LifeWays Faculty

Faculty Members

Susan Silverio

Susan was the founding teacher of Ashwood Waldorf School in Rockport, Maine where she taught kindergarten for 20 years. She is currently the director and lead teacher of Spindlewood Waldorf Kindergarten and LifeWays Center in Lincolnville, Maine near her three-generation family homestead where her husband and stepson practice architecture.

Susan holds a bachelors degree in liberal arts and has worked as a social worker. She is also founder and former volunteer executive director of Mid-Coast Hospitality House which provides emergency shelter and transitional housing for individuals and families in the Rockland area.

Susan is a gardener and beekeeper and enjoys sailing and rowing in all seasons with the Traditional Small Craft Association.

She is the director of Northeast LifeWays training.

Cynthia Aldinger

Cynthia is founder and Executive Director of LifeWays North America, an organization dedicated to the development of healthy childcare and parenting practices.  She has lectured and presented internationally, directs trainings and seminars across the United States, and is an Adjunct Faculty member at Rudolf Steiner College in California. 

She served fourteen years on the board of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, is a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and a supporter of the Alliance for Childhood. 

A former Waldorf Kindergarten teacher, Cynthia received her Waldorf teaching certificate at Emerson College in Sussex, England and her Associate Business certificate from the University of Oklahoma. A mother and grandmother, Cynthia’s passion is the preservation of the playful spirit of childhood and helping to create home-like environments that provide the comfort, security and activities found in a healthy home.

Donna Wenckus

A native of Maine, Donna has been teaching handwork at Ashwood Waldorf School in Rockport since 2004. She holds a joint diploma from Sunbridge College and the Fiber Craft Studio with a certificate in Applied Arts.

A life long enjoyment for sewing and crafts has brought Donna and her family many blessings. She lives in Pittston with her husband. They have three almost grown children.

Elizabeth Sustick

Elizabeth has been in the caregiving profession as a nurse since 1970. Post-graduate studies include Waldorf Early Childhood Education, Anthroposophic Medicine and Nursing, and Rhythmical Massage certification.

Elizabeth is also a trained natural foods chef, and with her husband and son has owned and operated Paul and Elizabeth’s Natural Foods Restaurant in Northampton MA, established in 1981.

Elizabeth is a pioneer parent of the Hartsbrook Waldorf School in Hadley MA. She founded and taught in the Parent-Child Class, and established and directed the Our Healthy Child workshop series for parent education in that school community.

Elizabeth serves on the board of Hartsbrook School, and the Association for Anthroposophic Medicine and Therapies in America. She is actively engaged in teaching the art of caregiving to parents, educators, and medical professionals and has a private practice in Anthroposophic Nursing and Massage in her hometown of Northampton MA.

Kristin Ramsden

Kristin Ramsden has performed and taught eurythmy in Waldorf schools all over the world since 1981. She is a trained therapeutic eurythmist and continues to be inspired by her training in 'Eurythmy in the Workplace'.

Born in the Philippines, raised in Japan to a German mother and American father, she speaks both German and English fluently, along with a smattering of Japanese and Italian.  She is the mother of three adult daughters and currently resides in California and Maine.

Meg Chittenden

Meg Chittenden grew up in a family for which singing together was simply part of a typical day.  She has continued to seek ways to bring song into her daily life ever since.  These days, she and her husband, Ian, can also be found singing to their one-year-old son, Clancy.

Meg received her Waldorf Teaching Certificate and Master’s in Education from Antioch University. Meg has taught music to adults through the Center of Anthroposophy.   She also holds a bachelors degree in Environmental Science from Connecticut College and, before becoming a teacher, worked for several years in Washington,D.C., as a mediator on environmental and public health policy issues.

Meg came to the Bay School, a Waldorf school in Blue Hill, Maine in 2007 and spent her first year teaching in the Kindergarten and Morning Garden before becoming a class teacher.

Sarah Baldwin

Sarah studied theatre at Bard College and graduated from New York University with a degree in theatre in 1986. She worked professionally as an actress in New York City for ten years. Upon the birth of her first child in 1992, Sarah's life changed irrevocably when she realized that children were meant to be her life's work. She completed Waldorf early childhood teacher training in 1999 at Sunbridge College and received a MSEd in Waldorf early childhood education in 2004.

Sarah taught early childhood classes — Parent/Child, Nursery and Kindergarten — at the Ashwood Waldorf School in Rockport, ME over a period of ten years from 1999 to 2009. Sarah is also the author of Nurturing Children and Families: One Model of a Waldorf Parent/Child Program, published in 2004 by the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN).

In the fall of 2009, Sarah became the new owner of Bella Luna Toys, BellaLunaToys.com, an online retail shop offering Waldorf toys, as well as art and craft supplies. In 2010, she will be adding new features on the site to educate and support parents; and to promote Waldorf education.

Suzanne Down

Suzanne is founder and director of Juniper Tree School of Story and Puppetry Arts, JuniperTreePuppets.com which offers a 3-part, part time certificate puppetry training, regional puppetry conferences, a Summer Institute for therapeutic ECE professional development and community workshops. She has taught puppetry at Emerson College, Antioch College, Sunbridge College, Rudolf Steiner College, Rudolf Steiner Institute, Sophia’s Hearth, Magical Years conferences, the Creative Human spirit conference, and in many more adult teacher training centers and Waldorf School communities.

Suzanne created the Puppets for World Change Institute, a training and research initiative which houses the International Puppets for Peace Day project, now in its ninth year, the Hope Puppet Project, which develops healing puppetry for underserved children, Youth Voices, puppetry that is a bridge to community service for high school students, The Mother Earth Puppet Project, to help renew children’s relationship to nature, and other social ventures.

She has written four puppetry and story resource books, and is working on further books including, ‘Lifting the Veil, a Renewal of Puppet Theater’, and ‘The Mother Earth Puppet Project’, which hopefully will be available this year.

Suzanne travels internationally extensively throughout the year bringing her experience and belief in puppetry as a healing art to many teachers, therapists, parents, and children. She resides in Colorado, near her daughter, and spends as much time as she can in coastal B.C. near her sons.

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