Active citizenship isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a life path that can be cultivated from a young age.

That’s exactly what Ann Cleveland, a Waldorf educator, dives into with us. In our conversation she takes a deep look at how arts-infused education transforms kids into engaged citizens.

Forget the boring lectures about democracy; here, kids are living it through music, movement, and storytelling. Ann shares how children practice collaboration and empathy every single day in the classroom, honing the skills they’ll need to navigate the complex social fabric of the world around them.

This isn’t just enrichment; it’s the core of their learning experience! Ann emphasizes how arts integrated education helps kids develop self-regulation and attention – essential tools for any democratic society. Anne paints a picture of the classroom as a vibrant community where every voice matters, and every action has purpose.

As we riff on the importance of rhythm and repetition, we discover that it’s not just about keeping kids entertained; it’s about grounding them in their bodies and helping them learn to connect with others. Ann’s insights on how the Waldorf approach fosters a sense of belonging and interdependence are not just fascinating; they’re vital in today’s world where the idea of community often feels fractured. So, grab your paintbrush or a musical instrument, and let’s explore how the arts are more than just a creative outlet—they’re a pathway to active, engaged citizenship!

Notable Mentions

People

• Anne Cleveland: Waldorf educator, musician, and movement teacher interviewed in this episode about arts-infused education, sensory integration, and democratic practice.
• Rudolf Steiner: Austrian thinker and founder of anthroposophy whose educational ideas led to Waldorf schooling.
• Elsa Gotkins: Waldorf educator and mentor cited by Anne Cleveland for her approach to teaching students to listen closely and make non-judgmental observations in music.
• Bill Cleveland: Host of Art Is Change and director of the Center for the Study of Art & Community.
• Judy Munsen: Composer and sound designer for Art Is Change.
• Andre Nnebe: Text editor for Art Is Change.

Places

• Santa Cruz Waldorf School: California Waldorf school cited by Anne Cleveland as her current teaching community.
• Association of Waldorf Schools of North America: North American membership organization for independent Waldorf schools and institutes; a reliable overview source for Waldorf education in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
• Center for the Study of Art & Community: Producing organization behind Art Is Change.

Events / Practices

• Waldorf Education: Arts-integrated educational approach referenced throughout the episode, emphasizing developmental stages, imagination, embodiment, and community life.
• May Faire / school festivals at Santa Cruz Waldorf School: School-based festivals and seasonal rituals, including the Maypole tradition Anne discusses as part of rhythm, anticipation, and shared community practice.
• Santa Cruz Waldorf School curriculum: Official school description of its class-teacher model and holistic developmental curriculum, closely aligned with what Anne describes in the interview.
• Waldorf Class Plays: Annual whole-class theater productions discussed in the interview as a recurring exercise in collaboration, responsibility, and shared purpose.
• Seed Song: Anne Cleveland’s improvised classroom music-and-movement exercise that helped a dysregulated group of children settle, imagine, and reconnect.

Publications

• Helping Children on Their Way: Educational Support for the Classroom — Elizabeth Auer, editor: Collection of classroom support essays on helping children with varied learning and developmental needs.
• Games Children Play: How Games and Sport Help Children Develop — Kim Brooking-Payne: Guide to age-appropriate games and movement activities for children; identified in the transcript as a practical resource Anne uses.
• Free, Equal and Mutual: Rebalancing Society for the Common Good — Martin Large and Steve Briault, editors: Anthology on Steiner’s threefold social ideas and their relevance to public life and the common good.
• A Practical Guide to Curative Education: The Ladder of the Seven Life Processes — Robyn M. Brown: Practical guide for educators working with children facing developmental and learning challenges.

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Art Is CHANGE is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Hey there. How can an arts infused education support active citizenship in a democracy?

In this conversation, my sister, Waldorf educator, musician and movement teacher Ann Cleveland explores that question from inside the classroom.

Rather than treating citizenship as a set of rules or ideals to be taught later, she describes an approach where children practice the underlying capacities of democratic life every day through music, movement, storytelling, collaboration, and shared creative work.

From rhythm and ritual to improvisation and play, Waldorf education integrates the arts into every subject, not as enrichment, but as the primary medium through which children learn to focus on, listen, express themselves and work with others.

The classroom becomes a lived community where students repeatedly experience what it means to contribute, to wait, to respond, and find balance between self and group.

Now, in this episode, you'll hear how arts integrated learning builds the foundational capacities attention, empathy, self regulation, and imagination that make democratic participation possible.

How practices like music making, storytelling, and yearly class plays create opportunities for collaboration, responsibility, and most importantly, shared purpose.

And how rhythm, repetition, and developmental awareness help regulate the nervous system and support children in moving out of fight or Flight into Presence and connection. Part 1 what is a Waldorf school? And Cleveland, great name. Welcome to the show.

Come right on in, Come right on in. I will introduce this whole thing by telling people that this is nepotism at the highest level.

Okay.

But yeah, you can introduce yourself and. And also, please tell us, what is your work in the world?

Okay. My name is Ann Cleveland and I am currently a Waldorf teacher.

A private school that is based on a certain set of principles and they are international, they're all over the world. And I'm a musician, I'm a teacher, I'm a movement educator.

And at this time, I primarily work with children, but I also work with adults in all those capacities as well.

Great. I'm going to go a little deeper into this. As a Waldorf educator, what is it you're up to?

I like that.

I would say what I'm up to is researching and presenting and thinking really hard about what helps a person develop the strongest foundation possible to be a productive, positive member of society. So I'm really interested in childhood, so understanding childhood, what children need.

Because as much as they can tell you what they want, they really cannot tell you what they need. And so my job as an educator, I feel educators in general are to really understand that and try to translate.

So I feel like I am a translator, I'm an observer, and I love to see the through line, how to synthesize many different things to find the truth of what children need. And often what I find is that what children need?

It's what everybody needs, just to a different degree or in a different capacity or presented in a different way.

So a significant part of your learning, your own learning, your background and your professional life is music and other art forms. How does this manifest in this school system? Is there something about Waldorf that is particularly focused on art making, on creativity?

It's because it is an arts integrated education, which is different from just having art classes as an extra part of the curriculum. Everything we do, all the academics, the arts are integrated into all of the classes in one way or another.

So how did you end up doing this? How did you come to it?

Well, it's kind of interesting because you were a big part of this, because I came to live with you for a year or so and learned about Waldorf education. Kind of put that in my back pocket. Your kids were going to the Waldorf school.

And then I graduated college and became a full time musician and movement teacher. And at a certain point I decided to investigate this education.

I wasn't sure what the next direction would be, so I went to a training to be a Waldorf teacher, figuring I would either become a Waldorf teacher or I would learn something about myself that would help me in my next steps in life. So I went to the training and I think I just from it was like I was drinking the water.

I was just loved every aspect of it, working with the arts, understanding how they relate to learning. And it was just the beginning of my Waldorf journey. But I really loved it and that all the teachers I encountered were amazing.

So now we've referred to Waldorf education numerous times, and there's more there than just, oh, it's a private school that has arts integrated in it. And there's a lot to say about it. But could you share a capsule version of what sets Waldorf apart?

Yes. This is the great challenge of my life. I love this question.

I would say that the Waldorf number one, it is a private school in the United States, but it is more of a publicly funded school in other countries. It is an education that I said is arts integrated, but it is based on a very deep understanding of the developmental stages of children.

We're giving what I would say the right food at the right time instead of worrying about test scores. And cramming more information younger and younger. It's about really understanding what children need. It's an education built on a set of principles.

One of those is quality over quantity. Instead of more and more, it's how are you teaching? What are you teaching? Is it what the children need?

It's an education that recognizes the individuality of children as very specific and very unique and a very integrated part of your classroom. So when you're teaching, you're creating lessons and then creating sort of sub lessons for children to really meet their needs.

One of the most unique aspects of Waldorf education is that the teacher, ideally, is with the students from first grade all the way through eighth grade. So you develop this bond with the teacher. You have a deep knowledge as a teacher of the children. You see them in all different stages.

Every year they come back new little individuals after the summer. They've evolved, they've changed. And they also have their unique qualities that are always with them.

That is an amazing experience to be able to be with the children for that amount of time. You end up being almost like a second parent or an aunt or an uncle.

It's a closer relationship than just having them for one year and then sending them to the next teacher.

And the Waldorf community is a little different than a regular public school. Right. And in terms of creativity, but also roles of parents, the relationships of parents to the school. You want to say something about that?

Yeah. I have often said that you are not just buying an education for your child. Each classroom is a community.

You have the teacher and the children and then the parents, and you work closely together.

You have a parent meeting maybe once a month or once every two months, but you're working with the parents on all kinds of things, on assemblies, on fairs and festivals. Maybe there's a play that the class is putting on, which they do every single year. So you're working closely with the parents, and.

And then the teachers are meeting weekly to talk about issues at the school, to plan fairs and festivals. So the whole school is a huge community with many different moving parts. But it is incredible how it works together. And it's a lot.

It's not just send your kids to school. It's. You are now part of something very substantial.

Yeah. And speaking about many parts, could you talk about the head and the heart and the hand as it relates to what we're talking about here?

Yeah.

Well, when we're teaching and preparing our lessons, we're thinking about these three different aspects of learning, which are the thinking, the heart, the Feeling realm, and then just the physical realm.

So when we're talking about child development, something that's very unique about Waldorf is understanding which of those three realms are at the forefront. So what are we trying to meet? So in the child, from 0 to 7, you are meeting more the physical development of the child.

So you're not trying to psychologize them. You're really just giving them activities that help them develop their will, really working with their physical body.

From 7 to 14, which is the elementary school year ages, you are working more with the feeling realm. And so when you engage children, you're not trying to engage them through an intellectual process, or here's a bunch of information.

You are engaging them through the arts.

And that's the magic of Waldorf education as we are finding the right doorway to be able to engage the children to take in whatever you're teaching in a way that they can take it in.

So I always have this little story of when you go on a vacation, you come back and you tell people, oh, we did this and we did that, and we had this great meal, or we saw this great thing. And that's what we're trying to invoke, is education that goes in a way that is not just you memorize a list of words, but that it's in you.

In that example, the child is reflecting their experience through a story, which I think is the way humans naturally process and share ideas and information, where stories connect experience to memory and understanding, which is learning.

Yeah, it's an experience.

So I think that's another way to say that Waldorf education is an experiential education, meeting the developmental stages in the way that a child can digest what's coming to them and that they can utilize it in the best way possible.

There are two things that I struggled with when I was a kid, and that is multiplication tables and parts of speech.

And when I saw Waldorf students in circles doing a rhythmic dance that coincided with the multiplication tables, I immediately wanted to jump up and get in there with them, because it made sense to my brain. Okay, now I got that the embodied multiplication table is a lot easier than the memorized multiplication table.

And the other one was seeing the parts of speech in color on the blackboard so that you could see that. That blue thing and that red thing. One of them is a noun, and one of them is a verb. And. And it made me feel safe.

And it just meets those kids in a place that is perfectly natural and normal for them, which is to see the world through Their senses, through their bodies, through all these different ways in which patterns occur in the world.

Yeah. What it brought to mind is just the idea of sensory integration as a huge part of what we do in the Waldorf School.

And the other thing is that our classrooms are creating an atmosphere that creates safety. And it's not just emotional safety. It's. We strive to have very little clutter.

We have colors that are calming and are also related to the stage of development that they're in. And so when you walk into a Waldorf classroom, I know, I feel this the first time I did, you just take a breath. It's this idea of beauty and balance.

And so that the focus isn't on all these, like, little pieces of paper. It's the focus is really on this calm place.

And the thing is that as a teacher, the art of education is the understanding that your demeanor, your mood, you set that feeling in the classroom. And the more relaxed and grounded that you are as a teacher.

And obviously, there's times when you might be upset about something, but for the teacher, it's a path of self development, of how to bring yourself to calm and be able to see the whole picture, to understand. Maybe the class is really crazy and things are a little out of control, but you listen, what are they talking about?

As opposed to, okay, everybody just gotta get everybody under control. You're paying attention to what's going on, and you're creating this calmness.

Somebody was talking about a kindergarten teacher who, just by her presence, the children were so calm. And to understand the power of your energy and how that works with the children, that's a lifelong study in the classroom.

You go through your own emotional stages and working with that and understanding how that affects children. They are responding to your energy.

Part two, Art Education and democracy.

So one of the reasons we're having this conversation is that I have been struggling mightily over the last few years with the idea that we live in a community that advances a very, very powerful and demanding idea as the core of what makes a community and what makes a citizen a member of the community. And it has very old roots. It's called democracy. But my worry has always been that we don't really practice that growing up.

And I'm not talking about indoctrination.

I'm talking about learning a way of being in the world with other people in order to hear and listen and include all different ways of thinking and experiencing and communicating and coming to grips with what needs to get done, having ideas, moving them forward together as a Community. And my experience is, in a lot of places is that you can't just throw a bunch of humans together and say, okay, go do stuff that it takes work.

It takes practice. Little kids are trying to figure it out all the time in the sandbox.

And my question to you is how Waldorf education can exercise the muscles of citizenship and the processes that we need to learn about give and take and expression and communication and listening that make up this thing we call democracy.

And I know that Waldorf isn't set up as a democratic democracy camp, so I may be asking you to put a round peg in a square hole, but I'm just interested in what's happening to these kids in a way that may or may not prepare them for the demands of the crazy world that we're operating in now these days.

There's so many different ways that Waldorf can prepare a citizen to be a positive influence in the world, whether it's in a little tiny way or a huge way. The whole school is a collaboration. The whole school is a community.

The overarching concept around those things is that you matter and that everything you do matters in the classroom.

So the plays are such a wonderful aspect of Waldorf education because every year from first grade through eighth grade, there's a play, and at younger grades, they're doing group course recitation, and then as they get older, they do their individual parts. But once again, from scratch. You've got making scenery, you have making props, you have learning your lines.

You have all aspects of just putting on a play, and it's like raising the roof. Like, every single year, you're raising the roof.

But it's not just a school play, is it? My understanding is that every student in every class is involved in playmaking, and every year.

So a core aspect of being part of the school is joining together and making theater that often explores some aspect of what they're learning and other aspects of the curriculum.

Right.

And it's an incredible production, and it's one of my favorite aspects.

I want to see all the plays of every single grade because you get to see the personalities of the children as they get older and the teacher in casting the play.

I think I spent weeks thinking about what role would really help this child, what role suits them as to who they are, what role will push them into something that they might be a little bit shy about. So the play's a huge group process, and they bring the community together. Everybody comes to see the play.

When you're a kid in a class, of course, You're a part of a little community, and that manifests in every class and every school in the world.

But this idea that you have this cycle where every year you have an enterprise that you're going to be entering into as a group and you're going to be a part of it, and the larger community is going to be your audience. And that happens over and over again, and it can't get done without everybody pulling their weight.

Where it's not just about me, which as children develop, is one of their struggles. You know, where do I begin and where do other people leave off? Right. And how do you learn and practice patience with others?

Yeah. That reminded me of the focus on rhythm and tradition and all those things that children will look forward to.

So the school that I teach at the Santa Cruz Waldorf School in California, we have the Maypole dance that happens in the sixth grade.

So every single class knows that in the sixth grade they're going to be learning this set of dances, and the seventh and eighth graders know that they're going to be playing the music for those dances. And so it's something that everybody looks forward to. There's lots of festivals and things that are very important. And it.

It's a concept of working with the will, which is learning how to wait for things. So this is a very subtle thing that a child might say, you know what? Tell me the answer to this, or what is this?

And you as a teacher can creatively say, well, think about that. I'll tell you that next Monday. And that might seem like such a small thing, but it's training a child's ability to wait.

And also the sense of rhythm and throughout the day, throughout the weeks, throughout the months and years is essential for children to have this, to feel this sort of safety of this is how things are going to be going. And this is the structure of the day, the structure of the classroom.

When I was talking about providing safety, I feel like I can't really emphasize this enough, just letting their nervous systems relax.

I could write a whole book about ways to sort of help children come to themselves, because working with learning challenges, which is where I find myself now.

Before I was a classroom teacher for 10 years, and now I'm working with the learning challenges, and the number one place to look is how to just relax the nervous system. And in particular, this sensory overload that is happening all around, which is putting kids into fight or flight.

So all these things, they give a child a sense of purpose, a sense of rhythm, a sense of security that is essential.

You know, most people think of democracy as a team sport, which it is.

But effective teamwork, effective democratic practice, also requires individual citizens who have a strong sense of themselves in the world, so they can do that, give and take, dance and maintain their balance. Could you talk about how Waldorf helps individual children find their equilibrium?

So in terms of individual development, the teachers are really conscious of seeing a child's gifts and talents and challenges and struggles and being able to give them the right sort of curriculum that's going to help them move through those things and to understand themselves.

But like I said, with young children, there's this idea of self knowledge that can be gained by working through the arts or working through the physical education curriculum that you're learning about yourself, but in a childlike way. So the arts provide so many opportunities where you meet yourself in a very pure way.

You're not seeing if you did well on a test or did I memorize that list of words. An artistic expression is really just an expression of your inner self. And I feel as a teacher is privileged to be able to see these creations.

And when I said arts, integrated curriculum, you've got painting, you've got drawing, you have putting play productions on, you have projects to be presented. And in terms of self knowledge, you are going to come up against struggles and learn how to get through those.

And the adult teacher has to figure out how much to help and how much to let the child struggle. So that's the art of education. And so as they're working on individual art projects, they're just learning about themselves.

They're coming up against different aspects of themselves. Whether it's group projects or individual projects. You're seeing something from beginning to end, being able to create something from scratch.

I want to just point this out. Waldorf emphasizes doing things from scratch by hand.

So in first grade, they're learning how to knit, but before they learn how to knit, they make their knitting needles. They're carving the needles, they're oiling them. So they're taking pride in the quality of their work.

And I feel like that is something that the arts really give, because any creation that you make, you take pride in it. And the more skilled the teacher is, the more they can help a student really see it from beginning to end and see the whole process.

So there's just self knowledge, there's focus, there's that feeling of engagement, there's perseverance, really finishing something, even though maybe it wasn't your favorite thing or activity.

So one thing that you're Talking about here, maybe in contrast to typical education systems, you talk about the knitting, which may seem to some people maybe a silly thing. I mean, they should be learning how to read, right? But you're focusing here on the idea of the ownership of your learning.

You're introduced to an activity that is a skill, that also has a history, that also has technique and has to be mastered. And all of those things combined are the basic elements of learning.

For everything that you're learning, whether it's algebra or planting a garden or writing and doing research on a serious paper, those components and the degree to which you own your own learning, it seems to me, is so critical.

And if, you know from the get go, you know, I made these little funky needles and I knit this little scarf and I gave it to my mom for her birthday, right? Now, all those things are sweet, but they're also profound.

Yeah.

And if you just follow that pattern.

With each student writing and illustrating their own main lesson textbooks that they move through the year and each student sharing and seeing their unique works and perspectives represented in the safe space classroom, you describe feeling validated and safe enough to be themselves and connect with the rest of the class to make the play or sing a song, which, as a musician, I know you do a lot with your students. Could you talk about how music weaves into all this?

Number one, music is in all of the subjects. It's very common to be teaching math or history or poetry and bring music into the classroom that way.

And every morning you've got the lower grades, all the way through the upper grades, either singing or playing recorder and learning fine motor development, learning to listen to the quality of the music. If you're working on a performance piece.

I remember one of my mentors, Elsa Gotkins, she has passed away, but she would say, okay, now split the class into two and have one group sing or play the recorder and have the other group listen. And you teach them how to make observations that are not judgmental.

And so listening and learning how to listen to music is also just training the listening skills in general. There's so much coming at them in music. The emphasis, of course, is on your producing sound, but it's also on quiet.

So being able to experience that sense of quiet, that's a really huge quiet and stillness. Sometimes running around gets them all riled up.

So music has all these different polarities, you know, loud and soft, and you have to work with your own physical body to produce music. You've got different arts bring children out of themselves, and different arts bring them into themselves. So in music, it's really easy.

You're singing, you're producing sound, and they tend to go up and up. All you have to do, you clap, they'll clap. Rhythm brings them into themselves because they have to listen.

And producing music, they get out of themselves. So you have to find creative, rhythmic ways to bring them back in.

Well, actually, I just want to say that.

Highly biased, and I'm not a neuroscientist or a anthropologist, but it's my understanding that it's very possible that music making predated language acquisition in human development, and that music making at the most basic level requires a very complex set of skills and disciplines that come to you not through the head, but through the heart and the body.

And the head's the last one to catch up, to go, okay, now I'm recognizing that this sound coming out of my body in this way harmonizes with this sound coming out of this other person's body. And I can't do it by myself. And they can't do it by themselves. Right?

Playing the recorder, moving in a particular way, singing in a particular way, remembering the words, doing it together, and feeling. I think, at the end of the day, anybody who sung with other humans, when you sing with another human, you are. It's just. It's transcendent.

And the reason I say this is we're struggling in America with this supposedly simple idea that, well, you know, humans have to get along and compromise and debate and listen in order to find a path forward, whatever, in the city council. And if you haven't really had the experience of doing that, not in a formal way where you're an elected official or something, but just as a kid.

Just give and take, give and take. Figure it out. Listen, figure out where it's supposed to go. Asserting yourself when you need to and stepping back when you need to.

All those kinds of things.

If that's a foreign concept to you, then the whole idea that we're debating these days on cnn, which is whether we have a democracy that's going to survive or not, that's probably lost on you because you don't even know what it is, what it takes.

Well, something about music that I think is very unique is that there's a slow progression of being able to just sing something, hear it, reproduce it, and then to be able to hold on to your note while someone else is singing something different.

So right about third grade, that's when a child is actually ready to be able to sing a round or a canon where you're singing the same song at different times. And that is the development of the self. To be able to. And this is what you're talking about.

To be able to have a conversation where you have an opinion or a point, but you're able to hold on to that and don't feel threatened by someone else having a different opinion. You can have a dialogue. So music is about dialogue, which is what you're saying.

And that is a very slow development of the sense of self or the sense of ego. And wonderfully to talk about that as the sense of the other.

To be able to hold on to yourself and then to be able to be with another person and be able to have a dialogue without being totally reactive or threatened.

Yeah. And it takes practice.

Part three, the seed song.

A lot of what we talked about is ideas that are being put into action in a school, in a community with adults and kids. Do you have a story about what you've seen that are relevant to art, democracy and children?

I'm particularly interested in where young people are coming to grips with that difficult question, which is how do I maintain who I am at the same time? Give you space.

Well, I was teaching at this school, I kind of call it a one room schoolhouse, where it was a very small space and all these different grades would have to shift from classroom to classroom and pass by each other. This was a mixed class. It was third and fourth graders together and I was teaching them music.

This class really did have a fair amount of what we would call learning challenges and a lot of sensitivities. And so it took a lot to get their attention and to really be able to work with them.

And there was this one day when just all the different issues seemed to come up at once. They wouldn't sit in their seats. There was like one kid running after another and they were arguing. Somebody stole something from someone.

Another child was crying because someone had touched them. They didn't really hit them, but they pushed them. So there was every sort of type of disruption.

And I was trying with my voice, you know, everybody come and sit down. But they were not having any of it.

They were all over the place.

It was very chaotic and it was distressing. I was feeling really distressed and I literally didn't know what to do.

And this was a point in my teaching career where I'd been teaching for numbers of years. And I thought, okay, this is really challenging.

What am I going to do?

I should know what to do. And I just sat in my chair and I had my guitar in my hand. And I started playing a minor chord, and I played a little slow arpeggio.

And as I was sitting there, I just started singing about a seed. And the seed is in the ground, and. And it's warm in the soil. And I went on like this.

And within a very short amount of time, the kids started curling up like little seeds in the ground. And number one, I was like, oh, my God, this is working.

And as they curled up, then I continued making up the story about how the seed was in the ground. And then the little sprout came up, and then they started to act like the little plants sprouting up out of the dirt.

And then I started talking about the stem that was growing and the leaves and then the flower that came out at the end. And it was so amazing to see them just spreading their arms out and standing tall when they were the plant that was fully in bloom.

And then I decided to keep going because they were so into it.

And.

And I talked about the petals falling to the ground and the plant going back into the soil, the process of it decaying and going away, and then back to the seed. And then they all curled up again.

And then when we were done, they just quietly went to their seats, and I asked them all, what flower or what plant were you? And we went around the room, and they just. They told me, and it was so amazing.

So some children chose I was a redwood tree, and some said I was a rose or I was a daisy or whatever flowers they knew.

And it was a really deep experience for me to just remember that these archetypal ideas of just curling up into something very tiny and then growing up into something that was tall and beautiful and then going back down that cycle, and that it really speaks to children. And I just felt like I. I used my resources in this moment of chaos to. To try something.

And I was like, oh, my God. This was like.

This is like the essence of education, because education really is an improvisation, which I consider the highest art form ever, because you have a structure. And Waldorf education was based on the principles of Rudolf Steiner.

And he always said, when you're in the presence of children, you have all your knowledge and a plan, but you actually want to be able to put it aside so you can not miss what they're trying to tell you. So they were telling me they needed something really organic and something that they could relate to.

And then in the weeks after that, they kept asking me, can we do the plant song? Can we do the seed song? And I've used it with many classes. It's been well received and really fulfilling for me as well.

But I felt like I was really giving them something that nourished them in a deep way.

But here's the thing also, and I think when you do something authentic and true, that meets the moment. First of all, people know it, including second graders, right?

I mean, they're in there deciding whether to be respectful or not, or to take you at your word, or whether they trust you in many ways, right? But once you've tuned in and you've actually created something together, it's not just in the moment. It's a thing that you can come back to.

It's a part of the story of that class and of your relationship with each other that you can build on and as you say, take even into other spaces. So that's powerful.

And I think it brought them out of their arguing thing, took them out of that, and it gave them a breather to be able to recognize each other because they were quiet. They wanted to know what flower so and so was. And also maybe they were shy about their flower. They were able to stand and say, this was mine.

And I can mirror that back to them. Oh, that's amazing. The self esteem piece is also part of that process.

There's something that I wanted to talk about, how art helps people understand more about each other, which is that when you're working on an artistic piece, whether it's a painting or a drawing or a play, you are making creative decisions from within you. And what will make it more beautiful or balanced or functional, Whatever. It's a feeling from inside. Oh, I want more red in my picture.

And when I think about morality, the idea of right and wrong, and this is really important in a democratic process, is to have a feeling for. Wait a second. Something feels off. The arts train that process from the inside out. Something feels right or wrong.

And it could just be the balance of red and green. The arts, I think it's essential they train a whole part of the human being.

That's why we call Waldorf education a holistic education is we are working with the whole being of the person. The memory, the intellectual capacity, the feeling capacity and the physical capacity.

And then I feel that the idea of ethics and morality are supported through the arts.

You know, you're talking about imagination and discernment, which are high level muscles that require a lot of exercise to develop and continual maintenance. And I think you're right.

Imaginative work, particularly art making, provides a safe and fairly unencumbered Space for practicing and honing the processes and skills we need to assess and reflect and behave in the complicated and confounding realm of right and wrong. Think about it.

If you're a second grader deciding about coloring the clown's nose red or green, or you're struggling with what's fair when the bully in the story, you know, cuts in line or steals the cookie, sorting that out isn't just a function of learning and following the rules to be, you know, as you point out, to be a whole person, you have to learn how to imagine and reflect on the different ways it could go before you decide what happens next for you. Choosing one color or another is an easy way to practice that. If it looks dumb, then, well, you can throw it in the trash can or start over.

Considering different possible outcomes for a story gives you an opportunity for a little rehearsal in your head before you confront that bully in real life. As I said, the muscles being exercised here are the imagination and discernment, which need a lot of practice and exercise to work well.

Art making and, you know, it's kissing cousin play are where this happens. Not as clever tools or tactics, but as basic capacities we're born with for practicing life. It's pretty cool.

These superpowers are not paint by number.

They challenge us and provide us with a mind's eye stage where we can scope out the scene and conjure and test possible next steps, then decide, then take action, and then if we're really good at it, even learn from whatever happens as a result. I think it's quite a deal. And hey, it's. It's free.

Well, I think the Waldorf education piece is that all the kids do all the arts. It's not just one person doing their specialty so that they're having lots of opportunity for practice.

I really like what you spoke about practice and that art in the Waldorf School, it's not to make this perfect museum product. It's a process.

And that it gives many opportunities for children to see who they are, but also for teachers to see who they are and to help children grow up, help them, at least at this elementary school level and also the high school.

I look at Waldorf High School as almost like a university experience because it's so very intense in a very good way in terms of furthering that development of who you are and a sense of who you are. And I think that you said it already, but the arts give you this opportunity for practice. Students have to deal with the unexpected.

Teachers have to deal with the Unexpected. And it's about problem solving, which makes democracy, to my mind, you're just solving problems over and over again.

Together.

Together in a way that will support as many people as possible.

Right.

And the thing about morality, my example is that you're just standing around with some kids. Kids. And they say, oh, let's go do this thing. And you're standing there going, oh, I don't know. That is that inner voice.

And I feel like the arts give you that practice in a very different scenario of trusting that voice.

Yes.

And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Yeah, yeah. To me, that is the muscle.

Part four Buttons and controls.

Another important aspect of the Waldorf education is it combats passivity. Because we don't bring in technology till later.

We wait as long as possible, not because it's anti tech, but because as soon as you open that door to a button being able to do it for you, it's real hard to say, I don't want that button. A child's not going to say that. So we hold off to develop those muscles of you being able to do something all by yourself or with a group.

Yeah.

And actually the interesting thing that I just keep seeing in bright lights more and more these days is the degree to which you unconsciously exceed to the button, is the degree to which you give away your agency, even though the button can do it for you. And obviously we're all pushing buttons.

If you do that unconsciously and you begin to think of yourself as a button pusher rather than a bread maker or a teacher or a pot thrower or whatever, then you know, who am I? What do I do? What is my relationship to the world?

What's my work in the world? What matters?

All those things are at risk. And I think we're entering into a new frontier where a core expertise will be asking the right question of a robot.

I think what Waldorf schools are trying to do is to develop as much as possible the qualities of being human.

And then democracy takes all these higher level skills, but they need to be built on a foundation of these human skills and these higher level skills that we're talking about that you need for democracy. One of them is to be able to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to have empathy, to have compassion.

I see those things developing through struggle. And so button pushing take struggle out of the equation.

So the other part we haven't really talked about, interestingly enough, is the story aspect of wilder education that so much of the curriculum is presented through stories which the Children take in, and then you discuss them. Why did the little mouse do that?

Right. Exactly. Yes.

And so you really find from day one, you were working with concepts of working together in community.

And you can't make up community. You can tell everybody that we're all in this together.

But I believe that every class succeeds or fails based on its capacity to be a little community. And a good class makes that clear. And everybody is needed for it to succeed. They're passing it on. In a sense, this is how we work.

This is how it goes. That's democracy.

And they are deciding if they trust you.

And the first time I walked into it was my first class that I was music class, I was teaching, and I walked into a kindergarten, and I was late, and my car broke down. I had to borrow a car. I got stopped by the police. I talked him out of ticket. I mean, I was frazzled when I walked into that classroom.

And I sat down in the chair, and this little girl raised her hand. I'm like, okay. And she says, how come you didn't brush your hair today? And I swear to God, from that moment on, I was, like, disarmed.

I was like, well, I just didn't have time. But that created trust, because I took her questions seriously. And that's something.

As a teacher in all my classes, I have always found that, I mean, taking them very seriously and being playful is so important to create that feeling of trust. Because you're creating the mood, you're creating the feeling of the classroom.

Yeah. So last question.

Okay, so somebody's listening and going, well, how could Ann Cleveland's experience inform my work as a community organizer or an artist trying to solve problems and, you know, and generate trust in a community. What is transferable?

I think this concept of letting go of control, which means you have your plan or you have your ideas, but that you can let yourself take a breath and a step, step back, asking the questions, listening, and not feeling like you have to know, putting yourself in that position, always learning. And like those first graders, those second graders, they have something to teach me. So I always look at it an equal opportunity.

I have things to bring to them, and they have things to bring to me. And I must stay open to whatever that is.

Yeah.

So that's one thing for sure.

Well, that control thing is so important because I think a lot of our institutions and our structures and schools have as a default, that disruption, the unexpected, the surprises, people asking inopportune questions are all outside the bounds. When in fact. And I'm gonna Just paraphrase you.

You get a bunch of human beings in a room together that have tacitly agreed to do something together, you are not in control of what's going to happen.

Not that it's inevitably going to be chaotic, but that if you're not listening, even if you're the facilitator or the supervisor or the CEO or whatever, if people get it that you think you're in control and you don't care what they think, they're going to behave accordingly.

Yeah. Whether you're talking about kindergarten or adults or they want to feel the basic need of being seen, being heard, being.

Listened to, seen and heard and responded to in the moment, even if it's a surprise.

And to me, the highest art is improvisation in every kind of art, because then you're in the moment, you're really being present. And if you're really present, then people feel that.

Yeah. Ann Cleveland, this has been a lovely conversation. So before we close, do you have.

Any books you want to recommend to the audience?

Yeah. So the first one is called Helping Children on Their Way by Elizabeth Auer. And this is for educational support in the classroom.

Because my current area of study is really how to help with sensory integration with kids who are overwhelmed and are exhibiting learning challenges. So many more kids are having learning challenges than ever before. So these are activities for that. And then a book that I've used many times.

It's called Games Children Play, and it is by Kim Brooking Payne. And this is just how to help children through appropriate games for appropriate ages.

And this one may interest you or may not, but this is Steiner's idea of what he called the threefold society.

And to me, it really helps to untangle why we have so many different kinds of conflicts, because we're trying to treat certain issues in the wrong area of society. So it's called Free, Equal and Mutual Rebalancing Society for the Common Good. And it's by Martin Large and Steve Brialot.

I have one more book, A Practical Guide to Curative Education by Robin Brown.

Great. And as folks know, we'll have links to all those books in our show notes.

And everything else that we've referenced will be also linked in the show notes. All right, thank you, my sister. I really appreciate this.

I always love having these conversations with you.

And the feeling is mutual. And thanks to our audience for listening in. And last but not least, thanks to the Art Is Change team.

Art is Change is a production of the center for the Study of Art and Community. Our theme and soundscape spring forth from the head, heart and hand of the maestro.

Judy Munson Our text editing is by Andre Nebbe, our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration comes from the ever present spirit of OUCH235. So until next time, stay well, do.

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