Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access
Have you ever loved someplace, but still felt an arm’s length away from connecting with it? Perhaps you have admired something that felt whole, but somehow you still felt half? Have you ever felt the need to mold yourself to something (or hide something about yourself) because you admire and love it so much, but you just don’t know how to fit into it fully? Well, that is often what education can do and has done if it’s not careful and thoughtful. And that definitely includes Waldorf schools.
Tamarack Waldorf School is committed to doing the hard work of recognizing where we are able to grow. We have taken the time to be self-aware and look inwardly. It is easy to continue moving along a path when it “works,” so to speak, but one is fooling themselves if they ever think the work is done. A place that is habitable by all must be willing to do the work to be truly habitable and what their community needs. This is the work we wish to do. We live in a world that is filled with disparity, filled with exclusion, and filled with silenced voices. This even exists in our little haven. Comfort is an ideal place to be, but hardly ever does growth happen there.
Tamarack Waldorf School has created a committee that is called IDEA; it stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access. If you look at the modern culture of Waldorf, you see a lot of tradition that is bedded with grace, beauty, and intention. Sounds phenomenal, right? And it is beautiful, graceful, and very intentional. But the truth of the matter is that it’s also exclusive, inequitable, and very often hurtful from lack of awareness.
By creating this group at Tamarack Waldorf School, we are hoping to remain a Waldorf school that truly does serve its community, not just one that fits the mold of Waldorf. Again, I will say that this work is never-ending; it’s necessary for any group, community, village, and human if they wish to stay able to serve their community, as we wish to. But I don’t want that to sound dismissive to what we know needs changing in Waldorf. Waldorf does have work to do.
We are in a new age, a new time in history, a new time in self and community development. We must do the work that is required to serve the human that lives today. It’s past time.
We hope you will support Tamarack Waldorf School’s IDEA team as we venture into the territory of making sure all are included, heard, seen, and welcomed. We are proud, willing, and dedicated to the work of creating a truly inclusive community, but we know it won’t be easy. However, we won’t let that stop us.
On our committee, you will find the full representation of Tamarack staff and faculty. We have early childhood representation, lower grades representation, administrative representation, assistant representation, and we have leadership representation as well! And we are looking to get Board and parent representation soon.
-written by Diamond Arechavala (Grade 1 teacher)