Weekly News from WECAN - June 12, 2020
Dear WECAN Members and Friends,
 
Greetings from WECAN! As many of you are approaching the end of the school year and others are working in child care centers or opening summer programs, all under extraordinary circumstances, we send you our sixth issue of the Weekly News from WECAN. Next week we will take a pause from the Weekly News and will send you our June WECAN News Update. After that we will move to an every-other-week rhythm for the Friday Weekly News, as we head into the summer season.

Please visit the  WECAN Community Hub (officially called WECANCommunity@wecangroups.io) to engage in conversation and share resources. You can participate in the main group and also join subgroups for Parent Child, Birth to Three, Home Programs, Early Childhood Teacher Educators, California Programs, Great Lakes-Ontario, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Southeast Regions. There is also a closed group for WECAN Organizational Member communications. The Hub depends on the initiative of its participants, and we invite you to share your questions and resources there. We now have over 800 members and invite you to join us!  To subscribe, please write to   WECANCommunity+subscribe@wecan.groups.io .

We are also offering a variety of  zoom calls for early childhood educators.  Some calls take place on a weekly basis and others are scheduled as needed. We also list other webinars and events that might be of special interest to you. Please see the listings below for the coming two weeks.

The Weekly News also includes thoughts to ponder . This week we again share thoughts on cultivating a healing mood for ourselves and our children from Holly Koteen-Soule and the newly formed WECAN Early Childhood Research Group, In the Resources section, you can find offerings from members of this group, who will be our panelists in next Wednesday's Reopening Zoom call. The theme will be A Healing Mood for Us All- What Have we Learned? What Do We Leave Behind? What Do We Keep as We Go Forward? We also share resources on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access both here and on the Community Hub.

Thank you to so many of you who have offered generous gifts of support for our work during our Sprin g Appeal! This week IASWECE is asking for support for Waldorf early childhood programs around the world who are threatened with closure because of the financial consequences of the coronavirus situation. We hope that those of you who can offer help will join us in creating an international emergency support fund. See below for details.

We are pleased to welcome many of you who have joined WECAN this month as new Individual WECAN Members for the upcoming school year. New Members receive a copy of our spring Gateways newsletter in addition to other membership benefits. See the link below if you would like to join us! We are also grateful to those of you who are existing members and have renewed your Individual Membership early for the coming year. Our activity in association during these challenging times is growing day by day, and we are so grateful for the many ways in which you contribute to this work! We truly all depend on one another.

With warm wishes,
Susan Howard
WECAN Coordinator  
 
Looking Ahead: A Healing Mood for Us All

How can we be “a shelter in the storm” for the children and for their parents?

We can find shelter and safety in our conscious caring for one another. We have heard from many teachers about how their spirits have been lifted from the intensive work they did with their colleagues to find creative solutions that allowed them to stay connected to their families. Teachers were also buoyed by the collaborative mood that resulted from having to utilize different ways of working with parents.

In this situation, while we may be required to let go of some of our cherished ideals, the essential aspect of Waldorf education- the quality of our human relationships- is what we need to preserve and protect above all. We need to explore ways of being and doing that can be therapeutic and create the healing mood in which we can all continue to learn and grow. “Letting go is not abandonment, “ one member of our group reminded us.

Week by week, it has become increasingly clear that we will not be returning to the old normal. What began as a health crisis has also become, in the United States, a full-blown racial and social justice crisis, that is echoing in cities around the globe. In our communities we are facing a trial of the soul as well as of the body. In Waldorf education, as in other realms of life, we are not able to rely on our old assumptions. We are being asked to dig deep into our individual and collective resources, watch and listen with new awareness to the phenomena that we are witnessing, and bring new impulses into our work and movement.

What have we learned? What do we leave behind? What do we keep as we go forward?

Holly Koteen-Soulé

excerpted from "A Healing Mood for Us All: Part II" - see the Resources section below for the full article and others from the Early Childhood Research Group. These questions will be the basis for the June 17th Zoom Call, where the members of the group will be panelists.


Join WECAN as an Individual Member! Click here for more information.


Resources from WECAN and the Community Hub

Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access
As WECAN colleagues, we are working to transform Waldorf early childhood education in North America by deepening our commitment to recognizing personal implicit and explicit biases; talking about, confronting, and responding to racism in our institutions and schools; transforming our teacher education programs and supporting Waldorf Early Childhood educators to become anti-racist educators. 

This week we would like to share an article by Magdalena Toran, a member of the WECAN IDEA Committee on Internalized Racism and the Imitative Nature of the Young Child . A further report will be included in our June WECAN News Update that will be sent out next week. 

Please also visit the Community Hub to join the conversations about speaking with young children about race and to find resources on undoing racism in ourselves, in work with children and in our Waldorf communities. Resources on Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access in the Files section and in the Messages are marked with an IDEA hashtag, so that they are easier to locate. Also included this week on the Community Hub is an resource on working with gender diversity in early childhood. We thank those who have offered excellent resources for us to work with, and invite you to share resources you find particularly helpful.

New Resources from the WECAN Early Childhood Research Group
Here are three new articles in the series from the WECAN Early Childhood Research Group:


These will be the basis for presentations and discussion on the Wednesday, June 17th Zoom call.
        
Job Postings
Please check the Community Hub Files for a growing number of Job Postings - you are welcome to post position openings there or send them to us to post.
The Corona pandemic affects us all in different ways, but for some it has become a matter of survival or shutting down. In many places all over the world Waldorf Kindergartens are working without any state subsidies and only can function further through additional donations from parents and educators. The current Corona Pandemic has led some of them into an existential crisis through which they are now threatened with closure.

IASWECE is participating with the Friends of Waldorf Education and other partners in an emergency fund to ensure their survival. Help us to help these kindergartens by donating!
IASWECE: IBAN: DE83 6012 0500 0007 7076 00 - BIC: BFSWDE33STG - Memo: Corona Support
For more information or to donate via PayPal:  https://iaswece.org/how-you-can-help/

Click Here for Updated information on Summer 2020
Teacher Education, Courses, and Workshops
for Waldorf Early Childhood Educators


Upcoming Zoom Calls and Events

TODAY FRIDAY, JUNE 12

Great Lakes Region I - Ontario and Northern New York (Weekly at 1 pm ET)
with Laurie Harper Burgess and Heather Church
1 pm ET
Meeting ID: 893 0974 2662
Password: GreatLakes

Reopening Issues and Ideas in California
With Steve Spitalny and WECAN CA Regional Reps, Heike Adamsberger and Diane David
4 pm PT
Meeting ID: 871 1514 1558
Password: 046000

NEXT WEEK:

SUNDAY, JUNE 14

What Does the Young Child of Today Truly Need?
A Conversation with Helle Heckmann And Stephen Spitalny
8 am PT, 9 am MT, 10 am CT, 11 am ET, 5 pm Denmark
Meeting ID: 860 6018 1272
Password: 8UpZt7

MONDAY, JUNE 15

Great Lakes Region III – Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana
With Jane Danner-Sustar and Martha Flores, WECAN Regional Representatives
9 am CT
Meeting ID: 760 2492 9272
Password: 6k2JjC

TUESDAY, JUNE 16

Aftercare Providers Open Forum
Hosted by AWSNA
w/Beverly Amico
10 am HI, 1 pm PT, 2 pm MT, 3 pm CT, 4 pm ET
Pre registration required.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17

A Healing Mood for Us All: What Have we Learned? What Do We Leave Behind? What Do We Keep as We Go Forward?
with Susan Howard, Magdalena Toran, Holly Koteen-Soule and members of the WECAN EC Research Group
9 am HI, 12 pm PT, 1 pm MT, 2 pm CT, 3 pm ET
Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/2600022348
Meeting ID: 260 002 2348
Password: 20205155

THURSDAY, JUNE 18

WECAN Washington State Regional Meeting
w ith Vanessa Kohlhaas (Seattle WS, EC Pedagogical Chair) and Dyanne Harshman (WECAN PNW II Regional Rep)
3:30 pm Pacific Time
Meeting ID: 845 7529 1704
Password: 3R5124

FRIDAY, JUNE 19
Reopening Issues and Ideas in California
With Steve Spitalny and WECAN CA Regional Reps, Heike Adamsberger and Diane David
4pm CA time
Meeting ID: 871 1514 1558
Password: 046000

LOOKING AHEAD - JUNE 24 - 29

WEDNESDAY JUNE 24
Refining our Distance Learning Picture- Working with Parents and Children Online
with Susan Howard and Magdalena Toran, and panelists Meggan Gill, Rachel Kennedy, Vanessa Kohlhaas and Laura Mason
9 am HI, 12 pm PT, 1 pm MT, 2 pm CT, 3 pm ET
Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/2600022348
Meeting ID: 260 002 2348
Password: 20205155

LGBTQ+ Networking Forum
Hosted by AWSNA
This is a new LGBTQ+ networking forum for colleagues who identify as LGBTQ+. Our hope is to create a space to share resources and support each other in creating more LGBTQ+ inclusive school communities. This group strives to be anti-bias, anti-racist, and intersectionality centered. We recognize that many groups are subject to oppression and stand in solidarity with those communities as we work to create values in alignment with theirs.
Facilitators:
Kendra is a queer, white, early childhood teacher working at Olympia Waldorf School. She's also a trained LGBTQ+ youth facilitator with a nonprofit that offers support to queer youth/teens in Olympia.
Shannon is a fat, queer, white, grades teacher from the west coast. She has been a class teacher for ten years and is currently creating a social justice curriculum for Waldorf middle school students.
12 pm HI, 3 pm PT, 4 pm MT, 5 pm CT, 6 pm ET
Pre registration required.

FRIDAY, JUNE 26
Great Lakes Region I - Ontario and Northern New York (Weekly at 1 pm ET)
with Laurie Harper Burgess and Heather Church
1 pm ET
Meeting ID: 893 0974 2662
Password: GreatLakes

MONDAY, JUNE 29

Southeast Region
11 am ET
With Lisa Bechmann, WECAN Regional Representative
Link will be posted on the Southeast Region subgroup of the WECAN Community Hub.