Nancy Foster has been a Waldorf kindergarten teacher since 1973 at Acorn Hill Waldorf Kindergarten and Nursery in Silver Spring, Maryland, where she now works with parents and children in parent/ child groups. She also lectures, offers workshops for teachers at Waldorf kindergarten conferences, serves as a mentor for new teachers, and is on the visiting faculty of Sunbridge Institute in Spring Valley, New York.
She is the author/editor of two collections of seasonal music and verse, Let Us Form a Ring and Dancing as We Sing, as well as the new book In a Nutshell. Dialogues with Parents at Acorn Hill, A Waldorf Kindergarten. Her books are available from the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, www.waldorfearlychildhood.org.
She and her husband, a professional musician, encountered Waldorf education and Anthroposophy while seeking a school for their two sons, now grown. Nancy writes in In a Nutshell:
When I was a young parent, I once complained to a respected mentor, "I wish I were older and wiser so I could be a better parent." "Well, just think," she responded, "if you were older you wouldn't have nearly as much energy." Our children demand the best we have to offer, and many times that "best" does not seem good enough. We can easily become discouraged and frustrated; we may feel we are failing our children, whom we love so much. Since meeting Waldorf education and the work of Rudolf Steiner, I have had many reasons to feel grateful, both as a parent and as a teacher. Of particular help and inspiration has been an insight he offered in various contexts and which I would like to share here as I understand it: In living and working with children, it is not perfection we need. Rather, it is our striving to become better, to develop our capacities, that really nourishes those in our care.
It seems to me the very idea of "perfection" can convey a sense of coldness, of rigidity, of fixedness. Striving, however, brings warmth and movement, which can encourage our children and provide a wonderful example of the essence of what it is to be a human being: the capacity to grow and change, to learn, to exert ourselves for the sake of others. Such honest, consistent striving is, I believe, one of the greatest gifts we can offer our children. Of course our children, too, are constantly growing and learning--so it seems we will never catch up! May you enjoy the journey. Nothing can be more worthwhile.
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