Dear Mr. Gatto,<\/p>\n
I am deeply thankful to Jerry for his kindly relaying this message of thanks to you.
\nI come to you to lay at your feet my deep appreciation for your changing my life through your stalwart courage and clear thinking.<\/p>\n
Allow me to briefly explain:
\nI\u00a0recall as though it was yesterday when I read in the New York Times that you had taken on tremendous\u00a0financial hardship to rent Carnegie Hall as place in which to speak on the content of your then new book,\u00a0Dumbing Us Down.\u00a0\u00a0If your\u00a0book was as a lightning bolt for me, your courage in how you gave your message forward was transformative.<\/p>\n
At the time,\u00a0I was a newly arrived immigrant from Germany and Holland- part Jewish,\u00a0Dutch-born and German-educated in a Waldorf school from grade 3 on in Tuebingen Germany and a graduate of the Stuttgart (Germany) Waldorf teacher training.\u00a0I had just come to the US to be a\u00a0teacher, holding within myself high ideals and low levels of skills or knowledge – wanting to fight for justice by harnessing Waldorf education in the service of\u00a0and as powerful option for traditionally marginalized communities.<\/p>\n
Fresh off the boat, I made my start in a private Waldorf school.\u00a0There, while\u00a0thrilled to be in the ‘new world’ and at all the good I saw in my school community,\u00a0I was bewildered by the exclusiveness surrounding this wonderful educational option that I felt should be available for all and especially\u00a0for the ones who would most need it: the ones the system least served.\u00a0I felt deeply troubled as I visited\u00a0local public schools to witness far too many sterile white walls and far too much rote teaching\u00a0offered up to those who most needed the invigorating nourishment to\u00a0unleash their inner imagination and power.<\/p>\n
I could not find the words\u00a0to express what was wrong.
\nYou gave them to me.\u00a0\u00a0Your words were my clarion call.<\/p>\n
Not only did you give me words, you gave me the words, the problem analysis, and the example of Herculean courage that set me on my path.<\/p>\n
After that I went on to\u00a0dedicate my life to building public urban Waldorf schools and start – through various twists and turns –\u00a0the country’s first urban intercultural Waldorf school . It is located\u00a0in Oakland CA.\u00a0Our effort is now 10 years old and the most diverse school in the city and county.\u00a0And we are growing and learning.<\/p>\n
Your words and courage were what set me on my path.<\/p>\n
So, thank YOU.
\nI hope it would make you smile as small token of thanks to receive below:
\n– two of my school’s children, both 10, celebrating that they and our school are now 10 years. old and growing.
\n– a little flyer boasting a few of\u00a0our accomplishments to date.<\/p>\n
As you can imagine, there is so much more to tell.\u00a0Please know:\u00a0None of this would be if not for you.<\/p>\n
Thank you thank you thank you,<\/p>\n
Ida Oberman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Mr. Gatto, I am deeply thankful to Jerry for his kindly relaying this message of thanks to you. I come to you to lay at your feet my deep appreciation for your changing my life through your stalwart courage and clear thinking. Allow me to briefly explain: I\u00a0recall as though it was yesterday when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12059,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12058\/revisions\/12059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}