The Inner Life
of Teaching.
You found it. This is where Waldorf educators and school leaders come when they are ready to go deeper.
The teacher leads, the student follows, and in the space between them a living moment arises that neither of them produced alone.
Your partner
in becoming
Years ago, I was lying on a yoga mat in a sunlit room, essential oils and gentle music filled the air. An instruction arrived: open up. My soul opened like a panorama and from its darkest corner, a voice whispered back: trust me. I did not find what I feared. I found what I had needed for a long time.
I have been a Waldorf educator for two decades — teaching children from first grade through high school in Germany and the United States, and serving as Head of School at Ithaca Waldorf School in the Finger Lakes. I have trained in systemic constellation work, Nonviolent Communication, restorative practices, and soul and health coaching.
But the moments that changed me were never the ones I studied my way into. They were the ones where someone I trusted said: go deeper. What I offer here is not a curriculum and not a set of techniques for Monday morning. It is an invitation to do exactly that, carefully and in good company.
The Stance of the Teacher
In Argentine tango, the follower closes their eyes because they trust. The leader listens with the whole body, and the dance becomes what neither planned alone. That is what teaching can be.
This book is about the interior life you bring into the classroom each morning. The lesson plans and the techniques matter, but beneath them is a layer that either supports everything you do or works against it. The student who triggers you beyond reason, the parent who challenges everything, the colleague dynamic that never resolves: these are not problems to manage away. They are invitations.
It will not make you a perfect teacher. It will make you a more present one.
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Open the prologue (PDF)For the teacher or leader
ready to go deeper.
Some questions can't be answered with more information. They need a different kind of attention — one that sees not just the situation in front of you, but the whole field it lives in.
What happens here is deeper and less frequent than weekly coaching: a space you enter when you are ready to shift in your teaching or leadership.
A free, unhurried conversation to meet, to name what is asking for your attention, and to find out whether working together makes sense. No agenda beyond that.
Book an exploration callBefore we meet, I'll send you five short questions. Your answers let us arrive ready, so we can go deep from the first minutes rather than spend our time getting there.
Email Laura to bookLaura is patient. She is kind. Laura is humble. As well as wise, gentle and funny. These qualities make for an excellent mentor. Laura helps guide me to the answers already living inside me. She reminds me of the ‘why’ we teach and the importance of staying aligned with my inner compass.
I had the rare opportunity to have Laura take over my Morning Lesson for three days. Desks became pyramids, blue tape served as the Nile River, and each student was greeted and told what their role would be. It was phenomenal. To watch a truly seasoned master teacher glide through her Morning Lesson taught me volumes of what I had been wanting and needing.
I am a better teacher because of her, and will continue to be. When I think of excellence, I think of Laura Hayes. She has been my guiding light.
Teaching from Integrity
A year of inner work
Each weekend goes deeper into the territory the book opens: the family systems that shaped you, the authority you claim or avoid, the creativity that keeps you alive in the work, and the hardest practice of all, learning to love yourself honestly so that you can love the other.
You will be in a room with a small group of educators who understand exactly what you are carrying, without you having to explain it. You will do real work together: family systemic constellation processes, paired reflection, conversations that go where professional development never does. You will leave each weekend more like yourself than when you arrived.
Leave your name and email and I'll write to you the moment the 2027–28 cohort opens for registration — including any scholarship news.
I'll be in touch the moment registration opens.
The inner life of a school
becoming and belonging
I help Waldorf schools and their faculties find their unique identity, resolve the systemic tensions that keep them stuck, and develop the inner capacities that make truly transformative education possible.
A full day of deep, experiential development for your faculty — systemic constellation work, Nonviolent Communication, restorative practices, and inner-development frameworks. Tailored to your school's present moment, never a generic curriculum.
A rigorous, sensitive approach that surfaces the hidden dynamics keeping a school stuck — faculty tensions, enrollment patterns, leadership gaps, parent-school conflict. Standalone, or woven into a development day.
Keynotes and workshops for Waldorf conferences, teacher-training programs, and faculties — on inner development, systemic health, integrity-based teaching, and school identity.
Gather around the fire
and foster belonging.
When everyone is on their phones or only partially attentive, Campfire Wisdom calls on the ancient ritual of coming together in a circle to listen, share, and find belonging. A deck of 58 questions, rooted in restorative practices, for a faculty meeting that needs more than agenda items, a family dinner that deserves more than updates, or a quiet evening alone with a journal.
The deck moves from light check-ins to deeper questions. Draw a card; let the circle do the rest.
Reading The Stance of the Teacher was like a nightly review. I picked up treasures I'd discovered about my own shadow — how it shows up and where it came from. I began that inner work in 1997, and Laura's book met me where I am now, not where I started.
Her approach is tied to Anthroposophy and comes from a genuine esoteric understanding. People will enter this book at different stages of inner development, and it will meet them wherever they are. You are offering up a much-needed guide and, more importantly, offering yourself for this work.
Notes on the inner
work of teaching.
Essays and reflections on integrity, presence, and the practice of teaching — sent occasionally, written slowly. A new and growing place to think out loud together.
The Waldorf Way
From Ithaca Waldorf School, conversations about Waldorf education with teachers, parents, and the people who know it best. Listen while you walk, drive, or fold the laundry.
Listen on SpotifyThe inner life of teaching — where Waldorf educators and school leaders come when they are ready to go deeper.