Ric Kostera, our Class 4 teacher, arrived at Golden Hill Steiner School in a whirlwind at the beginning of this year. He had never imagined living in a country town like Denmark, but a close friend from Ric’s Primary School days enticed Ric and his family to move down. Ric joked that if his friend could find him a job and a house to live in, they would come, “and amazingly, it all fell into place super easy, serendipitously. Within a week we had a house to live in, my wife secured work remotely, and I got offered the classroom teacher position with three days to spare before the start of the school year,” Ric says.
Now, Ric absolutely loves living in Denmark, enjoying the coast and above all, the forest. When Ric isn’t teaching, he is mountain biking along the forest trails here, as well as going on bushwalks, cooking, and listening to Jazz, Reggae and Funk music.
Something else Ric is super passionate about is playing Frisbee. When a teenager, Ric ‘invented’ cross-country frisbee with his best school friend (the one who enticed him down to Denmark). He is excited about the school buying some good quality frisbees and the students getting pro with it for morning fitness. “It’s absolutely possible to throw frisbees around trees and playground obstacles!” Ric smiles.
Ric hasn’t always been a teacher. In fact, this is his third official career. He started off working as a lawyer, but it only took three years of practicing law before Ric was on the look-out for work that felt more authentic. His wife Erika threw in her corporate job at a similar time and they both went to work at Manna Wholefoods in Fremantle. “It was meant to be just an interim job until I worked out what next career-wise...” Ric muses. He ended up managing the store and cafe for 10 years.
If you are familiar with the Perth Waldorf school, you may know that there is a special connection going back over thirty years with the Bibra Lake Steiner school and Manna Wholefoods – many Steiner families shop there. This is how Ric first encountered Steiner education as he enjoyed the connections he made with customers from the school community. “The interactions I had at Manna, with staff and customers, were so genuine,” Ric recalls, “It was so different to the corporate and law world where authenticity is discouraged.”
When his son Isaac was old enough to join kindy, Ric and Erika deliberated over which school to choose. The Steiner kindergarten won out because, just like Ric, Isaac loves being in nature and finds it so much easier and more pleasurable to integrate what he’s learning when in a beautiful environment. ‘The Steiner school had so much bush for the kids to be held by,” Ric says.
Even though his son Isaac thrived in the Steiner kindy, Ric was still sitting on the fence whether Waldorf education would be what he would like to give to his kids long-term. “I had grown up in a family that treasured academic learning – schooling had to be as academic as soon as possible – it took some time to move my opinion on this, and now I don’t look back,” Ric affirms.
While at Manna, Ric began wishing for a career where he could interact with young people in a more fulfilling and authentic way and training to be a High School teacher seemed the right choice. Ric envisioned becoming a Politics and Law ATAR specialist at a private school, yet life had a different plan for him!
By the time Ric finished his Masters in Education, he realised that a career in conventional schools would feel like another dead end. His children’s experience of Steiner kindy and primary school meant that he saw the world of the state schools on his practical secondments as guiding the students into a very narrow way of viewing their life futures, a limited way of thinking about and perceiving the world and their value in it.
Ric relief taught at the Perth Waldorf school after graduating, and soon received some days in the primary school classrooms. “I loved it!” Ric instantly knew that Primary school teaching was where his passion lay. ‘I feel I can open young students to all the possibilities they have within themselves, to open their doors wide. I can give them strength to not slip down that funnel of conformity.”
Ric feels like he’s found his home in Denmark and in this school's and wider community. He loves how Golden Hill Steiner School, and the whole Waldorf philosophy, marries professional and personal growth for him. He feels completely immersed and supported in his classroom teaching. “I have landed in my dream job – I’m surrounded by friendly parents, by a friendly collegiate, by a friendly community. I love everything about what I do!”