Three Pillars Meeting: Creating Community with an Eye Towards Equity

The Three Pillars that sustain Cedarwood Waldorf School are the faculty, the board & administration, and the parents. Together we create the culture and community of our beautiful school.

At our recent Three Pillars meeting, we introduced Randolph Carter of Alma Partners as our DEI consultant for the 2020-2021 school year.

Alma Partners is a consortium of Waldorf teachers and administrators who have been working on multicultural education in Waldorf schools for many years. Randolph is also a former Waldorf parent. Randolph will be working with the DEI committee and providing professional development for faculty and staff, as well as working with our Social Justice club for students. He also met with the board on October 16, and is generally available to our community as a resource this year.

Active work on diversity, equity, and inclusion is one of the required markers of accreditation by both of our accrediting bodies, Northwest Association of Independent Schools and the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. Equity work is being undertaken by most, if not all, of the independent schools in North America. Equity is different from equality in that equality focuses on providing the same inputs to all; equity focuses on access to opportunity and on providing what is necessary to achieve optimal end results.

Cedarwood began this work back in 2014, and it has gone through different stages, primarily through several different professional development efforts. At this point, the faculty is engaged and increasingly working to bring materials from many cultures into their classes and curriculum offerings throughout the grades.

This works is also important for Cedarwood, as we undertake it against the current backdrop of changing demographics in Portland. 23% of the general population of Portland currently identifies as non-white; in the Portland Public Schools, that percentage rises to 44%, and is increasing each year. For Cedarwood to remain relevant in these changing times, we need to be accessible and attractive to an increasingly diverse population.

Mayor Wheeler said recently that we are in a “national reckoning on racial justice and equity. We have to make sure the community is front and center on this conversation.” Community is our most precious asset here at Cedarwood. It is what we value and what we crave in this time of quarantine. We need to come together to discuss how we can undertake this important work and commit ourselves to it.

For some this is conversation will seem too slow. At the same time, others are just joining and want to understand how we define our terms so that we can have a meaningful conversation. It can be uncomfortable work, and we will make mistakes. At the same time, if we take time to warm up the spaces between us, believe the best of each other, and continue to take steps forward, we can accomplish meaningful change.

Our Pedagogical Director, Chiaki Uchiyama, shares:

In Waldorf schools, we teach young children stories of the various spiritual entities, cultures, origins, and ancient civilizations with respect, appreciation, and admiration.

Later, during their middle school years, we teach students human history wherein powers and biases give birth to unfair social structures, unethical political movements, and unhealthy economic systems.

We guide students to experience the beauty and richness of each culture and their origin, then help them to understand the human causes and their effects within world history, so that we can empower them to overcome unconscious biases and choose to act out of themselves on behalf of a unity in which the beauty and richness of each culture and all people can blossom.

In order to further achieve this, we can introduce a more diverse richness to our younger children as well as more refined articulations in our historical studies. We need to do so not only from the white cultural perspective, but also from the perspective of different cultures and races as well. This is a critically important work for us to undertake.

We are in the process of forming our DEI Committee for the year, and invite you to join us to help co-create this important work at Cedarwood. We will be forming interest groups this month, including but not limited to learning more about equity work, gathering curriculum resources, building our multicultural library, celebrating festival life from different cultures, exploring our own identities and becoming better acquainted with others in the community. We can form study groups and cultural affinity groups to learn more about how to support our children. The committee currently meets at 4:00 pm on Wednesdays. If you are interested in joining us, please contact Sue Levine to join us at our next meeting.

There is also still time to get involved and help re-envision an online Parent Council this year! Please contact Asya Beardsley for details and to share your ideas!

Born and raised in Nebraska, Sue Levine and her husband Rick raised their three children in Boulder, Colorado, where they attended Shining Mountain Waldorf School. While serving as Executive Director of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, service on the Shining Mountain Board of Trustees led to the position of School Director at Shining Mountain, the School Administrator position at Waldorf School of the Peninsula, and to the Head of School position at Cedarwood.

Sue enjoys playing chamber music, reading, and exploring Portland in her spare time. She holds degrees in violin performance from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Illinois, a Masters in Accountancy from Bentley University, and is pursuing her EdD in Leadership at Concordia University-Chicago.