Ben Tindall, Class of 2013

I joined Maine Coast Waldorf School (Merriconeag) when I was in kindergarten and continued through to graduate from the high school in 2013, with only a year break during my freshman year at Freeport High School. While I was a student at Maine Coast, I played the violin and was a member of the Nordic ski team. I am incredibly grateful for the many other experiences I gained through my time there.

For college I attended Middlebury in Vermont where I majored in Philosophy, minored in Computer Science and studied abroad at Oxford University. After graduating, I moved to New York City where I currently live. I work at a small executive search firm while still exploring the city

Ben was Maine Coast Waldorf School's 2018 Grandparents Day speaker. You can read a transcript of his address to the grandparents here.

Skyler Samuelson, Class of 2013

After graduating from Merriconeag (Maine Coast) in 2013, I began preparing to attend Barnard College, the women’s college of Columbia University in the City of New York. The leap that would take me to Barnard was intimidating. Having grown up in Freeport, Maine, the college itself and New York City were equally daunting. But years later I am looking back on incredible years at Barnard, and how I considered New York City my home. I was a Russian Literature and Language major (with a minor in Biology) and speak Russian somewhat proficiently. I worked in Barnard’s Writing Center, sang in Columbia University’s Gospel Choir, trained 25+ hours per week on the Columbia Rowing Team, and explored a discounted New York City on my student ID. My Waldorf education has undoubtedly been the single most important factor in what allowed me to enjoy such a diverse and successful time at college.  I can’t recommend the pairing of a Waldorf education with a rigorous college like Barnard enough. Waldorf schooling encourages thoughtfulness, love, and a critical eye in everything the child does. This thoughtfulness paired with inquisitiveness and openness grow into the perfect tools to tackle whatever comes next.

Matthew Ritger, 8th Grade Class of 2002

Matthew is a writer, teacher and researcher. He graduated from Dartmouth College and is currently a PhD candidate at Princeton University, studying literature of the English Renaissance. Previously, he taught courses on Shakespeare and creative writing workshops in the English department at Cornell University, where he also received his MFA. Matthew's literary criticism appears regularly in the Los Angeles Review of Books and he is now at work on a first novel.

As a teacher and as a graduate student, I have a renewed appreciation for the many ways we learn in Waldorf education. In fifth or sixth grade, studying geometry didn't just mean learning the Pythagorean theorem: We spent hours making careful constructions with our compasses and illustrating them as beautifully as we could. I understood much more about geometry through that slow process with my hands than I ever could have through rote memorization. These days, teaching Shakespeare or leading a writing workshop, I never let my students merely read or only write. We act out scenes with our bodies. We memorize and perform poems to understand how the breath works and where the stresses fall. We take notes by hand so we’re forced to synthesize and compress knowledge, and not just record facts. I try to engage as many senses as possible, because real knowledge works by being present in so many different ways. Waldorf taught me that.

Judd Grimes, 8th Grade class of 2000