Susan Silverio was the founding teacher of Ashwood Waldorf School where she led the mixed-age kindergarten at Spindlewood Kinder Cottage in her three-generation family homestead in Lincolnville, Maine for 28 years. She led three LifeWays Northeast trainings. Susan also founded and directed MidCoast Hospitality House that shelters 22 women and children now transitioning to permanent housing through HomeWorthy. Since her retirement, Spindlewood continues as a Waldorf LifeWays nursery program, while Susan devotes herself to cultivating her garden and community.

“I firmly believe that in a child’s early years, the foundation is laid for their entire life: for their health and well-being, for their sense of relationship with other human beings and with all realms of nature.  It is about giving the child the opportunity to play, to explore, to be outdoors, to experience the arts and the spoken word, living images, stories and music. It is about providing something worthy of imitation, inwardly as well as outwardly. In this way a child finds a sense of inner authority.”