We were fortunate enough to be introduced to Waldorf philosophy when our daughter, Merritt, was a two-year-old and our son, Lucien, was a newborn. We attended a parent-toddler group at the Ashwood Waldorf School. Each soft, smooth pearl of wisdom that was shared during those weekly gatherings resonated profoundly with me and it became clear this unique education would be my first choice for our children. Long story short, our daughter graduated in 2016 from the Lake Champlain Waldorf High School and our son continued on through 9th grade when he was diverted to the high school alma mater of my husband, which also supported his competitive alpine skiing goals.

Today I am so grateful to say our daughter has graduated from Lewis and Clark College with a degree in Art History and is now MANAGING an Orange Theory Fitness Studio in the greater Portland, Oregon area. She is 23 years old. Two years into her college education she was second-guessing her choice of a major given her dream job would be adventure travel. I was able to reassure her that no matter the jobs she chose she will use her liberal arts education! My own father sagely informed me that an undergraduate degree teaches one how to start and finish something and to solve problems, while advanced degrees provide specialized skills. Furthermore, I believe a liberal arts education provides common ground intellectually, a way to relate to others with differing perspectives, a skill relevant today and every day! And our son, at the age of 21, is an FAA Certified Commercial Helicopter Pilot. He tried a semester at Saint Lawrence University (with a merit scholarship), but he stated emphatically mid-semester that he would be happy to study physics (calculus and computer programming!) if he could apply it to something. ā€œ I want to be a helicopter pilot!ā€ The experiential nature of his Waldorf education served him very well!! As parents, it is a great source of joy to see our children have the confidence to make choices that are meaningful to them. This shared family experience continues to create motivation and inspiration in our lives despite the distance of time and place.

What do I hold most dear about our commitment to and experience with Waldorf Education? The teachers have the opportunity to teach the topics that resonate most with them and that are developmentally appropriate for the child. This means they are teaching from a place of interest, relevance, or even passion without contrivance or dogma. This gives any topic vitality and color that a multiple-choice assessment could never measure! The educational philosophy and the community, which is never homogenous, (instead blessedly diverse) generally echoed my own beliefs regarding authenticity, ethics, inspiration, and KINDNESS. In hindsight, it was a commitment and investment worth making, not only for my own family but also for the greater good. The challenges our culture faces today can be beautifully met by a Waldorf education where resources can be gleaned to create a vital and productive culture!

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One of the hallmarks of a Waldorf high school education is the exploration of the arts. As our students develop into thinkers, leaders, and creators, we give them opportunities to experience many different kinds of art. Writing, painting, woodwork, working with clay, music, and performingā€”all of those enrich a creative sensibility and deepen and enliven one’s work in any subject. Our alumni share how their arts-integrated education provided the foundation for their pursuits in production and performing arts.

 

Gianna Kiehl, ’15

Where it all began, Gianna as a wolf in her class play in the lower grades.

Name: Gianna Kiehl
Grades attended LCWS:Ā Kindergarten through 12
High School Graduation Year:Ģż2015
Grade School Teacher:Ā Malisa Garlieb
High School Sponsor:Ā Steve CrimyĀ 

Where did you attend College?

I graduated with First Class Honors from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.

 

What is your career?

I currently live in London and I am working as an actor on the Amazon Prime show Hanna. This year, as I film the next season, I aim to write and produce my own play. When filming finishes this month, I will go into rehearsals with my actors, direct the show, open the show to the public when London opens up this summer after over a year of lockdown.

 

Gianna acting in her twelfth grade play at LCWS.

What are you working on currently?
Through applying for grants, hiring crew members, running research and development workshops, etc. I now have a script, a venue (the play will happen in a garden – Covid safe!), actors, and a plan for a SIXTEEN SHOW run, opening on May 20 in London. I have never felt more creatively inspired, exhausted and excited! I am making this play for myself, but I am also making it for the community in London, both the artists and the audiences. For the artists, I am making sure everyone involved gets a proper salary. For the audience, I am making sure the ticket prices are low to ensure total accessibility. Arts funds are incredibly sought after at the moment, so I am funding as much as I can by myself, and any donation helps us reach our goal. If you are interested in donating, or just reading more about the play, .

 

Chiara Hollendar, ’13

±·²¹³¾±š:ĢżChiara Hollender, ’13
Grades attended LCWS:Ā from kindergarten through seventh grade
Class teacher:Ā Michele Starr
Where did you attend college?
Ithaca College, BA in Theatre Studies, Minor in Women and Gender Studies
What is your career?
I’m a documentary film director & producer, and also identify more broadly as a storyteller. I’veĀ produced work for the DIY Network and Discovery Channel (US), and I’ve also worked for AMC Network and Silent Crow Arts in NYC.

What qualities, passions, or interests do you attribute to your time at Waldorf?
Waldorf gave me so much. Curiosity. The ability to explore without boundaries. An interestĀ in food and mother earth. My interests in music and movement are definitely things I attribute to my Waldorf education too, especially because of how substantially Waldorf integrated the students with those things at such a young age. I also attribute my love for community building to Waldorf, because although I didn’t know it at the time, my classmates and I were building this sense of family and community that now looking back I’ve always kept very close to my heart.
What are your favorite memories of your time at LCWS?

My favorite memories are of the Holiday Fairs that happen every winter. I remember being obsessed with the cake game, and being enamoredĀ with the beautiful cakes parents and teachers would make and donate to the activity. It was such a beautiful time of the year, and as a young child, it was so exciting to be able to walk through all the classroomsā€”especially the older grade rooms which I was always longing to be in!

Do you have any advice for our students?
My advice is to try and not take your experience at Waldorf for granted, and to hold onto the community you build there. There will come a time where you miss the building, the woods, the teachers, and the music (I promise!) so do your best to savor the experience while you have it!

What are you working on currently?
I’m currently creating a documentary seriesĀ that is dedicated to celebrating female-identifying people who cultivate our food, create medicine for our communities, and take care of the earth that takes care of us all.Ā The first installation of the series was recently played at the New Filmmakers Los Angeles Film Festival, The Sydney Lift-Off Film Festival, and the Front Range International Film Festival. More broadly, I’m interested in usingĀ storytelling to create representation for unheard narratives and hopes to harness media as an outlet to explore the ways in which colonization and homogenization of our societies affect the psyches of girls growing up in todayā€™s world.Ā Here’s aĀ Ā for the first episode!

 

Harriet Veltkamp, ’20

Name: Harriet Veltkamp
Grades attended LCWS: Kindergarten through 12
High School Graduation Year: 2020
Class Teacher: Katherine Verman
High School Sponsor: Mr. Crimy

Where do you plan to go to college?
I was accepted early decision to New York University.

Are you taking a gap year, and if so how are you spending it?
I have been interning with an artistic director based in the NYC Experimental art scene, and have worked specifically at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn. While in New York, I aided in the opening of an art gallery and spent time helping to design and run this. I have also been working on a weekly live-stream art show and have been running the social media for the past six months. As of March, I have been co-directing and curating its transition into a student/learner platform. Through this experience, I have been able to expand my concept of art and grow both as a student, and as a creator.

How has your Waldorf education prepared you for this experience?
Waldorf education teaches you how to be curious and intentional about your learning. Going into an internship in an artistic field that was far less traditional than what I am used to, allowed me to gain so much more from my experience. I was given the tools to critically observe, and pick out concepts and techniques of art creation that will relate to anything and be invaluable going into my college education and artistic career. At Waldorf, you are also taught to develop confidence and a strong sense of self, and I am constantly using these skills in meeting and connecting with professionals in my field.

 

Do you know an LCWS alumnus who’d like to be featured in our newsletter or who would like to share their experience of our school? Please email lindsayf@lakechamplainwaldorfschool.org.

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To me, the value of a Waldorf education (in particular, the high school) is, fundamentally, that it directly strives to develop the student’s ability to perceive Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, rather than treating the student’s mind as a dumping site for a disconnected pile of factoids.

I don’t want this to sound esoteric, since it really isn’t. A sensitivity to these three is the core of any successful endeavor, very much including the hard sciences and engineering. My life has shown that this can work: after attending LCWS from pre-k through 12th grade, I went on to get my undergraduate degree in physics and a master’s in astrophysics at Wesleyan University, culminating in a thesis on computationally modeling the dynamics of a couple stellar systems; after that, I spent nearly two years in the AI world working for a defense contractor, and I have just recently accepted an offer to go do AI work on vehicle sensor data for the electric car manufacturer Rivian. The reason I bring up my biography here is that I want to be clear that I am speaking from experience: Waldorf and the hard sciences are very, very compatible, and I hope that my path can be evidence of this.

Having hopefully convinced you that my contributions here are not just theoretical, let’s get back to the perception of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness and its role in a successful life (by whatever definition may be appropriate). The value of this perception is clear in the arts and humanities: these fields are dedicated to the study of the meanings of Beauty and Good. However, it can be less immediately clear why the sciences rely on this perception, and I think this is where a lot of the misunderstanding around Waldorf’s relationship to the sciences arises from.

This pointā€”the relationship between science and TBGā€”actually has a pretty substantial body of philosophical inquiry behind it, but to me, the most accessible discussion of it comes in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when the author reflects on the actual scientific process (bear with me for one paragraph of metaphysics). Science, he claims, is not the aggregation of facts, but rather the selection of hypotheses (for example, you could think of infinite ways of explaining why the Sun rises in the morning). We clearly don’t actually explore every possible hypothesis when trying to answer a question; that would take forever. Rather, we use our sense of Good (you could also call this intuition) to narrow down the set of plausible hypotheses before applying our rigorous evaluation. This, the author points out, is crucial: humans are not computers that iterate over all possible explanations, but rather we lean on what is basically a developed sense of well-informed preference to make our decisions.

This relationship between Beauty/Goodness and science has come up in the scientific literature, as well. I won’t go too deeply into that now, but will instead briefly point to the words of Paul Dirac, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, who says “It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one’s equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.” Many of math and physics’ most powerful minds, particularly in the early 20th century, were explicitly fascinated with this, and recognized that science is not the dreary process of arithmetic, but rather an intense, intuitive, and (dare I say) aesthetic process, not fundamentally different from the problem the painter faces when figuring out where to lay their next stroke.

Imagine my surprise when, having come out of a life of Waldorf and bracing for the cold, hard objectivity of physics, I discovered this! Ever since, I have found it to be true. Beauty and elegance can be leaned on as real, functional guides in both the scientific process and in engineering. Now the only problem left is to figure out what the hell they actually are. This is where Waldorf comes back in.

It is undoubtedly true that Waldorf students graduate with less knowledge in the sciences than their counterparts in other educational systems. Our science classes top out pretty substantially below where other schools’ STEM programs finish (I’m going to leave the arts be, but suffice it to say that Waldorf students are exceptional artists and writers relative to their peers in college). The reality of this gap in rote knowledge (and the delta in standardized test scores that accompanies it) has led to much consternation in the parents of prospective Waldorf high schoolers, who are afraid that by not being prepared in that way, their students will not be able to get into good schools or go on in the sciences.

To me, though, this fear totally misses the point of the Waldorf education: what you get in exchange for that deficit of rote knowledge is a flourishing perception of Elegance (the word I’ve settled on to represent the Truth/Beauty/Goodness trinity). Waldorf nurtures this sense of elegance from many different directions: the crafts (woodwork, metalwork, handwork) are perhaps the most obvious situation in which we develop the ability to discern functional beauty (i.e. a clean seam, a consistent edge, or smooth heat), but in painting, chorus, eurythmy, and foreign languages, we are also taught to perceive what Good means in everyday life.

This sense of Elegance has, hopefully by now unsurprisingly, has been a far more useful tool to me in my life after high school than any particular factoid that I could have learned in some AP class. Why? Because those factoids are profoundly learnable; they’re literally the reason we go to college. The ability to discern Elegance, however, is a lifelong journey that requires active development. Sure, this will make the Waldorf student’s first year or two in college harder, as they struggle with a Calc 2 class surrounded by peers who just took the exact same class in high school the year before. But it will pay off doubly down the road: first, when the courses get hard for everyone else (who have been yawning their way through the intro classes), the Waldorf student will already be used to working their butt off and will have the study habits in place to continue that; and second (more importantly), once the Waldorf student leaves the world of graded homework assignments and enters either scientific research or the professional world, they are significantly better prepared to handle the ambiguity and messiness of problems that don’t have clear answers. The student who took AP Physics in high school has been trained to become an expert at spitting out the right answer to a pre-approved problem. Research, though, doesn’t work that way: how do you even begin to use that test-taking mindset to turn hundreds of gigabytes of numbers into something of scientific value? Here, understanding context and being able to formulate your own question (rather than reading the question from the textbook) is essential. This is even more clear in industry, where there may not even be a body of academic literature to lean on, but rather just a stakeholder coming to me with a problem and relying on me to not just solve it, but frame it in a way that makes it solvable.

Ultimately, this boils the Waldorf value proposition down to a couple of neat little slogans: “Learn how to think, not what to think” is one; “The right question is more valuable than the right answer” is another way of getting to a similar point. Other schools will happily burn four years of the student’s life impressing upon them what to think and ask them to then return the right answer. Waldorf will develop the student’s ability to ask the right question. And to me, that has proven far more valuable.

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Graduated from LCWS inĀ 2014
Class Teacher: Ms. Shapiro, Frau Zuberg, Ms. Markow
High School Class Sponsor: Melendy Comey

Gap year: Noah took two years after graduating high school to work and to travel. He worked with his dad doing tree service work. Then he traveled to India with another Waldorf Alum, Oliver Creech. They went for a big hiking trip in the mountains of Sikkim where the air and water were very clear and fresh. They also spent some time in the city Kolkata. Noah spent two weeks skiing in the Argentinian Andes as well. When he was home flew around Vermont and the East Coast for fun.Ā 

College: Noah spent four years at Vermont Tech in the Pilot Technology Program. He graduated this year with a Bachelor of Science degree. In this program, there are aviation core classes at the ground school which is then complemented with practical flying courses. Noah already had his private pilot license as part of his senior project at LCWS, which allowed him to fly a variety of different planes. Once in college Noah received his Commercial Pilots License which allows him to be paid for his flights. To be able to fly in the clouds, Noah needed his Instrument Rating License which means that the navigation and sensors in the plane are solely used because vision is not clear. Noah is also a Certified Flight Instructor and has been working for VT Tech, instructing for a year and a half. VT Tech is partnered with the VT Flight Academy and Noah works with both programs instructing flying lessons in the sky!

Noah said that flying an airplane is like sailing a boat, but with a third dimension. They each hold all the same principles; a plane has a Rutter just like a sailboat which helps it to go side to side. The sail of the boat is like the planeā€™s wing, except the wind in the sail generates forward movement while, when flying the wing generates a lift up into the sky.Ā 

Career: Now that Noah has graduated from his program he would like to work at an airline. He was offered a position at an airline and was set to leave for training in June but due to the pandemic it was indefinitely postponed. While he waits for the pandemic to calm down and the need for commercial flights to pick up, he will continue working as a flight instructor.Ā 

Benefits of Waldorf: Noah attributes his curiosity to his Waldorf education. He said, ā€œI love to learn new things, and I feel like I have stayed curious through the years. The flexibility of the senior project allowed me to follow my interests to be where I am today.ā€ Noah also said that his friends often ask for his help mending buttons as his sewing skills never went away.

Favorite Memories: Noahā€™s favorite memories are the trips his class went on to explore the subject they were learning, ā€œI have really cherished those a lot, I always had so much fun and those trips nourished my love of travel.ā€ He especially loved the Flack Family Farm trip, and the Odyssey trip. Noah remembers the connections that he made with his peers and teachers the most. He said that these kinds of connections are hard to find at other schools and he cherishes those relationships immensely. He felt a strong connection, especially with Mr. Crimy.Ā 

Message to Current Students: ā€œI was convinced, even halfway through senior year that I wouldnā€™t go to college I just didnā€™t want to go to school. Then I found something I really enjoyed and I didnā€™t realize I wanted to go to school for it until 2 years after I graduatedā€”make sure you are doing something you really like and that will always lead you to a good place.ā€

Congratulations to Noah and Deirdre on their recent engagement!

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So much love and appreciation for our wonderful school from our alums. Enjoy reading their news!

ā€” Alice Lissarrague, College Guidance

Micaela Albright ā€™12
After graduating from Marist with a B.S. in fashion merchandising and a minor in business, Michaela went on to work in wholesale at Elie Tahari, Sanctuary Clothing and now she is at J.Crew.

ā€œComing to the high school was so important to me and my family. Iā€™m so happy I was able to complete my Waldorf education through high school even though it was two hours away for me. Iā€™m grateful to the school for taking me in and making it feel like a second home and to my parents for not being afraid to send all three of their children away to complete their Waldorf education.

When I went away to Florence during my freshman year of college, I could tell how prepared I was for the experience in ways I saw my peers were not. After Florence, I was accepted as a sophomore into a highly competitive program, Marist in Manhattan, meant for upperclassmen. I completed my first fashion internship at DKNY and went on to have internships at Elie Tahari and Ibex Outdoor Clothing.

I truly believe my full Waldorf education has given me the tools I need to be successful not only in my career, but in life. There are moments at work or with friends that I think to myself, ā€˜that was a ā€œWaldorf momentā€ā€™ – maybe it was a unique way I was able to problem-solve at work, being able to easily disconnect from my phone when with friends, or simply not being afraid to go after my next endeavor. I know that Waldorf helped shape me into the person I am today in more ways I even realize.ā€

Carl Heyerdahl ā€˜12
Carl is a wedding photographer in Beverly, MA. He does photo work full-time and majored in photography at Ithaca College. Carl and his fiancĆ©e just bought a house in Beverly and are doing great! 

Jenny Rehkugler ā€™12
After graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in public relations and marketing, Jenny moved to NYC to start her career. She now works as a finance and accounting recruiter for a mid-sized staffing agency called Green Key Resources. Jenny loves to travel as much as she can in her time off and recently she went to Japan with her family for an incredible ski trip in the northern region, Hokkaido. 

Sebastian Lissarrague ā€™13
Sebastian graduated from Hamilton College with Departmental Honors in World Politics. Following graduation he and two friends created a co-living start-up in Utica, NY. Sebastian just moved to New York City where he is working for WeWork as an analyst for the Real Estate Facilities Management Division.

Mikaela Niemasz-Cavanagh ā€™13
Mikaela has been working at Harvard University as an IRB Administrator. She is also working toward her master’s in psychology through Harvard Extension School.

Anna White ā€™13
Anna graduated from Colby-Sawyer College and is now working as a registered nurse on the inpatient hematology-oncology unit at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Anna recently graduated from Dartmouth-Hitchcockā€™s Nurse Residency Program and is currently in graduate school through Chamberlain University to get her MSN as a family nurse practitioner with the hope of working in palliative care.

ā€œI absolutely would not be where I am today without my Waldorf education, and especially my high school education. So grateful for all the amazing faculty and staff supporting me every step of the way!ā€

MairĆ©ad Collins ā€™14
MairĆ©ad graduated magna cum laude from Goucher College in 2018 where she majored in sociology and double minored in Arabic studies and studio art. MairĆ©ad now lives in Dublin, Ireland where she is working as a nanny for three young children. MairĆ©ad just completed her Water Babies teacher training, the worldā€™s leading baby swimming school. She is looking forward to offering her own classes in the autumn.

ā€œWhile at Goucher, I became involved in several community projects as well, including volunteering at an elementary school, and most especially, at Earlā€™s Place, which provides transitional housing for homeless men. I credit my Waldorf education with helping me understand the connection between academics, art, and community.ā€

Amanda DeBellis ā€™14
Amanda just graduated from Bournemouth University with a Master of Science in investigative forensic psychology. Amanda now is in the process of interviewing for jobs at Boston psychiatric hospitals and she is getting married! 

ā€œI wouldnā€™t have gotten to where I am without Waldorf education, and I am so grateful for it!ā€

Vincent Gauthier ā€™14
Vincent just completed his masterā€™s degree in environmental management at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. He is now living in New York City, working for the United Nations Global Compact on Planetary Health Issues. 

ā€œAs you know,  I care deeply about the school and the Waldorf pedagogy, so please use me as a resource.ā€

Jonas Powell ā€˜14
Jonas graduated from Wesleyan University this past spring with his masterā€™s degree in astronomy. He now lives in Cambridge, MA and is working as a data scientist for the defense contractor Systems and Technology Research. 

ā€œBasically, my job is to make sense of all the data that the intelligence community (CIA/NSA/etc) generate, using machine learning/AI. Iā€™m using a lot of the skills I learned studying astrophysics in college (which in turn leveraged a ton of Waldorf skills) and they’re paying me abundantly. I feel incredibly strongly that I would not be here today without Waldorf and hope that kids continue to get the chance to go through our amazing school.ā€

Noah Ranallo ā€™14
Noah is going into his senior year at Vermont Technical College in their Professional Pilot Technology program. He has earned his Commercial Pilot Certificate which allows him to be paid to fly. During the summer of 2018 he flew for Vermont Skydiving Adventures in West Addison. Noah is now a Certified Flight Instructor working at the Vermont Flight Academy in South Burlington. Next year Noah hopes to be hired by a regional airline and eventually fly for the likes of Delta, Southwest or American.

Oliver Scanlon ā€™14
Oliver is traveling with his band Pete’s Posse, playing traditional folk music styles at concerts, folk festivals and contradance weekends as well as many local gigs here at home in Vermont. He also teaches private fiddle lessons both in Burlington and at a couple of traditional music camps during the summer and this summer he is leading a group of more than 20 teenage traditional musicians in a group called the “Young Tradition Vermont Touring Group.”  On occasion, Oliver even gets the opportunity to do live sound reinforcement for local concerts and events!

Eva Espenshade ā€™15
Eva is majoring in womenā€™s studies at Concordia University in Montreal. She is currently on the Deanā€™s List, received the Lillian S. Robinson Memorial Scholarship in Womenā€™s Studies and was a 2018 Arts and Science Scholar. She also edits the Montreal-based feminist journal ā€œ³§³Ü²ś±¹±š°ł²õ¾±“Ē²Ō²õ.ā€

Will Heintz ā€™15 
Will is majoring in classical percussion performance at Purchase College Conservatory of Music in Purchase, NY.  He will be a senior this fall and plans to continue at Purchase for his masterā€™s. Will spent last month traveling through Europe.

Gianna Kiehl ā€˜15
Gianna graduated with First Class Honors from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. She currently lives in London working as an actor filming the second season of the Amazon Prime show Hanna, in which she has a main part. Gianna will be filming on location in Spain and London through November. 

Gianna also tutors children in violin and is involved in new writing projects with peers working in the industry.

Sarah White ā€™15
Sarah will be a senior at Smith College majoring in gender studies and studio art. Sarah is a Stride Scholar and has been named to the Deanā€™s List every year. As a first-year student Sarah won the Meg Quigley Award for a paper she wrote in Women and Gender Studies and last year the Smith College Museum of Art awarded Sarah the Tryon Prize for an art history paper. She was also nominated and chosen for the Five College Consortiumā€™s highly selective advanced studio art program.

Maggie Daly ā€™16 
Maggie will be a junior at Wheaton College where she is a double major in psychology and studio art with a concentration in animal behavior/cognition. At school Maggie has worked on an independent study with a K9 training academy. Next semester she will be looking at treatment of PTSD in dogs. Maggie is working at Jericho Settlers Farm again this summerā€” her 6th summer and 7th season with them! 

ā€œLCWHS really took me under its wing and without it I am without a bulk of my community and my ā€˜people.ā€™ā€

Brendan Fontanez ’16
After graduating in 2016, Brendan took a year off of school to work, travel the US, and backpack in Europe.  He is now a rising junior at Oberlin College, where he is studying computer science and creative writing.  Next spring Brendan plans on spending a semester abroad to study game design in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Nancy Hilton ā€˜16
Nancy just finished a very challenging junior year at St. Johnā€™s College in Annapolis, MD. Last summer she completed an internship in cancer research at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. She was awarded a Hodson Grant to complete the internship. Nancy is currently taking the summer to work in Annapolis, apply to post-baccalaureate programs in preparation for medical school, and read War and Peace for school.

Chris Krag ā€˜16
Chris is entering his junior year at the University of Vermont as a biology major and a music technology and business minor. Chris participates in club water polo (the team placed second overall in New England) and with the swim team at nationals he hit his personal best in all his events. Chris had a great time playing electric violin with a Dixie Chicks cover band called the ā€œDixie Dix.ā€ ā€œWe had one wildly successful show before we all went our separate ways.ā€

Adam Marcinkowski ā€˜16
Adam Marcinkowski recently completed his second year at St. Lawrence University. He is deeply entrenched in the Outing Club, leading rock climbing, skiing and hiking trips, and is now a certified climbing wall instructor and Wilderness First Responder. For spring break a small group traveled to La Grave, France, and skied glaciers. Because of his Waldorf French language training in grades 1-12, he was dubbed the speaker/translator for the group.

Adam is a global studies major and this fall he is taking a semester abroad in Amman, Jordan. He is really looking forward to visiting the ruins of Petra and hopefully attempting some of their world-renowned rock climbing areas. He chose this program because it offered home stays with a variety of families during his four months in country. This summer, Adam is in his third year as a guide with Kroka Expeditions in Marlow, NH. He will be leading rock climbing, backpacking, and base camp expeditions around New England for 10- to 15-year olds.

Aidan Powell ā€˜16
Aidan is a rising junior at Colorado College, studying organismal biology and ecology. Heā€™s happiest anywhere in the out-of-doors, is on the Colorado College mountain bike team, and back country skis every weekend he can. Aidan is currently in Spain for a language immersion program. Aidan writes ā€œAfter studying in Ecuador I was inspired to study more Spanish in hopes of returning to South America.ā€ In August he and three friends plan to bike pack the entirety of the Colorado Trail, similar to the Vermont Long Trail.

Zarrah Shethar ā€™16 
Zarrah is now a senior at Hampshire College majoring in art and psychology. Sheā€™s waitressing this summer at a ā€œfarm to tableā€ Irish restaurant in Northampton.  Here she is with a weak lamb she took care of this spring!

Clara Slesar, 16
Clara is going into her junior year at Smith College where she is a conservation biology major. Some highlights of her time at Smith have been working in a microbiology lab studying evolutionary biology and ecology of amoebae, taking a variety of classes both in and out of her major, and rowing for Smith Crew. 

Clara has been on the Deanā€™s List for the past two years, and at Smith she has been a member of the Key Pioneers Leadership Program, NIRC All-Academic Team, NEWMAC Academic All-Conference Team, NEWMAC All-Conference First Team and Smith College Athletics All-Pioneer Team.

John Tatlock ā€™16
John just completed a month-long seminar on James Baldwin in Paris (ā€œwho,ā€ John writes, ā€œwould be a great candidate for the community book one of these summersā€) where he lived in the 15th arrondissement, just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. He spent many days reading in the Champ de Mars and the Jardins du Luxembourg and ate ā€œso, so, so much bread.ā€&²Ō²ś²õ±č;

Back in Vermont, John is in his third summer with VPIRG as a Field Manager. This fall, he will return to The New School in Manhattan for his last semester, completing his BA program in literary studies. John plans to then move out west and begin applying to creative writing MFA programs.

Faith Thompson ā€˜16
Faith has been an art student at Concordia University in Montreal while also taking classes at the Community College of Vermont. Her work with children at the Charlotte Childrenā€™s Center has brought forth a passion for pursuing early childhood education at the University of Vermont, where she will begin classes in the fall.

Hannah Ely ā€˜17
Hannah will be a junior at Centre College, Danville, KY, where she is double-majoring in French and international relations and is on the Deanā€™s List. Last year Hannah spent a semester studying in Strasbourg, France. Hannah ran her first half marathon earlier this year and continues running. 

Hannah continues to pursue her interests in hunger and food insecurity (her Waldorf senior project) and was selected for the Shepherd Internship Program where she spent eight weeks addressing food insecurity and refugees at the Common Earth Gardens with Catholic Charities in Louisville, KY. Read about Hannahā€™s work in the Centre College newspaper: Hannah Ely ā€™21 leaves ā€˜positive footprintā€™ on the world during Shepherd Internship: 

Maya Fontanez ā€™17
Maya is home following her first year at Mount Holyoke College and is currently serving for AmeriCorps at the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps. Through this position, Maya is able to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to food-insecure patients recovering from illness in hospitals across the state. 

Nina Lissarrague ā€˜17
Nina is a rising sophomore at Hamilton College where she made the Deanā€™s List.

Nina is a climbing wall instructor at Hamilton and was selected as a student leader for the Adirondacks first-year studentsā€™ orientation experience. This summer Nina is working as a counselor at the Waldorf camp Glen Brook in Marlborough, NH.

Maeve McCurdy ā€™17
Maeve will be a junior at Smith College where she is majoring in anthropology. Next spring Maeve will spend the semester in Rwanda to study their peace process. She was on the Dean’s List this past year and she is active in theater, Irish fiddle music, and the divestment from fossil fuels movement on campus. 

This summer Maeve is interning at Rights and Democracy in Burlington where she works on their climate justice campaign, as well as helping out with their efforts to raise the minimum wage.

“My time at the high school was invaluable and I cannot imagine what a loss it would be for all the future classes to not have such a supportive and unique environment to grow and learn in during their high school years. I did not attend the LCWS grade school, only the high school, and feel a deep connection to that specific experience that cannot be found anywhere else. After graduating, this connection has only been strengthened, as has my belief that I was truly lucky to be able to have such a positive time during high school. As a community, we have a wealth of creativity and passion, and we cannot give up on something so indescribably special.ā€

Zachary Mills ā€™17
Zachary is entering his junior year at American University where he is double majoring in audio production and music performance.  This summer Zachary is interning with Vermont PBS, where he is getting experience in his field capturing audio for film, broadcasts, and interviews. PBS is filming the children’s television show Mr. Chris and Friends. Zachary has also been working part-time at Egan Media Productions organizing a sound effects library of over 50,000 recordings. 

Jaco Schiller ā€™17
Jaco has spent the past couple of years traveling in the States and southern Asia doing biodynamic and organic farming, wilderness expeditions, Buddhist and Hindu pilgrimages, music instruction and performing. 

Jaco will begin studying at Prescott College this fall with a focus on environmental science and filmmaking.  

Hailey White ā€™17
Hailey is currently traveling and working internationally. She recently completed a postpartum doula training.

Leyi Cheung ā€™18 
Leyi just finished her first year at the University of Vermont in the top 20% of her class. Currently she is majoring in philosophy and computer science with a minor in linguistics. She will be transferring to the University of Melbourne in the spring of 2020. One of Leyiā€™s passions is hunting for vintage books. She recently bought a first edition of Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger.

ā€œI chose my majors because of the danger and future of artificial intelligence. People who work in such fields need to be responsible about what they do. I decided to major in philosophy because it will not only help me with coding but also help me make good future decisions. I have loved philosophy ever since taking philosophy in my senior year of high school and I incorporated philosophy into my senior project.ā€

Amara Krag ā€˜18
Amara will be a sophomore at The University of Vermont, where she is majoring in biology. This summer she is spending her time working and training to become a bartender at Peg and Terā€™s in Shelburne.

Elliott Rice ā€˜18
Elliott is currently finishing the last few months of what has been a truly amazing gap year experience replete with work, travel, and personal discovery. This summer he is working as a Field Manager for VPIRG, and he looks forward to transitioning to college life as a student at Centre College in Kentucky.

Lark Thompson ā€˜18
Lark is currently in Washington, D.C., working at a summer camp. She will be a sophomore at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was named to the Deanā€™s List. Lark is having a classic college experience and is pursuing an interest in environmental preservation.

Hannah Webster ’18
Hannah is a rising sophomore at Bates College in Maine where she is a psychology major and history minor and has earned a place on the Dean’s List. Hannah plays on the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team and the team placed 2nd at DIII Nationals this year. This summer Hannah is home and interning for a local business where she is focusing on social media and marketing.

ā€œI loved my education at Waldorf and I feel that it set me up for success as a student and as a young adult in this world.”

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