Rose Ann Steenhoek
Rose Ann Steenhoek is one of the advisors and program developers. Her family home is the rural setting for the community living program. Her lifetime work is education for personal and societal transformation.
As I began my adult life as a public high school teacher in the early 70’s, it became quickly apparent to me that the educational system needed change. But I had no idea how to bring about a transformation. So I mailed in my resignation as my husband, Gene, and I traveled through Canada, living in a tent, on our way to the east coast. In 1974, creative possibilities for education serendipitously came into my life in a bookstore in Springfield, Missouri. The book I chanced upon, The Open Classroom Reader, told of schools in Vermont and North Dakota that offered children more of a voice in their education. In the following years my husband and I enrolled in The Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of North Dakota. That program practiced what it preached and instilled in me a deep understanding of personal power and transformation. Our next step was simply to find an open classroom setting to teach in. Finding such a school would ensure us that the community would be life affirming for Gene and me and we would live happily ever after.
Many years later, the search still unfulfilled, I helped to form the school I had been dreaming of. Thanks to charter legislation in Minnesota, which encouraged innovative schools, I and others, including Starwalkers advisor Olivia Frey, started The Village School of Northfield in 1997. My illusion of the possibility of transforming schools lasted for many years. But it was finally crushed in 2006, when the local district discontinued our charter. Out of that time of disequilibria, Starwalkers was born.
I am a believer that we are all here for a purpose, and that we are on the brink of an important decision for the future of life on the planet. I have been employed as an educator for most of my adult life, in very different settings - homeschooling, tutoring, private schools, public schools and public charter schools.
My role as an educator has evolved to the root meaning of educate, which is to draw out. Particularly during my nine years at The Village School of Northfield, my relationship with students was one of drawing out their unique gifts, of mirroring what I noticed back to them, so that they might become more self-aware and actively use their gifts in the service of the world.
The Village School community operated by consensus and restorative justice. I have many years of experience with consensus decision-making both as a facilitator and participant, and as an avid student. The same is true of the restorative justice process – I was extensively involved in restorative justice committees and formal and informal circles.
I am also a gardener and a lover of plants. Since 1993 I have, with my husband and Olivia, tended a Community Supported Garden (CSA), providing vegetables, fruits, and flowers to many households in the Northfield community.
Listening to my dreams and learning from them, as well as becoming aware of lessons from my daily life are an important part of my growth and development. I have been involved with a dream group since 1991 and have gained many valuable insights from that involvement.
I have been involved in a local peace group, People for Peace and Goodwill, and strive to learn more about living as a peacemaker. I attend weekly peace vigils in downtown Northfield.
I am a long time student of the works of Brian Swimme and participated in a retreat that he arranged in the Colorado Rockies. There participants learned how to become more aware of the Powers of the Universe and how we can align with them to further growth in our own lives and thus contribute to planetary change.
My most important work has been my participation in family life. I have been married to Gene Steenhoek since 1972 and we have raised two children together, Sacha and Kai Steenhoek, now adults past the quarter century mark. I value my relationship to the extended families on both sides and stay involved in the lives and activities of 4 generations.
