Meet our Teachers
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Liz Kriso grew up beside white pines and red maples, white-tailed deer, fireflies, mossy-covered rock creek beds and other wild kin of Northern Virginia, as the eldest daughter in a large family and of the same community for 18 years. Although she was connected to that place and land, she felt the pain and confusion of modern day cultural expectations and its impact on her family lineage and community daily and deeply. She moved to the Boulder Valley almost 20 years ago to study on a small family farm and she fell in love with the mountains, Boulder creek, the birds and humans that live here. Living in her interconnectedness with both the natural world and the culture and humans around her, Liz became an avid student of what might tend and revitalize real culture and humanness and thus has followed the path to studying with the schools of thought and mentors who are already working in this way so that she could join in and do her part. Liz has a psychology/education degree from Bryn Mawr College, Lifeways North America and Waldorf teacher certification. Her teaching experiences include early childhood and grades as a Waldorf Teacher, ten years teaching in the 8-shields Coyote Mentoring/nature connection programming for children/teens, women/girls rites of passage work, and has also studied at countless primitive skills gatherings. Liz’s passion for tending the earth has guided her to starting small farms and she ran her own CSA farm for many years. She has learned much of her handwork and ancestral living skills from amazing humans who have generously taken the time to teach her what they themselves know and practice- mentors including Martin Prechtel, Jon Young, Suzanne Down, Mindy Upton, Sage Hamilton, Christopher Sassano, Holly Koteen Soule, Ann Drucker, Melissa Michaels-as well as the countless hopeful and courageous humans whose hands and hearts are keeping the magnificent old ways alive and the amazing families, children and teens who are her students! Liz loves to work with fiber, leather, color and plants. Her other great passions are seeds, gardening, song, story, language, history, dance, movement, martial arts, animals and her two boys.
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Rain is a devout companion and friend to all children.
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Claire grew up in the northern parts of Ontario, where the long cold winters and short, abundant summers informed the rhythms of living, working, and creating. Traditions of handwork, self reliance and wild exploration and play were instilled at a young age, and live still within her. Her family moved to British Columbia, and then Colorado, and these places continue to form a triangle of home. She studied ecology, biology and chemistry at Queen’s University, and turned towards pursuing education rather than academic research. She worked as the program coordinator for Growing Kids at the Environmental Youth Alliance in Vancouver, where she facilitated school garden and applied biology programs for elementary and secondary schools. During her time in Vancouver she was introduced to the Wilderness Awareness School, and attended the Coyote Mentoring training in 2012. When she returned to Colorado, she became a devoted volunteer at Dharma’s Garden in Boulder, where she met Liz and Kerry in the LifeWays North America training, and was introduced to the Waldorf approach to early childhood education. Claire worked with Mindy Upton of Blue Sky Kindergarten for several years, as well as Boulder Waldorf Kindergarten, and has since moved to the four corners area with her husband where she works as a nature-based Waldorf inspired teacher at Mancos Valley Dragonfly School. She has been working with Liz for the past 7 years facilitating nature connection summer camps. She currently continues her devotion to handwork (especially wool and knitting), learning and remembering old ways of living and working with the land. Claire continues to be ever grateful for the depth and wonder of young children and the wisdom of these pedagogies. Claire loves long grueling bike rides to clear her body of the modern day pressures, playing big group games with adults and children, dance, piano, Americana/folk music and old roots of blues, cooking, baking bread and swimming in frigid wild waters.