Speaker series 2023/2024

Marin Waldorf School hosts a free annual program of guest lectures and community conversations with experts in health, parenting, and education. Topics for the 2023-2024 lectures series include technology, sexual ethics, and Simplicity Parenting.

Parents, guardians, alumni, and members of our extended community are encouraged to join us. Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and take place on the MWS campus. Scroll down to see this year’s offerings.

Sexual Literacy and Sexual Ethics with Natasha Singh
Wednesday, March 13, 2024 at 7pm

As parents, we hope our children will learn to build meaningful, mutually respectful, and honest relationships as adults. At the same time, many of us are reticent or unsure of how to discuss sex and sexual ethics with our children. How can we share our values with our children, rather than allowing them to be intentionally or unintentionally educated by friends, pop culture, and media? 

Learn how to open the channels of healthy communication with speaker, writer, consultant, activist, nonprofit founder, and sexual literacy educator Natasha Singh, one of our school’s most popular speakers. In this dynamic evening event, Natasha will cover the basics of how to talk to your children about topics like consent, bodily autonomy, gender, intimacy, love, relationships, sex, and sexual ethics in honest and age-appropriate ways, while also examining our own ideas and values as parents. This evening is appropriate to parents of children of any age.

Natasha Singh is a sexual literacy educator, writer, speaker, nonprofit manager, teacher, and activist who has worked with parents, teachers, and students at schools across the Bay Area. She is the co-founder of Asha Rising, a nonprofit that provides permanent housing for elderly women who have aged out of the sex trade in India, and she co-chairs the board of Center for Domestic Peace, a Marin-based nonprofit whose mission is to mobilize individuals and communities to end domestic violence.

Learn more about Natasha’s background and experience here. 

The Young Child 101, with Diane David and Kristine Deason

This free series of talks with Diane David, BACWTT Early Childhood Director, and Kristine Deason, BACWTT Pedagogical Director, will explore the different aspects of the developing young child. Please RSVP below.

Week 1: Who Am I Becoming? The Inner Call of Parenthood

Nothing fully prepares us for the moment a newly born child is placed in our arms and looks into our eyes. No matter how much we have experienced, read, or think we know, this is always a singular and unprecedented moment. What is the path ahead? What will be asked of me? How do know what kind of person I need to be, so I can be the parent I need to be? What is my path now?

Week 2: Who Is this Child? Honoring the Child’s Process of Development

The world is filled with rushing and constant activity. There are a million things to do! The very young child needs so much help, so much care. In the midst of addressing all of these needs, can I remember to slow down to see my child? Slowing down and observing is the greatest expression of compassion and love, and a profound source of understanding. How does honoring the slow pace of the child’s development lead me to discovering my child?

Week 3: Settling In: Rhythms of the Home

Our most intimate rhythm as human beings is breathing. Our wellbeing depends upon right in‐breathing and out‐breathing. How can we bring this most personal and cosmic rhythm into home life so that the child feels safely held, purposeful, and supported to grow?

Week 4: Work and Play in the Home

Simplicity takes courage these days! When we understand what young children need, we can create healthy moods of work and play. For the young child, play is work and work is play – the right relationship between the two is a source of nourishment and joy. How can we support this at home?

Simplify the Holidays with Leanne Tarantino
Tuesday, November 7, 2023 at 6:30pm

Learning to thoughtfully simplify the lives of young children can help cultivate a more peaceful and harmonious home life. There are many ways to do this, from developing a dependable daily schedule to reducing the number of toys in a child’s bedroom.

How can we bring the same techniques to create a meaningful holiday season for our families? Please join us for a winter tea and conversation with master early childhood teacher Leanne Tarantino. With her gentle presence and abundant wisdom, Leanne will lead us in a conversation about how to enrich the holiday season with intention, mindfulness, and love. She’ll answer questions and share practical, easy-to-implement tips on how to celebrate the holidays with less waste, fewer tears, and a renewed focus on what really matters. 

For 11 years, Leanne Tarantino was the Buttercup lead preschool teacher at Marin Waldorf School. She holds a BA in English, a teaching credential, and a masters in education. She has been an educator for more than three decades, teaching parent-toddler, preschool, and kindergarten classrooms, in addition to mentoring early-childhood teachers. 

Waldorf 101 with Ken Smith
Thursdays, 8:30am-10am, October 12 to November 9, 2023

In this five-week series, we we will learn about the basic tenets of Waldorf education and its unique pedagogy, consider the role of Waldorf education in today’s world, and begin developing tools to to grow as individuals and parents. What are the key elements that you can take home to be incorporated into your family life and personal practice? What are the deeper philosophical and spiritual roots of the Waldorf movement? Join us!

Discussions address the following questions and themes.

  • October 12: Waldorf education in the 2020s: What is it all about?

  • October 19: What is the path of the Waldorf parent?

  • October 26: What are the essentials of Waldorf education?

  • November 2: Can education also support health?

  • November 9: Childhood and education are just the beginning of a lifetime’s journey.

Ken Smith is an artist, Waldorf educator, and educational program developer, and he has been the director of the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training since 2014. A native of New Zealand, he studied at Emerson College, England, and completed his training in sculpture and the visual arts with practices in pedagogical and therapeutic work. He has been active internationally in anthroposophical art and Waldorf education for over 30 years.

#KidsOnTech Film Screening with Director Paul Zehrer
Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 7pm

Join us for a special screening of award-winning documentary #KidsOnTech, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Paul Zehrer. An important look at one of the most controversial topics in modern parenting, #KidsOnTech explores the impact of cell phones, media, and digital devices on kids’ mental health. 

Weaving together a human story about the ramifications of digital media consumption on children, this 50-minute film features insights from a diverse array of children, parents, and educators from around the globe, including the U.S., Germany, India, France, Mexico, China, and Japan.

"While editing the film, everyone wanted us to offer a simple answer; but there were none,” says Paul. “Our process was to seek out intimate conversations with parents, teachers, neuroscientists, tech executives, child psychologists, and kids of every age from around the world hoping to better understand what’s become humankind’s greatest social experiment.”

Registration required. Watch the trailer here.

ONGOING

MWS Fathers Group with Roland Baril
10 Monday Nights 2023-2024

Join master teacher and expert parenting coach Roland Baril for an ongoing series of dynamic, informative, and interactive meetings for fathers and those who identify as fathers. Among other essential goals, the Fathers’ Group sessions seek to provide a forum to deepen our understanding of effective parenting skills and our roles as fathers, highlighting the importance of the father’s role in his child’s education. 

"I can’t stress how helpful this group has been to strengthen my understanding and commitment to our MWS community. It’s given me deep personal enlightenment into Waldorf education and what differentiates Marin Waldorf from the rest of the educational paths in the Bay Area: its exceptional and experienced staff and supporters. I now have more emotional buy-in to the school and my child’s education, their childhood and my own Fatherhood, than before joining the group. I'm excited for our continued and extended sessions."

- Michael Resnick, parent of 3 in preschool, kindergarten and 1st grade

10 sessions (9/25, 10/16, 10/30, 11/27, 12/18, 1/22, 2/12, 3/11, 4/15, 5/13), 6:30-8:30pm, on the MWS campus. $395 course fee paid directly to the instructor before the first meeting.