br />
2: Banana<br />
growers pose in<br />
front of their new<br />
home in El Guabo,<br />
Ecuador, built<br />
from the<br />
proceeds of<br />
selling bananas<br />
to the Fair Trade<br />
market.<br />
3: <strong>School</strong> girls<br />
at United Nilgiri<br />
tea garden;<br />
4: Coffee sorting<br />
at Oromia Coffee<br />
Cooperative<br />
Union, Ethiopia<br />
All photos<br />
courtesy of<br />
TransFair USA<br />
| Alumni Magazine<br />
have provided support for a Buddhist<br />
guest house in Katmandu, a<br />
women’s cooperative in ecuador,<br />
helped ensure farmers get fair prices<br />
for their products (www.transfairusa.org),<br />
strengthened the voice<br />
of independent media (www.indypress.org),<br />
helped protect and educate<br />
child refugees (www.rugmark.<br />
org), and helped provide buildings<br />
for <strong>Waldorf</strong> schools. Many of these<br />
projects and organizations, while<br />
not anthroposophical, are closely<br />
compatible with Rudolf Steiner’s<br />
ideals of a society characterized by<br />
freedom in cultural work, human<br />
dignity, and social justice through<br />
human rights and brotherhood in<br />
the economic realm.<br />
1<br />
4<br />
2 3<br />
Social Finance<br />
—a continuum<br />
Social finance is the use of financial<br />
resources for social<br />
benefit. it can take the form<br />
of a gift to a nonprofit or an investment<br />
in an organization creating<br />
positive social or environmental<br />
impact. along with philanthropy,<br />
the following are the principal tools<br />
for financing social benefit.<br />
Socially responsible investing<br />
(equity) describes an investment<br />
strategy which combines the intentions<br />
to maximize both financial<br />
return and social good. in general,<br />
socially responsible investors favor<br />
corporate practices which are en-<br />
vironmentally responsible, support<br />
workplace diversity, and increase<br />
product safety and quality.<br />
Social debt investments can take<br />
many forms. Corporate and government<br />
debt can be screened for social<br />
/ environmental issues; loans<br />
can be made directly to nonprofits<br />
and companies with social missions;<br />
and investments can be made<br />
in community development and microfinance<br />
organizations working to<br />
revitalize local communities.<br />
Social venture capital entails investing<br />
in private, often early stage,<br />
companies that are involved in beneficial<br />
activities such as organic<br />
food production, renewable energy<br />
development, or green real estate<br />
construction.<br />
Community<br />
then and<br />
now<br />
as i sit in my office, i take in<br />
the photos of people i have<br />
met over the years. i think<br />
about sharing my present life with<br />
my old <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> classmates<br />
and i begin to remember . . . learning<br />
to swim at the Threefold Pond,<br />
planting tulip and daffodil bulbs<br />
with Howard Mehrtens, walking the<br />
half mile to school with my friends,<br />
and the elderly ladies of the Threefold<br />
Community waving cheerfully<br />
to us as we passed by each morning.<br />
in the early days of <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>,<br />
there were very few buildings on<br />
the campus. Through the years, my<br />
teachers, schoolmates and i helped<br />
clear the land for many of the new<br />
buildings and the sports field. We<br />
worked together with chainsaws,<br />
shovels and rakes removing stones<br />
and debris before the construction<br />
crew began laying the foundations.
We built stone walls and laid pathways.<br />
How satisfying it was to create<br />
these beautiful facilities with<br />
my school family! it was true community<br />
and something that i hold<br />
dear today as i work in so many<br />
different communities in the social<br />
finance realm.<br />
i was a pretty sleepy student at<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>, needing more than<br />
tea to wake me up then! i’m grateful<br />
to our wonderful class teacher,<br />
Bill Lindeman, for allowing me to<br />
take my time to wake up and to<br />
become interested in academics.<br />
Spring Valley was a great place to<br />
grow up because of all the wonderful<br />
places for our (not-too-wild)<br />
parties. The green garage was a<br />
special place for us—if those walls<br />
could talk...Well, they might just<br />
say that Finser had a funny laugh<br />
and we’ll leave it at that!<br />
One of the most valuable lessons<br />
i learned at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> was<br />
that learning is a reciprocal affair.<br />
The young teachers were forthright<br />
and honest as they, too, learned<br />
along with us. They epitomized the<br />
Socratic tradition, drawing out of<br />
their students, through their skillful<br />
questioning and listening. They<br />
coaxed and encouraged that which<br />
was already there to be outwardly<br />
expressed. Reflecting on this now,<br />
i realize that this lesson is fundamental<br />
to my work relationships.<br />
at RSF, we pay close attention to<br />
our clients’ needs and endeavor to<br />
listen closely.<br />
i have found collaborative and<br />
synergistic relationships are characterized<br />
by deep listening. These<br />
conversations occur informally and<br />
in structured ways. examples of my<br />
involvement in a formal capacity<br />
include being on the board of the<br />
New Resource Bank (www.newresourcebank.com),<br />
a new “green”<br />
bank in San Francisco RSF helped<br />
launch; the board of Investors’<br />
Circle (www.investorscircle.net), a<br />
collaboration of high net worth angel<br />
investors whose goal is to affect<br />
how money is directed toward private<br />
equity for start-up and expanding<br />
companies; and the board of the<br />
Bravewell Collaborative (www.<br />
bravewell.org), a group whose mission<br />
is to transform the healthcare<br />
system in the U.S. by promoting integrative<br />
medical care and delivery.<br />
Other groups i participate in<br />
are the Transforming Money Collaborative,<br />
which seeks to awaken<br />
society to a new way of looking at<br />
and relating to money (www.reimagemoney.org)<br />
and Conscious Capitalism,<br />
a group led by John Mackey,<br />
the founder and CeO of Whole<br />
Foods, and other business leaders.<br />
as i mentioned, the 1979 student<br />
conference Meeting the Future and<br />
Ourselves was a clear “signpost.”<br />
it foreshadowed my career choice.<br />
The conference combined theory,<br />
workshops, and a lot of practical<br />
activity. Raising money for the<br />
conference was my first real experience<br />
of fundraising. i discovered<br />
then the joy it was for me to help<br />
philanthropists see how their money<br />
could benefit and contribute to<br />
the greater good. Dietrich V. asten<br />
and elise Caspar (long-time supporters<br />
of Rudolf Steiner’s work<br />
and <strong>Waldorf</strong> education) gave us the<br />
first donations for the conference.<br />
it was clear to me then the honor<br />
they were bestowing on us—they<br />
were trusting us to use their money<br />
for the best possible outcome of the<br />
conference. i wanted them to feel<br />
proud that they had placed their<br />
trust in us. it was an “aha” moment.<br />
i thought, “i can use this money for<br />
the good of the whole community.”<br />
That was my first awakening to the<br />
mystery of how money moves in<br />
the world and how i wanted to be a<br />
community builder.<br />
My life is only half over (i hope),<br />
and i feel great appreciation for<br />
the investment by my family and<br />
the community in my early years<br />
which has led me to this world of<br />
social finance: a world where i get<br />
to effect positive change through<br />
working with compassionate and<br />
skilled people; a world in which<br />
much credit goes to my educational<br />
experience for enabling me to help<br />
RSF grow from $6,000 in assets to<br />
$100 million. When we give the gift<br />
of education to our children, it has<br />
the potential to make a difference<br />
for generations to come. e<br />
Bishop Desmond Tutu (left)<br />
and Mark Finser at the Quest for<br />
Global Healing Conference, Bali,<br />
May 2006.<br />
Alumni profile<br />
Spring 2007 |
Telling Stories<br />
by Jennie abbott<br />
Class of 1991<br />
6 | Alumni Magazine<br />
A J A N E W U L S I N E d U C A T I O N<br />
Now teaching her fourth third grade class, Jane Wulsin is part of four decades of <strong>Green</strong><br />
<strong>Meadow</strong>’s existence, the class teacher of over 100 children who were part of her classes<br />
over the years, students whose lives she enriched and hearts she warmed with her attention<br />
and care. On Saturday night January 6, 2007, Jane’s former students Jennie<br />
Abbott ’91, Katie Battles ’99, Anna Booth ’99 and Erin Schirm ’07 met with Jane to ask<br />
questions and hear stories for this issue’s Teacher Feature.<br />
teacher<br />
feature<br />
in first grade, each letter had a story,<br />
but not all the stories were about letters.<br />
Jane Wulsin told us about the juniper<br />
tree growing on a steep hill to form<br />
the letter “J,” with its roots curved uphill and<br />
its trunk growing up straight. She also told<br />
us about her childhood in Florida: romps on<br />
horses and chasing baby alligators, limestone<br />
caves that collapsed, and the cows at her<br />
grandparents’ dairy farm. Her stories helped<br />
us relate to her as the little girl she had been,<br />
they warmed our hearts and piqued our curiosity,<br />
and underneath it all, they informed us<br />
and taught us about the world.<br />
Twenty-eight years after Jane started with<br />
her first 1st grade, she met with students she<br />
had taught during three “generations” of the<br />
lower school cycle, and in response to our<br />
requests, she told us her stories. She went<br />
into greater detail about ones we remembered<br />
her telling us as children, and told us<br />
new ones about her adult years before her<br />
time at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>. as ever, her stories<br />
amused, engaged, and educated: She told us<br />
about her political activism in South Florida<br />
in the 1960’s, advocating for migrant workers<br />
who were oppressed by citrus farmers. She described<br />
a legal collective she worked with to<br />
demystify the law and help people represent<br />
themselves. She was able to assist women<br />
with divorce and childcare issues and african<br />
american women in prison. She was active in<br />
women’s liberation, and participated in a collective<br />
that shared land, lived communally,<br />
and farmed.<br />
in the same way that Jane’s work on the<br />
farm was an exercise in deliberate, group ex
perience and learning,<br />
so, too, were her classes<br />
at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>. She<br />
shared her knowledge<br />
of plants and animals,<br />
math and history, with<br />
the attention and<br />
intention that arose<br />
out of her social philosophy. On the<br />
farm, “we were working ourselves to the bone,<br />
but we loved it, because it was something that<br />
we were building up together.” in the classroom,<br />
there was also a lot of work – especially<br />
for Jane as a new teacher! – but we students<br />
thrived on it because every day we were learning<br />
together and refining the group we were as<br />
a class together, orchestrated by Jane. “There<br />
are so many things that happen with all the<br />
relationships between everyone… the group<br />
that comes together is really a strong karmic<br />
group that has a lot to do with every single person<br />
in that class whether they know it or not.”<br />
Long before she became a classroom teacher,<br />
Jane volunteered at her school in Florida<br />
as a 5th and 6th grader to spend time with<br />
younger children in her school, later joining<br />
the Future Teachers of america club. after<br />
college she taught with a professor at an<br />
experimental school where she was disappointed<br />
to discover that state requirements<br />
for students’ test scores made it impossible<br />
to implement all the hands-on and alternative<br />
learning that the curriculum aimed to<br />
provide. (Yes, even 40 years ago, public school<br />
teachers were wrestling with that!) With two<br />
young daughters, Jill and Shannon, Jane had<br />
even more incentive to explore education and<br />
teaching, to inspire her to seek out alternatives<br />
to the usual schools.<br />
She drove to Gainesville from the collective<br />
farm to attend an information session about<br />
a school using <strong>Waldorf</strong> methods, and thought:<br />
“This is it!” Passionate, idealistic, and determined,<br />
Jane moved with her daughters first<br />
to Denver, then, encouraged by Werner Glas,<br />
to the <strong>Waldorf</strong> institute of Detroit. Jill and<br />
Shannon attended the Detroit <strong>Waldorf</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
while Jane took the teacher training at the<br />
<strong>Waldorf</strong> institute. after her training, Jane<br />
did not yet feel ready to teach a class, so she<br />
continued to take courses while she worked<br />
at the institute, studied, and read more about<br />
anthroposophy. When she was ready to teach,<br />
she looked at schools again, and when she visited<br />
Spring Valley, she knew it was the right<br />
place. She came and started her first class in<br />
the fall of 1979, “a wonderful class who taught<br />
me how to be a teacher. You were so patient<br />
with me and always gave me another chance.”<br />
i told her that we were reflecting what was before<br />
us.<br />
Silent and attentive during the interview,<br />
we listened to Jane’s wisdom, learning from<br />
her still: “i didn’t know when i first started<br />
out that it would be the children who would<br />
be teaching me how to teach... i thought i was<br />
the teacher and that i was going to teach them<br />
everything. Yet every day you have a reflection.<br />
individuals and the whole class reflect back<br />
to you how you have done in a particular part<br />
of the main lesson… i think that one of the<br />
greatest gifts that i can give is a joy for learning.<br />
if the students come away with an enthusiasm<br />
to learn, to want to learn more about<br />
the world, and in learning about the world, to<br />
find out something about themselves, then i<br />
feel i have accomplished something.”<br />
We asked Jane about the differences between<br />
her students and classes over time, and she told<br />
us about the chemistry of each class affecting<br />
how her lessons were received. Something one<br />
first-grade class loved fell flat before another<br />
class, for example. “it was so interesting to<br />
me because i didn’t notice so much that the<br />
children had actually changed from one first<br />
grade to the next, but there is something of<br />
a difference in what each group likes to do<br />
or takes up.” She gives children another<br />
chance and another chance – and she also<br />
hopes that when she makes mistakes as a<br />
teacher, that the children forgive her too.<br />
Jane loves to have big classes because she sees<br />
teacher<br />
feature<br />
Spring 2007 | 7
teacher<br />
feature<br />
Jane embodies the<br />
anthroposophical<br />
belief that all of us<br />
have the support<br />
of a spiritual world<br />
as well as that of<br />
our classmates and<br />
teachers in the<br />
classroom and<br />
far beyond.<br />
| Alumni Magazine<br />
that “all the different gifts<br />
people have” helps everyone<br />
and makes the fabric so much<br />
richer. as each class graduated<br />
eighth grade and disappeared<br />
into high school, Jane<br />
returned to the beginning, to<br />
the formation of a new group<br />
of students with whom she<br />
would learn and grow.<br />
We asked if Jane has a favorite<br />
grade to teach and she<br />
said “i think every year, when i am in it, is my<br />
favorite year.” Being fully present in that way is<br />
part of Jane’s magic in the classroom, and she<br />
was just as present with us when we met with<br />
her last month. She always encouraged us to do<br />
our best, and i still feel it deeply ingrained in<br />
my approach to all i do. She told us of her deep<br />
belief that the value of striving to do one’s best<br />
is grounded in the importance of being present.<br />
She said that “if one is giving one’s best to whatever<br />
it is, if you are watching the forming of your<br />
letters, each one of them is a little form drawing<br />
in itself, if… you are immersing yourself in<br />
the color of the painting or drawing and you see<br />
what you are creating, then you are present in<br />
the moment… i think that being present in the<br />
moment is a spiritual gift.”<br />
it was a thrill for me after being in Jane’s<br />
class as a child to hear her talk about her side<br />
of the experience, the process and the changes<br />
she encouraged and witnessed. as an adult,<br />
i appreciate hearing where she came from before<br />
coming to the school and to my class; it<br />
fills out the story of Jane Wulsin: who she is<br />
and how she lives in the world. Jane embodies<br />
the anthroposophical belief that all of us<br />
have the support of a spiritual world as well<br />
as that of our classmates and teachers in the<br />
classroom and far beyond.<br />
“The classes, the classes, they are all one big<br />
class!” Jane still thinks of all of us as her children,<br />
and the lines between each class blur. We<br />
enter as babies, and she guides us into adolescence.<br />
“To be witness to that, to participate in<br />
that every day, it is the greatest blessing i can<br />
imagine. it is such a gift. i can’t possibly talk<br />
about it without crying! it is just so precious.<br />
So precious. i just feel so blessed that i have<br />
known all of you and been with you.” Jane, we<br />
also feel blessed, and continue to shine and<br />
grow with the love of learning—and love of<br />
each other – that you instilled in us. e<br />
Jane Wulsin with members of all four of her <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> classes: ’91, ’99, ’07, and her current third grade.
SeRViCe:<br />
T E n y E A r S A F T E r<br />
r e t r o s p e c t i v e s<br />
THe BeST<br />
Devotion<br />
a Conversation with<br />
imam Tosun Bayrak<br />
by Candace Stern<br />
of the carnage of the Bosnian War the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bul-<br />
to schools across the United States. garia, albania, Greece and Turkey.<br />
Moments later, imam Bayrak ar- This peninsula has been fiercely conrived.<br />
We settled down on the floor tested since the Ottoman empire’s<br />
and benches, sipping our tea and westward expansion into southeast-<br />
talking about those long-ago days. ern europe during the 14th and 15th<br />
centuries. it was here that three<br />
religions took root among a people<br />
with a common ethnic heritage and<br />
a common language: Serbo-Croat.<br />
Generally, the “Croats” were Roman<br />
Catholics, the Serbs were Orthodox<br />
Christians, and the “Bosniaks” were<br />
Muslims.<br />
Late one november afternoon,<br />
i drove over to the<br />
Jerrahi Mosque for a conversation<br />
with imam Tosun<br />
Bayrak. Visitors to the Jerrahi<br />
Mosque must first turn off Chestnut<br />
Ridge Road, drive past an old garage<br />
with arabic letters on its gable and<br />
into a small village of houses and<br />
gardens. at its heart is the Mosque,<br />
a sturdy stone building crowned by<br />
a wooden minaret. The Mosque’s<br />
entrance brings you into the vestibule:<br />
a generous-sized room, one<br />
wall bright with Turkish tiles, the<br />
other lined with cubbies for coats<br />
and shoes. Relieved of these worldly<br />
accoutrements, you at last enter into<br />
the heart of the Mosque: a large octagonal<br />
room surmounted by eight<br />
exposed wooden beams, its floor<br />
covered with oriental rugs. On one<br />
of the eight walls, the mihrab, indicating<br />
the direction of Mecca, is set<br />
into a beautifully tiled wall, a simple<br />
glass lamp hanging at its center.<br />
i met Helen Morgan and alix<br />
Christofides, both members of the<br />
Mosque and GMWS High <strong>School</strong> registrar<br />
and english teacher, respectively,<br />
in the dining room, just off<br />
the prayer room. This room is lined<br />
with low benches. its walls are covered<br />
with many framed examples of<br />
elegant islamic calligraphy, its floor<br />
covered with Turkish carpets. in<br />
the early 1990s, both Helen and alix<br />
worked closely with imam Bayrak to<br />
bring young Bosnian students out<br />
A ShoRT hISToRy of A<br />
loNg SToRy<br />
The Bosnian War of 1992-1995 has<br />
deep roots. Bosnia is located on the<br />
Balkan peninsula between the adriatic<br />
and ionian seas. The countries<br />
occupying this peninsula include<br />
Pages 20 and 21<br />
feature several<br />
personal snapshots<br />
of students<br />
and host families<br />
associated with<br />
the Bosnian<br />
Student Project.<br />
We thank the<br />
Christofides-<br />
lowenthal and<br />
Morgan families<br />
for the use of<br />
these images.<br />
Spring 2007 |
20 | Alumni Magazine<br />
in 1945 communist Prime Minster<br />
Josip Broz Tito became the<br />
Prime Minister of the Federal People’s<br />
Republic of Yugoslavia. it was<br />
composed of six republics: Serbia,<br />
Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,<br />
Macedonia, Slovenia, and Montenegro,<br />
as well as two provinces, Kosovo<br />
and Vojvodina. Tito successfully<br />
cultivated a socialist fraternity and<br />
unity that took precedence over<br />
longstanding religious/ethnic differences.<br />
His death in 1980 and the<br />
subsequent decline of communism<br />
gave rise to nationalist/separatist<br />
movements.<br />
Slovenia and Croatia were the first<br />
republics to declare independence<br />
from Yugoslavia, followed by Macedonia,<br />
and, in april 1992, Bosnia and<br />
Herzegovina. Of all the Yugoslavian<br />
republics, Bosnia and Herzegovina<br />
was the most diverse: 43% Muslim,<br />
31% Serbian, and 17% Croatian.<br />
as soon as independence was declared,<br />
religious and ethnic tensions<br />
mounted and Bosnia erupted into<br />
war. Recent research numbers the<br />
war victims around 100,000-110,000<br />
(civilians and military). 1.8 million<br />
people were displaced before the<br />
Dayton Peace accord brought the<br />
war to an end in late 1995.<br />
it was into the vortex of this conflagration<br />
that imam Tosun Bayrak<br />
was drawn on a humanitarian mission.<br />
Responding to a report that<br />
hundreds of Bosniak women had<br />
been raped, imam Bayrak traveled<br />
in late 1992 with his wife, 4 psychologists,<br />
a reporter and a photographer<br />
to zagreb, Croatia. as soon as they<br />
arrived they “went to the authorities<br />
to locate these women. We contacted<br />
the Mesihat and they helped<br />
us find them. But the women abso-<br />
lutely did not want to see us.” Disappointed<br />
they could not provide the<br />
assistance they had come so far to<br />
give, imam Bayrak chanced to meet<br />
some destitute Bosnian students,<br />
living in zagreb. These students had<br />
started college when Yugoslavia was<br />
a united country. With the break up<br />
of their country, students from different<br />
republics were now considered<br />
foreigners and were required<br />
to pay tuition. “They lost everything.<br />
They couldn’t eat and they couldn’t<br />
work because they were in Croatia<br />
and they couldn’t go back to Bosnia<br />
because the war was raging everywhere.<br />
The only way they could survive<br />
was by selling their blood.”<br />
Out of their desperate circumstances,<br />
they formed a Bosnian<br />
Students association. imam Bayrak<br />
was invited to a meeting of this association.<br />
“We met in a room without<br />
any chairs. So we all sat on the floor<br />
and talked about what we could do. i<br />
wasn’t sure if we could get american<br />
visas for them or if we could get any<br />
grants from schools.” Still, he was<br />
willing to try.<br />
as soon as he returned home,<br />
imam Bayrak contacted the Fellowship<br />
of Reconciliation (FOR) and<br />
told them what he was trying to do.<br />
(FOR) is the largest, oldest, interfaith<br />
peace organization in the US<br />
with headquarters in nyack. “Doug<br />
Hostetter (who later became Director<br />
of the Bosnian Student Project)<br />
committed to get scholarships for<br />
Bosnian students.” imam Bayrak<br />
began making legal and logistical<br />
arrangements for Bosnian students<br />
to go to the US and Turkey because<br />
that country was so much nearer.<br />
“Turkish schools were receiving<br />
Bosnian students by the thousands.”<br />
T H E B E S T<br />
Helen and alix were responsible for<br />
making arrangements for each of the<br />
students. “We made arrangements<br />
for more than 150 students who<br />
came to this country, and at least a<br />
couple hundred students who went<br />
to Turkey from Bosnia.” Students under<br />
18 needed a sponsor who would<br />
assume legal guardianship for them.<br />
“There was a lot of paper work going<br />
back and forth. We were able to get<br />
guardianship papers signed by their<br />
parents for the younger students.<br />
We made arrangements for visa interviews<br />
at the american Consulate<br />
in zagreb, or wherever the students<br />
happened to be. We learned how the<br />
bureaucracy worked and we abided<br />
by it. it worked.”<br />
Why, i asked, was imam Bayrak so<br />
interested in saving students? “The<br />
thing that really incited me to initiate<br />
this program, was that the Serbs<br />
first set out to destroy the Bosnian<br />
intelligentsia. When you destroy the<br />
intelligentsia—the professors, doctors,<br />
and lawyers—it is like cutting<br />
off the head of a nation. Bosnia needed<br />
to protect its young. They needed<br />
a new intelligentsia. That is how i<br />
sold the program to the Bosnians.<br />
My goal was to create an americaneducated<br />
intelligentsia who, when<br />
the war was over and their educations<br />
completed, could return to<br />
Bosnia. i went from school to school<br />
to look at their transcripts. i got the<br />
best students with the best english.<br />
They were very good kids. Bright.<br />
When they came, some didn’t even<br />
know english, but in their classes<br />
they were getting a’s all the time.”<br />
imam Bayrak made a second trip<br />
(1993), again to zagreb because it<br />
was still impossible to go directly to<br />
Bosnia. “all these people were in the<br />
T H E B E S T
D E V o T i o n<br />
worst shape. They were hungry and<br />
destitute. So we brought the second<br />
batch from zagreb. Many of the kids<br />
who went to GMWS were from this<br />
second batch.” FOR and the Jerrahi<br />
Mosque worked together to make<br />
arrangements for the Bosnian students<br />
to attend american public<br />
and private schools. GMWS was the<br />
first private school to accept and enroll<br />
10 Bosnian students, with total<br />
tuition remission. These students<br />
graduated with the classes of 1994,<br />
1995, 1996, and 1997. Following<br />
GMWS’s lead, other private schools<br />
opened their doors to Bosnian students.<br />
The network of schools, sponsors<br />
and families across the country,<br />
expanded further to include colleges<br />
and universities who offered Bosnian<br />
students full scholarships to<br />
continue their educations.<br />
imam Bayrak’s third trip (1995)<br />
to the war zone started in zagreb<br />
and continued on to Split, Mostar,<br />
and Tuzla. “i traveled with two<br />
Turkish teachers from Fatih College<br />
because i was going to send<br />
students to Turkey. This time,<br />
people were shooting and bombing.<br />
My blood pressure went sky high<br />
and they offered me garlic because<br />
there was no medication, no food to<br />
eat, nothing whatsoever. i sent 75<br />
students, refugees from the massacre<br />
at Srebrenica. When i say students,<br />
i mean little children, 7 or<br />
8 years old. We put them on buses<br />
and they were met at the frontier<br />
by people who fed and clothed<br />
them, gave them shelter and then<br />
educated them—from academy, to<br />
school, to lyceum, to college. They<br />
are mostly all grown up now. none<br />
of them went back. They became<br />
Turks, essentially.”<br />
D E V o T i o n<br />
What about these american-educated<br />
intelligentsia, i asked, have<br />
they returned to Bosnia? “Some<br />
did go back. Some are in europe.<br />
Some are living in the US. Unfortunately<br />
the Bosnian Government<br />
does not accept american degrees!<br />
They fear the degrees could be fake<br />
and charge as much as $20,000 to<br />
get them validated. Who wants to<br />
work for the Bosnian government,<br />
anyhow? They have very nice jobs<br />
with foreign companies, humanitarian<br />
organizations and other nGOs.<br />
More than that, they are doing<br />
very well with their lives. although<br />
many of them lost their mothers<br />
and fathers, certainly their homes<br />
and family members, somehow being<br />
away helped them a great deal.<br />
They are probably less prejudiced<br />
against the Serbs than those who<br />
stayed and suffered to the end.<br />
They were all wonderful kids, in<br />
spite of coming from such a trying<br />
situation.”<br />
as our conversation wound down,<br />
we spoke of other humanitarian and<br />
relief projects imam Bayrak and the<br />
Jerrahi Mosque have worked on together<br />
since the Bosnian War. The<br />
needs of the Bosnian students have<br />
been superseded by other wars and<br />
other civilian populations caught in<br />
the cross-fire of sectarian violence.<br />
assistance such as FOR and the<br />
Mosque once offered “would be impossible<br />
now.”<br />
almost as an after thought, imam<br />
Bayrak added, “The best way to advance<br />
spiritually is to serve. You can<br />
make prayers, fast, read, but service<br />
is the best devotion. This situation<br />
permitted us to serve.” e<br />
~Candace Stern<br />
EnSAr HAliloViC ‘96<br />
left Bosnia after a horrible mas-<br />
i sacre in my hometown of Tuzla<br />
on May 25th 1995, where 68 young<br />
people died from a mortar grenade<br />
fired from hills held by Serbian<br />
military. Sixty-eight people killed:<br />
a child of 2, two persons of 45, and<br />
the rest between 18 and 25 years<br />
old. i lost several friends from my<br />
class and neighborhood that day.<br />
it was only by pure luck that i was<br />
not with them. i had lived through<br />
three terrible years of war: without<br />
food and electricity, sometimes for<br />
days; attending classes between<br />
mortar attacks; always holding on<br />
to hope for better days. On May 25,<br />
life was shattered. On that day, the<br />
hope in my heart disappeared. Yet,<br />
unbeknownst to me, my parents<br />
had sent my documents to the Bosnian<br />
Student Project. a few days<br />
after the May 25th attack, someone<br />
from the project called our house<br />
and asked if i were still alive and<br />
able to travel to the US. My father<br />
accompanied me to the Bosnian /<br />
Croatian border. The trip almost<br />
cost us both our lives. We barely<br />
escaped a hijacking at gun point by<br />
local para-militants as we crossed<br />
a “no man’s land.” Once i reached<br />
Croatia, i felt safer, but i could not<br />
be happy knowing that my parents<br />
and my little sister were still in<br />
great danger.<br />
i arrived in Chestnut Ridge, new<br />
York in June 1995. My first stop coming<br />
from the airport was the Jerrahi<br />
Mosque. it happened to be the night<br />
of the <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> High <strong>School</strong><br />
prom. i met some fellow Bosnian<br />
students all dressed up and festive.<br />
after they left for the prom, i<br />
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went inside the mosque where the<br />
dervishes followed imam Bayrak in<br />
prayer and zikr. after the prayer, he<br />
talked to me and welcomed me to<br />
the wonderful community of families<br />
of Jerrahi Mosque. i knew that<br />
bright days were ahead of me.<br />
in September, i joined the Class<br />
of 1996. i received a warm welcome<br />
from the students and faculty of<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>. after our Senior<br />
Class zoology trip to Hermit island, i<br />
felt comfortable with my classmates.<br />
During the year, i joined the basketball<br />
team. That allowed me to spend<br />
time, outside of class, with guys from<br />
school. That year at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
was an unforgettable experience<br />
for me. i have to be honest and say<br />
that it was not easy. My english was<br />
not great; it took me much longer<br />
to study the material. even German<br />
class with Frau edelglass was<br />
a challenge since we had to act in<br />
a play in German and keep a daily<br />
journal, in German. But it all came<br />
with a sort of ease, since our school<br />
days would end with arts and craft<br />
classes, bookbinding and ceramics<br />
(clay) for example. i did not play<br />
an instrument, so i attended a folk<br />
dance class with Mr. Kotansky. What<br />
joy! Things in my life were balanced<br />
again. My nightmares of the war were<br />
slowly disappearing. By the end of<br />
the school year, i knew i would miss<br />
the friends i had made in my class<br />
after we all left for college.<br />
i was very fortunate to be welcomed<br />
into the home and family of<br />
Stephen and Lisa Oswald, a wonderful<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> family with three<br />
kids: anisa ‘03, nuriya ‘05 and Hasan<br />
‘07. a <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> event made a<br />
lasting impression on me: at the<br />
Rose Ceremony in September, i gave<br />
Hasan a rose, marking his first days<br />
in school. at the end of the school<br />
year, he gave me back the rose saying<br />
good-bye to me and sending me<br />
off to start a new chapter of my life.<br />
The Oswald family became my family.<br />
With Stephen and Lisa, i learned<br />
how to drive a car. When anna and<br />
i were married, September 3, 2006,<br />
Lisa made a beautiful cake for our<br />
wedding. They were there for me<br />
at the beginning of yet another<br />
chapter of my life. They have been<br />
an important part of my life since i<br />
came to the USa and always will be.<br />
anna and i are going to Bosnia this<br />
summer to have another wedding<br />
celebration with my extended family<br />
and friends in Bosnia.<br />
after graduating from <strong>Green</strong><br />
<strong>Meadow</strong>, i went to Clark University<br />
in Massachusetts. at Clark i majored<br />
in Biochemistry and Biology with<br />
high honors. However, every summer<br />
i went back to the Oswalds in<br />
Chestnut Ridge where i volunteered<br />
and worked as an emergency Medical<br />
Technician at W.P. Faist ambulance<br />
Corps. after getting my Bachelor’s<br />
degree, i stayed on at Clark<br />
T H E B E S T<br />
to obtain a Master’s in Molecular<br />
Biology. after that i took a position<br />
as a research associate at UMaSS<br />
Medical <strong>School</strong>. Shortly after that i<br />
realized i wanted to be at the place<br />
where medicine and science meet.<br />
i enrolled in the Ph.D. program at<br />
Cornell University Medical <strong>School</strong>,<br />
in new York City, to study Cancer<br />
Pharmacology. i am now in the final<br />
years of a program doing research at<br />
Memorial Cancer Center to develop<br />
and improve targeted therapies for<br />
patients suffering from melanoma<br />
and colon cancer.<br />
My higher education degrees<br />
and the several awards and honors<br />
bestowed upon me are not the<br />
achievements i am the proudest of.<br />
i am proud to be doing cutting edge<br />
science in the effort to develop<br />
therapeutics that will save lives. as<br />
new opportunities are given to me, i<br />
wish to give the opportunity for life<br />
to someone else. One day i hope to<br />
make a difference in people’s lives<br />
by building a bridge between the<br />
medical sciences and research in<br />
the USa and science and medicine<br />
in Bosnia. e<br />
FATimA DJEkiC oguz<br />
‘96<br />
Fatima Djekic met imam Tosun<br />
Bayrak on his third trip in the<br />
summer of 1995. His search for Bosnian<br />
students to bring to the U.S.<br />
had brought him to Tuzla. “after an<br />
interview, i was offered a scholarship<br />
abroad…My family wanted me<br />
to leave our war-torn country in the<br />
hope of a better future.” after talking<br />
with her mother and receiving<br />
her parents’ permission, Fatima<br />
set about making arrangements.<br />
“everyone wanted to get out of the<br />
T H E B E S T
D E V o T i o n<br />
country, so obtaining a passport<br />
was a costly and difficult mission.<br />
i clearly remember imam Bayrak<br />
giving me the money for all the<br />
paperwork-related expenses. His<br />
generosity and kindness was simply<br />
overwhelming.”<br />
Fatima remembers that “leaving<br />
my family was probably one of the<br />
most difficult moments in my life.<br />
i didn’t know if i would ever see<br />
them again, and they didn’t know<br />
if they would ever see me again.<br />
Just the thought of it brings tears<br />
to my eyes. it’s an experience that<br />
required lots of strength and courage.”<br />
Fatima flew from zagreb to<br />
new York in September 1995 with<br />
two other Bosnian students headed<br />
to different schools within the United<br />
States (one in Pa, the other in<br />
TX). “i remember seeing the new<br />
York skyline through the Swiss air<br />
windows: everything seemed surreal.<br />
in my war-torn country we<br />
had water and electricity restrictions.<br />
Suddenly such rules no longer<br />
existed. i could have a shower<br />
without worrying if the water would<br />
suddenly stop running. Food was no<br />
longer a scarce commodity. There<br />
was no need to run to the shelter<br />
in the basement as air raid sirens<br />
were no longer sounding off.”<br />
Fatima was warmly welcomed by<br />
her host family, zinnur and Yurdaer<br />
Doganata, the Jerrahi community,<br />
the Fellowship of Reconciliation<br />
and <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> “the entire community<br />
was fully supportive. They<br />
helped all of the Bosnian students<br />
get through those difficult times.<br />
Still my heart was not at peace as<br />
i knew that everything back home<br />
remained in danger.” Two months<br />
after her arrival, on november 21,<br />
the Bosnian War ended. “That is<br />
D E V o T i o n<br />
when i believe all Bosnian students,<br />
who were dispersed throughout this<br />
world, achieved inner peace and<br />
happiness.”<br />
as Fatima settled into life in<br />
Chestnut Ridge, she also entered<br />
into the life of <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>’s<br />
Class of 1996. “Coming from a<br />
class of 42 students – and often<br />
more than that – i was impressed<br />
by the teacher-student ratio in the<br />
high school. The presence of edina<br />
Sarajlic, ensar Halilovic and Taida<br />
Horozovic in my class made our<br />
adjustment much easier.” Fatima<br />
came from a high school where<br />
the arts were neglected and the<br />
sciences were emphasized. “i was<br />
impressed how <strong>Waldorf</strong> education<br />
managed to successfully integrate<br />
art into every aspect of the curriculum.<br />
Handwork, singing, eurythmy,<br />
acting and foreign languages were<br />
very appealing. i loved the concept<br />
of the main lesson blocks. The process<br />
of developing my own main<br />
lesson book always encouraged creativity<br />
and free-thinking.”<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> “accepted us with<br />
arms wide open. all the high school<br />
teachers were extremely supportive<br />
and understanding of our situation.<br />
They tried to help us every step of<br />
the way. i was always inspired by<br />
their dedication to instill a genuine<br />
love of learning within each of us. i<br />
truly cherish every moment i spent<br />
at GMWS and am so grateful for it.”<br />
after graduating from <strong>Green</strong><br />
<strong>Meadow</strong>, Fatima went on to earn her<br />
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science<br />
from new York University in<br />
2000. She went to work for the eMC<br />
Corporation as a Design engineer in<br />
Hopkinton, Massachusetts. a year<br />
later she began working on her Master’s<br />
degree in Software engineering<br />
at Brandeis University, completing<br />
it in 2004. She and her husband<br />
now live in San Diego and work at<br />
Qualcomm incorporated. Fatima<br />
“applies automation technologies<br />
to translate manual test cases into<br />
automated test suites for testing numerous<br />
wireless phone features.”<br />
On May 22, 1999 Fatima and Seyfullah<br />
Oguz, brother of Fatima’s<br />
host mother, zinnur Doganata, were<br />
married by imam Bayrak in the Jerrahi<br />
Mosque. each year, Fatima and<br />
Seyfullah try to go to Bosnia to visit<br />
her family. “i can only take at most<br />
3 weeks off from work, so i don’t get<br />
to spend a lot of time back home.<br />
in a couple years we would like to<br />
settle in Turkey. if we live in Turkey,<br />
i could easily spend a weekend<br />
with my family in Tuzla.” in looking<br />
back, Fatima concluded: “i would<br />
like to express my sincere thanks<br />
to imam Bayrak, my host families<br />
– zinnur & Yurdaer Doganata, ayca<br />
& Charles Rae, the Jerrahi Order of<br />
america, Doug Hostetter, Fellow-<br />
Spring 2007 | 2
2 | Alumni Magazine<br />
ship of Reconciliation, <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>,<br />
Talat Halman and nYU for their<br />
gracious help. Together they were<br />
the means for making a difference<br />
in my life. i hope to accomplish the<br />
same for someone else.” e<br />
SAnDro AliSiC, ‘94<br />
When Sandro alisic left Prijedor<br />
(in northwestern Bosnia)<br />
in 1992 with his mother and brother,<br />
they were fleeing a Serbian-launched<br />
ethic cleansing campaign. They escaped<br />
to neighboring Croatia, but<br />
without Croatian citizenship, he and<br />
his brother couldn’t attend school.<br />
“When i heard about the possibility<br />
of continuing my education in the<br />
States, i was very excited, but didn’t<br />
really believe it would ever happen.<br />
i sent all my transcripts and other<br />
documents and forgot about it. One<br />
day in april 1993, i received a call<br />
telling me that i would leave for the<br />
States in five days. i went to zagreb,<br />
and there it really dawned on me<br />
that i would be leaving my fam-<br />
ily and going to an unknown place<br />
where i knew no one.”<br />
On april 29, 1993, Sandro arrived<br />
in new York with three other Bosnian<br />
students: irvana Kapetanovic,<br />
iris Kulasic and Jasmina Hadzihasanovic.<br />
“We only knew we were going<br />
to ‘new York’ and we expected<br />
to live somewhere near the empire<br />
State building or some other famous<br />
landmark.” To their surprise,<br />
they found themselves in Chestnut<br />
Ridge. “What happened to the<br />
big city with familiar sites we had<br />
seen so many times on television?<br />
a feeling of anxiety and fear sank<br />
in, and for the first time, i thought<br />
that maybe i shouldn’t have come<br />
at all.” Yet, when they got out of<br />
the car in Chestnut Ridge, they<br />
were surrounded by “lots of children<br />
from the Jerrahi Mosque who<br />
gave us small presents. They were<br />
smiling and ushered us into the<br />
mosque, where dinner was served.<br />
We immediately felt better.”<br />
Two weeks later Sandro and irvana<br />
joined the <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
class of ‘94, while iris and Jasmina<br />
joined the class of ’95. “What struck<br />
me most was how small the whole<br />
school was. i could not believe there<br />
were just four classes in the whole<br />
high school.” That was not the only<br />
surprise. “i remember how shocked<br />
i was when i realized not only were<br />
there few textbooks, but that i would<br />
be writing my own lesson book. it<br />
was a totally new concept to me. after<br />
a while, i realized the whole idea<br />
behind the students ‘writing’ their<br />
own books. i was so proud of my first<br />
main lesson book for Mr. Hoffman’s<br />
chemistry class. There was a sense<br />
of accomplishment.”<br />
education in Bosnia, “where<br />
much greater emphasis was placed<br />
T H E B E S T<br />
on rote learning and memorization<br />
and where the teacher was a ‘sage<br />
at the stage’ with unquestioned<br />
authority” contrasted strongly with<br />
education at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> where<br />
“students were active participants,<br />
involved learners working collaboratively<br />
with their teachers.”<br />
Sandro’s memories from his year<br />
and a half at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> include:<br />
“Hermit island in Maine,<br />
the prom, Mrs. Wolf’s bookbinding<br />
class, our class trip and play, The<br />
Inspector General” and “most of all,<br />
the sense of a nurturing community<br />
and the warmth and closeness that<br />
GMWS embodies. it is precisely this<br />
that helped me get adjusted to the<br />
‘american way of life.’ i am grateful<br />
that my first experience in america,<br />
academically and socially, was at<br />
<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>.”<br />
after Sandro graduated Phi Beta<br />
Kappa from earlham College in<br />
Richmond, indiana (where he majored<br />
in Psychology and German),<br />
he received an Ma degree in German<br />
studies from Bowling <strong>Green</strong><br />
State University. Since 2001 he<br />
has been working for the Defense<br />
Language institute teaching the<br />
Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian<br />
languages. During the five years he<br />
lived in Monterey, California, Sandro<br />
completed a second Ma degree<br />
in instructional Science and Technology<br />
at California State University.<br />
in June 2006 he was transferred<br />
to San antonio, Texas. “i still work<br />
in the field of foreign language education,<br />
but with an emphasis on the<br />
use of technology in language learning.<br />
i am enjoying my current job,<br />
which combines my interests and<br />
my language and technology skills.”<br />
Sandro’s brother and their parents<br />
now live in the US. e<br />
D E V o T i o n
The Caseros Prison<br />
Demolition Project<br />
For the past year, i’ve been<br />
working on a project that<br />
uses the former Caseros<br />
Prison, its history and its<br />
demolition, as raw materials for a<br />
dynamic artwork. Caseros Prison,<br />
an urban skyscraper jail in Buenos<br />
aires, argentina, was opened in 1979<br />
by the military junta to incarcerate<br />
political prisoners. The prison was<br />
closed down in 2001, and slated for<br />
destruction, but due to legal difficulties,<br />
the demolition was delayed<br />
for several years. The city of Buenos<br />
aires has contracted with the argentine<br />
military to demolish the 22story<br />
building floor by floor, from the<br />
top down, in a process expected to<br />
take eighteen months.<br />
i discovered the prison shortly<br />
after i moved to Buenos aires in<br />
December 2005. i’ve always been<br />
fascinated by cycles of architectural<br />
and cultural generation and degeneration.<br />
When i caught wind of its<br />
imminent demolition, i set to work<br />
figuring how to turn the demolition<br />
of the building itself into a work of<br />
art. Part of the original idea that<br />
struck me was to turn the prison demolition<br />
into a kind of funeral pyre,<br />
a readymade unmade, where the<br />
focus of the observer would enliven<br />
a destructive architectural practice<br />
in a way that could spark a perceptual<br />
creation, or allow for a kind of<br />
resurrection from the raw material<br />
of destruction.<br />
a few years ago i worked with a<br />
pictorial technique using fragments<br />
of mirror and glass like pixels to pro-<br />
16<br />
TOnS<br />
Seth Wulsin<br />
Class of 2000<br />
duce images that are purely a function<br />
of space and light. everywhere i<br />
traveled, i looked for a building with<br />
window grids to apply the idea on an<br />
architectural scale, engaging various<br />
cycles of time by reflecting the light<br />
of the sun and moon. in Caseros<br />
Prison i found the perfect building,<br />
where artistic activity could engage,<br />
and even transform some of the<br />
complex social, political, spiritual,<br />
historical, architectural, and above<br />
all human layers of the site.<br />
Originally presented by General<br />
Videla’s dictatorship as a “model<br />
prison,” it quickly became clear that<br />
Caseros was quite the opposite. The<br />
prison was designed to be part of<br />
a ‘judicial city’ complex, and was<br />
built as a temporary holding bin for<br />
prisoners awaiting trial. Fittingly,<br />
the rest of the judicial city—including<br />
the courthouse where the<br />
prisoners awaiting trial were to be<br />
tried—was never built. The building<br />
is hermetically sealed off from<br />
its surroundings. it was designed<br />
Alumni profile<br />
Spring 2007 | 2
Alumni profile<br />
26 | Alumni Magazine<br />
so that direct sunlight would not<br />
reach the prisoners in their cells.<br />
Most of the political prisoners<br />
were released after the fall of<br />
the military dictatorship in 1983.<br />
Thereafter, Caseros prison was used<br />
chiefly to incarcerate common criminals.<br />
as in many prisons, corruption<br />
among both inmates and guards<br />
abounded. Caseros remained notorious<br />
throughout the ‘80s both for<br />
its occasional inmate riots and for<br />
its perennial over-crowding. Holes<br />
broken through the outer walls of<br />
the prison during these riots allowed<br />
the inmates to stick their heads and<br />
torsos out to catch some sun, and to<br />
talk to neighbors as well as friends<br />
and family who would gather in the<br />
streets below. in the ‘90s the prison<br />
was used as a chop shop for stripping<br />
stolen cars. Far from serving as<br />
a place for rehabilitation, a common<br />
euphemism applied to jails, Caseros,<br />
from its brutalist architecture to its<br />
crooked administration, came to<br />
embody the essence of what tends<br />
to be wrong with prisons—a striking<br />
combination of extreme institutional<br />
repression and corruption. The prison’s<br />
history is all the more striking<br />
for its urban location, in the working<br />
class residential neighborhood of<br />
Parque Patricios. The prison looms<br />
high above the two and three story<br />
homes and small factories across the<br />
cobblestone street (including chocolate<br />
and pasta factories which occasionally<br />
fill the now gutted prison<br />
with delicious aromas). Soccer player<br />
Diego Maradona, and former argentine<br />
dictator Jorge Rafael Videla<br />
both spent short stints in Caseros.<br />
Because of Caseros Prison’s complex<br />
political and cultural charge,<br />
and because the site is guarded by<br />
the argentine military 24 hours a<br />
day, i had to win the support of a<br />
wide array of national and municipal<br />
government agencies, human rights<br />
groups, former prisoners of Caseros<br />
(both political and non-political)<br />
and the military itself in order to gain<br />
authorization for the project, a pro-<br />
cess which took four months. at one<br />
point, after a couple weeks walking<br />
the halls of the congressional offices<br />
looking for support for the project, i<br />
realized that i’d turned into a political<br />
lobbyist. at another point i calculated<br />
that i was on a first name basis<br />
with over twenty-five secretaries of<br />
various politicians. i no longer had<br />
to identify myself when i called on<br />
the phone. The bureaucracy became<br />
a kind of functional metaphor for<br />
the work i was doing with the prison<br />
itself, looking for the sliver of space<br />
where people could exercise their<br />
freedom transcending a structure<br />
designed to prevent just that.<br />
Working from qualities implicit<br />
at every level of the prison building—its<br />
history and current state of<br />
demolition—i sought to illuminate<br />
those qualities by making some mark<br />
on the building itself in concert with<br />
and in advance of the full demolition.<br />
The life cycle of the place, the<br />
relationship between physical and<br />
psychological limits and human<br />
freedom, light and shadow, space<br />
and concrete, isolation and continuity,<br />
inside and outside, expression<br />
and communication, creation and<br />
destruction—these are the raw materials<br />
the project works with. The<br />
prison, its countless stories, its integral<br />
structure and application, as<br />
well as its demolition and my own<br />
work on the site all express various<br />
deep paradoxes that coexist and<br />
resonate at every magnitude of the<br />
place, and i think of human consciousness<br />
itself.<br />
Dozens of window grids covering<br />
the northern end of the prison<br />
building provided me with a point of<br />
entry to the place. My work on the<br />
building consisted in breaking out<br />
certain windows in each grid. The<br />
dark, interior space of the prison ap-
pears through the broken windows,<br />
producing the shadow value of the<br />
images, while the sunlight shining in<br />
the reflective space of the remaining<br />
windows gives the light values. The<br />
images—48 faces in all (one in each<br />
grid of 209 windows)—are directed<br />
towards specific points on the streets<br />
below from which the reflections of<br />
the sun are visible depending on the<br />
hour of the day and the month of the<br />
year, so that the prison becomes like<br />
a giant sundial that doesn’t tell the<br />
time, but instead tells human stories<br />
according to the changes in time,<br />
and ultimately tells of its own dissolution.<br />
i culled the images by observing<br />
the pictorial spaces of the grids<br />
themselves, formed by light gradations<br />
produced by the inconsistencies<br />
of the glass window surfaces as<br />
they reflected the sunlight, and the<br />
many windows already broken out by<br />
prisoners when the jail was in use.<br />
The faces will disappear, one by one,<br />
with the demolition of the building.<br />
i did the onsite work with the<br />
help of a few friends who joined<br />
me in breaking thousands of windows—over<br />
four tons of glass—over<br />
the course of five weeks in June and<br />
July, 2006. Other elements of the<br />
work, such as filming the building’s<br />
ongoing demolition (including the<br />
demolition of the window grids), are<br />
expected to take at least another<br />
year, depending on the progress of<br />
the demolition itself. Kellen Quinn<br />
‘00 came down from new York to<br />
film the onsite work and is creating a<br />
documentary on the project and the<br />
story of the prison.<br />
There is an old saying, “The only<br />
good institution is the asado”—an<br />
argentine style barbeque. in late<br />
October i held an asado as a sort of<br />
opening for the work, inviting everyone<br />
who helped me during the<br />
project, bureaucrats, former political<br />
prisoners, friends, human rights<br />
people, and anyone else who might<br />
like to come to the prison. The city<br />
government closed off the street beside<br />
the jail, and i borrowed a piece<br />
of corrugated metal and a big grill<br />
from the demo workers at the prison.<br />
We set up the parilla in the street,<br />
placed the corrugated metal on the<br />
cobblestones, built a fire, and set to<br />
work grilling about fifty pounds of<br />
meat and one hundred chorizos and<br />
morcillas (blood sausage). a couple<br />
former political prisoners helped my<br />
friend Charlie grill the meat, and we<br />
passed the afternoon gorging ourselves,<br />
drinking wine, chewing the<br />
fat, and looking up at the sequence<br />
of faces as they came to light, and<br />
faded to obscurity with the passage<br />
of the sun. e<br />
Alumni profile<br />
Spring 2007 | 27
Alumni profile<br />
Global Climate<br />
Change<br />
past climates and the future of<br />
carbon emissions and<br />
energy<br />
Peter almasi<br />
Class of 1993<br />
2 | Alumni Magazine<br />
Research and scientific debate<br />
on global climate change has<br />
been a focus of earth science<br />
for decades. Coverage of climate<br />
change and greenhouse gases in<br />
popular media steadily increased<br />
in the 1990s with the design and<br />
implementation of the Kyoto Protocol,<br />
the controversial plan for international<br />
limits on greenhouse gases.<br />
no event, however, thrust climate<br />
change into public consciousness<br />
like Hurricane Katrina. While few<br />
scientists would argue that Katrina<br />
was a direct result of human-caused<br />
global warming, the flurry of media<br />
activity on climate change in the<br />
year since the disaster has finally<br />
communicated that climate change<br />
could be abrupt, devastating, and<br />
incredibly costly. This represented<br />
a major shift in the american perception<br />
of climate change from a<br />
mere extension of the t-shirt season<br />
in the northeast. This article is<br />
designed to provide context to the<br />
current debates on how to address<br />
future climate change by describing<br />
the role of atmospheric carbon<br />
dioxide (CO2) in past climate scenarios.<br />
Only when it is understood<br />
where, why, and how fast climate<br />
has changed in the past is it possible<br />
to predict how future climate might<br />
respond to human activity.<br />
CO2, climate<br />
balance, and the<br />
perspective of<br />
ice ages<br />
The so-called “greenhouse” gases,<br />
including water vapor, carbon<br />
dioxide, and methane, are natural<br />
components of the atmosphere that<br />
affect the balance of incoming and<br />
outgoing solar energy on earth. For<br />
most of earth’s 4.6 billion year history,<br />
greenhouse gases have helped<br />
maintain a surface temperature<br />
within the range of liquid water, a<br />
condition essential for the evolution<br />
and diversification of life. a basic<br />
calculation of earth’s radiative balance<br />
given only its size, reflectivity,<br />
and distance from the Sun yields an<br />
expected surface temperature 33 °C<br />
colder than the actual temperature.<br />
This difference can be attributed to<br />
greenhouse gases. Other planets are<br />
in radiative balance as well, but well<br />
outside the temperature range of<br />
liquid water. While Venus and Mars<br />
likely shared similar climate states<br />
with earth during their formation,<br />
the atmosphere of Venus evolved to<br />
nearly pure CO2 at a balmy 400 °C.<br />
Mars’ atmosphere diffused away to<br />
space, leaving the planet a decidedly<br />
chilly -63 °C.<br />
Detailed reconstructions of past<br />
climates exist for the glacial cycles<br />
of the last million years. ice ages<br />
(glacial) and shorter warm periods<br />
(interglacial) occur roughly every<br />
100,000 years in close association<br />
with the seasonal distributions of<br />
solar energy in the northern hemisphere,<br />
allowing enough winter<br />
snowfall to persist through the summer<br />
to eventually grow continentsize<br />
ice sheets. This is called the<br />
orbital theory of ice ages, and is generally<br />
accepted as a major pacemaker<br />
of glacial cycles. Within ice ages,<br />
abrupt regional climate jumps up to<br />
10 °C have occurred, most likely in<br />
response to the interactions of huge<br />
ice sheets and ocean circulation.<br />
Though the orbital climate influence<br />
(called “forcing”) was mainly<br />
in the northern hemisphere, proxy<br />
records from polar ice cores and<br />
deep-sea sediments indicate that<br />
ice ages were global in extent, and<br />
appear even more closely associated<br />
with atmospheric CO2 concentrations<br />
than orbital forcing. This led<br />
to the theory that CO2 was lowered<br />
by the initial orbitally-driven cooling<br />
via a variety of mechanisms, and<br />
the new lower CO2 equilibrium then<br />
cooled the entire planet by around<br />
4° C. if atmospheric CO2 lowered by<br />
only 100 parts per million (ppm) sustained<br />
global ice ages, could increasing<br />
the concentration 100 ppm or<br />
more warm the planet a comparable<br />
amount? figure 1 shows a 420,000year<br />
ice core record of temperature<br />
and atmospheric CO2 concentration<br />
from antarctica, showing the<br />
close relation between atmospheric<br />
CO2 and temperature variations.<br />
Decreasing atmospheric CO2 is the
temperature deviation ( °c)<br />
figure 1<br />
Global ice age records from the Vostok Antarctic ice core. Temperature changes (°C) and<br />
atmospheric CO2 (ppm) appear to occur in synchrony in this diagram, but temperature<br />
slightly leads the CO2 change, implying the role of CO2 as an amplifier of orbitally-driven<br />
climate change. Ice ages (glacial), are characterized by abrupt swings in climate, in contrast<br />
to relatively stable warm periods (interglacial). ~ Petit et al., Nature, 1999<br />
mechanism believed to amplify an<br />
initial northern hemisphere cooling<br />
and turn it into a global ice age.<br />
note our present position in this<br />
natural climate cycle. examining<br />
figure 1, we might expect the next<br />
ice age to begin shortly, given that<br />
we have enjoyed our present interglacial<br />
longer than our ancestors<br />
may have in the last few interglacial<br />
periods. in fact, while scientists had<br />
long suspected increasing CO2 could<br />
result in global warming, in the 1970s<br />
a global cooling seemed far more<br />
likely, even imminent. figure 2 illustrates<br />
one of the reasons for the<br />
atmospheric co2 (ppm)<br />
change in scientific emphasis. The<br />
startling run-up in atmospheric CO2<br />
is evident in records from Mauna<br />
Loa by the late Dr. Charles Keeling.<br />
a comparison of atmospheric CO2<br />
concentrations prior to human influence<br />
(from the ice core), and the<br />
Keeling curve shows that current<br />
CO2 is elevated well off the chart of<br />
pre-industrial, natural variability. if<br />
atmospheric CO2 can modify global<br />
temperature to the extent past climate<br />
records suggest, its buildup in<br />
the atmosphere suggests that the<br />
coming of the next ice age isn’t as<br />
pressing as it once appeared!<br />
figure 2<br />
Increases in atmospheric CO2 as a result of fossil fuel burning, as measured by Dr. Keeling<br />
on Mauna loa in Hawaii. The wiggles in the curve are the annual cycle of photosynthesis<br />
and respiration in the northern hemisphere. The analogy of these cycles as the “breathing”<br />
of the biosphere is a popular view of the interaction between life on Earth and planetaryscale<br />
features. ~ C.D. Keeling, Scripps Institute of Oceanography (through 1971)<br />
atmospheric co2 (ppm)<br />
380<br />
370<br />
360<br />
350<br />
340<br />
330<br />
320<br />
l<br />
1960<br />
l<br />
1970<br />
l<br />
1980<br />
date (ad)<br />
l<br />
1990<br />
l<br />
2000<br />
Climate since the last<br />
ice age<br />
Other factors can affect global<br />
or regional climate on shorter<br />
time scales, such as changes in<br />
heat-transporting ocean currents,<br />
volcanic dust, and changes in the<br />
brightness of the Sun. Since the<br />
current interglacial period began<br />
11,500 years ago, the largest centennial<br />
to millennial scale climate cycles<br />
reconstructed for the northern<br />
Hemisphere are in the north atlantic,<br />
around 1-2 °C. figure 3 shows<br />
a climate record from the north<br />
atlantic region compared with a<br />
proxy for solar activity derived from<br />
tree rings. Though there are periods<br />
of poor matches, it appears as if a<br />
large portion of a 1000-2000 year climate<br />
cycle in the north atlantic was<br />
somehow influenced by changes in<br />
solar activity.<br />
in the last 2000 years, past climate<br />
records get much more detailed. Reconstructions<br />
of climate of the last<br />
2000 years are available from preserved<br />
marine plankton, tree rings,<br />
ice cores, pollen records, and many<br />
other independent proxies. in the<br />
north atlantic region, proxies and<br />
historical evidence suggest a Medieval<br />
Warm Period peaking 1000<br />
years ago, followed by a Little ice<br />
age, its coldest periods occurring between<br />
1550-1850. figure 4 shows a<br />
northern Hemisphere temperature<br />
record reconstructed from a variety<br />
of proxy data. The annual average<br />
northern Hemisphere meteorological<br />
record is also shown, current<br />
through november, 2006.<br />
Understanding the<br />
role of CO2 in future<br />
climate<br />
Climate records of the last ~1000<br />
years can be simulated using<br />
computer models incorporating so-<br />
Alumni profile<br />
Spring 2007 | 2
Alumni profile<br />
0 | Alumni Magazine<br />
l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l<br />
2000 4000 6000 8000 10000<br />
calendar years before present<br />
figure 3<br />
A reconstruction of North Atlantic climate (blue) and solar activity (green) for the last<br />
11,500 years. Peaks represent warm intervals. ~ Bond et al., Science, 2001<br />
lar, volcanic, and greenhouse gas<br />
changes. Solar and volcanic activity,<br />
though dominant in abrupt change<br />
in the north atlantic over the last<br />
11,500 years, have not varied as expected<br />
if they dominated the observational<br />
climate record of the last<br />
100 years. That leaves greenhouse<br />
gases as the only available forcing<br />
with enough power to explain the<br />
current warming.<br />
The majority of workers in the<br />
field agree that a doubling of CO2<br />
(560 ppm) from pre-industrial levels<br />
(280 ppm) would cause disruptive<br />
climate change within 100 years on<br />
a scale that would leave virtually no<br />
population, ecology, or economy un-<br />
affected. estimates of global average<br />
warming in response to a doubling<br />
of CO2 range from 3-5°C, a range<br />
easily large enough to raise sea levels<br />
tens of meters, cause droughts,<br />
melting of permafrost, and general<br />
ecological disaster. Given that CO2<br />
concentrations are nearly halfway to<br />
580 ppm, projected emissions rates<br />
indicate only 50 years remain to not<br />
just reduce but completely eliminate<br />
emission of CO2.<br />
Before the possibility of human<br />
influence on atmospheric CO2 was<br />
first identified in the last 1800s, it<br />
was never envisioned there would be<br />
enough coal or oil burned to exceed<br />
its absorption in the oceans and<br />
figure 4<br />
Northern Hemisphere temperature anomaly reconstructed from tree rings and date (AD).<br />
The detailed record (red) and smoothed record (blue) clearly show the Medieval Warm Period<br />
and little Ice ages, the last of the 1000-2000 year cycles that have characterized North<br />
Atlantic climate since the end of the last ice age. The instrumental Northern Hemisphere<br />
temperature record (purple) has been overlaid for comparison. ~ Moberg et al., Nature, 2005<br />
0.8 —<br />
0.6 —<br />
°c) (<br />
0.4 —<br />
0.2 —<br />
0.0 —<br />
temp<br />
-0.2 —<br />
-0.4 —<br />
-0.6 —<br />
hemisphere<br />
-0.8 —<br />
-1.0 —<br />
-1.2 — l l l l l l l l l l l Northern<br />
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000<br />
biosphere. Before huge reserves of<br />
oil were discovered with new technology<br />
and geologic understanding,<br />
it was speculated that fossil fuels<br />
would become scarce and expensive<br />
before CO2 reached “dangerous” levels.<br />
Today, high and volatile natural<br />
gas prices, persistent demand for<br />
power in the US, and explosive development<br />
in China are fuelling a<br />
boom in coal-fired electrical generation,<br />
a sector responsible for nearly<br />
half of global carbon emissions.<br />
While alternative/renewable energy<br />
sources such as wind, solar,<br />
and ethanol are enjoying growth in a<br />
strong subsidy environment, it is not<br />
yet feasible to implement them on a<br />
scale to serve as baseload electrical<br />
generation at current levels of consumption.<br />
environmental financial<br />
markets such as european Union<br />
carbon trading appear the quickest<br />
way to reduce carbon emissions, but<br />
their most ambitious cuts represent<br />
less than 1/5 the projected growth<br />
of emissions from coal power plants<br />
in the non–participating nations of<br />
USa, india, and China. While the issues<br />
of radioactive waste and nuclear<br />
proliferation are major drawbacks,<br />
nuclear power will almost certainly<br />
play a substantial role if CO2 emissions<br />
from the power sector are to<br />
be eliminated. The new pebble-bed<br />
reactors under development in the<br />
US, China, and South africa promise<br />
smaller, safer, scaleable power<br />
systems. it remains to be seen how<br />
the research, environmental, and<br />
regulatory communities will balance<br />
the challenges of long-term climate<br />
change and an entirely new energy<br />
infrastructure.<br />
Further information<br />
For climate science at the cutting<br />
edge, visit realclimate.org. Further<br />
reading about the discovery of global<br />
warming may be found at: www.aip.<br />
org/history/climate/index.html. e
what would steiner say?<br />
Puppetry<br />
A Remedy for<br />
Civilization’s<br />
IllS BY<br />
The title is from Rudolf Steiner who<br />
referred to puppetry as a remedy<br />
for civilization’s ills. Having seen<br />
many, many <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
puppet shows, I always had a feeling<br />
there was a lot more going on than met<br />
the eye. (One thing I learned quickly was<br />
that the performances are not “shows,”<br />
not entertainment, but are designed to<br />
have a greater, deeper impact on the<br />
child than something designed simply<br />
for entertainment purposes.)<br />
Steiner devoted himself to puppetry in<br />
1917. Of course, puppetry itself goes back<br />
a long way to ancient Egyptian times and<br />
can be found in most cultures. Puppetry<br />
at first was the domain of adults, not children,<br />
and it proved to be a fun, artistic<br />
way to convey, again for the adult world<br />
only, commentary on the life and politics<br />
of the time. And it was not for all adults<br />
at the beginning. It was reserved for the<br />
“upper echelon” of society, the priests and<br />
priestesses, royalty and the Church. The<br />
word “marionette”—the puppet worked<br />
through strings—comes from Mary and<br />
the story of the Nativity, a very popular<br />
theme for puppet performances of yore.<br />
During the 18th and19th centuries the<br />
adult grasp on puppetry began to slip as<br />
puppet performances started to appear<br />
at children’s birthday parties. From then<br />
on the emphasis of puppetry was toward<br />
the child more than the adult.<br />
In 1917 Steiner was living in an apartment<br />
building in Berlin where there was<br />
also a day care center for children 4-12<br />
years old. The center, sponsored by the<br />
Berlin branch of the Anthroposophical<br />
Society, became involved with puppetry<br />
with the building of a marionette theater.<br />
ED BIEBER, GREEN MEADOW PARENT<br />
When Steiner was asked for advice about<br />
this theater he became so fascinated with<br />
it that he devoted his full attention for an<br />
entire year to working with and guiding<br />
all aspects of it. He went to all the rehearsals<br />
and gave indications as to colors,<br />
materials, paint, stage settings, costumes,<br />
lighting, etc.<br />
What was the calling, the fascination?<br />
Remember that this was a tragic time in<br />
Europe, a devastating time during the last<br />
phases of the war. “The task of this marionette<br />
theater was to give a concrete example<br />
of the spiritual impulse of Middle<br />
Europe against the flood of western ways.”<br />
~Dr. Helmut von Kügelgen<br />
Steiner spoke often about renewal<br />
from the living arts and how our hope lies<br />
in educating the children.<br />
One of the main differences between<br />
<strong>Waldorf</strong> marionettes and others is that<br />
there is no crosspiece that the puppeteer<br />
uses to manipulate the strings. The strings<br />
are held by the puppeteer, ensouling the<br />
puppets, directing them from above. The<br />
workings of the marionettes are seen as<br />
coming from another being or beings.<br />
And the puppeteer is not hidden behind<br />
a stage or other barrier but is seen by the<br />
entire audience as he or she guides the<br />
puppet.<br />
At <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>, all puppets are<br />
handmade by the teachers and real<br />
thought is given to this endeavor. Colors<br />
are carefully chosen as are the kinds and<br />
styles of fabrics. Silk, colored with plant<br />
dye, is one favorite fabric because there<br />
is a living quality about it. A puppet may<br />
have both a dress and a veil, the dress<br />
denoting the inner qualities and the veil<br />
the outer, more worldlier manifestations.<br />
It’s always amazing to me that for each year of my, so far, 22year<br />
connection with <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>, I discover something<br />
new about <strong>Waldorf</strong> education that astounds me, that allows<br />
me anew to appreciate the depths upon which this education<br />
is founded. Such was the case again when I interviewed<br />
Lyn Barton and Lisa Miccio about the role of puppetry in the<br />
kindergarten.<br />
The puppets do not have faces so as to<br />
encourage a child’s imagination.<br />
Steiner was very clear about some<br />
things, i.e., “Marionettes cannot speak!”<br />
So the fairy or folk tales are read from a<br />
golden book by someone “pretty” sitting<br />
in a beautiful chair. The mood is first set<br />
by music, a candle is lit and then three different<br />
colored veils are lifted so as to give<br />
the sense of removing the stage from the<br />
everyday, from the worldly.<br />
The marionette experience is meant to<br />
bring children—and adults—the truth.<br />
It is to show children that we, as adults,<br />
have not forgotten the spiritual wisdom<br />
and the truths connected to them. (So<br />
much attention is given to every part of<br />
the puppet experience so as to elicit a<br />
soul response from the children.)<br />
When you watch children at a performance<br />
they literally sit with their mouths<br />
open, drinking in all that is before them.<br />
And for weeks afterward, back in their<br />
classrooms (as well as at home), they can<br />
be seen “playing” puppets and moving<br />
the figures with reverence. They, indeed,<br />
take it in very deeply.<br />
Our kindergarten teachers have been<br />
taking their puppets “on the road” as an<br />
outreach effort for the last two years hoping<br />
to bring an awareness of the healing<br />
qualities of puppetry.<br />
Most recently, a GMWS presentation of<br />
The Girl Who Spun Gold was performed at<br />
the Nyack library in March. e<br />
Spring 2007 |
contributors<br />
Jennie Abbott ’91 graduated from Smith<br />
College in 1995. She lives in Berkeley (where<br />
she doesn’t own a car), and strives to balance<br />
her computer-oriented work life as a technical<br />
writer with singing and socializing. She also<br />
has a communication hobby that includes the<br />
annual ’91 class alumni update and website,<br />
as well as websites for other organizations for<br />
which she volunteers. She is proud to have<br />
copyedited (with her father) two of John Hoffman’s<br />
Buzzy books! When not tied to her work<br />
commitments, Jennie spends as much time as<br />
she can traveling the world.<br />
Peter Almasi ‘93 was excited to learn that<br />
earth science yielded the opportunity to work<br />
on some of the most difficult and complex<br />
problems in the natural world. After 9 years of<br />
graduate school, he is interested in applying<br />
the scientific perspective of climate change to<br />
business models which can accurately value<br />
greenhouse gas emissions in an increasingly<br />
restrictive global regulatory environment. He<br />
is currently a student at Lamont-Doherty Earth<br />
Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades,<br />
NY, and hopes to finish his Ph.D. this summer.<br />
Katie Battles ’99 graduated from the<br />
Museum <strong>School</strong> of Fine Arts in Boston. From<br />
there she traveled through Ireland on her bicycle.<br />
Upon her return she moved to California<br />
for a year where she was a kindergarten assistant<br />
for the <strong>Waldorf</strong> <strong>School</strong> of the Peninsula.<br />
Since then, she has worked with a studio potter<br />
in the Catskill Mountains and assists in the<br />
Child’s Garden and After Care programs here<br />
at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>. Katie is working towards<br />
becoming an Art Therapist.<br />
Ed Bieber has children ranging in age from<br />
2 to 22, all of whom have gone to GMWS, are<br />
presently attending GMWS or will be attending<br />
GMWS when old enough. He is a friend<br />
of Mother Nature, as evidenced by his directing<br />
the Nature Place Day Camp for the last 22<br />
years at <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong>, as well as having a<br />
last name that rhymes with ‘beaver’. Many<br />
years ago he gave up correcting people when<br />
called ‘Mr. Beaver’. It’s only natural.<br />
Anna Booth ’99 went off to art school starting<br />
at Munson Williams Proctor Institute and finishing<br />
at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2003.<br />
Some adventures and highlights following art<br />
school include traveling to Hong Kong and Cebu<br />
in the Philippines and forging new friendships<br />
in New Haven, CT. She has followed in her<br />
mother’s footsteps as a natural foods grocery<br />
buyer. Currently Anna is back in Brooklyn NY living<br />
with close pals (some GMWS grads), developing<br />
a growing art practice on the weekends<br />
and by night, while handling contemporary<br />
art at Phillips auction house by day. Occasional<br />
teaching at GMWS over the last two years has<br />
inspired and fueled her own work.<br />
David Bosch ’85 lives and works in NY. He<br />
has served on the GMWS Alumni Committee<br />
since 1999. He is helping his father, Will, set up<br />
the farm he recently bought upstate.<br />
Defne Bayrak Caldwell was a member of<br />
the GMWS class of 1987 from its earliest days.<br />
She did her undergraduate studies at Boston<br />
University and earned a Master’s degree from<br />
Fairleigh Dickinson University. She taught<br />
writing at Ramapo High <strong>School</strong> and Ramapo<br />
College in New Jersey. She is a GMWS High<br />
<strong>School</strong> English teacher.<br />
Beth Dunn-Fox was raised and educated in<br />
California, studied ballet, character and modern<br />
dance, and performed on the West Coast,<br />
in Louisiana and Colorado. After graduating<br />
from Eurythmy Spring Valley in ’86, she joined<br />
the performing ensemble and soon took over<br />
the development work for the <strong>School</strong> and<br />
Ensemble. She performed for 16 years with<br />
the Ensemble throughout the US, Canada and<br />
Europe and has taught many courses for the<br />
public and within the eurythmy training. Her<br />
daughter, Sophia, is a GMWS First Grader.<br />
Mark Finser ’78 is the president & CEO of<br />
RSF Social Finance, a financial services nonprofit<br />
organization in San Francisco providing<br />
investing, lending, and philanthropic services<br />
to create a sustainable future. Visit www.rsfsocialfinance.org<br />
or call (415) 561-3900. Mark<br />
enjoys long conversations about philosophy,<br />
money, and spirit. Gardening, meditation, and<br />
engaging in good-natured pranks also grab his<br />
attention. Mark and his wife, Heidi, live outside<br />
San Francisco with their two children, Yohanna<br />
and Benjamin.<br />
Education Towards Freedom<br />
Forwarding sErvicE rEquEsTEd<br />
Mimi Satriano worked in the high school<br />
office for seven years. When a student pointed<br />
out to her that she was never going to “graduate”<br />
she moved to the kindergarten and eventually<br />
graduated in 1991 to the Threefold Educational<br />
Foundation where she now cares for<br />
47 buildings, among other duties. She is the<br />
mother of two <strong>Waldorf</strong> graduates, Maureen<br />
’88 and Nicholas ’90, and grandmother of four<br />
potential <strong>Waldorf</strong> students.<br />
Danielle Scherer ’07 is a GMWS senior.<br />
She is looking forward to her last months at<br />
GMWS and all that they entail. She is also<br />
looking forward to what next year may bring<br />
her, out there in the wide, wide world.<br />
Erin Schirm ’07 writes: I am a senior at<br />
GMWS. Mrs. Wulsin was my class teacher.<br />
I am interested in becoming a teacher and<br />
studying education in college. Most of all, I like<br />
to run. I compete in track and cross country<br />
and would like to run DI in college. I grew up in<br />
the community and have learned and gained<br />
from what it had to offer. I look forward to the<br />
future and what it has in store.<br />
Julika Stackelberg-Addo grew up in<br />
Heidelberg, Germany where she attended the<br />
Freie <strong>Waldorf</strong> Schule. After high school she<br />
moved to South Africa where she assisted in<br />
several <strong>Waldorf</strong> kindergartens. She enrolled<br />
in Sunbridge’s Orientation Year before moving<br />
to the University of London where she earned<br />
her BA in African Studies and Development<br />
Studies in 2002. After a year working with<br />
an international development organization in<br />
the US, she returned to Sunbridge College as<br />
Development Director.<br />
Alexis Starkey is a “<strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong> Lifer;”<br />
she started Kindergarten with Nancy Lindeman<br />
at 3 years of age and managed to graduate in<br />
1991. She currently resides in Washington, DC<br />
where she graduated from George Washington<br />
University. When she is not busy throwing<br />
theme parties, Alexis manages public relations<br />
for the American Health Care Association.<br />
Candace Stern was GMWS’s first Development<br />
Officer. She was co-founder and editor<br />
of the GMWS Bulletin from ’88-’94 and served<br />
as chair and member of the <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Meadow</strong><br />
Advisory Board from 1997-2005. She is now<br />
the Alumni Magazine’s editor. Her daughter is<br />
Caitlin ’03.<br />
Peter Wiesner’s involvement in the natural<br />
food movement began in 1975 when he joined<br />
11 other college students in creating a co-operatively<br />
owned and operated natural food store<br />
and vegetarian restaurant. In the early 80’s,<br />
after graduating from the <strong>Waldorf</strong> Institute in<br />
Detroit (now Sunbridge College), he came to<br />
Spring Valley to manage Weleda’s retail store.<br />
His current connection to the Co-op arose as a<br />
result of designing and building displays for the<br />
renovated store. In addition to working with<br />
wood and food, he loves acting, most recently<br />
playing Caliban in the Threefold production of<br />
The Tempest.<br />
Seth Wulsin ’00 has spent most of his time<br />
since leaving high school playing music and<br />
doing sculpture. In 2004, after working with the<br />
sculptor, Ray King, in Philadelphia, he moved to<br />
Brooklyn for a year. In late 2005 he jumped ship<br />
and flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina where he is<br />
currently sniffing out new projects. e<br />
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