High School Faculty

Humanities

Chris Segrave-Daly, M.A. Humanities, University of Chicago (American history and literature, African-American studies); B.A. English, Villanova University. Prior to Monadnock, Chris taught high school English for seven years at Rudolf Steiner School in New York City, where he also served as a member of the Board of Trustees, a class mentor, a co-leader of the annual junior class trip to Kimberton Hills Camphill, and his school’s delegate to the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America.

Humanities & Drama, HS Chair

Karl Schurman, B.S., Empire State College; Princeton University; NYU Undergraduate Film School; Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program, New England Center for Anthroposophy (certificate of completion). Karl has been teaching since 2002 in Waldorf high schools and as an upper elementary grades class teacher, notably at Green Meadow Waldorf School, Chestnut Ridge, NY. Three decades of self-employed freelancing in the film business preceded Karl’s Waldorf teaching career, with work all over the U.S. and in many parts of the world, including shooting the PBS documentary “The World of Mother Teresa.” He maintains a deep interest in cinema history, the French language, Native America, and mystical Sufi poetry.

Mathematics

Connie Gerwin, A.A., California State University; Waldorf Institute of Southern California. Connie has taught algebra and geometry in Waldorf high schools for over thirty years, first at Highland Hall in Northridge, CA, then at High Mowing School in Wilton, NH and more recently at Hartsbrook School in Hadley, MA, Merriconeag Waldorf School in Maine, and  Lake Champlain Waldorf School in Vermont. She serves as a mentor to Waldorf high school math teachers and offers talks and workshops throughout North America.

New World Languages, French

Céline Gendron, B.A., Université du Québec à Montréal; Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program, New England Center for Anthroposophy (certificate of completion). Céline grew up on a farm in Québec, Canada and came to the U.S. in her mid-twenties to work in curative education in the Camphill Community in Kimberton, PA. For several years she lived at the Lukas Community in Temple, NH as a co-worker, house-parent, member of the administrative staff, and as Executive Director of the Lukas Foundation. After completing her high school teacher training, she went on to teach French in grades one through seven at the Kimberton Waldorf School and later in grades ten through twelve at Green Meadow Waldorf School in New York.

Physical Sciences, Mathematics

Mr. Falconbridge, Ph.D., Psychology/Physics, B.S. with First Class Honors, Biophysics, University of Western Australia. Mr. Falconbridge has worked as a Research Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer in the Physics Department at UWA and completed more than three years of post-doctoral work at UCLA and UC/San Diego. His Ph.D. thesis was entitled “Learning to See: Principles of Plasticity in the Early Visual System” and he has since published various papers on the theme of the brain’s remarkable ability to learn from its environment. He has served on the board of a developing Waldorf school in California and volunteered as an English and math tutor for underprivileged children in Malaysia. Mr. Falconbridge is currently enrolled in the Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program at the Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, NH.

Life Sciences

Anatomy & Physiology, Cell Biology, Botany
Mary Kay Costello, MS, Neuroscience and Behavior (research in circadian rhythms), University of Massachusetts, Amherst; BA, Biology and Environmental Studies, Wells College. Mary Kay has taught biology, chemistry and math in Waldorf high schools and public schools since 1979, first teaching at the Waldorf School of Garden City (of which she is  also an alumna), later at the Hartsbook (Waldorf ) School in Hadley, MA. As a teenager, Mary Kay spent several summers working at Camp Glen Brook, where she came to love the Monadnock region, hiking and canoeing it. She is passionate about science, the natural world, hiking, swimming, crosscountry skiing, gardening, discovering plants and animals, and finding ways to protect the land, its plants and animals. Mary Kay has three grown children and one grandson.

Embryology & Sexuality (also History through Music)
Douglas Gerwin, Ph.D., University of Dallas, is the Director of the Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, where among other responsibilities he helps to train Waldorf high school teachers (including Mr. Schurman, Mme Gendron and Mr. Falconbridge). He has extensive high school and university teaching experience in life sciences, history, literature, German, and music. A Waldorf graduate himself, he is the author of several books and many articles. He co-authored “The Results of Waldorf Education”, a comprehensive longitudinal study of Waldorf graduates, and his recent work includes researching and developing a sex education curriculum for Waldorf students in grades four through twelve.

Earth Sciences

Climatology
A Mountain Classroom: program taught by the Appalachian Mountain Club in a weeklong intensive in the White Mountains. For 40 years, AMC’s A Mountain Classroom program has worked to increase students' understanding of the natural world and their connection to it. The program offers an integrated learning experience that merges environmental education, personal development and team building seamlessly in a hiking-based program that challenges students and inspires an appreciation for the natural world—all taught experientially in the beauty of mountain environments, creating powerful memories of nature, camaraderie and fun.

Traceymay Kalvaitis, B.S., Geology and Science Education (Comprehensive Certification), East Carolina University. Traceymay brings a wealth of experience as a field scientist and a high school science teacher, having taught and conducted research in New England, the Pacific Northwest, and the Hawaiian Islands. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management employed her in researching habitat requirements for spotted owls and salmonids in remote forests of Oregon. Most recently, Traceymay was the Lead Science Teacher and a houseparent at the Meeting School in Rindge, NH. She strives to bring field applications into the classroom and expand the limits of the classroom out into the field.

Aesthetics

History through Art (also Sculpture)
Patrick Stolfo, B.A., M.A., has been active as a freelance sculptor and graphic artist since 1973. After a period of independent study and teaching at Emerson College in England, he was commissioned to create sculptural installations in Sweden, California, and New York. He has been a teacher of sculpture, art, and art history for thirty years in numerous Waldorf schools, college programs, and Waldorf teacher training institutes in North America.

History Through Music (also Embryology)
Douglas Gerwin
See Above

Movement

Clowning & Spacial Dynamics
Laura Geilen is a member of the North American Nose To Nose Clown Facilitator team under the guidance of Vivian Gladwell, founder of Nose To Nose of the UK. She collaborates with the highly respected Walking the Dog Theater of Hudson, NY, teaches movement, circus arts, Spacial Dynamics® and clowning to adults, kids and special needs populations throughout the Berkshire-Taconic region. She also travels to bring her personal and socially healing clowning workshops to adults and collegial groups. Laura lives in Hillsdale, NY.

Aerobics
Adriana Troxell Elliot, BA Spanish Literature and Theatre, Reed College. She has taught holistic fitness for the past seven years, is a certified Nia teacher, and has a background in Modern, African, and Latin dance forms. Adriana is also a Justice of the Peace and NH Certified Family Mediator and Guardian ad Litem. She is the Director of Cheshire Mediation, and has a private mediation practice, in which she helps families with communication, relationship renewal, separation and divorce.

Dance
Richard Clough, BA History/Theater Keene State College. Richard has been involved with the Performing Arts since his formative years. Starting as a musician, then moving to acting, and finally to dance, he has been teaching Social/Ballroom Dance in the Keene area since 1986. He is comfortable with the Smooth dances like Foxtrot and Waltz, the Latin dances, like Cha Cha and Rumba, and Club dances like Swing and Salsa. Rich strives to give students the tools to enjoy and express themselves to music individually and in partnership.

Yoga
Meenakshi Moses began practicing yoga in 1985 and received teacher certification from the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers Int’l. in 1988. She has studied and practiced Sivananda, Iyengar and Ashtanga Yogas and taught Sivananda, Pre-natal and Ashtanga Yogas. Meenakshi's main study and practice in recent years has been of Ashtanga Yoga.

Music Program

Wind Ensemble
Bruce Elliot studied Jazz saxophone at the Hartt School of Music with Jazz Master Jackie McLean. He has been playing in and leading various musical groups around Keene since 1998. Bruce graduated from the Waldorf teacher training at Antioch New England Graduate School where he was classmates with MWS class teacher Tim Price. For five years Bruce was a class teacher at MWS. Currently he plays in two bands, The Nines and The Terry Landis Band as well as teaching and working as the massage therapist at the Cheshire Wellness Center.

Strings Ensemble
Mark Ferguson, Bachelor of Music, California State Northridge, major in music composition and piano; studied composition with Aurelio De La Vega (a student of Arnold Schoenberg) and Daniel Kessner and conducting with Lawrence Christianson; studied film composition at UCLA with Don Ray, Music Coordinator for CBS; Diplôme des Études pour la Langue Française des Étrangers, L’Univérsité Marseilles III; MA, French, Middlebury College. Mark began studying piano at age 8. Mark studied and taught music for four years in Paris, France, and came to High Mowing School, Wilton, NH, in 1997 where he currently teaches chamber music, piano, and French and directs he string group there. He also teaches piano at the Keene Community Music Center. In 2005, Mark founded The Sinfonietta, a community orchestra based in Wilton, for which he frequently arranges and composes pieces and with which he often performs. Mark has composed for the Keene Chamber Orchestra, plays and student films,  and performs as a soloist and in chamber music groups in Southern New Hampshire.

Recorder Ensemble
Martin Hanft has been playing baroque and Renaissance music on recorder and flute for more than forty years. He studied recorder and flute privately with, among others, Eleanor Lawrence, Peter Bloom, and Christopher Krueger, studied music theory and baroque performance practice at the Longy School of Music, and has also participated in the Oberlin Baroque Performance workshop. From 1983-1989, Martin taught recorder, baroque flute, and music theory at the Brattleboro Music School. During those same years, he taught and coached ensembles at the Putney School, the Putney Grammar School, and elsewhere in the Brattleboro area and  performed locally on recorder and flute with guitarist Steve Procter in the Procter-Hanft Duo, and with Musica Vermont. Currently Martin teaches recorder at the Keene Community Music Center.

Chorus
Maria Belva, BA, Psychology & Education, SUNY/Potsdam; MMus Choral Conducting, University of Maine; CMVT (Certified McClosky Voice Technician), McClosky Institute of Voice, Emory University. Maria is a professional choral conductor and private voice teacher based in Peterborough, NH. Her voice studio serves students of varying abilities and needs, from timid beginners to experienced soloists, from children to adults. She directs the Peterborough Children’s Choir (more than 70 children in four auditioned ensembles) and the Keene Youth Chorus, and is music director of the Peterborough Unitarian Church. Maria also is active as a soprano soloist throughout the Monadnock region. She sings with the Peterborough Chamber Singers.

Manual & Fine Arts

Blacksmithing, Wood Sculpture, Woodworking
Stefan Hofer-Fay has been inventing and creating things as long as he can remember. His creativity was fostered through 12 years at the Kimberton Waldorf School. After high school Stefan traveled to South America and Norway. His passion has always been woodworking and therefore, he studied wooden boat building and log house building in Norway. While in Norway, he also had the opportunity to learn blacksmithing, knife making, woodcarving, hide tanning and sailing. Stefan lived on a farm for a year in a remote section of northern Norway working for a master log builder as well as taking care of and driving sled dogs. He began teaching children and adolescents at Kroka Expeditions, a wilderness education school in Marlow, NH, and assisted on their Vermont HS Semester. He also had the opportunity to teach a few courses in Norway at the Fosen Folk High School. For the past year Stefan has been assisting Hans van Riel in the MWS elementary school woodshop. He is also currently studying education full time at River Valley Community College.

Batik, Block Printing
Olusegun Olorunfemi is classically trained artist from Ibadan, Nigeria and listed in “Who’s Who of Nigerian Art” published by Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC. Segun works in variety of media including sand painting, batik on rice paper and linoleum block prints. Traditional Yoruba culture reflects a constant awareness of life as a  sacred presence in the world. Students explore stories and traditions illustrated in Segun’s work and together with him develop a vocabulary of images for inclusion in a class project. The creative process generates interaction and consideration of cross-cultural concepts found in proverbs and daily life. His classes include examples of his work illustrating fables, stories and festivals drawn from Yoruba and other Nigerian cultures through a creative process that involves free exchange and cross-cultural exploration in a structured studio environment fostering collaboration.

Etching & Painting
Susan Lunt Childress, BFA, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Skill, a strong concept and temporality are given equal footing in Susan’s works in graphite, oil, printmaking and sculpture. Her grandmother’s richly patterned embroidery inspired her most recent large-scale drawings of imagined landscapes of the future—‘a different world but one beautiful and saved.’ Susan is a Waldorf alum and parent.

Black & White Drawing, Painting, Block Printing, Pottery
Nick Pomeroy received a three-year intensive training in Art and Anthroposophy at the School of Sculpture, Emerson College, Forrest Row, UK, where he also received additional practical training in pedagogical painting, drawing and sculpture. A Waldorf graduate and member of the pioneering class of Portland Waldorf High School, Nick later returned to  PWHS as the Fine Arts teacher. Throughout his adult life he has taken many classes and workshops in a wide spectrum of  arts: ceramics, printmaking, graphic design, etc. He thoroughly enjoys working with adolescents and feels he learns as  much from the students as they do from him.

Weaving, Spinning & Knitting
Marcy Schepker is a tapestry weaver, soft-toy maker and active MWS community member with 36 years of experience as a weaver and teacher. She holds the conviction that each of us is an artist, a crafts person and an apprentice in our own capacity. Also central to her practice is her belief that creativity is born of the dynamic balance and exchange between an individual’s creativity and the energy she draws from working with others. Marcy believes this process is central to the artist’s work, and that it also serves as a vital social model. Her art builds bridges between people. Marcy’s Pear Tree Studio in nearby Harrisville has been featured in the Boston Globe and in Fiber Arts Magazine.

Stained Glass & Geometric Origami
Hans Schepker, Born and raised in Germany, Hans’ exposure to a variety of crafts and trades during his formative years fostered his interest and skill in mechanics and working in wood and textiles. He pursued training as an electronics engineer, and he has long nurtured a passion for geometry. After work in the defense industry, Hans explored the “soft” geometry involved in producing custom-made garments; nine years of kite design and manufacture enabled him to put geometry into the sky; Hans has also practiced solid geometry through teaching at Waldorf Schools across the U.S. and Germany. With time, ever-changing constellations of paper forms began to float from the ceilings in his house. Recently, he has been installing light bulbs into those same and other forms, now made of glass, illuminating private, corporate, and public spaces.