There’s Nothing Like a Waldorf Community

I’m writing this post via the dictation feature on my computer, so I apologize in advance for the funky capitalization and strange typos.

Last week on Friday, I got together with some parents to put up the set for our class play.I was amazed at how many people showed up to help and we got right to work putting up the backdrops and getting everything ready.

We laid out the long aluminum poles that hold up the backdrop curtains and started to make sense of how to put it together. Before I knew it I took a step backward onto one of the poles, which rolled underfoot and I started to fall. I reached out my right-hand catch myself — a big mistake. I should have listened to the wisdom of one of our kindergarten children who said that when falling you should cross your arms to protect your heart.

As soon as I fell I knew it was broken. The parents scrambled to help calling urgent care clinics and using wooden blocks from the first grade to create a splint. A parent whisked me away and the doctor confirmed — it was broken, out of alignment, and needed surgery.

As I made my way home I was deluged by texts from parents asking about my welfare. They offered their regrets and suggested bringing dinner over for me and my family. I was overwhelmed by the amount of support I received that evening and scrambled to reply in my one-armed state.

I took one parent up on her offer to send dinner over, I took my pain pills and my son and I had dinner together. I called another parent who offered to organize a meal train, which I would never expect, but it felt like the right thing to do to organize all of the offerings of support.

The next morning I was already in problem-solving mode and starting to think about how to work through everything that was coming up in the following week.

My class parents had generously organized a garden work party as my end of year gift and my plan for the weekend had been to get all of the supplies. I needed a truckload of wood chips and a truck load of compost in my driveway by Monday morning. At this point, I wasn’t even sure if we should go ahead with the work party. I was feeling pretty good, all considering, but I didn’t know how I feel in the next couple of days.

I had also heard that my students were really upset upon hearing about my injury. There were students crying in aftercare when they heard that I had been hurt and I wanted them to see that I was fine and everything was going to be OK.

So I decided to go ahead with the work party. Thank goodness my kids’ dad was visiting that weekend and he kindheartedly agreed to rent a truck and get the wood chips and the compost. He and my son had a father-son bonding moment unloading it all from the truck in the driveway.

So the work party was on.

Monday came and I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I was with the support that arrived.

They brought food. They brought willing hands. They brought tools. They brought plants. I started to count up the dollar value of all of the plants that they brought, and I stopped because I was so overcome.

My garden was completely transformed that day. And the best thing is that the parents had such a great time doing it.

The community that was built in that day working in my garden was incredible. For the next two days I watched all of the parents post about it on social media with the words of gratitude for each other and me. What a gift!

Ever since, we’ve been eating meals provided by the meal train, things far better than I would cook on an ordinary school night.

I’ve been home from school all week, with the expectation of surgery on Wednesday. Of course things move more slowly than you hope, so surgery will be on Monday.

This was a big week to miss work though, because this was the week we performed our class play. One of my colleagues jumped in to lead the class and after an hour and a half phone conversation Monday night, he felt prepared to leave the students in their play practice. They would perform on Wednesday and Thursday, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be there. I ended up coming in on Tuesday morning, just to watch them practice and to make sure that they would be ready to perform.

They were amazing. It was so sweet. And even sweeter because I could see that they would be just fine performing without me.

The next day, the performance happened. A class parent recorded it from the balcony and sent it to me as soon as it was over. I was so proud to see that they could do so well even without me there.

It’s kind of funny. They’ve been doing so well with this play, that I’ve been trying to think of ways to make it more challenging for them. I thought maybe I could change the movement. Maybe I could add another flute Song. Maybe I could add an extra dance. In the end the extra challenge was that they would do it without me.

A good lesson for all of us.

My colleagues have been incredibly supportive, but I just can’t wait to get back to school. Today I talked to someone who said it could be 2 to 4 weeks post-surgery before I return to work.

Um, no. It won’t be 2 to 4 weeks. They don’t know the healing power of a Waldorf teacher.

I am learning that they’ll be just fine without me. But baby steps.