Episode 11: Ida Oberman _ Community School for Creative Education

<p class="ql-align-center"><strong>Special Thanks to Camila Guiza-Chavez for her beautiful performance of "Over the Rainbow" that introduces this episode. </strong></p><h2><br></h2><h2>Threshold Questions &amp; Delicious Quotes</h2><h2><br></h2><p><strong>What is the role of the imagination in the development of the child?</strong></p><blockquote><em>I think that now we more and more feel it, as particularly now, under COVID, when we're all pressed against our screens, how life-giving imagination is. And sometimes it feels ephemeral. But, if we realize that imagination is really at heart, thinking about the relationship amongst things that have not been yet, that's when you create new things.</em></blockquote><p><strong>What distinguishes Waldorf education?</strong></p><blockquote><em>So that imaginative power means not only preparing the children, this distinguishes our school and Waldorf schools overall, it's not just to prepare the children to succeed against the benchmarks that have been set to win on in the race that has already been outlined. It is to think of new benchmarks, it's to blaze new trails to build a better tomorrow to build something that has not yet been yet. And that is creating a better future. That's the ultimate purpose of education.</em></blockquote><p><strong>How does Waldorf education prepare its students for an increasingly ambiguous and unpredictable future?</strong></p><blockquote><em>Really, that is the heart of Waldorf education is to start to hear more and more clearly your purpose in your path in the world and feel … your agency to quest for it and then fulfill it, which is of course a lifelong journey.</em></blockquote><p><strong>How can creative education best respond to the significant changes that have been taking place in our society?</strong></p><blockquote><em>I'm thinking of an elder who said that fabric of our society has been rent asunder. And as we sew it back together, we want to sew a stronger cloth, and more tightly woven cloth that will hold us all better. And in th