I was born in Toronto in 1949 and moved to Vancouver in the early seventies to finish an undergraduate degree and start my working life as a teacher. I taught for six years in the North Vancouver Waldorf School and then moved to New York State where I taught in another Waldorf School for another six years. In 1990 I returned to BC and entered the public school system as a primary teacher and taught for nineteen years at University Hill Elementary School near UBC. I received a M. Ed in the Creative Arts in Teaching from Lesley University (Boston) in 1995. In June 2009 I retired from teaching.
I was very thankful for my years in the Waldorf system because they taught me to value the whole child (not just the intellectual side) and to see the possibilities living in the spirit of each child. If the child knows that the teacher approaches him always through his potential then everything is possible. I am also grateful for my years in the public school as well. I needed to use another curriculum but I could soften the edges with the use of imagination and storytelling and the Arts. My school near UBC was located in a natural setting next to Pacific Spirit Park; closeby, an ancient native Indian path led the way through a forest of alder trees down to the beach.
I am delighted to now have the time to explore other directions and travel. I continue to blog and write the odd poem as well as take pictures. I am taking singing lessons so I can be a better singer with my two choirs, one of which is the Threshold Choir (we sing at the bedsides of the terminally ill). I audit one course a term at the Vancouver School of Theology and I volunteer in the palliative care ward of a local hospital.
