| Courage to be a Class Teacher by Meg Weber-Gil, Third Year [ Ed. The following is an interview with Deborah Krikorian, currently teaching Class 6 at the East Bay Waldorf School. Deborah also teaches Curriculum Studies to third year students in the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training. ]MEG: Tell us something about your biography. DEBORAH: When I look back on it, it's amazing how the different influences come together in a way that you don't expect. My father was in the army, and we traveled all over the world - Taiwan, Oklahoma, Germany and then the San Francisco Bay Area. It's amazing how all those different environments visit me when I go through the curriculum as I'm teaching now. Before I was a teacher, though, I was a music major at UC Berkeley. Then I got a masters degree in business from Cal State Hayward. Then I was a mother of two at home, before I discovered Waldorf education. And then everything seemed to come together. M: Is "following in your children's footsteps" what led you to the Waldorf Teacher Training? D: Exactly. We explored all sorts of educational alternatives for my son. When he entered first grade at a private school and was coming home with stomach aches and headaches from the pressure of what he was asked to do, we took a serious look at the entire situation. Believe it or not, the East Bay Waldorf School was the last school we considered. As soon as we walked in, we knew it was the right place - we knew we'd found home. Alex's experience in the kindergarten and first grade really set me to thinking. I wanted to understand what was going on with the school. So more from investigating and wanting to learn myself, I entered the teacher training; not ever planning to become a teacher. M: And what changed, that you then decided to teach? D: It was some time in the second year that it became more clear to me that I should probably consider it seriously. Everything I learned in the training was fascinating, and so involving - it made so much sense. I began to have the courage to think that I could be a class teacher. And then it was a huge destiny question, of where I was supposed to teach. So I really sympathize with those students who are trying to figure this out, because a log of factors come into play. Having a family, I had to consider their destinies as well. I had to look at their teachers, and my husband's situation, and what was right as a whole. Luckily, I think we ended up in the right place. M: How is what you learned in the teacher training, expressed in your daily teaching? D: That's difficult to answer, because every day, constantly, I'm using things that I learned in the teacher training. I almost can't pick out ways, because everything in some way is related to the teacher training. Certainly the anthroposophy, certainly the child development, is right there, in determining what's brought in where in the curriculum. But more deeply and beyond that, I was just thinking of how the six basic exercises are so critical to the success of the main lesson. Am I focused on the right thought at the right time, is my will engaged, am I open to the moment, and can I see with positivity as things are coming toward me? Can I take it all in with equanimity, and how do I balance it for the rest of the lesson, and the rest of the day? So even something as simple as that infuses your teaching. I really appreciate that foundation in anthroposophy that the program focuses on. I know that students in the program sometimes feel, "Oh gosh, we need more practical tools." Yes, you know you will always feel that; but those tools are a lot easier to acquire actually than the foundation in anthroposophy, and the chance to really study and delve deeply into the subject matter. M: This is your first year teaching in the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training program. Can you share some of your experiences with that? What led you to do it? D: I feel a great gratitude to Dorit's leadership and guidance in the program, and I was flattered when she asked me. Not in a small sense - in a great sense, I was honored that she thought I could do it. I've found that it's actually very refreshing and energizing to work with these concepts once again, and to speak about them with adults again. Even though we have faculty meetings and studies while working in the school, there is something different about just really stepping back and looking at how a main lesson is constructed, or what is it when you do "concentration," or a wake-up activity for ten minutes in the morning. So to be able to delve into that once again, having been there, is refreshing and inspiring. I find it enjoyable and fulfilling to revisit all these subjects from a new perspective. M: You have a background in music studies. Do you use that in your teaching? D: I can't imagine doing it without a music background. I don't mean to discourage the non-musicians, but so much has to do with incorporating musicality into the day. Not so much the singing as just knowing how to breathe in and breathe out, how to vary the tempo of how you introduce things, or how to really work on a passage, and that discipline of practicing - it all comes in extremely handy. And then, the class sings very beautifully too. M: Thank you very much, Deborah. I was fortunate enough to spend my first practicum in my second year in your class, at that time the fifth grade, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much. D: Thank you. |
 
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