Sorgues Waldorf School: it's twenty minutes past eight on the last day of school before the summer holidays. The farewell ceremony for the year eleven pupils is beginning soon, bringing parents and pupils together at nine o'clock. Seventeen-year-old Caroline from Leipzig, who spent a year at the school, is also there. The problem: it's raining cats and dogs!
Rain like this is rare in summer, but today the woodchippings in the schoolyard are already floating along the paths like small rafts. What to do? The school does not have an assembly hall; all major festivals are held outside or the community hall is rented a year in advance. Some teachers confer at the doorway, which is not yet flooded. They spontaneously decide to organise the celebration in several stages – first the younger pupils, then the older ones, and the whole thing in the canteen. They ask the kitchen crew, all the teachers are informed, and year nine is instructed to bring in benches. After a bit of a delay, the completely soaked parents first get a cup of tea from the kitchen team and then sit squashed up with the pupils on the canteen benches and listen to a thank-you speech and several performances by the lower school classes. About half an hour later, everyone swaps and it's the turn of the middle and upper school. Many tears of emotion are shed, the year eleven pupils offer a performance and at the end even the lower school pupils join in again. There is singing together and a guard of honour for the departing pupils.
This is everyday life at our Sorgues Waldorf School! A schoolyard that regularly turns into a cloud of dust, containers as classrooms, no dedicated sports hall or library, a staff room measuring three square metres ... But here, Waldorf is lived with heart and people stick together. Every year, several international pupils, like Caroline, join the upper school for a few months or a year, live with host families in the surrounding area of the school and enjoy the cohesion and family atmosphere. «You get the feeling that you're perceived much more strongly here,» says Caroline, «even if you don't speak the language that well yet«. And, «throughout my time at the school in Sorgues, I had the impression that the simple premises were sufficient and that everything worked, as good solutions were always found for all situations».
The positive feedback from the exchange pupils has prompted the school to focus on its international profile and it would now like to develop this even further in order one day to be able to offer the International Baccalaureate. There are already a whole series of projects that take pupils abroad or, conversely, bring pupils from all over the world to us. The paradox: our school is well known abroad, especially in Germany, but Waldorf is virtually unknown in France.
In defiance of the state's hostility
How can it be that Waldorf schools are so little known or supported in Germany's neighbouring country? The French state, in which the education system is centrally administered, does not like independent schools. There are private schools, but most are affiliated with the state school administration. This means that they have to comply with strict conditions and constantly have to make compromises.
They can receive financial support. Then there are a few independent schools, like our Waldorf school in Sorgues. It is financed exclusively by school fees and, if necessary, donations.
Only six Waldorf schools in France have an upper school. Sorgues goes up to year eleven, then pupils have to change. You can either go to Luxembourg like Caroline, for example, to do the International Baccalaureate in French at the Waldorf school there, or switch to a state school in Avignon or the surrounding area to do the school leaving exams there.
We are lucky in Sorgues: the mayor likes the school and there have been no unannounced inspections in recent years. Nevertheless, we are always on our guard and do not allow ourselves any potential areas of attack. Any opponents of Waldorf education push at an open door when they use the word «sect» and the French Association of Waldorf Schools is constantly trying to counter the often invented accusations with its own arguments.
Creative battle for survival
What is it like to be a Waldorf teacher in such a situation? One thing is certain, I'm only on board if I'm really committed. Income below the minimum wage and rarely enough hours for a full-time job are not motivating. Waldorf education must be perceived as meaningful for the work with the pupils and for one's own life.
Half of the staff at Sorgues are former Waldorf pupils from abroad. We are currently four German, one Dutch, one Venezuelan, three English, and two Russian members, and that's of 30 colleagues!
Despite all the difficulties, everyday school life for us teachers is filled with the bond with the pupils and the opportunity to be creative ourselves in order to improve everyday school life. There are tasks for everyone that fulfil us personally and at the same time benefit the school community. The Waldorf school thus becomes a living organism that is sometimes doing better and sometimes less well, but is constantly changing and developing. Ten people sit around the table and talk about the international reorientation of the upper school, they debate and then reach a decision: this is how we're going to do it now! There is no bureaucracy in the way, it is simply done or at least attempted. And in an emergency, we improvise again until everything is on an even keel and the necessary funds have been raised to carry out the desired projects.
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