By: Melissa Perrett

Bonnie Stambaugh, a lead kindergarten teacher at Waldorf Montessori, walks through the familiar walls of Eugene Waldorf School. After 20 years of teaching, Bonnie exudes a sense of comfort in her being that suggests she has always felt in place with teaching young children through the Waldorf method. Now, during Bonnie’s first year off since 1997, she reflects on all that she has accomplished and how much she has grown since her first day of work at Eugene Waldorf. With a warm smile and openness to share her story, not a bone in Bonnie’s body seems unsure. However, looking deeper into how Bonnie came to where she is today, it becomes apparent that she has not always been in such a place.

While attending the University of Oregon during Bonnie’s undergrad, she was studying public education and planned to become a public school teacher. Nearing the end of her degree, Bonnie began practicums in a second grade classroom to learn from an experienced teacher what she would eventually be doing in her own classroom. However, her first day of practicums did turn how the way Bonnie had hoped. She recalls the activity the teacher had the students doing was a paint by numbers turkey, and a child was unhappy with the activity. When Bonnie suggested that the girl flip over the page and draw and color in her own turkey, the girl got so excited and happy that she had the chance to be creative. Soon, the other children at her table flipped over their own pages and began creating their own art rather than coloring in a stencil. “Suddenly there was joy,” Bonnie says. When the lead teacher saw what the children were doing, “She just lost her temper,” Bonnie recalled. “I couldn’t believe that she would yell at us in such anger.” That very night, Bonnie knew she was not in the right place. Seeing that children were not allowed to be creative, and seeing that the teacher had such a misunderstanding of her students, Bonnie knew she needed to find her passion elsewhere. After switching her major and dropping out of the public school track, she found Eugene Waldorf school. “It was overnight” Bonnie says.

While reflecting on the last two decades of her life with a break from teaching, Bonnie plans to come back to Eugene Waldorf as an assistant teacher, rather than a lead teacher. With the same desire to help children love learning, and “see who they are,” Bonnie does not plan to leave teaching any time soon. Valerie Perrott, the PR and enrollment coordinator for Eugene Waldorf school, has worked with Bonnie since her early years of teaching and spoke about Bonnie and what she sees for her in the future. Valerie says, “She has such a big heart space, I see how much of her life she gives over to her work. I see Bonnie teaching for a long time.”