MAY 23-25, 2026

At Threefold Educational Foundation in Chestnut Ridge, NY

• Are you interested in moving beyond clichés of “woke” and “anti-woke” to enter into a vital, living conversation about the social justice issues of our time?
• Do you think it is important to explore how anthroposophy can help us stop othering and start meeting each other as human beings across the various cultural, social, and economic differences?
• Is it time to have constructive conversations about the role of DEI in Waldorf education, Camphill, and other anthroposophical daughter movement institutions?

If so, we warmly invite you to an intergenerational event held by the Threefold Youth House, where we will strive to host a spirit that aims to transform polarity for the sake of a new, shared substance. These are sensitive topics, and we will develop new social capacities to make this event work! Are you up for the challenge? Please join us! The first iteration of this event took place in Detroit, Michigan, where nearly 40 individuals gathered for two days in mid-October. More can be read about that event here. This second gathering continues the work begun there, aiming to bring the conversation to the Threefold Community for a more regional working space. Additionally, this project includes a Substack called A Social Future, where we publish research and writing on this topic.  

Workshops Leaders

Vincent Philip Roppolo

 Currently working in the therapeutic community at Austen Riggs Psychiatric Facility, brings a diverse experience from the theater world in NYC, where he worked as an actor and taught at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy ( AMDA ). Vincent also worked as a Corporate Trainer with Citigroup and is also currently an adjunct faculty, and board member of The Association for Anthroposophic Psychology ( AAP ).

The workshop will be an exploration of Duality, Polarity and our Soul forces. Thinking , Feeling, Willing

Brian Scannell

Title – Lift Every Voice and Sing: The Complementary Spiritual Impulses of Transcendentalism and Hip Hop (45-60 minutes. It will be interactive!)

Bio – Brian grew up in Georgia and from a young age was drawn to literature, the arts and music. He felt called out west for college and earned his B.A. in English literature from Montana State University. After graduation, he worked for a number of years in outdoor education before moving to Portland, Oregon. There he worked for various educational non-profits until he eventually turned his focus to photography and journalism. He followed that dream out to Amman, Jordan where he worked for a host of magazines. Brian and his wife Julie also worked on Semester at Sea, a university that circumnavigates the globe. Brian went back to graduate school in 2014 to earn his Master’s in Teaching degree from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. and has been a high school teacher ever since. He shifted into Waldorf education in 2020 and holds a Waldorf teaching certificate from the Center for Anthroposophy. He taught humanities at Seattle Waldorf School and Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School before transitioning back to public education this school year.

Presenters

Brad Kershner

Bio – Dr. Brad Kershner is the Head of School at Kimberton Waldorf School and an independent scholar. Brad received his graduate education at The University of Chicago and Boston College. He is the co-founder of a meta-political think tank – The Reconstitution Project – and is the author of Understanding Educational Complexity: Integrating Practices and Perspectives for 21st Century Leadership. In addition to his work in education, Brad works in collaboration with thought leaders and spiritual teachers from around the world who are engaged in developing wisdom-based responses to planetary problems. You can follow his work at integratedemergence.substack.com, and you can learn more about his school at kimberton.org. 

Title – Woke to the Context of the Consciousness Soul: Building a Developmental Bridge to the Third Attractor 

Description – In our work to understand the tensions and possibilities of our cultural and social worlds, we must come to terms with the implications of human development, individually and collectively. And as we navigate through an increasingly complex cultural terrain (a territory that is, itself, filled with maps), we must learn together how to avoid the dystopian attractors that are pulling us toward futures that we do not desire. Recognizing the polarized possibilities of fragmented chaos and totalitarian control, our shared endeavor is to chart a course toward a third possibility, the one we desire in our heart of hearts; the desire that carries every I forward on its embodied journey of soul development.  

This talk will explore insights from developmental theory, complexity theory, and spiritual science to intimate and gesture towards potentials and possibilities for human flourishing and social justice that are grounded in a thorough reckoning with the problems and pathologies of our highly politicized circumstances in the present, and will point us toward a socially substantive understanding of what it means to inhabit the consciousness soul.  

Jon McAlice

Bio – Jon McAlice began teaching in 1976 at East Hill School and Farm in Vermont, USA where he was introduced to the work of Rudolf Steiner. A co-founder of the Center for Contextual Studies, his research in contemporary education (contextualization, the experience of meaning, the role of self-directed activity in learning) has born fruit throughout the Waldorf educational movement in the growing recognition of the significance of direct experience in the learning process. 

Harlan Gilbert

Bio – Harlan is an active lecturer and writer. His articles have appeared in The Golden Blade (a yearbook for anthroposophy), the Waldorf Education Research Institute Bulletin, Lilipoh magazine, and other periodicals. Harlan’s research on child development appeared as At the Source: the Incarnation of the Child and the Development of a Modern Pedagogy, published by AWSNA Press in 2005. He has served as a Waldorf educator for 30 years.

Title – From genes to jeans: Gender’s unique challenges for social policy

Description – Gender manifests across every dimension of human existence, ranging from anatomical and physiological differences to being a strong component of personal identity and, across most societies, social roles. We will explore how this unique complexity leads to mutually contradictory social policies, helping us understand the current tensions around the theme.

Mike Aniello

Bio – Mike currently teaches mathematics and history at Saddle River Day School. He has experience on political campaigns at every level, from local races to presidential contests, including serving as an organizer on the 2020 Biden for President campaign. Despite working primarily for Democrats, Mike maintains an independent political status. He holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago.

Title – Spirits of Love and Freedom

Description – Mike will connect the polarization in US politics to the Anthroposophic view of humanity as the Spirits of Love and Freedom. From his view, the polarizing aspects of the “woke” embrace love without freedom, and the polarizing aspects of “anti-woke” embrace freedom without love. He hopes to show how the duality can be bridged in the spirit of Truth (i.e., Logos), and will draw on real world examples from his time working on major political campaigns.

Brittney Quattry

Bio – Brittney Quattry is a student of the Christian Community Priest-Training Program, and resides in Orlando, Florida.

Title – Malcolm X