Conscious Innovation

Starlight Rays in Darkened Times: Seminars on Contemporary Topics

with Carol Bärtges

How to work with Rudolf Steiner’s indications of human development as we move into the next 100 years of innovative curriculum in Waldorf education.

Using her 12th grade seminar, Muses of Modernism, as well as the 12th grade elective, Human Development, as examples, Carol will share the process by which new main lessons and year-long or semester-long track classes can be proposed, forming an innovative curricular lexicon that remains committed to Steiner’s unique view of the growing adolescent. Brief texts will be shared beforehand as reading material for the discussions.

As an alumna, Carol Ann Bärtges has long been associated with the New York City Rudolf Steiner School and has worn many hats – as a parent of two graduates, as a class teacher, and for most of her career, as a high school teacher of Literature, Speech, and Drama. Currently, Carol serves as a full-time faculty member in the upper school English department and chairs the Faculty Development Committee; she is also the co-chair of the College of Teachers. An inveterate New Yorker, Carol lives on the Lower East Side, the tenement neighborhood her paternal grandparents always said they couldn’t wait to escape.